Lecture 21 - Biblical Poetry: Psalms and Song of Songs
Feb 16, 2011 4183 views 
After a detailed explanation of the requirements for the paper assignment, Professor Hayes turns to the Writings - the third section of the Bible - and considers a recent approach to the study of the Bible, called canonical criticism. The books in this section of the Bible explore various questions associated with suffering and evil. An example is the book of Ecclesiastes which constitutes a second attack on the optimism and piety of conventional religious thinking. The lecture concludes with a discussion of a number of Psalms, their genre, purpose, and language. Reading assignment: Bible: (1) Introduction to Psalms (JSB pp. 1280-4), Psalms 1, 2, 8, 19, 21-24, 32, 37, 44-46, 49, 52, 55, 72-74, 78-80, 90, 93, 96-99, 103-106, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119, 128, 131, 136, 137, 139, 150 (2) Introduction to The Song of Songs (JSB pp. 1564-1566), Song of Songs 1-8 Resources: [[[[http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebrew-bible/content/class-sessions/resources/tanakh_synopsis.rtf|Handout: Examples and Forms of Psalms [text]]] [[http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebrew-bible/content/class-sessions/resources/final_paper_assignment.rtf|Handout: Final Paper Assignment [text]]]