Introduction to the Old Testament in 24 Lectures from Yale University

May 202013
 

Yale University offers some amazing free courses online, not the least of which is this one on the Old Testament. I’m adding this to the NC Necessary Books page (which, megalomaniac that I am, I am considering turning into a treasure trove of literary and cultural history). In any case, this lecture series is a brilliant introduction to the Old Testament. Christine Hayes, the lecturer, is the kind of person you could listen to all day and long into the night, sharp, amiable, clear and engaging. What she teaches is just surprise after surprise.

If you want to, you can also go to the Open Yale site and download audio files of all the lectures.

dg

1 The Parts of the Whole

2 The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Biblical Religion in Context

3 The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Genesis 1-4 in Context

4 Doublets and Contradictions, Seams and Sources: Genesis 5-11 and the Historical-Critical Method

5 Critical Approaches to the Bible: Introduction to Genesis 12-50

6 Biblical Narrative: The Stories of the Patriarchs (Genesis 12-36)

7 Israel in Egypt: Moses and the Beginning of Yahwism (Genesis 37- Exodus 4)

8 Exodus: From Egypt to Sinai (Exodus 5-24, 32; Numbers)

9 The Priestly Legacy: Cult and Sacrifice, Purity and Holiness in Leviticus and Numbers

10 Biblical Law: The Three Legal Corpora of JE (Exodus), P (Leviticus and Numbers) and D (Deuteronomy)

11 On the Steps of Moab: Deuteronomy

12 The Deuteronomistic History: Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges)

13 The Deuteronomistic History: Prophets and Kings (1 and 2 Samuel)

14 The Deuteronomistic History: Response to Catastrophe (1 and 2 Kings)

15 Hebrew Prophecy: The Non-Literary Prophets

16 Literary Prophecy: Amos

17 Literary Prophecy: Hosea and Isaiah

18 Literary Prophecy: Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum and Habbakuk

19 Literary Prophecy: Perspectives on the Exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel and 2nd Isaiah)

20 Responses to Suffering and Evil: Lamentations and Wisdom Literature

21 Biblical Poetry: Psalms and Song of Songs

22 The Restoration: 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah

23 Visions of the End: Daniel and Apocalyptic Literature

24 Alternative Visions: Esther, Ruth, and Jonah

A new look at Rahab the harlot & a confusion of Judges

May 032010
 

Eglon, king of the Moabites, from Figures de la Bible (1728) Illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733), and others.

Procrastination has reached biblical proportions this packet round–on the other hand, not all my students got their packets here on time, so I have an excuse.

Over the weekend, I got through Joshua and part-way into Judges before I broke down. Joshua divides (like Caesar’s Gaul) into three parts. The first 12 chapters contain the dramatic crossing of the Jordan and the battles for Jericho and Ai (and various other places), also the stories of Rahab, Achan and the trickery of the Gibeonites. The next section is mostly an administrative  interlude in which the various tribes are assigned their allotments in the conquered land. And in the last section, Joshua dies. The first few chapters of Judges recapitulates Joshua, sometimes repeating chunks of text and story pretty much verbatim. And then we begin a series of cycles of backsliding (whoring after strange gods) by the Israelites (who, really, never seem to learn), punishment by God, and then rescue by a local hero who, for some reason, is called a judge. Some of the judges get a good deal of face time, their stories told in graphic detail (the Jael and Sisera story mentioned in an earlier post is part of the story of a female judge named Deborah).

The first time I read through all this material I came away with the impression that it was a kind of veiled history of the Israelites establishing themselves as a monotheistic community amidst a land teeming with polytheists. From Leviticus on, the emphasis seemed to be on establishing and maintaining cultural purity against contamination from the other regional communities. This seemed like a reasonable anthropological synthesis of what I was reading. Now, however, with my trusty Literary Guide beside me, I see greater complexity (and confusion). God makes a covenant with the patriarchs in Genesis to make their people prosper and bring them to the Promised Land. But as we read through the later books of the Pentateuch, we see God gradually introducing an override condition. At first the Israelites are the Chosen People, but then, it seems, they will be the Chosen People as long as they obey him. If they keep acting up (whoring after strange gods), he promises to obliterate them (and there is prophetic material that predicts just this). One of the conditions for God’s beneficence is that the Israelites completely eliminate (early ethnic cleansing) all the strange peoples who already live across the Jordan. God says specifically that they should not make any treaties or deals. Then Joshua goes across the Jordan and the very first thing that happens is that his scouts make a deal with Rahab the harlot which allows her and her family to live with the Israelites for always, thus breaking the covenant. The story of the Gibeonites involves a similar deal with the pagan Canaanites who are allowed to live among the Israelites–and the list goes on. Rather than expunging the polytheists, as they were meant to do, the Israelites keep them around, using them as labour, and then begin to intermarry with them, and so on.
Read the rest!

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho

May 012010
 

I finished up Deuteronomy and the death of Moses this morning and pushed on into Joshua through the well-loved story of Rahab the harlot and the cautionary tale of Achan, the poor guy who stole from the plunder at Jericho and ended up stoned and burned in the Valley of Achor. There’s a great scene in which Joshua gets him to confess by calling him “My son.”  When I was a kid we used to sing the old Negro spiritual (that is what they used to call them–what do they call them now? African American spirituals?) “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho” with hand actions. No doubt this set the stage for my later writing career. Here is Mahalia Jackson singing the song. I love the verb “fit” and the way you have to drop syllables in Joshua’s name to make the song work.

Excellent elucidation of the narrative structure of Deuteronomy in The Literary Guide to the Bible: First person narrator quoting Moses quoting God who is sometimes quoting himself (nested quotations technique). Also the time dance. Moses speaks of that time (in the Wilderness, on Mt. Horeb) and this time (now, when is addressing the Israelites beside the Jordan), while so-called Deuteronomist talks about that time (the time of Moses) and this time (the Israelites in exile in Babylon). The book is full of prophecy because Moses seems to know ahead of time that the Israelites will eventually transgress and God will abandon them and they will be conquered and enslaved and long to return to the Promised Land and he knows this just at the moment when they are about to enter the Promised Land the first time.

Great curses, lovely reference to arrows drunk with blood, also the well-named “hill of the foreskins” (this was after the mass circumcision on the banks of the Jordan–imagine it! or maybe not).

In haste, I am doing packets!

dg