14, from The Talmud on Doctrine of God 2. Both instructors use a variety of pedagogical techniques, including lecturing, videos, breaking the class into groups of 6-7 students to answer specific questions from the readings, especially the primary source readings. The Carmody book of primary sources contains a wide range of interesting readings and works fairly well in the course. Black Elk Speaks has been a good way for us to pull together the categories of religion that we develop in the first half of the course. The book also helps us show the importance of cultural and historical contexts for the development of religious practices, ideas, and organization.
Some sections are, however, very accessible.
This is why we only assign about of this book. There are not many textbooks that take a comparative approach to teaching world religions. When we taught the course in the more traditional way, we found ourselves reducing religion to ideas and beliefs in order to make each of 6 religious traditions comprehensible in a semester. Although some major videos are listed in the syllabus, we also use occasional slides or small sections from videos to highlight some aspect of religion. We place a high pedagogical value on varying teaching techniques.