ENGL 237 - The Bible as Literature: Exile and Return

FDR: HL
Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring 2012 and alternate years

Prerequisite: Completion of FW requirement. Students may not take for degree credit both this course and ENGL 236. An intensive study of exile and settlement narratives in the Old and New Testaments, focusing especially on Genesis and Exodus, I and II Kings, Ezekiel, the Gospels of Matthew and John, and the books of Acts and Revelation. Exile and return feature not just as recurrent themes in separate books but as narrative forms themselves, as metaphors, spiritual states, and central tropes of Biblical literature. Literary treatments of exile and return are also explored in two critical, formal papers, due at the middle and end of the course. Additionally, the course includes fieldwork involving the study of rare Bibles, especially during the English Reformation (when the English Bible was banned); surveys of Biblical editions, including Thomas Jefferson’s “cut” Bible; and attendance of local religious services in which scripture is read. Gertz.