Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an as Literature

Study of the three Abrahamic texts, the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an using several comparatist lenses including historical, genre, thematic, and gender studies. The Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur’an arguably comprise the most important and literature of all time. Its style, images, characters, themes and language have influenced western writing for thousands of years. The purpose of this lecture is to demonstrate how to introduce these sacred texts to undergraduate university students. The lecture shows how the texts are examined using modern methods of literary theory. The lecture cannot present all of the major genres of biblical literature included in a course, including myth, narrative, didactic, law, poetry, gospels, epistles and apocalyptic writing. But we will discuss strategies such as literary theories of structuralism, gender studies, typology, environmental studies that bring the sacred texts alive for undergraduates and get them thinking as critical readers about how the texts inform cultural practices, normative standards, and existential ideas into the present day.

The lecture draws on my experience of teaching the course at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas over a five year period. My university is one of the four most diverse in the country. We are an MSI institution (Multi-Ethnic Serving Institution) with a significant student body of Hispanic (LatinX), Asian, and Pacific Islanders. Also about half of our university is first generation college students. The course is always filled and usually by mostly English Majors studying the classics works of Western Literature. The Hebrew Bible and New Testament portion always find relevance in works by Milton, Yeats, Eliot. But more and more students are fascinated by the Qur`an and the intersections between the Qur`an, New Testament, and Hebrew Bible. Students come away more culturally competent and compassionate about the diversity and similarities of the Abrahamic sacred texts.