Loving Your Neighbor homework
Buried treasure awaits you if you know what you are looking for; your weekly study questions are guideposts to uncovering the riches of the past!
Instructions
Answer each of the questions in part A and B. Part A is an open-ended personal reflection before doing the reading. The answers to the questions in part B should be completed while you are doing the reading.
Since the purpose of the homework is to develop your analytical skills, answers must represent your interpretation of the assigned reading. Answers will thus not receive credit if they present someone else’s ideas, whether they are taken from another student or are web sources. Rather than quoting the reading, analyze and explain it in your own words.
Please know that the academic honesty policy applies to all work in your college career.
Homeworks are a way of preparing for the class discussion and as such must be submitted on BlackBoard before the beginning of class to receive full credit.
You may submit late work four times a semester for partial credit: the window to submit late work is one week after the homework is due, after which the upload on Blackboard will close and the assignment cannot be made up.
Please upload your responses as a Word document. In either case, please clearly number your responses if they are not immediately following the questions.
Homework may not be turned in by email!
Grading Rubric:
- 3 (Check+): Thoughtful responses and engagement with the text with complete answers
- 2 (Check): Development needed but completed and answered all questions
- 1 (Check-): Missing and incomplete responses
- 0: Either, work does not show direct engagement with the reading or is not original. No credit
(Note: late work will be downgraded one grade point: a late 3 will receive a 2, a late 2 will receive a 1.)
Keep in mind that all homework assignments are run through a plagiarism checker. To be safe, always be sure to present original work!
PART A-REACTION QUESTIONS
Although the Old Testament has 613 laws, the ancient sages and scholars regarded “loving one’s neighbor as one’s self” to be the most important of the legal code.
- What do you think it means to love one’s neighbor? What does it mean to love oneself? What evidence and examples can you cite to support that people can love others as much as they love themselves?
- Why is “loving one’s neighbor as much as one loves oneself” an unreasonable expectation? What evidence can you cite that we don’t and can’t love our neighbors? Why might one argue that most people fail to love themselves?
PART B-READING QUESTIONS
The reading for this week is Dostoyevsky, Dream of a Ridiculous Man (posted on Blackboard) and several Biblical selections (some on the handout and some found in any Bible).
- In what ways is God deceptive with Adam and Eve? In what ways is the serpent telling the truth? What’s the moral of this seeming ethical role reversal especially as one of the first stories in the Bible? (Genesis chapters 2-3)
- What are the thoughts of the Ridiculous Man? (Dream of a Ridiculous Man, part 1) What is the man’s moral question about living on another planet? (part 2). What happens in the man’s dream? (part 3) Describe the people and the place that the man visits in his dream and how are they changed as a result of his presence? (part 4) What does the man learn from the dream upon awakening? (part 5)
- How does Eliezer attempt to love his neighbor? What was Eliezer’s mistaken notion before meeting the island prostitute? What about after his interaction with her? (Looking for Love on Biblical Ethics Handout)
- Explain the ethical dilemma posed in the Talmud involving the travelers. How do the Biblical sages, Ben-Petura and Akiva, solve the dilemma? How does Akiva ground his surprising solution in the passage from Leviticus? What does the Talmud mean by the statement that “acquiring a servant is acquiring a master”? What are the competing opinions regarding the pillow?
- How does Jacob deceive Esau? (Genesis chapters 25-28) What do we know about Jacob and Esau from sources outside the bible? How does the historical background of these two men help to justify Jacob’s actions? (Biblical Ethics Handout)