Bookish Traditions: Authority and the Book in Scripturalist Religions, Part II: Early modern and modern

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
2
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
18 Nov 2009
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Culture, Religion and Intellectual History in a Comparative Perspective
CEU Instructor(s): 
Aziz Alazmeh
CEU Instructor(s): 
Nadia Al-Bagdadi
Additional information: 
These developments together brought about major changes – and counter-currents -- in the technique and authority of interpreting scripture, first in Christianity, and later in Judaism and Islam as the world became increasingly more connected. The course will follow this process from its beginnings until the elaboration and consolidat ion of Higher Criticism, ending with most recent trends towards more literal readings of Scripture associated with various forms of fundamentalism. This course builds upon Bookish Traditions Part I, offered during the Fall term, but may be taken by students who did not attend this previous course. It aims to impart to students basic knowledge of the transformations, under the signature of modernity, that overcame the monotheistic religions, especially those that had an impact on the interpretation and, later, the historical and philological study of scripture. It aims to train students in modern techniques of reading and interpretation, mst specifically the historical interpretation of Scriptures.
Learning Outcomes: 
It is expected that students who have completed this course will have acquired basic factual knowledge of the themes addressed, and basic concepts and analytical skills required for the knowledgeable and comparative historical interpretation of religious discourses, and of texts more broadly understood.
Assessment : 
The class will be structured around acquiring basic knowledge, and the reading of texts relative to scriptural interpretation, from the Reformation until today. Classes will involve the discussinon of readings assigned to each of its sessions, introduced by students in turn, who will report on these readings, relate them to each other and to the overall theme of the class, and comment on them critically. These presentations and class participation throughout the sessions will account respectively for 40% and 20% of the final assessment. The remaining 40% will be allocated to a critical account of a book to be agreed between the student and the instructors, and to be submitted at the end of term. Class attendance is mandatory.
Full description: 

Session 1

Introduction to the topic and the seminar

Session 2

The Reformation and the Text

Mc Grath, Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, Oxford 1987, ch. 4-5  [savepdf]  [savepdf]

B. Hall, “Biblical Scholarship: Editions and Commentaries”, Cambridge History of the Bible, Cambridge 1963, vol. 3, 38-93 [savepdf]

Session 3

Humanism and Scripture

J. Bentley, Humanists and the Holy Writ, Princeton 1983, ch. 4 [savepdf]

P. Miller, “The Antiquarianization of Biblical Scholarship and the London Polyglot Bible”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 62.3 (2001), 463-482 [savepdf]

Session 4

The Protestant Scripture

Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grand Rapids, 1989, vol. 1, pp. 387-399, vol. 2, 528-553 [savepdf]

Session 5

Scripture and History

P. Hazard, The European Mind, 1680-1715, New York, 1953, ch. 3 [savepdf]

R. Simon, Critical History of the Old Testament, pp. 1-35 (online) [savepdf]

Spinoza, TractatusTheologico-Politicus, New York 1951, ch 7 [savepdf]

Session 6

Historicism, Science and the Bible

J. Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible, Princeton 2005, ch. 4, 6, 7 [savepdf] [savepdf] [savepdf]

R. Morgan and J. Barton, Biblical Interpretation, Oxford 1988, ch. 2 and 3. [savepdf] [savepdf]

Session 7

Historism and Philology

J. G. Herder, Against Pure Reason, Minneapolis 1993, selections [savepdf]

F. Schleiermacher, On Religion, Cambridge 1988, 96-139 [savepdf]

Session 8

History of the Bible

M. Olender , The Languages of Paradise, Cambridge, Mass., 1992, ch. 4 [savepdf]

M. Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, Chicago 2005, ch. 5 [savepdf]

E. Renan, Life of Jesus, Boston 1929, “Introduction” [savepdf]

Catholic Encyclopedia: “Biblical Criticism (Higher)”, “Biblical Criticism (Textual)”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04491c.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04497a.htm

Session 9

Bible, History and Myth

K. Jaspers and R. Bultmann, Myth and Christianity , New York, 1958,, ch. 2  [savepdf]

Morgan and Barton, Biblical Interpretation, ch. 4 [savepdf]

Session 10

Muslim Reform and the Muslim Canon,1

A. Al-Azmeh, “Muslim Modernism and the Canonical Text”, Islams and Modernities, London 1996, ch. 5  [savepdf]

Session 11

Jewish Reform

Selected readings

David Sorkin, The Berlin Haskalah and German religious thought: orphans of knowledge, London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell, 2000, p. 95-101. [savepdf]

Abigail Gillman, "The Jewish Quest for a German Bible: The nineteenth-Century translations of Joseph Johlson and Leopold Zunz", Society of Biblical Literature 7/8/2009, http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=829 [savepdf]

Abraham Geiger, "The original text and translations of the Bible" [1857], in: Max Wiener, Abraham Geiger and liberal Judaism: the challenge of the nineteenth century, Cincinnati: HUC 1996, p. 216-220, 228-230 [savepdf]

Alternative readings

Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn: a biographical study, London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998 (1st. ed. 1973), p. 368-381. [savepdf]

Leonard J. Greenspoon, "Jewish Biblical Translation and/in the Enlightenment", Studia Hebraica 2 (2002), p. 319-328. www.ceeol.com.

Session 12

Neo-Protestantism and the Return of Religion

David Zeidan, The Resurgence of Religion. A Comparative Study of  Selected Themes in Christian and Islamic Fundamentalist Discourses, Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2003, pp. 128-63. [savepdf]

D. Weiss, Revelation Restored, London 2001– selections to be announced

“The Fundamentals” (online)

http://www.xmission.com/~fidelis/volume1/volume1.php

http://www.xmission.com/~fidelis/volume2/volume2.php

http://www.xmission.com/~fidelis/volume3/volume3.php

http://www.xmission.com/~fidelis/volume4/volume4.php

S. Qutb, Signposts (online) -- extracts[savepdf] [savepdf]

J. Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XI), Jesus of Nazareth, London, 2007, “Foreword”