THEO677 Biblical Poetry

This was the last module in my Coursework MA in Theology at ACU, and I recall I had been looking forward to it for some years leading up to Semester Two 2006.

As it happens, and as I have often found, I was somewhat disappointed by this course, while those of which I had low expectations generally left me pleasantly surprised. The material in the modules was the least extensive for the whole course, and when published had no lecturer noted, so whoever they got to cover was not responsible for the course materials. I don’t recall a lot of involvement from the university at all in this course, but the assignments were marked by Johann Ferreira, about whom I knew nothing at the time.

His CV shows he knew a lot about Hebrew, about which I, of course, knew nothing. I had one undergraduate unit on Old Testament to my credit but I did have a BA majoring in English along with an honours year disguised as a Postgraduate diploma, so I though I knew about literature.

I suspect he must have been prevailed upon to take on this unloved unit, as with his reformed background, he was unlikely to be an ACU lecturer long term. I also recall feeling at the time that, looking at his comments, he knew a lot about Hebrew and very little about poetry, which was probably unfair.

The structure of the unit was::

1 Attempting to define Hebrew poetry.

2 The Literary Languages of the Bible and Literary Forms.

3 Using Language Imaginatively.

4 Images and Parallelism

5 Poetic Thoughts as a Whole as Expressions of Religious Thought.

6 Explicating Biblical Poetry.

7 Analysing Biblical Symbols.

8 Studies in Biblical Symbolism.

The text was Interpreting Hebrew Poetry by David Peterson, which I either did not buy, out of character for me, or have misplaced. The usual reason I did not buy a text was that it was not actually available, and then I’d usually find a way to copy it.

There were two assignments and discussion board participation.

I found some of my contributions to that.