Noah and the Ark. This is a unit that contains both a Biblical account and also legends about Noah from extra-Biblical sources as collected by Louis Ginzberg in his AMAZING book, Legends of the Jews. I would gladly teach a whole course just on that one book. Luckily, the Noah chapter was just about the right size; I was going to include the Abraham chapter, but it was just too long. With Noah, I was able to include the Biblical account AND the legends together, and still come in at around 15,000 words.
Gospel of Mark. I was so pleased that I could include the whole Gospel of Mark and still come in right at the word limit. Even better: Mark is my favorite of the Gospels! I'll be relying on the wonderful commentary from the folks at the Jesus Seminar to write up the notes for this one. I'm guessing some students will pair up in the first two-week unit, choosing to read Mark along with the Infancy Gospels. I'm really going to enjoy writing up the suggested "pairings" based on what I can guess students might be interested in.
