Course code: BBO13
The Life and Faith of the People of God: Old Testament
BD I, Semester 1, 4 Credit Hours, College Paper

Course Objectives

• To enable students to understand the writing process, the collection and canonization of the books of the Old Testament.
• To help students to know the centrality of the Bible in Christian ministerial, missional and theological discourses and life of the community.
• To trace the origin and development of life and faith of people of God/Israel from the perspectives of Israel’s struggles, hardships, sufferings, failures on the one hand and faith, successes and hopes on the other.
• To help students to draw challenges from their life, faith and hope for the present context.

Course Requirements

• Final Examination 60%
• Internal Assessment 40%

Class attendance 5%
Participation 5%
Assignment 30%

Course Outline

I. General Introduction to the Hebrew Bible

1. What is the Bible? The Bible as the word of God, as Scripture, as revelation, literature and as (hi)story and salvation history of the people of God.
2. The making of the Bible Oral and written traditions, writing materials: parchments, scrolls, papyrus.
3. Definitions of the terms: TANAK: the Torah, Nebiim and Ketubim, different circles of writers, compilers and redactors/ editors priestly and Deuteronomistic writers, chroniclers; ancestors, law givers, kings, prophets, sages, seers and poets; laws, stories, prophecies, wisdom, visions and psalms.
4. Manuscripts and Texts; Translations and Versions.
5. Different types of the Biblical Literature: Narratives, Stories, Parabolic writings, Legal Codes, Prophetic writings, Novelistic writings, Psalms and Wisdom, Historical writings, Apocalyptic writings.

II. Introduction to the books of the Hebrew Bible: study the context, literary structure, character, composition and theological purpose of each book.

III. Collection and Canonization: The Process of Canonization, the different canons of scripture – Hebrew, Protestant and Roman Catholic.

IV. Beginning of the History of the people of God:

1. 1.  a.  Introductory question: Do we trace the history of ancient Israel as the People of God or do we trace the history of ancient Israel as an ethnic group lived in Palestine?

b. Sources for the study of history of Israel:

1. 1. 1. The OT/Hebrew Bible as the primary source.
      2. Archaeological evidence/extra-biblical evidences as secondary source. What is the nature of the archaeological evidence?
      3. Combining both biblical andarchaeological evidences. The complementary and supplementary nature of both biblical and archaeological evidences.

1. 2. The Wider Platform of Socio-cultural and Geographic Location of the People of God.
   3.  a. Ancient West Asia (AWA) and Its Inhabitants.
      2. i. Map of Ancient West Asia and particularly Palestine showing the political and geographical features.
      3. ii. Peoples: Amorites, Hurrians, Hittites, Hyksos, Habiru/ Apiru / Hebrews.
   4. b. Geography of Palestine.
      2. i. Geographical featuresand topographical divisions
      3. ii. Climate, trade routes, agriculture, crops etc.

1. 3. Searching Roots and Routes of Origin and Identity Formation

Detailed study of Primeval history, Patriarchal narratives andexodus can be taken in the course on Pentateuch.

1. 1. Primeval Stories as to provide a Universal Setting of their Identity Formation (Gen. 1-11).
   2. The Ancestral Narratives as the Narratives setting their Identity as an Alternative Community in the socio-historic horizon of great Empires.

Socio-historic horizon of ancestral narratives.

1. 1. 1. The life, customs, practices and God experiences of the people of God in the ancestral narratives.
      2. Reading the gender roles and man-woman relationships in the ancestral narratives with feminist perspectives.

4. Slavery in Egypt and Exodus: Celebrating God’s Liberation and Establishing Identity as the People of

God

1. The experience of Enslavement under Egyptian Empire: Oppression and Slavery in Egypt
2. Invasion and Occupation of the Promised Land: Consolidation as a “National” Entity
3. Biblical constructs of the People of God’sconsolidation asa “national” entityin the booksof Joshua

and Judges.

