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Students reviewing The Prince of Egypt

Last night I had my students watch the 1998 DreamWorks’ animation The Prince of Egypt. I asked them to ‘review’ this film pretending to be a YouTube star who is known for their movie reviews. (In other words, they recorded their review.) While not every student got into character as I’d hope, their reviews were insightful.

I asked them to answer these questions:

  1. What’s your name?
  2. What’s your opinion on ‘cartooning’ the Bible? Do you like learning Bible stories this way? If so, why? If not, why not?
  3. Do you think that this format takes away from the ‘seriousness’ of the story? Does it soften the harsh parts (e.g., the plagues) too much? (Make sure to explain your answer!)
  4. How does a cartoon version of a Bible story impact your emotional engagement with the story? (For example, does the music and dancing impact you differently than if you just read the story?)

I’m grading their reviews now and they’re fascinating. Most have enjoyed the cartooning of the Bible. Most felt that it took away from the seriousness of the Exodus a little bit but they would comment on how this was appropriate for a younger audience. (For context, we did go over the Exodus in ‘class’ [our Google Meet] earlier in the day, including the plagues on Egypt.) As regards the emotions associated with the singing and dancing characters, most seemed to have enjoyed it, even though they’d qualify they realize it’s for a younger audience. Frequently, I heard that this was a good way to teach the Bible to children.

While the diversity of responses has been interesting, what I found fascinating were these two responses:

  1. I heard a couple of students reflect on how they appreciated the way cartooning softened the violence of the Bible. They’re definitely realizing the Bible has a lot of violence, including divine violence. They’ve watched the 2014 film Noah, which is gritty and dark. They have watched and are watching episodes from The History Channel’s ‘The Bible’ miniseries, which does have some bloodshed. And we’ve read stories from the Bible that contain violence.
  2. Students who are completely new to the Bible seemed to like the cartooning. It made it easier to understand. One student reflected on the complexity of the Bible and how difficult it can be to understand these texts when you’re new to them.

Now, some students preferred Noah or reading the texts themselves. They appreciated the grit and realness of these stories. In other words, they wanted to seriousness of the Exodus and they didn’t care for how a cartoon could soften things like the plagues and the death of the firstborns.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Day 7 of Summer School

Last night I had my students watch The Prince of Egypt. Instead of writing their responses, they were to pretend to do a movie review for YouTube. Tonight, they’ll watch some episodes of The Bible miniseries. I have them responding to one episode by creating a comic strip based on the episode. I hope these exercises diversify things a bit and make the homework more enjoyable. But I also hope they help students learn from different approaches.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Days 5-6 of Summer School

One of the keys to my class has been to mix the learning approaches. Students have watched movies such as The Prince of Egypt (1998) and Noah (2014) as well as The History Channel’s ‘The Bible’ miniseries. I’ve used these ‘visual arts’ to address the nature of interpretation and explain how the ambiguity of Hebrew Narrative leaves the door open for diverse interpretations.

Today, students are making memes summarizing one of the stories we’ve discussed. This is an act of interpretation as well. And I plan on emphasizing that.

Then there have been lectures, short videos (BibleProject is always helpful), Google Meet discussions (that we ask students to record for evaluation), and much more.

I think the students have enjoyed learning about the Bible from a variety of vantage points. Plus it keeps things fresh and prevents the teacher from getting stuck in a rut.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Day 4 of Summer School

We’re almost a week into my three week summer school class and here are some concerns:

  1. It’s hard to address absences. Brick-and-mortar school is easier. The student is present or absent. Maybe traffic or car problems can muddy things a bit. Online classes make it harder to know whether an excuse is being given or if there’s a real situation. Summer school, specifically, is a problem because each day is like a week, so one day of bad Internet connection is worse than one day of car trouble.
  2. I like Google Meet. I don’t dislike Zoom but it’s not my favorite. That said, Zoom allows you to see all the faces present…Google Meet doesn’t. I downloaded an extension that should allow me to implement grid view tomorrow. We’ll see if it works! If so, that takes care of that problem.

Otherwise, things are going really well. At some point I’ll share some of my students insights. Their discussions of Lamentations 1 and Psalm 137 were great. I want to say more about that when I have time!

