Free Hebrew Bible Course with Shaye Cohen
Learn about the Hebrew Bible in a free course of 25 video lectures by Shaye Cohen, Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University. This course, which you can start and stop any time, surveys the major books and ideas of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Old Testament), examining the historical context in which the texts emerged and were redacted.
A major subtext of this free Hebrew Bible course is the distinction between how the Bible was read by ancient interpreters (whose interpretations became the basis for many iconic literary and artistic works of Western Civilization) and how it is approached by modern Bible scholarship. James Kugel, former Harvard professor and author of the course’s textbook, contends that these ways of reading the Bible are mutually exclusive. Professor Shaye Cohen respectfully disagrees.
The course syllabus is your primary road map; it contains general information about the course and lists the topics covered and assigned readings for each of the 25 lectures. Video recordings of each lecture can be viewed alongside Professor Cohen’s lecture notes. A series of timelines is available to illustrate aspects of the course which unfold over time.
Sample the course by watching Professor Shaye Cohen’s first lecture:
FREE ebook: The Holy Bible: A Buyer's Guide 42 different Bible versions, addressing content, text, style and religious orientation.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
Defining Biblical Hermeneutics
The Man Moses by Peter Machinist
Searching for Biblical Mt. Sinai
Did I Find King David’s Palace? by Eilat Mazar
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on February 25, 2015.
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I am going to greatly enjoy the free Hebrew Bible course by Proffesor Shaye Cohen. Have always had a deep love for the Jews. Thank you for this wonderful offer. Shalom.
The first class was painfully elementary.
Looking forward to our next class!
Only 16 mins in – and already somewhat bored! It might have helped if I had been shown the screen behind Prof Cohen rather than just the learned gentleman himself! Switched off! I also tend to agree with Harold D.
Thank you. I look forward to listening to more this year for personal study and clarification of things I have wondered about.
yes it was elementary to knowledgeable people but it did present clearly the contrast between traditionalists and their opponents. I look forward to see how exactly Prof. Cohen resolves these contradictions.
Dear Naysayers;
I’m going to assume you did not click on the links to the actual course, rather you clicked the video watched five minutes and made a comment.
If you had actually did more than watch five minutes you would have noted this is a course offered at Harvard College (I believe recorded in 2013) complete with 78 pages of notes, 24 other lectures, 2 papers, a mid-term and final exam. Perhaps the word “elementary” is a bit harsh considering this is a brief introduction to his course.
I’m just sayin’…
Thanks for this
As Prof Cohen emphasizes in the syllabus, the biblical texts must be read s-l-o-w-l-y and in conjunction with their annotations. You will miss more than half of the value of the course if you fail to do the reading before viewing a lecture.
As the article states, the course syllabus is the roadmap for this course. I have always found that you can identify the biases of many professors of religion/philosophy/history by study of the syllabus and course notes. I have to say that this professor seems to approach the course with an unapologetic humanist approach. The title of the course, “The Hebrew Bible,” seems a bit misleading, as if your going to study the Hebrew Bible within its own context, rather than try and pick it apart by forcing it into the context of the rest of the world at that time. The point of the Hebrew Bible was, in fact, to make a separation between a group of people from the rest of the world. Approaching the Hebrew Bible from a humanist stance will obviously not enlighten the reader to the merits of the text, but rather only give value to those who choose to criticize it. A better name for this course would seem to be, “Critiquing the Hebrew Bible against the ANE.”
I’d love to take the course but have internet via a satellite. Slow download and not enough bandwidth to download so many. Can I possibility get them on DVDs?