Intro to the Hebrew Bible

Instructor : Amy Erickson, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible

Course Description : This breadth course introduces students to important themes in the Hebrew Bible. A number of topics will be covered in this course, including the historical development of the literature, religion, and culture of ancient Israel, and methods and interpretive strategies for understanding ancient texts.

https://youtu.be/qLnIvyvy6dc

---The Bible (*NRSV*).

Any study bible is fine as long as the translation is NRSV. I recommend HarperCollins Study Bible: Student Edition: Fully Revised & Updated. Edited by Harold W. Attridge, et al. Society of Biblical Literature; HarperOne, 2006. ISBN-10: 0060786841 | ISBN-13: 978-0060786847

---Coogan, Michael. A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.  3 edition. 2015 ISBN-10: 019023859 ISBN-13: 978-0190238599

*also fine is the 2nd edition ISBN-10: 0199830118 | ISBN-13: 978-0199830114 | Edition: 2

---Brown, Michael Joseph. What They Don’t Tell You: A Survivor’s Guide to Biblical Studies. Louisville: Westminster Knox, 2000. ISBN-10: 066422220X ·  ISBN-13: 978-0664222208

*Note: please read Michael Brown’s book prior to the first class session

---Matthews, Victor Harold, and Don Carlos Benjamin. Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East. Revised and Expanded 3rd Version. Mahwah, N.J: Paulist Press, 2007. ISBN-10: 0809144352 ·  ISBN-13: 978-0809144358

Assignments and Grading

Participation. 40%

Includes twice-weekly conversations, due on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please post your initial contribution and 2-3 responses to your peers (mind the hashtags!) by 11:59 pm (Mountain time) of the designated day.

Also includes engagement in discussions during gathering days.

Complete self-evaluation regarding participation grade.

Final Paper. 60%

a.m. Questions will be posted on Sunday, March 6 (40%) 

There will be two discussions each week. Posts and responses are due by Tuesday and Thursday at midnight. After the first week, I will not give partial credit for posts made after the deadline.

You don't need more than a well organized paragraph (4-6 sentences) to say something substantial. 

Please watch this 4-minute video: "What I'd Love to See in the Discussion Forums"

https://youtu.be/dcEDXQ79UrE

Throughout the quarter, we will have several discussions which will compose a large part of our engagement with each other in this online learning space. For these discussions to be meaningful conversation spaces, we all need to take responsibility for consistent and substantial participation. Instead of grading discussions based on number of words posted or on frequency, we will assess discussions based on the degree to which you substantially engage in the conversation each week. Over the course of a conversation, substantial engagement means:

1. Extend the conversation - creatively and critically push the conversation forward, do not just regurgitate what has already been said. If 1 or 2 other students have already responded directly to instructor provided prompts for the week, do not simply write another response to the prompts unless it adds something new to the conversation. You need to extend the conversation by adding an additional or different insight from the course materials, by asking a new questionthat stems from one of the posts already offered, by offering a related and contextualized example of the issue being discussed from your own experience, or by creatively integrating your own perspective with what has already been posted. 
2. Ask contextualized questions - situate your questions within the discussion by referencing the course materials and other parts of the conversation thread that inform your inquiry. Give us a little background as to why this question matters to you and how it relates to the course.
3. Engage others in the course - thoughtful engagement with other students in the course and with the instructional team. 
4. Engage the course materials - thoughtful engagement with readings, lectures, student presentations, and any other materials related to the course.Referencing and citing course materials in your posts where appropriate is encouraged. 

Each post need not do all of these things, but your overall participation in each conversation should demonstrate all of these components. You might have several short posts and a handful of longer posts in a week or you might have only a few strategic substantial posts. Either way, your overall participation in each conversation will be evaluated for substantial engagement. The goal of this discussion design is to encourage and reward interchange, so post often and engage each other with meaningful questions that open to other questions.

Structure of Discussions

Each of our online discussions will involve different areas of inquiry, either different discussion topics or different close reading texts. The instructional team will provide hashtags (e.g. #art, #women, #job2) for each of these areas of inquiry in the discussions. Each student will choose one of these areas to focus on in a given discussion. You will indicate your focus each week by tagging your posts with the provided hashtags somewhere in your post. If you get overwhelmed by the large volume of posting in a week's discussion, you can filter the discussion posts using the discussion search feature with a given hashtag to see only the posts related to that topic or text, read those and add your own posts with the same hashtag to extend the conversation. If you see a substantial and compelling way to integrate 2 of the areas in your contribution to the discussion, then feel free to tag with 2 of these areas. In a given discussion, you are not required to read all of the posts. These hashtagged areas of inquiry offer students a way to self select into smaller pockets of conversation amidst the larger course discussion. So, if you choose to focus on one hashtag in a given discussion, we expect you to follow the conversation stream on that tag and to incorporate these posts into your contributions to the conversation. Please feel free to read and engage beyond the area of inquiry you choose as a focus for a given discussion.

Our course this term will have 2 discussions a week that overlap. Typically, this will involve a Tuesday-Wednesday discussion on the course materials for that week and a Thursday-Friday discussion that will ask you to closely read and reflect on some texts from the hebrew bible. We expect you to bring relevant course materials to bear on your close readings of biblical texts. You will notice that there are two due dates associated with each discussion. This means we expect you to engage each discussion at least two times throughout the week using the guidelines above and the hash tagging procedures below. 

Posts to discussions that have ended will not be accepted. The point is to have conversation. If you don't show up for the conversation when it's happening, you miss out. Posting just for my benefit defeats the purpose.

Other assignments submitted late are marked down at the rate of a grade per day.

No incompletes.

Degree Learning Goals: Please take some time to look over the Professional Degree Learning Goals (MDiv, MASC, MAPSC) and the Academic Degree Learning Goals (MTS, MA).

Incompletes:  If incompletes are allowed in this course, see the Master's Student Handbook for Policies and Procedures.

Pass/Fail:  Masters students wishing to take the class pass/fail should discuss this with the instructor by the second class session.

Academic Integrity and Community Covenant:  All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook, or the Joint PhD Statement on Academic Honesty, as published in the Joint PhD Student Handbook, as appropriate.  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Community Covenant.

Accommodations:  Iliff engages in a collaborative effort with students with disabilities to reasonably accommodate student needs.   Students are encouraged to contact their assigned advisor to initiate the process of requesting accommodations.  The advising center can be contacted at advising@iliff.edu or by phone at 303-765-1146. 

Writing Lab:  Grammar and organization are important for all written assignments.  Additional help is available from the Iliff Writing Lab, which is available for students of any level who need help beginning an assignment, organizing thoughts, or reviewing a final draft. 

Inclusive Language:  It is expected that all course participants will use inclusive language in speaking and writing, and will use terms that do not create barriers to classroom community.