Tiglath – Pileser I was the King of Assyria from 1115 – 1076 BCE. He was also a natural philosopher. Halpern uses this Tiglath – Pileser Principle to show that when a king says something, especially when using exact numbers, the reader must be able to decipher from the context to figure out what really happened or how many people were really involved. For example, Halpern uses the number 20,000 as if that were the amount of men fighting against Tiglath – Pileser. There probably were not 20,000 men fighting in total, or even 20,000 in the territory at that time. This principle relates to the bible because the bible authors were human just like we are now and they tended to exaggerate about many different things. Exaggeration was common because there were many battles and everyone wanted to be number one in the present and in the future. It was very easy for them to seem like they were the top dog in writing because of the very few people that were around and of those few people could read they wouldn’t dare change it for fear of their life. In biblical studies scholars must use this principle accordingly. It is okay to believe that certain events took place, but when an author speaks of the ease of the battle or the number of people involved or enslaved, one must tone those numbers down quite a bit.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is most similar to the story of Noah and his ark from the bible. It is similar to that story in that both Noah and Gilgamesh were instructed by a god to build a ship or an ark because there was to be a storm. After building the ark they were to take their family and animals aboard. Noah took his wife and sons and their families and according to the Bible for dummies, “seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal.” Gilgamesh took his immediate family, some kinfolk, beasts, wild creatures, and craftsmen with him. Tablet XI-Utnapishtim’s Flood Story says that Gilgamesh completed the ship in seven days. In seven days is how long it took for God to complete the construction of the earth. And although Gilgamesh and Noah were given instructions on what to do from a god, Noah was chosen and Gilgamesh went looking for a way out of his current situation.

An etiology is a story used to explain why things are the way they are. One etiology from Genesis that is used to explain where sin came from is the story of how Adam and Eve were instructed not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they did anyway and after that their eyes and the eyes of their offspring were opened to sin. Another etiology about foreign language is the story of Babylon. There was a time when everyone spoke the same language and they wanted to build a tower tall enough to reach God. They started this tower, but God grew upset so his dispersed them all over the world and made them speak different languages. One other etiology about why snakes don’t have legs is that after Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent and ate from the Tree of Knowledge God told the serpent, “On your belly you should go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.” An etiology about why we have to take this course is that God came to Xavier University and asked a couple of students questions about the bible. The students couldn’t answer these questions so God said, “You and those who follow you are now commanded to take Biblical Studies.”

In Auerbach’s “Odysseus’s Scar” it talks about how Odysseus goes home after being absent for a while, but he doesn’t want his wife or housekeeper to know that it is him so he tries to hide his scar. This is a scar that he got while he was a child. One night while the housekeeper is bathing him she sees the scar and immediately knows it is him. Auerbach uses the literary criticism to examine how authors like Homer tell stories - Homer used flashback to let the reader know how Odysseus got his scar. In the same sense, Friedman’s “Deception for Deception” also showcases literary criticism. In the line of Joseph’s family there was so much deception between mostly the brothers. One would do something to the other and then there was an equal if not greater retaliation. Almost like what happens between gangs now-a-days, but this was within one family. The person who stopped this on going retaliation was Joseph. He was sold into slavery by his brothers, but did not retaliate and that ended that line of deception.

When using literary criticism as for of analyzing the bible one will only look at the bible to gather their information. They look at individual stories and the things like the symbolism and the metaphors. Generally as a literary critic the text is looked at as more of a story than anything. On the other hand a historical critic is looking for consistency between the stories and the time they were written in. They want to create more of a time line between biblical texts and other historical text. I feel that as a bible scholar I would be more on the side of literary criticism. I can appreciate the aesthetic quality of a work more than I can the historical context of it.

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