The Bible as/is Literature: The Book of Psalms, Song of Songs and Kohelet - Einzelansicht

In this course we shall approach the Hebrew Bible/Tanakh from a literary point of view. What does that mean? Isn’t the Bible literature? If so, why do we need to specify that we shall approach it as such. One answer is that many readers and ‘community of interpreters’ come to the Hebrew Bible with different presuppositions. Undoubtedly, as the philosopher Gadamer argued, one cannot avoid having certain assumptions about a text if one wishes to make sense of it. Is it a poem, a newspaper article, or a shopping list? Since the Hebrew Bible is a library of many books from several centuries written by different authors belonging to a variety of social circles and communities, it isn’t easy to answer the question: what are we reading?  Some options are, for example: law, genealogy, myth, poetry, and historiography. These various genres may also be accessed with different interpretative methods. Law can be read with legal theory in hand, or in conjunction with the Rabbinic interpretation – or as "literature". In this course we shall focus on three books, in which the "literary" dimension is attractively displayed. We shall sidestep questions about historicity and formation of the text, and focus on the imaginative world constructed through the narrative and poetic discourse.

The course will be taught in English. The texts will be studied in English and Hebrew. This course is partially based on lectures and therefore attendance and note taking is crucial. Students are expected to participate in class discussions based on the reading assignments. There will be some brief writing exercises and presentations. Participation, writing exercises, and presentations will count towards passing grade for the course.

The course will introduce the student to one of the approaches common in the academic study of the Hebrew Bible. We shall explore briefly the various tools of literary interpretation, and to what extent they are applicable to the Tanakh. The three books selected differ in their form, content and origin, and will therefore provide a rich testing ground for the literary approach to the Bible. How should we then read the title: ‘The Bible as/is Literature?’ Could it be that the answer is, ‘The Bible as is’?