DESCRIPTION:

This graduate seminar, open to a limited number of master's-level students, will consider how the commentators of the Reformation and earlier addressed the problem of how to read and appropriate the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The first half of the course will look at patristic and medieval exegesis as background to the Reformation; the second half will examine representative texts and figures of the Reformation era. To be addressed will be issues such as Alexandrian and Antiochene trajectories; the allegorical imperative; the "fourfold rule" of interpretation; letter and spirit; and varieties of "literal" exegesis in the Reformation.

Protestants have typically invoked the Reformation motto of sola scriptura as if the phrase were self-explanatory, despite the clear disagreements among the many sixteenth-century advocates for a return to Holy Scripture as the only reliable authority in matters of faith and religion. For those who seek to serve as ministers of the Word of God in the diverse church and pluralistic culture of the twenty-first century, it is crucial to grasp the continuities and discontinuities between the ideals and legacy of the Reformation and the task of the interpreter and expositor today.

Seminar format, meets for two and a half hours weekly to discuss readings and issues. Graduate students will be expected to stay for an additional half hour of Latin tutorial.

Augustine. On Christian Doctrine. Trans. D. W. Robertson. Old Tappan, N.J.: Macmillan, 1958.

Augustine. On Genesis. Trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2002.

Calvin, John. Genesis. Reprint ed. Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1992.

Origen. Homilies on Genesis and Exodus. Trans. Ronald E. Heine. Fathers of the Church 71. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1982.

Preus, James S. From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther. Harvard University Press, 1969. Reprint: Wipf & Stock, 1999.

Young, Frances M. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Cambridge University Press, 1997. Reprint: Hendrickson, 2002.

Other texts (photocopies or on reserve) including excerpts from Lutheran, Catholic, and Anabaptist writers. Students are urged to contact the instructor for additional bibliographical advice.

de Lubac, Henri. Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture. Vols. 1-2. Eerdmans, 1998-2000.

Luther, Martin. Lectures on Genesis. Luther's Works, Vols. 1-8. Concordia, 1958-1970.

McKim, Donald, ed. Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters. InterVarsity Press, 1998.

Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2: Holy Scripture: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology. Baker, 1993; revised 2003.

Muller, R. A. & J. L. Thompson, eds. Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation. Eerdmans, 1996.

Puckett, David L. Calvin's Exegesis of the Old Testament. Westminster John Knox, 1995.

Thompson, John L. Writing the Wrongs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

1) Class participation & assigned reading of 1700 pp. for master's students, 2100 pp. for graduate students. 2) Weekly written response to readings, to be completed before each class. 3) Final examination, take-home essay. 4) Research paper, optional for master's students but required for 800-level. 800-level students only: 5) Critical book review. 6) Latin tutorials.