This course will acquaint students with the Hebrew and Christian biblical
writings giving attention to their basic social-historical, literary, and
theological characteristics. The biblical texts will be situated within
their respective contexts of the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman
world. Attention will also be given to compositional issues and to the
subsequent transmission of these writings. To accomplish these aims, this
course will introduce students to the academic study of scriptural
writings and to the historical-critical tools employed by exegetes in
contemporary biblical scholarship. Use of the historical-critical method
and an examination of the world in which authors and recipients of the
biblical writings lived will encourage students to gain a better
understanding of the ideas and beliefs which found resonance or dissonance in devotees of Judaism and of early Christianity.
