Response to “How We Teach Introductory Bible Courses”

Abstract

The essays collected in this manuscript respond to "How We Teach Introductory Bible Courses: A Comparative and Historical Sampling" by Collin Cornell and Joel M. LeMon, published in this issue of the journal. Response: Introducing the Bible When Students Do Not Know the Bible Caryn A. Reeder

Touching sacred texts, touching history: Using manuscripts to teach scribal practices and material scripture in the biblical studies survey course

“…Incorporating this material into the survey course fits neatly with recent scholarship on how that course is shifting in recent years. Reed and Webster, for example, both describe shifting their course to focus on the human element of sacred texts—how they are constructed and employed in communities over time (Reed, 2016; Reeder et al, 2016, pp. 148–149).…”

“…As the undergraduate teaching of biblical studies shifts increasingly from historical‐critical and theological modes to imagining the Bible's role in a broader liberal arts curriculum, recent scholarship in teaching the survey course has explored a variety of tools for incorporating many different disciplinary perspectives (Cornell & LeMon, 2016; Miller, 2015; Peoples, 2012; Reed, 2016; Reeder, Liew, Webster, Batten, & Frilingos, 2016; Roncace & Gray, 2005; Webster et al, 2012; Webster & Holland, 2012). Further, in recent years biblical text‐critics have taken a greater interest in the life of the Bible beyond searching for the ‘original text’ (Breed, 2014; Knust & Wasserman, 2019; Parker, 1997; Stern, 2017), and scholars of religion have taken the turn to the material (Meyer, Morgan, Paine, & Plate, 2010; Morgan, 2014) into the materiality of scripture (Parmenter, 2015; Watts, 2008, 2015).…”