On Friday, February 23, you will submit a paper that is approximately of 1,000 words (about 3-4 pages in length double-spaced). Upload your paper by the end of the day under the “Assignments” tab. You do not need to submit a paper copy.

For this paper you will examine forms of biblical interpretation in contemporary culture. I will provide you with various versions of the Parting of the Sea in Exodus 13:17-14:31 in films from popular movies such as the Ten Commandments or Prince of Egypt.

Ask yourself what the writers of the episode are doing with the text. What elements are they keeping to strictly? What portions of the text are they omitting or changing significantly? When adapting the biblical story to film (or television in the case of the TNT movie), why did they choose to keep certain elements of the text and change others? How is the story changed because they chose to represent this part this way as opposed to that way? What is your assessment of the clip not only as a work of art itself but as a kind of biblical interpretation? Support your opinions with quotations from the biblical text and evidence from the episode. In order to help you understand what’s going on with the biblical text, I also want you to cite two biblical commentaries (see below) Do not try and answer all of these questions.

They are just prompts to help you think about comparison. You will need an explicit thesis statement. In other words, do not say, “they have many similarities and differences.” This is too general and is a given. Make an argument. Answer how the movie is interpreting the biblical text. I don’t want to know if it’s doing it faithfully or not or if it’s good or bad interpretation. Tell me how it’s interpreting the story and why.

Overall, the point of this assignment is not to gauge how closely they follow the text. I want you think about films as an act of interpretation. You can’t just say this movie sucks or is a horrible interpretation of the Bible. You have to explain what you think the director is doing. In other words, why this rather than that? It may help to focus on one specific character such as Moses, Pharaoh, or Israel.

1) Outside of viewing films as an act of interpretation and thinking about how they influence us
2) the other main point of this assignment is to get you familiar with biblical commentaries, which are helpful resources to use in the biblical studies. You must reference two of them in your paper and Collins! I will count off 10 pts each for not doing this so a paper can go from a 100 to 70 really quickly.

The following will be on reserve at Payson and there is also an Exodus commentary section in the library. The circulation desk can help you find these:

Childs, Brevard. The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary-EBook
Durham, John I. Exodus.
Fretheim, Terence. Exodus.
Meyers, Carol. Exodus.
Propp, William. Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
Sarna, Nahum. Exodus = [Shemot]: the traditional Hebrew text with the new JPS translation.
Johnstone, Exodus 1-19, Smyth & Helwys commentary
Smith, Mark S. Exodus.-Ebook