The Bible As Literature

Catalog description

Successive generations have found the Bible to be a text which requires - even demands - extensive interpretation. This course explores the Bible as literature, considering such matters as the artistic arrangement and stylistic qualities of individual episodes as well as the larger thematic patterns of both the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha. A good part of the course is spent looking at the place of the Bible in cultural and literary history and the influence of such biblical figures as Adam and Eve, David, and Susanna on writers of poetry, drama, and fiction in the English and American literary traditions. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.