Description

With this assignment, I want you to get more practice going into the library’s scholarly databases to find relevant publications on various topics related to the Exodus tradition, including Genesis, and also practice citing your sources. I also you to become familiar with impersonal and objective scholarly writing. Therefore, I want you to summarize in an objective fashion three additional articles, writing a one paragraph abstract after a citation. See the attached model.

 

The first part of this assignment can be done fairly quickly. I would like for you to simply find and cite (MLA style) relevant ebooks and ejournal articles from the library’s databases. No print sources may be used. You must include the link as part of the citation. Also, please locate sources which you would actually use as if you were assigned to write a research paper on the topic. Please keep the focus on the Hebrew Bible, and specifically Genesis and Exodus, not the New Testament. We will be at the NT in a few weeks.

 

JSTOR, the Religion & Philosophy Collection (EBSCO) and our ebook collections—both ebook Central (ProQuest) and eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) –are good sources. There are many more to explore on the Library’s A-Z list of Electronic databases.

 

For all but the last bullet, all you have to do is find the article or book, then cite it according to MLA Style Guidelines. All of the library’s online databases will generate an approximate MLA formatted citation for you—you just have to click on an icon or button (varies depending on the database) which says “cite” and copy/paste it into your assignment. Sometimes the citation it give you isn’t perfect but it is good enough for now.

 

This is what I would like for you to do:

• Find and cite two articles or ebooks in our databases referencing the meaning of the prohibition of graven images in the Ten Commandments, or the Ark of the Covenant, or the symbolic meaning of the Golden Calf.
• So little space in the OT is devoted to the creation of the earth, and yet so much is devoted to the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus! It goes on chapter after chapter in Exodus, a detailed blueprint for the Temple which former slaves in Egypt, the Israelites, are commanded to build. Find and cite two articles or ebooks on the Tabernacle in Exodus, for example, if it can be viewed as a work of art, its significance in the story, if it was added in later by Priestly writers (P source)—anything about it which can shed light on it.
• Find and cite two scholarly ebooks (not articles) on the character of God in Exodus.
• Find and cite one article on the theme of “divine presence” in Exodus.
• Last, cite and then summarize in your own words three scholarly articles from the library’s databases on any topic that interests you about Genesis or Exodus. The Fall of Man, Angels, the meaning of the Golden Calf, Ham’s Curse, Israelites vs. Canaanites, Blood Atonement (use of blood to purify and eliminate sin) in ancient Hebrew thought, the scholarly quest for a Hebrew /Yahwist Epic which preceded the prose version we have today–whatever you like.  Pick something that interest you.

 

I want three separate citations and abstracts. In your abstracts, I want you to tell me what the article says in an objective and impersonal way–not merely “what you got” out of the article, why you found the article interesting, or what you think it means. Scholars don’t care about that. You are writing to other scholars now. Succinctly and impersonally summarize the article’s thesis (main argument) and the evidence it employs to make its case.

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