Christine Hayes opens Yale's Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) by dismantling common assumptions about the text. She argues the Bible is not a single unified book but a library of writings from diverse times, places, and human authors, and that its narratives feature realistic, morally complex characters rather than pious parables suited for children. Hayes frames the collection as the record of a people's historical and religious odyssey rather than a systematic work of theology. The lecture moves through four segments: an opening case for the Bible's radical ideas, a survey of common myths about the text, an overview of its overall structure and contents, and a rundown of how the course itself is organized. Recorded in Fall 2006 as the first session of RLST 145, it sets up the analytical, historical-critical approach the rest of the course will use to read the Hebrew Bible as literature and history rather than doctrine.