Joniversity | (not) Understanding the Bible (Old Testament) @Joniversity | Uploaded August 2010 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
Excerpts from the opening lecture of Yale's "Introduction to the Old Testament" course. In this lecture, prof. Christine Hayes, provides an introduction to the literature of the Hebrew Bible and its structure and contents and some of its origins in neighboring mythologies. Common misconceptions about the Bible are dispelled: the Bible is a library of books from diverse times and places rather than a single, unified book; biblical narratives contain complex themes and realistic characters and are not "pious parables" about saintly persons; the Bible is a literarily sophisticated narrative not for children; the Bible is an account of the odyssey of a people rather than a book of theology; and finally, the Bible was written by many human contributors with diverse perspectives and viewpoints.

To see the whole lecture click here:
academicearth.org/lectures/bible-parts-of-the-whole

To see the entire course click here:
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebrew-bible/content/class-sessions