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Day 3 of Summer School

We must be doing something right. The evening before the course started, I received an email from a student who had taken my class last summer saying ‘I am very excited and ready for your summer class this year!’ Yesterday, a student wrote ‘I’m loving this class.’ Monday, another student wrote, ‘On a good note, I am surprised that I ended up enjoying learning about religions this much, and can’t wait for future classes.’

As I’ve mentioned the past couple of days, it seems that the use of Cohorts, where students can work together in a separate Google Meet (to which they invite us so we can check-in and which they record so we can make sure work was being done) seems to be a hit. We’ve offered ‘Office Hours’ in the morning prior to class but thus far (it’s only been one day) students didn’t take advantage of it, so I don’t know how that’s impacting them. Maybe it’s not the delivery so much as the content? The Bible can be really interesting!

Also, I keep saying ‘we’. That’s because a former student of mine, a recent graduate named Emily, was hired to be a ‘Assistant Teacher’. She’ll be majoring in Religious Studies at UT Austin soon. Maybe it brings gravitas to the class to have both a ‘Teacher’ and ‘Assistant Teacher’?

At some point, I’ll need to ask for feedback to see what we did right because whatever we are doing right needs to be done again if the pandemic (when) has a second wave this winter.

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Day 2 of Summer School

Well, it was a strange and terrifying day yesterday. In fact, it felt like two separate days. The morning was amazing. I felt that class went really well, even though it was completely online. Thirty-one students enrolled and thirty of them made it. I’ll take that percentage! Yesterday, I introduced our approach to reading the Bible in a classroom setting. Today, we focused on how the Israelites/Judahites were similar or dissimilar to neighboring cultures.

The highlight of the day, as it was yesterday, was checking in on the independent Google Meets organized by student leaders. As I mentioned, my students are grouped in ‘Cohorts’. Today, in order to tie together some of the asynchronous homework they did last night, I had them discuss Lamentations 1 and Psalm 137. I want them to hear and feel the angst of the exiles. Listening to their discussions was fun!

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Google Meeting the Bible Again for the First Time: Day 1 of Summer School

Today, I begin teaching my class for summer school. Thirty-one students are signed up for ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’ (more than I have for two classes in the fall), so we’re in for quite a wild ride, especially since it’ll be the first time I try to teach a bulk of my class synchronously. I’ll try to record an entry each day that highlights key experiences and lessons (if for no one else other than me)! And yes, you may have recognized I’m cheesy, and I’ll label these entries by a combination of ‘Google Meet’ (Google’s equivalent to Zoom) and the late Marcus Borg’s two books Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.

I’ll start optimistically. One of the concerns we educators face when going online is that we’ll lose community. This is inevitable. Synchronous classes can help with but not replace this loss. So, I’m experimenting with students taking some of their learning into their own hands in the hope that this isn’t just good pedagogy but also a way of building community. The first approach will be putting students in ‘Cohorts’. I do this anyway but it usually means students sit next to each other and work together/have discussions when the time is appropriate. But now I’m moving those meetings online. Each Cohort has a Cohort leader who is responsible for creating a Google Meet, inviting their Cohort, recording it, and sharing it. In those Google Meets I’ll try to reduplicate small group discussion and activities. Last night one of these Cohort leaders wrote me expressing excitement about the class and asking what days we plan on having these Cohort meetings so that she can send out the calendar invites. So, that seems like a positive first response!

Class begins in about an hour with introductions. We’ll jump right from introductions to materials. Rather than spend synchronous time on the syllabus, I recorded a video explaining the syllabus that my students were required to watch. All of them said they’ve done it, so I hope I made the right gamble there!

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Interview: discussing the Saint John’s Bible with Jonathan Homrighausen

Jonathan Homrighausen is a PhD candidate at Duke University, working on Hebrew Bible. He’s also a writer and scholar on Scripture, art, and interreligious dialogue. While he was working on his MA at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, he began researching The Saint John’s Bible. His interest continued to develop to the point that he wrote a book about it: Illuminating Justice: The Ethical Imagination of The Saint John’s Bible (Liturgical Press, 2018), which ‘explores the call to social ethics in The Saint John’s Bible, the first major handwritten and hand-illuminated Christian Bible since the invention of the printing press.’

