For this assignment you will write a response of 200-250 words to one of the topics listed below. Your short essay should include evidence of familiarity with the assigned readings in addition to your personal reflections on the topic. Your writing must be well organized and contain correct grammar, spelling and sentence structure. You will not need to perform outside research to write this reflection; after viewing the chapter module and completing the assigned reading for the week, respond thoughtfully with your reasoned and measured opinion, using the chapter materials as context. Prompt 1 The Epic of Gilgamesh is preserved on clay tablets that are thousands of years old. Although some of these tablets are well preserved, others are broken in many places, resulting in gaps in the text.Depending on which translation you’re reading, the translator may try to smooth over these gaps by pretending they don’t exist, or he or she may call attention to them by sticking in question marks, brackets, dots, or italicized text. Originally composed as a poem, some translators – because they have to guess at what so many of the missing words might have been – present the text in paraphrased prose paragraphs instead. If you were translating the poem, how would you deal with this problem? Which approach would you use? Why? Prompt 2 Reread the Ten Commandments. Which of them makes sense only to religious believers? Which have general applications? Suppose your job was to update and “modernize” the commandments. Would you get rid of any? Would you add any new ones? The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 NKJV) 1 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. 2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments. 3 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 4 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 5 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. 6 “You shall not murder. 7 “You shall not commit adultery. 8 “You shall not steal. 9 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 10 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” Prompt 3 Can you think of any advantages to be gained from having laws written down? Disadvantages? Does written law ensure fairness and consistency? Even in a largely illiterate society such as Babylon?
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