September/October 2011
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The most recent interview is with Prof. Dale Martin, of Yale University, who talks about Paul and Pauline literature.

About the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
The SBL was founded in 1880 and is an international academic membership organization for people who teach, study, or are interested in academic study of the Bible and its related contexts and literatures. The Society’s mission is to foster biblical scholarship and does not hold any denominational or confessional stance, though many of our members are religious leaders.

Feature Essay

Teaching Comparative Creation Stories
By April Favara

Incorporating creation stories from the ancient Near East into the classroom can promote critical and contextual thinking as well as cross-cultural understanding. In this article, April Favara suggests how the educator might help students to engage comparative texts. She also highlights some of the resources that are freely accessible to the educator and provides a worksheet, below.

Comparative Creation Accounts Worksheet
By April Favara

Active Learning

The Creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis through Clay
By Corinna Brannon

In this activity, an art teacher from a private Catholic high school offers how she teaches Genesis 3: 1-24 to her 9th grade students by having them make clay masks. This "hands on" approach brings up rich conversation topics and provides an interactive and expressive way to teach biblical literature.

Read more >>

Definitions

creation, the act of God by which the universe came into being. The Bible's chief account of creation is that in Gen. 1:1–2:3. God is depicted here as a sole, sovereign master of the universe directing the work of creation by verbal command and a freely determined plan. God is said to make the world in six days, resting on the seventh (cf. Exod. 20:11). Christian authors introduced the idea of Christ as mediator and agent of creation (e.g., John 1:1–4; Col. 1:15–16). In doing this they were drawing on earlier traditions that said that divine wisdom was the agent of creation, a tradition that appears both in the OT (e.g., Prov. 8:25–27) and in apocryphal writings (e.g., Wisd. Of Sol. 7:24–25; Sir. 24:3, 9).

From the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary (condensed edition), edited by Mark Allan Powell, 2009.

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