College(Interdeptmnt) Courses 101 - FYS: Encountering the Sacred

Martin Buber famously wrote that we must read the Bible 'as though it were something entirely unfamiliar, as though it had not been set before us ready-made.' Whether you come to the Bible from within a faith tradition or not, this course will ask you to do just that. We'll take a text that for more than two-thousand years has stood at the heart of the Western tradition and ask how we can approach that text today, from the place where you stand. What does it mean to read a sacred text? How has it been read by people situated both within and at the margins of Western culture? What are the possibilities for your reading?

This course is limited to first-year students.