1. Different models of settlement:

i   Conquest (W.F. Albrightand his disciples)

i           Peacefill Infiltration (Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth)

i “Peasant Revolt” (proposed by George E. Mendenhall and reworked by Norman K. Gottwald; later Gottwald introduced further amendments in his theory by replacing the terms ‘^peasant revolt” and “egalitarian society” with “agrarian social revolution” and“communitarian mode of production”)

i  Resedentarization of Nosedentary Highlanders (Niels Peter Lemche’s proposal in his critique

of Peasant Revolt hypothesis)

i  Peacefill Transition or Transformation (Robert B. Coote and Keith W. Whitelam)  ’.

i   Symbiotic or Internal Nomadic Settlement (Israel Finkelstein) and other recent proposals.

1. A hermeneutical critique on conquest and occupation of land belonging to others: perspectives from

indigenous, native and landless communities

1. Socio-political organization and religious practices duringthe period of Judges

 

1. Biblical and archaeological evidence
2. Demography, Settlement Patterns, Economy(subsistence strategies, patterns oflabor, land ownership

and distribution of wealth)

1. Status and Role of Women (women in the book of Judges such as Deborah) during the settlement

period.

1. Challenges of living as the people of God in a pluralistic context
2. Monarchy and Imperial Ethos
3. Factors leading to the transition to monarchy- internal and external factors
4. Prophets: Conflicting voiceson thelegitimization of monarchy; pro- and anti-monarchical rhetoric.
5. Models proposed by the Social scientific studies based on anthropological theories: Processual and

Chieftancy models (James W. Flanagan, Frank S. Frick, Coote and Whitelam and others)

1. Kingdom Divided: Israel and Judah (reasons for the division and the nature of kingship in Israel and

Judah)

1. Social and civil unrest in Israel and Judah and power struggle in Ancient West Asia
2. “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign Land?”— Exile and Challenges to the Identity of

the People of God

1. Living under the shadow of empires: Assyrian and Babylonian empires
2. Socio-historic horizon of Babylonian exile(socio-political, economic and religious context)
3. Exile as ‘dis-place-ment’-socio-cultural-religiOus displacements.
4. Responses to Exile and Reconstituting Identity: Deutero-Isaiah, Ezekiel, And Lamentations:

Perspectives from postcolonial, migrant, diaspora and refugee studies.

iii.       Henotheism in contrast with universality of the kingship of Yahweh

7. Return, Restoration and Reconstruction under Persian Empire
8. Cyrus the‘messiah’ of God: An edict of return under colonial rule
9. Judah moving to a colony under Persia.
10. The rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem under colonial patronage
11. Advocacy of Jewish cultural nationalism-Ezra and Nehemiah
12. A critical appraisal: Jewish racial-cultural nationalism.
13. Judaism under Persianrule: a postcolonial appraisal

 

Essential Reading:

Achtemeier, Paul J. Inspiration . and Authority: Nature and Function of Christian Scripture.Peabody:

Hendrickson, 1999.

Bird, Phyllis A. The Bible as the Church’sBook.Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982.

Birch, Bruce C., Walter Brueggemann, Terence E. Fretheim, and David L. Petersen. A TheologicalUntroduction

to the Old Testament. Second edition. Abingdon, 2005

Carr, D. Re-reading the Bible with New Eyes: Some Basic Question.Bangalore: UTC, 2008.

Gottwald, Norman.The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introductioh.V\&?fa^            Fortress Press, 1987 Esler, Philip, ed. Ancient Israel: The Old Testament in Its Social Context. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005 Hayes, John H. and J.Maxwell Miller.Arae/;7e and Judean History.Lon&ow. SCM Press, 1977

Praveen, Jerald. “Jacob Wrestles at the Jabbok: An Exegetical study of Genesis 32:22-32,” Ebenezer Theological

Journal 1/1,2014.        ‘

Rao, Naveen. Life and faith of the People of God , SCEPTRE, Kolkata 2013

 

Bibliography

1. For General Introduction to the Bible

Barr, James. Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism.Oxford: OUP, 1983.       ;

Barton, J. Holy Writings, Sacre^Texts: The Canon in Early Christianity.LomsvUle: WJK Press, 1997.

Brenner, A. and C.R. Fontaine, eds. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible.

