The Poetry of the Bible

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The Bible contains a distinctive and highly crafted body of poetry that has, for most of its history, gone unrecognized as poetry. Because the Bible has been read primarily as a religious text, questions of literary form and poetic qualities have been largely ignored, as interpreters have focused on more obviously religious content such as theology and ethics. But we now know that the Bible is not only a foundational source for Jewish and Christian religion, but is also a work of literature in which literary form is as important as content. The course will focus on the poetry of the Bible (most especially the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament), including the book of Job, the prophets, the love poetry of the Song of Songs, and the psalms. These are endlessly fascinating works, in which poetic form is used to explore large questions of suffering, love, justice, etc. The course will be run as a genuine seminar, in which all members of the class will contribute equally to our analysis and discussions of the texts.