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Syracuse University Fall, 2008 REL/JSP 311 The Bible As Literature Time: MW 12:45-1:50 Place:
Instructor:   JIM WATTS (PhD)  Office:  Hall of Languages 505  Office Hours: & by appointment  E-mail:  jwwatts at syr.edu Phone:  443-5713	Teaching Assistant: Office Hours: by appointment E-mail:

Course Description: The Bible is famous for its religious and cultural significance, but it also contains great literature that has wielded huge influence over later writers and readers. This course examines the narratives (stories) of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) from a literary perspective. It addresses the distinctive form and ideology of biblical stories, as well as the feature they have in common with other ancient Near Eastern literatures. It raises the problem of conflicting interpretations and the degree to which literary methods can settle such disputes. And it explores the elusive boundaries between history, fiction and religion.

Course Objectives: The goals of this course goals are to have students:

1. gain an understanding of the contents and nature of biblical narrative;
2. develop competence in using a variety of literary approaches to the interpretation of biblical literature;
3. use the narrative literature of the Hebrew Bible to think both critically and imaginatively about the nature of religion as a basic response to and expression of the human condition;
4. develop an understanding of biblical narrative as a key instance in the diversity of human religious phenomena, and achieve a fluency in interpreting and describing it.

Course Requirements:
The course consists of class discussions, lectures, student projects, and, most of all, readings. This course is a reading course, and students' completion of all reading assignments is essential for their success. Assignments, discussions, lectures and tests all presuppose that students have read carefully and on schedule the assigned readings. 

Attendance at lectures and participation in discussions is expected of all students and will influence evaluation of their work (5%), which will also be based on their written work in the form of four 5-6 page papers (20% each), and reading responses (50-150 word; 15% total), due by 12 noon on the day of each class with reading assignments. 

Required Textbooks (available at the campus bookstore in Schine Student Center): 

• Yairah Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives: Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) = RBN
• Gale Yee, Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) = J&M
• Collins, John J. A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) = SIHB

Recommended:  New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version) or The Jewish Study Bible (Tanakh/New Jewish Publication Society Version)

Topics & Assignments: Readings from textbooks appear by abbreviated title and page or chapter numbers, readings from biblical books appear as book title and chapters/verses. Further readings on literary approaches to reading the Bible can be found in the Supplemental Bibliography below. Further resources for biblical studies and religion may be found by at http://web.syr.edu/~jwwatts/UsefulLinks.htm.

Date	Topic	Assignment (due by class on date listed)
T Aug 31	Introductions	Judges 16:1-3
Reading Hebrew Narratives
Th Sep 2	Readers & the Bible	2 Samuel 11-12; SIHB pp. 1-14; RBN chaps. 1-2
T Sep 7	Close Reading # 1	2 Samuel 13-20; SIHB pp. 116-30; RBN pp. 126-32, 138-40
Th Sep 9	Close Reading # 2	1 Kings 17--2 Kings 2:18; SIHB pp. 131-52; RBN pp. 132-37, 141-43
T Sep 14	Comparison Reading # 1	SIHB pp. 15-27; King Keret (handout)
Th Sep 16	Text & History	Judges 8, 1 Samuel 1:1-2:11; SIHB pp. 94-107; RBN chap. 3
T Sep 21	No Class	First Paper Due, 4 p.m., in HL 501 (paper instructions)
Th Sep 23	Beginnings & Endings	Genesis 1:1-3:24; 22:1-19; SIHB pp. 36-43; RBN chap. 4
T Sep 28	Plot & Structure	Genesis 11:1-9; 12:1-9; 23:1-20; Exodus 3:1-4:17; Judg 3:12-30; 16:4-21; SIHB pp. 44-54; RBN chap. 5
Th Sep 30	Joseph in Time	Genesis 37, 39-50 (Joseph); RBN chap. 8
T Oct 5	Comparison Reading # 1	Sinuhe (WWW)
Th Oct 7	The Importance of Place	Genesis 28:10-22; Exodus 25-26; 35-36; SIHB pp. 74-83; RBN chap. 9
T Oct 12	What Characters!	1 Samuel 25; 2 Samuel 1; Genesis 38; RBN chap. 6 & pp. 143-47
Authors, Narrators & Readers
Th Oct 14	Narrators & Authors	1 Samuel 31; 1 Chronicles 10; SIHB pp. 229-35; RBN chap. 7
T Oct 19	No Class	Second Paper Due, 4 p.m., 501 HL (paper instructions)
Th Oct 21	Origins of History	Piye inscription (handout); Amit, H&I chaps. 1-2 (handout)
T Oct 26	Case Study: Judges	Judges 1-2, 4-5; J&M pp. 30-44
Th Oct 28
T Nov 2	Case Study: Judges	Judges 9; J&M chaps. 1, 3
Th Nov 4	Case Study: Judges	Judges 4-5; 11; J&M chap. 4
T Nov 9	Case Study: Judges	Judges 1:11-15; 3:27-29; 7:24-8:3, 12:1-6; J&M chaps. 5-6
Th Nov 11	Case Study: Judges	Judges 17-21; J&M chap. 7
T Nov 16	Story & Politics	Genesis 11:1-9; Fewell, “Building Babel” (handout)
Th Nov 18	Story & Religion	Deuteronomy 4; 2 Kings 21; SIHB pp. 84-93
T Nov 23	No Class	Third Paper Due, 4 p.m., 501 HL (paper instructions)
Th Nov 25	Thanksgiving Break	No Class
Ideology, Rhetoric & Scripture
T Nov 30	Stories of Conquest	Joshua 1:1-10:28; SIHB pp. 94-107; Warrior (handout)
Th Dec 2	Stories of Origins	Genesis 1:1-2:4; Exodus 19-20; SIHB pp. 64-73
T Dec 7	Stories of Victory	Exodus 10-15; SIHB pp. 55-63; Pixley; Levenson (handout)
Th Dec 9	Hi-story, Ideology, Religion
F Dec 17 12:30-2:30	FINAL EXAM	Final Paper Due, 2:30 p.m., 501 HL (paper instructions)

Supplemental Readings:

• A.K.M. Adams, Postmodern Interpretation of the Bible (St. Louis: Chalice, 2001)
• Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic, 1981)
• Robert Alter& Frank Kermode, The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard/Belknap, 1987)
• Erich Auerback, Mimesis (Garden City: Doubleday, 1957)
• Mieke Bal, Death and dissymmetry: the politics of coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988)
• Kenneth M. Craig, Jr., Reading Esther: A Case for the Literary Carnivalesque (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995)
• David M. Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 1993)
• Tamara C. Eskenazi, In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988)
• Carol A. Newsom, “Bakhtin, the Bible, and Dialogic Truth,” Journal of Religion 76/2 (1996) 290-306.
• Simon Parker, Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)
• Robert Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist (New York: Seabury, 1988)
• R. S. Sugirtharajah, The Postcolonial Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998)
• Suzanne Scholz, Biblical Studies Alternatively: An Introductory Reader (Prentice Hall, 2003)
• Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985)
• Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994)