Brenner, A. and Jan Willem van Henten, eds. Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion. BTC, 1; Sheffield: SAP/Continuum, 2002.

Campenhausen, Hans von.The Formation of the Christian Bible.Translated by J.A. Baker.Philadelphia: Fortress Press,

1972.

Carr, D. Re-reading the Bible withNew Eyes: 1 Some Basic 0weshoh.Bangalore: UTC, 2008.

Dewey, Joanna, ed. Orality and Textuaiityin Early Christian Literature.Semeia 65, Atlanta: Scholars, 1994.

Evans, Craig A. and J.A. Sanders, eds. Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Irivestigatidris and

Proposals. JSNTSup. 146, Sheffield: SAP, 1997.

Graham, William. Beyondthe Written Word: Oral Aspectsof Scripture andthe History of Religion.Cambridge:CUP, 1987.

McDonald, Lee M. The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon.Revised Editio.n.Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995.

Mulder, Martin Jay, d.Mikra:Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and

Early Christianity. CRINT 2.1, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.

Vanhoozer, Kevin. Is There a Meaninginthis text: the Bible, the Meaning andthe Morality of Literary Knowledge.Mictngan:

Zondervan, 1998.

1. For the Books of the Hebrew Bible ‘

In addition to the OT Introduction books, Commentaries and Dictionaries in yOur college/ setriinary Library you may use

some of the following books:

Alt, A. Essays on Old Testament HistoryandReligion,Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966.            .

Anderson, G.W. Critical Introduction to the Old Testament-London: Duckworth, 1959.

Birch, Bruce C., Walter Brueggemann et.al. A Theological Introduction to the Old Testament. .Second edition.Abingdon,

2005.

Blenkinsopp, Joseph.^ History of Prophecy in Israel.Philadelphia: Westminster, 1996.

Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction.New York: Paulist

Press, 1984.     ‘

Brenner, Athalya. The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative.Sheffield: JSOT Press; 1985.

Brenner, Athalya.ri Feminist Companion to Genesis.Sheffield: SAP, 1997.

and Carole Fontaine. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods, Strategies.Sheffield: SAP, 1997

Brueggmann, Walter. An Introduction to the Old TestamentTonvsvi\\e: Westminster John Knox, 2003.

Carmichael, C.The Spirit of Biblical LawNfasns,GA: University of GeorgiaPress, 1996.

Ceresco, Anthony R. The Old Testament: A Liberation Perspective. Bombay: St. Pauls, 1993.

Collins, John. J. A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001.

Craigie,PeterC. The Old Testament: Its Background, Growth and CowfewA Nashville: Abingdon, 1986.

Cnisemann, F. The Torah: Theology and Social History of Old Testament Law.Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1996.

Davis, Ellen E Gettingjnvolvedwith God: Rediscoveringthe Old Testament. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cowley, 2001.

Gottwald, Norman. The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociologyof the Religion of Liberated Israel 1250-1050 B.C.E. London: SCM

Press, 1980.

Gottwald and Horsley, eds. The Bibleand LzTzeraZzon.Philadelphia: Orbis, 1993.

Harrison, R.K. Introduction to the Old Testament. London: Tyndale, 1969.

Hinson, D.F. History of Israel. New Delhi: ISPCK, 1973.

HnUni, R. L. The People of God inthe Old Testament: Three in One, A Guide for Theological Students: New Delhi: Lakshi

Publishers and Distributors, 2012; Reprint 2013.

Laffey, Alice. The Pentateuch: A Liberation-Critical Reading. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998.

Meyers; Carol. Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in CoM/ext.Oxford:OUP, 1998.

Pleins, J.D. The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction.Westminster. 2001.

Schottroff, Luise., Silvia Schroer and Marie-TheresWacker. Feminist Interpretation:-The Bible in Women’s Perspective.

Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998.

Wenham, G.J. Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically.Edinburgh: T& TClark, 2000.

Wright, C.J.H. Living as the People of God: The Relevance of Old Testament Ethics.Leicester: IVP, 1983.

. God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament.Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1990.

. Old Testament Ethics for the people of God, Secundrabad, 2006.