Genesis - Essay  One- 35 points

Requirements:

1. Your essay should be word-processed, double-spaced, one-inch to one and one-half inch margins. It should be spell-checked. Pages Numbered. Font no smaller than 12 point.

2. You should have a cover page with title, date, topic/prompt, and your name. (You can simply cut and paste the topic/prompt from the list below onto your cover page.)

3. Number each paragraph. Bold your thesis. After the end of the essay, attach an OUTLINE of the essay with the thesis clearly stated and at minimum a line for each paragraph.

4. The essay should be approximately three pages long (not including the title page or Works Consulted page).

5. You must include a Works Consulted/Cited Page.  You need not consult any other sources than what we have read for class except as mentioned in the prompts below.. Those sources and any other sources you consult (if you do so) must be included in your Works Consulted/Cited and cited in-text or in footnotes/endnotes. CAREFUL AND CORRECT CITATION IS REQUIRED. WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE. Remember that simply paraphrasing or changing every third word is not OK. Quote and cite or radically summarize and cite. Use quotation marks when quoting or indent if quote is five lines or longer. Guessing at where your information comes from is not OK. Use page numbers in your in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes. Book or journal titles are italicized or underlined.  You may consult Citation for Biblical Studies for information related to citing biblical studies sources.

6.   Click here for the Grading Rubric for the essay.  This is a checklist I will use in grading the essay.

Choose ONE of the Essay Prompts Below:

1. Compare and contrast Genesis 15 and Genesis 17. What is the significance of these stories as part of Genesis 12-50? What are the basic elements of the covenant with Abraham?

2. Bandstra highlights the themes of divine-human relationship including blessing, offspring (descendants), and land (summarized on 110-111) when he discusses Gen 12-50.    He also stresses the organization into Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph cycles. Another pattern or thread some have pointed to is: promise (by God), promise threatened by human recipients, promise reaffirmed and brought toward fulfillment.  Write on one of the following:

A. Pick at least two stories from Gen 12-50 and explain how they speak to the themes of divine-human relationship, offspring, and land.

B. Pick at least two stories  from Gen 12 - 50 and explain how they illustrate a pattern of promise made, promised threatened, and promise reaffirmed and brought to fulfillment

4. Offer an interpretation of Genesis 22: 1-19. The context of interpretation should be its meaning as part of the ancestral stories of Genesis 12-50. Be sure to point to elements of the text in support of your interpretation. You should read Bandstra’s interpretation on pp. 91-94 before composing your interpretation.

 5.  A key literary technique in the Hebrew Bible is repetition.  This can be the repetition of key phrases,  the use of a phrase to form an inclusion (inclusion) or ring around a section, or the repetition of very similar stories (doublets or triplets).   Identify at least one key use of repetition in Gen 1-50 and describe how this repetition shapes the text and/or affects the reader(s).

6.  Pick one of the world in front of the text readings we did on the early chapters of Genesis (Genesis Rabbah excerpt, Augustine excerpt, or Trible.  In your essay, please discuss:  a.. two key points that the author(s) offers as interpretation of the passage(s) covered. b. the elements of the text the author(s) focus upon and use to support the interpretation c. the methods the author(s) uses to interpret the text d.. how concerns that the author(s) brings to the text shape the interpretation e. your evaluation of the interpretation

 

 

 

 

 

5. Why have so many readers been so captivated and troubled by Gen 22:1-19? This story is called the Akedah in Judaism and is associated with the High Holy Days ( http://www.holidays.net/highholydays/ ) Some Christian interpreters have read the story as an allegory of the crucifixion. Soren Kierkegaard offered an existentialist interpretation of the story in Fear and Trembling, an interpretation discussed by Jean-Paul Sartre in Existentialism as a Humanism. Before writing, read the comments on the passage in  in Etz Hayim:  Torah and Commentary including both the peshat and d'rash sections.  You can find Etz Hayim on the first floor of the library in the reference section:

Ref BS1222.L54 2001 Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary.    Edited by  Rabbi David L. Lieber and   Jules Harlow.  Sponsored by Rabbinical Assembly / U.S.C., Philadelphia:   JPS, 2001.  According to the publisher this work features the "JPS 1985 translation of the Torah and features separate p'shat [plain sense] and d'rash [imaginative and traditional] commentary themes, showing two approaches to interpreting the Torah. There are also essays on key themes by prominent Conservative Movement rabbis and scholars; a special section, halakhah l'ma-aseh, that points out where Jewish laws are based on biblical passages;"

6.  

7.  Wild Card.  Choose a topic of your choice, but get the instructor's approval via email or in person