Please write an essay, 4pgs long. MLA format. Respond to the following prompt. Please write an argument of your own, supported by textual evidence including quotation, paraphrase, and summary. Feel free to use your Bible, your notes, your journal, the study questions we provided, and the Powerpoints supplied from lectures. Please do not use online sources (if you do use online sources, at least cite them responsibly).
TIP: Your essay does not need to answer every one of the questions asked in the prompts. The prompts are designed to get you thinking; if you try to do everything, you will not be able to focus narrowly enough.
TIP: Base your analysis on the text. In order to support your assertions, please quote passages and summarize events as needed, without letting summary take over your essay.
TIP: Don’t be afraid to write an argument. Your job is not to Survey the Whole Entire Bible, but rather to show how well you have learned the course’s techniques of close analysis and educated interpretation, and how well you can synthesize (bring ideas together) across two or three books of the Bible.
Prompt:
Lamentation is a formal pattern in the Psalms: it begins with an introductory address and a complaint, has a turn toward God (a confession of trust), followed by a request (petition), and a vow of praise. This pattern suggests that although suffering and complaint express exile or alienation from God, the process of writing or singing the psalm results in an expression of closeness or trust in God by the end. Consider other books of the Bible in which complaint or lamentation takes this form, such as 2 Samuel, with David’s grief for Saul and Jonathan (and later for Absolom); the Book of Job; the Gospel of Matthew, in the death of Jesus. Compare and contrast two or three texts in which this pattern of exile and reconciliation takes place. What similarities do they have, and what differences become apparent as you compare? How do those differences tell us something about each of the books? (You could, if you are feeling ambitious, consider the way the Israelites’ continual cycles of doubt and reconciliation in Exodus or in Judges resemble a lamentation pattern, write large at the level of the community.) Write an essay in which you examine the role of doubt, alienation, and / or complaint with respect to reconciliation between the devotional community and God.
Purpose:
to show how you have synthesized your learning across different books of the Bible
to demonstrate your skills of close analysis, as well as historical and literary knowledge
to explore and develop your understanding of the bible’s patterns
Assessment:
unity and organization of argument
use of textual evidence (including quotation)
analytical insight
synthesis (bringing ideas together across books of the Bible)
originality or creativity encouraged
In this essay, you just need to choose one book from the Bible that provided above【2 Samuel, with David’s grief for Saul and Jonathan (and later for Absolom); the Book of Job; the Gospel of Matthew, in the death of Jesus.】You may want to check the content before you make your choice about which books to write about. Because the textbook I’m using is the Oxford Study Bible, so the language may be different from the online versions you may find. You can ask me for the books you want, and I will scan those for you to help you to write!
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