Some possible topics for Paper #3 Due Wednesday November 17

Job, Prophets, Matthew
  1. Compare and contrast the account of the creation in Genesis 1 with God’s utterance out of the tempest in Job 38-41
  2. Propose an interpretation of Job 42: 7-9. Why does God say "My anger is aroused against you and your two friends because unlike my servant Job, you have not spoken as you ought about me." How does God think they ought to have spoken? How do you think they ought to have spoken?
  3. Does the book of Job provide comfort for good people to whom bad things happen? Or does it do the opposite? Support your position with interpretation of the story and citations from the text
  4. Contrast the language of cursing with the language of blessing in the prophets. For example Jeremiah 1-3 vs. Isaiah 40:1-11, 41:1-20
  5. Compare and contrast the story of the birth and early life of Jesus in Matthew 1-4 with that of Moses in Exodus 1-5
  6. Delineate the alternation of "hard sayings"–the judgmental and harsh voice of God–with sayings of comfort in Jesus’ speech. How does this alternation make for effective communication of his message?
  7. Select one or more proverbs in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount–chapters 5-7–and compare and contrast to one or more of Solomon’s proverbs in the Book of Proverbs.
  8. Describe and interpret Matthew’s account of the relationship between Jesus and Peter from beginning to end.
  9. Compare and contrast Jesus' relationship with the mass of his followers and Moses' relationship with the Israelites.
  10. Analyse the characterizations of villains in the Gospel of Matthew: the two Herods, the Pharisees, Judas, the Jews. How are they rendered hateful? Compare and contrast to the renderings of antagonists in Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel and Job.
  11. Select a powerful and complete passage of around ten lines from Job [e.g. 3:11-15] or from the assigned readings in the prophets [e.g. Isaiah 66:12-14] and

      a)analyze the poetic effects created by movement from beginning to end, synonymous and antithetical parallelism, figures of speech (like personification and metaphor), sound patterns and shifts of emotion

      and/or

      b) contrast the differences between the Kings James translation and the New Revised Standard or another modern translation[For King James and other translations of any passage go to http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible]