Selected Prayers and Psalms
The final segment of our course deals with prayers and psalms among the pseudepigrapha. Just as the book of Psalms in the Bible represents a collection of prayers utilized in the Second Temple era and before, so does the collection of texts in the OTP represent prayers used in worship during the era of Herod and Rome. The curious thing about the prayers collected in the extra-biblical pseudepigrapha is that these prayers are placed in the mouths of well known saints of old.
These prayers are very much akin to their canonical counterparts, come from around the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE, and tell us virtually nothing about life outside of worship.
The best way to grapple with these texts is to read them.
ASSIGNMENT:
Read Charlesworth, vol 2, pp 607-774.
FINAL EXAM: Chose a passage from each of the categories discussed in this course (i.e., Apocalyptic, Testament, Wisdom and Prayer) and write a 3 page sermon using your text as the sermon text. This means that the student will submit 12 pages for evaluation (3 pages each type x 4 sermons = 12 pages).