Friday, September 7, 2018

Hebrew Bible assignment

For next class (typed in the usual format):

Pre-reading

1. What do you know about the Adam and Eve story? (It's okay to know very little of be completely wrong.)

Now read Genesis Chapters 1-9

2. What was surprising and/or unfamiliar about the story of Adam and Eve?

3. What struck you as strange in any of the other stories?

4. What common elements--images, ideas, themes--did you find in multiple sections?

Use a Bible translation, not a biblical paraphrase. (Back in the '70s, a book was published that paraphrased the Christian scriptures: Good News for Modern Man. It made the stories easier to read, but a lot was lost, just as when you read the "No Fear Shakespeare" books.) If you don't have a Bible, the link at the right takes you to a site that breaks the Hebrew scriptures apart book by book and chapter by chapter, but there are other online biblical sources, some of which will show you a range of translations.

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