This course introduces the student to the Old Testament and New Testament as literature, as the product of Ancient Near Eastern history and culture, and as the product and expression of Israelite and Christian faith.
Special attention is given to motifs, imagery, and typologies in the Bible.
The images, convictions, institutions, and events that came to expression in the biblical tradition shed light on the subject of power. The attempt is made throughout to connect the historical and theological study of the biblical tradition with our experience. Jesus himself seems to have used a wide variety of literary forms and rhetorical strategies common in his day, and his preaching usually requires a high degree of imaginative response from the listener if it is to make any sense at all. The Catholic imagination has had a powerful influence upon western culture for nearly two millennia, and appears in vigorous forms in many other cultures as well. We will look at representative works by musicians such as Beethoven, painters such as Botticelli and El Greco, writers such as Flannery O'Connor and Graham Greene, and at examples of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture.