Course Objectives

After completing this course, students should be able to:

What You Will Learn
This is a course in the Bible as literature--that is, we will study the Bible as we would any other work of literature, even though it is in my opinion the greatest work of literature ever written. To study the Bible as literature means to approach it without concern for the doctrines of any particular religion. For instance, we will not assume that the Bible cannot contradict itself; we will see if it does or not. If this approach makes you uncomfortable, this is not the course for you.

We will use the King James Bible in this course. More modern versions may be more accurate translations of the Hebrew and Greek in a few instances, but that does make up for what is lost in the beauty of the language. The King James Version was compiled at one of the greatest moments in English literary history--the time of Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, and Donne--(in fact, Shakespeare made an important contribution as we shall see when we get to the Psalms) and is not only beautiful in its own right, but it has inspired a great deal of later literature, and has been very widely quoted. For devotional purposes, if you are reading for spiritual reasons, one version is as good as another. If you are reading the Bible as a literary work, the KJV is peerless. Paul’s statement, “We see now we see through a glass, darkly,” may be a bit confusing to a modern reader, but compare the music of it to “At present we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror,” the version in the Revised English Bible.

When you study the Bible as literature you quickly find out that it is not G-rated. There is a generous amount of violence (e.g., Joshua’s ethnic cleansing of Canaan), some sex ( David and Bathsheba), and even some language that some may find offensive (in 1st Kings God states that he will cut off from Jeroboam “him that pisseth against the wall”. The King James Version--in fact the Bible in any accurate translation--is not a children’s Bible. This is not Veggie Tales, sanitized stories for youngsters. But that’s the good news, not the bad. The Bible is great because it is endlessly complex, which makes it a very effective guide for the complex and troubled nature of life on earth.

But the Bible is hard to read. It is so familiar that even though we have been through it time and again, or at least heard it discussed in church or Sunday School, we are amazed when we find things in it that we didn’t know were there. For instance, God tries to kill Moses, and Jesus tells us that He drinks wine. How many people know that even if they’ve read Exodus and Luke? Most readers miss details like that, although they’re right there in the text, because when we read we tend to notice and remember what we’re looking for, and God’s anger at Moses or Jesus drinking does not fit our expectations, so we don’t notice these things.

The chief aim of this course is to make students biblically literate; that is, thoroughly familiar with the Old and New Testament. When you finish the course you will know all about well known figures like Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but also about less familiar people like Joab (not Job), Abishag, Ahab, Jezebel, and Qoheleth. You’ll know about the still small voice and the trial by fire, and what they really mean, you’ll know about the bet between God and Satan (though not who won), and you’ll know who first said “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

English speaking people think of the Bible as the Good Book, but etymologically the term comes from the Greek ta biblia, the books. The Bible is actually an anthology of works. The Hebrew Bible consists of 39 books, divided into three sections, The Torah, or Law, The Prophets, and The Writings.

The official list of books to be included in the Bible is called the canon. Ezra assembled the first Hebrew Bible following the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity, an event you will learn about in 2nd Kings and Daniel. By the third century BC many Jews throughout the Mediterranean Basin could not read Hebrew, and so a group of scholars (legend says 70 men working 70 days) put together a Greek translation called the Septuagint, consisting of 46 books, some of which were written after Ezra.

Towards the end of the first century a group of rabbis reduced the canon to the 39 books, using as their principle that no book written after Ezra was to be included. Early Christians took the Septuagint as their Old Testament. During the Reformation Protestants decided to adopt the Hebrew canon as the basis of the Old Testament. As a result, Catholic bibles have 46 books; Protestant bibles have 39. The seven extra books are known as the Apocrypha.

Additional Instructions

Please check the associated course section in Desire2Learn at http://learn.ou.edu/ regularly for messages and specific instructions from your faculty member. The instructor for this course may have additional course content, instructions for writing assignments, alternate due dates, or substitute assignments.