Project instructions:
Instruction:
Please write 3 reading responses. each 200 words.
A major component of this course is constructing a framework for reading and recovering historical aspects of the Old Testament writings, writers, and their world. In light of our collective experience with this perspective, you will write three short responses to scholarly essays that assess different aspects of how to encounter the Old Testament on its own terms. This assignment does not require additional research, only that you represent your own thoughts on the topic with clarity, precision, and maturity. Your completed assignment should be no more than 1 single-spaced page in 12 point font(I converted them to 2 page double spaced).
For each of the assigned articles (see below) write 2?3 sentences in response to each of the following questions:
1. Describe in your own words the basic idea or issue that the article addresses?
2. What are the pros and cons associated with the approach or understanding it endorsees?
3. How do you see the author?s perspective at odds or in continuity with your own developing understanding of what the Old Testament is and how to study it?
The 3 readings:
(They are uploaded)
Martti Nissinen, Reflections on the Historical-Critical Method: Historical Criticism and Critical Historicism, in Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Petersen (eds. Joel M. LeMon and Kent Harold Richards; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 479?504.
John H. Walton, Understanding the Past: Historiography, in Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 217?37.
K. Lawson Younger, Jr., The Contextual Method: Some West Semitic Reflections, in The Context of Scripture, Volume III: Archival Documents from the Biblical World (eds. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr.; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 35?42.,