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| Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam (1512) |
Humanists approach the Bible not as sacred scripture, but as a historically important text that is rich with literary and philosophical insight. Within the humanities, literary scholars and religious studies scholars pay particular attention to the Bible, but do so in very different ways. Jack Miles, a literary critic known for his celebrated biography of God, uses an extended metaphor of a stained glass window to discuss how these two fields differ in their approach to the Bible. On the one hand, the religious studies scholar hopes to look through the stained glass window in order to see the historical context of the text's production or representation. For these scholars, the stained glass--the text itself--sometimes obscures the historical truth for religious, ideological, or political reasons. On the other hand, the literary scholar is more content to admire the stained glass and study how the shape of its panels and the interplay of colors produce meaning. Both these methods are very different than devotional readings of the Bible. This form of reading might be said to gaze at the stained glass as an aid to worship. This being a humanities class in a secular state-funded college, we will approach the text from a humanistic perspective using both the methodologies of literary and religious studies.
One of the major insights of religious studies into the Bible is source criticism. Source criticism dates back to the 18th-century and is an attempt to identify the different sources for the Bible. Out of this criticism emerged the documentary hypothesis which claims that four basic sources comprise the Five Books of Moses (Torah). These four sources are the Yahwist (J), Elhoist (E), Priestly (P), and Deuteronomist (D). These four sources help explain the apparent contradictions within the Bible as stemming from different sources and traditions. According to Bible scholars, the J source refers to God only as Yahweh and comes from the Southern Israelite Kingdom of Judea. In contrast, the E source refers to God as Elohim and comes from the Northern Israelite Kingdom of Israel. The Priestly author wrote most of Leviticus and is primarily concerned with the religious observance of the temple practice of the Jerusalem cult. The D source wrote Deuteronomy and parts of Joshua, Judges, and I and II Samuel. All were combined by the Biblical redactor, a composite figure who weaved the various strands of the Bible together.
The reading from the King James Bible comes from both J and P. The Creation story of the Bible, you will note, is given twice. The First account of Creation comes from P and presents a vision of God who creates the world through his voice alone. The second account, the one made famous by John Milton and countless painters of fig leaves, comes from J and features God making man from the clay and soil.
Reading:
King James Bible, Genesis 1:1-3:24, Exodus 20:8-11
Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath 3-10, 26-32
View: Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam (website)
Today's Reading Can Be Found in Our Course Packet
Today's Reading Can Be Found in Our Course Packet
Study Questions:
PLEASE READ BEFORE ANSWERING: Throughout our term, I will assign
you study questions. These questions are due at the beginning of class
and must be typed with a proper header. You
must be prepared to hand these in at the beginning of class. In
other words, answers handwritten during class will not be accepted.
Unless I state otherwise, your answers should be about a paragraph
long. Directions on how to properly compose a paragraph (with a topic sentence, cited evidence, and analysis) can be found here. When dealing with primary texts, you should quote directly from
the text using MLA standards. Our discussions in class will stem from
your answers to these questions.
1. How does God's work differ in the J and P portions of the text?
2. In the Bible, what is the connection between Creation and the Sabbath? How does this connect the divine to humanity?
3. According to Abraham Joshua Heschel, what is the relationship to labor and toil? How does this compare to our discussion of Arendt's notion of work and labor from our first day of class? What does Heschel have to say about time and space?
