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> ... they had no problem reading Greek and Roman texts with an eye
> toward the cultural windows (however small) such texts leave for us. I
> simply wanted them to attempt to approach biblical texts with the same
> method. We worked out, as a class, how we might go about trying to do so;
> what we came up with was a phrase that went something like "the text we
> are working with is our 'world'."
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> I don't know if what I've had to say clears up the muddy parts of my
> inquiry or not. But I do hope it's at least clear that a great deal of
> our class work with these texts was to explore cultures that are long
> gone and not to debate the validity or invalidity of personal religious
> faith.
>
> Beth Crachiolo
As a footnote, what I often ask my students (Jewish, Christian, Muslim,
or whatever) to do is to approach the materials as if they had just been
discovered by archaeologists (similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag
Hammadi Codices) -- pretend that none of our current cultural-religious
options had survived. How would the students read the materials in that
context? I sometimes have to keep reminding them, but the approach can
get them to take more consistent stances towards otherwise predetermined
subjects and conclusions. Ideally, it levels the playing field -- and it
also gets them to think about how "historical" (and related) information
is derived from the primary sources.
Bob Kraft, UPenn
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