No one lives in a vacuum. Everyone is a product of the historical time period they lived in. If you recall, we began the Book of Jeremiah with no introduction. We went right to the initial prophecy and ignored the historical background in the first 3 verses of the Book of Jeremiah quoted below.
ירמיהו פרק א
א דִּבְרֵי יִרְמְיָהוּ, בֶּן-חִלְקִיָּהוּ, מִן-הַכֹּהֲנִים אֲשֶׁר בַּעֲנָתוֹת, בְּאֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן. ב אֲשֶׁר הָיָה דְבַר-יְהוָה אֵלָיו, בִּימֵי יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ בֶן-אָמוֹן מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה, בִּשְׁלֹשׁ-עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה, לְמָלְכוֹ. ג וַיְהִי, בִּימֵי יְהוֹיָקִים בֶּן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה, עַד-תֹּם עַשְׁתֵּי עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה, לְצִדְקִיָּהוּ בֶן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה--עַד-גְּלוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַחֲמִישִׁי.
א דִּבְרֵי יִרְמְיָהוּ, בֶּן-חִלְקִיָּהוּ, מִן-הַכֹּהֲנִים אֲשֶׁר בַּעֲנָתוֹת, בְּאֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן. ב אֲשֶׁר הָיָה דְבַר-יְהוָה אֵלָיו, בִּימֵי יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ בֶן-אָמוֹן מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה, בִּשְׁלֹשׁ-עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה, לְמָלְכוֹ. ג וַיְהִי, בִּימֵי יְהוֹיָקִים בֶּן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה, עַד-תֹּם עַשְׁתֵּי עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה, לְצִדְקִיָּהוּ בֶן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה--עַד-גְּלוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַחֲמִישִׁי.
Three kings are mentioned in theses verses alone, יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ בֶן-אָמוֹן, יְהוֹיָקִים בֶּן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ, and צִדְקִיָּהוּ בֶן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ. This doesn't even include the 2 most important kings who preceded Jeremiah who were חזקיהו בן אחז and מנשה בן חזקיהו and the other lesser kings during this time period. See the chart below for a full list of the kings.
Your project will be to research these kings so we can answer the big question, how did we get here? What events shaped the time period immediately preceding Jeremiah and what events shaped the career of Jeremiah while he was a prophet in Judea?
Here are some project details:
- You may work in groups of 2 or 3. Each group will research one king.
- You will collaboratively write a 2 page paper (double spaced, New Times Roman, Size 12 font, with proper citation of all sources) about your king using Google Docs. (I expect EVERY student's footprints to be all over the doc.)
- You will then create something to represent the king you have studied based on your research. This can be a fake artifact from his reign, a painting, a drawing, a mock newspaper front page, a video, a Prezi. The list goes on. The key is that your item must be creative and must represent an important aspect about your king or episode in his life.
- ALL projects must ultimately be converted to digital form and uploaded to a public website like Flickr or YouTube.
- We will then be converting each paper and artifact into its own unique QR code that we can hang up on the wall of our classroom to create a physical timeline of all the kings that we are studying with links to the rich content that we have created.
There is a dearth of websites available for serious study of Tanach. Therefore, we will be working in the library where each group is expected to use several books for the main portion of your research. (Mrs. Geller will help you out.)
Here are a few websites that might help in your research. (You may also use Wikipedia but only as a starting point to discover where in Tanach and other sources to look and not as your main research source.)
You will be graded based on the following rubric.
Now fill out the Google Form below to choose your partners and topic, confirm with me, and get to work!
Posted with Blogsy
