Topic Subtopic Take a fresh and eye-opening look at one of Western civilization’s most fundamental texts—the Old Testament. Religion Biblical Studies U Understanding the “Pure intellectual stimulation that can be popped into n d the [audio or video player] anytime.” e r s —Harvard Magazine ta n Old Testament d i “Passionate, erudite, living legend lecturers. Academia’s n g best lecturers are being captured on tape.” th e —The Los Angeles Times O Course Guidebook ld “A serious force in American education.” T e —The Wall Street Journal st a Professor Robert D. Miller II m e The Catholic University of America n t Robert D. Miller II is Ordinary Professor of Old Testament at The Catholic University of America. He received a PhD in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan. His books Chieftains of the Highland Clans: A History of Israel in the 12th and 11th Centuries BC and Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel, as well as related articles, made him a recognized authority on early Israel. An award-winning teacher, Professor Miller was one of the translators of the New American Bible Revised Edition. THE GREAT COURSES® Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, VA 20151-2299 USA G Phone: 1-800-832-2412 u www.thegreatcourses.com id e Professor Photo: © Jeff Mauritzen - inPhotograph.com. b Cover Image: © o o Course No. 6013 © 2019 The Teaching Company. PB6013A k Published by THE GREAT COURSES www.thegreatcourses.com Corporate Headquarters: Phone: 1.800.832.2412 Fax: 703.378.3819 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, Virginia, 20151‑2299 Copyright © The Teaching Company, 2019 Printed in the United States of America This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company. Professor BiograPhy Robert D. Miller II, PhD Ordinary Professor of Old Testament The Catholic University of America i Understanding the old testament R obert D. Miller II is Ordinary Professor of Old Testament at The Catholic University of America. He received a PhD in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan. He is a research associate at the University of Pretoria and a life member of St John’s College Cambridge. Professor Miller is a scholar of the history, literature, religion, and archaeology of ancient Israel. His books Chieftains of the Highland Clans: A History of Israel in the 12th and 11th Centuries BC and Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel, as well as related articles, made him a recognized authority on early Israel. Other books by him include Covenant and Grace in the Old Testament: Assyrian Propaganda and Israelite Faith and The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations: An Old Testament Myth, Its Origins, and Its Afterlives. Professor Miller has worked in the interface of science and theology as the recipient of two major grants in that area, and he participates in Jewish-Christian and Muslim-Christian dialogue at local and international levels. He is a former member of the board of trustees of the American Schools of Oriental Research and was one of the translators of the New American Bible Revised Edition. In 2015, he received the Teacher of the Year Award from his university’s School of Theology and Religious Studies Student Association. ■ ii TABLE OF CONTENTS introdUCtion Professor Biography | i Course scope | 1 leCtUre gUides lecture 1 The Old Testament as Literature | 3 lecture 2 The Genesis Creation Story | 7 lecture 3 What God Intended for Adam and Eve | 14 lecture 4 When Things Go Wrong in the Garden of Eden | 19 lecture 5 Abraham, the Father of Three Faiths | 25 lecture 6 Moses and the Exodus | 31 Quiz 1 | 36 lecture 7 The Ten Commandments | 38 lecture 8 The Covenant Code in Exodus | 43 lecture 9 Leviticus at a Crossroads | 49 lecture 10 Deuteronomy to Kings | 55 lecture 11 The Book of Judges | 62 lecture 12 The Books of Samuel | 71 Quiz 2 | 78 iii Understanding the old testament lecture 13 The Books of Kings | 80 lecture 14 Biblical Short Stories: Ruth and Esther | 89 lecture 15 Amos, Prophet of Justice | 96 lecture 16 The Prophet Isaiah in Three Movements | 101 lecture 17 Jeremiah, Persecuted Prophet | 105 lecture 18 Daniel and Apocalyptic Literature | 110 Quiz 3 | 116 lecture 19 How Scholars Study Psalms | 118 lecture 20 The Music of the Psalms | 124 lecture 21 Proverbs in the Bible: Wisdom Literature | 128 lecture 22 Job’s Suffering and Understanding | 132 lecture 23 Ecclesiastes and the “Vanity of Vanities” | 138 lecture 24 Slaying the Dragons of the Old Testament | 142 Quiz 4 | 148 sUPPlementary materials Bibliography | 150 image Credits | 160 iv UNDERSTANDING THE OLD TESTAMENT COURSE SCOPE C hristians and Jews share a set of sacred writings that Christians call the Old Testament and Jews call the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. Written in Hebrew by ancient Israelites over the course of many centuries, the Old Testament is a collection of literature of multiple genres: narrative, philosophy, poetry, invective, history, and mystic vision. The books of this collection reveal a historic people and have served as a basis for art, literature, law, and belief in Western society to this day. This course provides an understanding of these writings. On one hand, this understanding is based on reading within the context of the ancient Near East. That context includes the historical context as revealed by the discoveries of archaeology and the intellectual context revealed by the writings of ancient Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. The history of Israel will emerge from this reading. The similarities and contrasts between the Old Testament—Israel’s literature—and the literature and worldviews of Israel’s neighbors provide interpretive keys to the text. 1 Understanding the old testament On the other hand, the course also considers the Old Testament as a work of great literature that has the capacity to transcend time and place. Although the origin and development of the biblical books are discussed, the course’s primary focus is on the final form of the text, providing a coherent reading of the text that has been handed down to us. The history of that transmission—the centuries of Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and secular commentary on and creative retellings of the Old Testament— will be charted. That interpretive heritage is presented both for what light it sheds on the text itself and to enable us to see how those re-readings have shaped the intellectual and artistic heritage we have today. The structure of the course is designed according to three stratagems. The first is the exploration of biblical books that provide the basic story of ancient Israel: Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. This will lead us from Abraham’s migration to Canaan, Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, and the history of Israel and Judah through to the Babylonian exile. Next comes a sampling of books that show the breadth of genres contained within the Old Testament, including Amos, Ruth, Esther, Proverbs, and Daniel. Prophecy, novella, aphorism, apocalyptic vision, and questioning the meaning of life are all here. Finally, the course examines books whose contents have been foundational for Judaism, Christianity, and the Western intellectual tradition, including Leviticus, Psalms, and Job. These are books that lay behind Judaism’s dietary laws, centuries of classical music, and dramatic works of 20th- century playwrights. ■ 2 1 THE OLD TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE LECTURE 1 “In the beginning.” That’s how the Bible starts off, and it seems natural. However, the religious literature of many ancient peoples does not begin with the story of creation. There is a story of creation in the Qur’an, the sacred book of Islam. It’s not in the opening chapters. There is a creation story in Hinduism’s most holy scriptures, the Rigveda. It, too, is not at the beginning. There is a point to putting the creation story first. Putting the story of creation first is a way of stating the philosophical truth that Israel’s God is not limited to Israel alone. Israel’s God is the creator of everything. Understanding the old testament Viewing the Text It is sometimes best to imagine how one of Israel’s ancient neighbors would have seen this text. An immediate question, upon hearing of God creating, might have been: Where did this God come from? The book of Genesis begins, from a comparative literature perspective, in mid-story. All ancient creation accounts of the ancient Near East told the reader how the gods came to be. That’s called a theogony, and Genesis doesn’t have one. There is no story of the origin of the Israelite God, named Yahweh. That absence of a theogony is a theological point. This is the first of many ways Israel broke with the mythology of their neighbors. One of the points of this text is that the world is not made up of mutually opposed forces, the sun and moon are not deities, and the sky is not full of divinities. The entire world comes from one God. 4