The Hebrew scriptures

Since Judaism is often known as the ‘religion of the book’, it is important to focus on what constitutes the Hebrew scriptures, as they are now known. Hebrew is the language in which these ancient texts were recorded. Like Latin or Gurmukhi, Hebrew’s only use now is to preserve ancient wisdom in its original form. Derivations of Hebrew are found in the world, but the language itself is never spoken. There is a vast amount of literature that could be described as Hebrew scripture – writings about the origins of Judaism (Torah), prophetic works (Nevi’im), spiritual writings (Ketuvim), interpretations of the tradition (Kabbalah), and spiritual writings derived from the ancient Torah. The decision has been made here to concentrate on those that are heritage accounts of early monotheism for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For a wonderful and informative Web site with links to all these scriptures try the Jewish Virtual Library:

The Jewish Virtual Library

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By the end of this unit:

• most of your students will know that Jewish history can be divided into several discrete parts
• some students will be able to explain that different types of people – patriarchs, judges, kings, prophets – led the ancient nation of Israel at different times, and that their stories comprise the bulk of the Hebrew scriptures
• a few students will be able to explain the theological significance of some of the stories told.

Prepare by reading the support material and examining the Web sites listed below. (You may also wish to provide this material for your more able learners.)

Sacred writings

GoodSalt

Religious Cliparts

Bible Pictures Clip Art

Some of these sites will require a subscription or registration to access the full catalogue.

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Starter

Hold up a library card. Ask what it is and ask the students to tell you what is contained in a library. Start the main part of the lesson by commenting that the Hebrew scriptures are more like a library (ie a collection of books) than a single book.

Activity

Create a timeline on the board for the history of the Hebrew scriptures. Put in as much detail as you can or that you believe your students can handle. Show the different phases in the history of Judaism. Ask the students to work on particular sections of the history in small groups, using the activity sheet below, to create a whole storyboard of material for their classroom. They will need to have access to the Internet to do this. Alternatively, ancient and relatively contemporary children’s Bibles can be a good source. Choose bite-size stories for them to work on, ie not the Exodus!

Storyboarding via the Internet activity sheet

Plenary

Gather the students together and ask them to show, in sequence, what they have found and what they have created. With careful planning, you should end up with the whole of Hebrew history celebrated around the room. Ask students to stand up in sequence to show the timeline again and reinforce the learning.

Homework activity

Students should repeat the process for a second story for their homework.