If you’re interested in the history of the Bible, biblical manuscripts and their physicality, art and the Bible, the liturgical use of the Bible, or just the Bible, period, you’ll enjoy this interview. Here’s the questions I asked Jonathan:

  1. First, what is The Saint John’s Bible? When, where, and how did it come about?
  2. Can you tell us about your professional training and how The Saint John’s Bible became of interest to you?
  3. I’ve read that this is the first Bible of its kind made since the popularization of the printing press. What does this mean and how does it help us understand the history of the Bible?
  4. Many of us might not think much about the intersection between art and the Bible. How does The Saint John’s Bible shed light on that relationship?
  5. My friend, Michael Barber of the Augustine Institute in Denver, has said something to the extent that we sometimes forget the Bible’s purpose was liturgical or sacramental long before it became an object of research. How does The Saint John’s Bible help us think about the liturgical purpose of the Bible?
  6. Your book, Illuminating Justice: The Ethical Imagination of The Saint John’s Bible, ‘explores the social ethics in The Saint John’s Bible’. How does this Bible uniquely provoke ethical/moral thinking? Or, another way of asking: How does the Bible provoke ethical/moral thinking in a way that’s different from any other Bible I might purchase?
  7. If I wanted to see The Saint John’s Bible, what would I have to do?
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Interview: discussing Flood Mythologies with Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer returns for another interview. If you haven’t watch our discussion of Creation Mythologies, I recommend doing so. But if you have, or Flood Mythologies just happen to be more your thing, you can jump right into this one!

In this video, we discuss ANE Flood Mythologies such as the Atrahasis, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Genesis 6-9.

Here’s the list of questions I asked:

1. This week my students will have read about the Great Deluge in Genesis 6-9. In the context of the Book of Genesis, what’s the point of this story? Why does Yahweh God flood the earth?

2. The Hebrews/Israelites/Judahites weren’t the only people from the Ancient Near East to talk about a giant flood. The Epic of Gilgamesh, which seems to have Assyrian and Babylonian influence, and the Atrahasis does the same. Can you tell us about these stories?

3. Chronologically, what’s the relationship between these three stories? Which one do most scholars think came first and how does this impact our understanding of the Bible?

4. How does the character of Noah compare to the characters in the Atrahasis and Gilgamesh?

5. In Genesis, what’s the Creator’s rationale for destroying humanity with a flood and how does this compare to the rationale in the Flood Mythologies?

6. Why is it important for students of the Bible to understand the Ancient Near East, Israel’s neighboring cultures, and comparative flood mythologies?

7. Some readers are concerns with the question ‘did this flood really happen?’ How important is this question? What should our focus be when reading these narratives?

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Interview: discussing Creation Mythologies with Erica Mongé-Greer.

Today I interviewed Erica Mongé-Greer, a PhD candidate at University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Erica is also an adjunct professor who teaches courses in Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern culture and Semitic languages, like Hebrew and Akkadian. Her most recent faculty postings were at Northwest Christian University and University of Oregon in Eugene, where she lives with her partner, Joshua, their two children, Caleb and Emma and adopted dog, Zuzu. Erica’s research includes justice for the poor in the Hebrew Psalter, biblical ethics, and religion in science fiction.

We discuss ANE Creation Mythologies such as the Enuma Elish, the Memphite Theology, and Genesis 1-2. It’s a fascinating discussion that I believe my students will enjoy! Here’s the list of questions I asked:

  1. First, tell us about your professional training and what it is that you research and teach?
  2. This week my students will have juxtaposed the First and Second Creation Narratives of the Book of Genesis, so they’ve seen how these stories, while stitched together, are different. In the context of the Ancient Near East, how are these Israelite/Judahite accounts unique?
  3. My students will be reading excerpts from the Enuma Elish. Can you provide us with an overview of this creation account?
  4. How is Marduk, the patron god of Babylon, similar to and different from how the Hebrew account presents their god?
  5. In the Book of Genesis, taking both Creation Narratives into account, how would we summarize the purpose of humanity and how does this compare with the Enuma Elish?
  6. While my students won’t be asked to read from the Memphite Theology, it’s still relevant to this discussion. What is it and what story does it tell?
  7. Why is it important for students of the Bible to understand the Ancient Near East, Israel’s neighboring cultures, and comparative creation mythologies?