DESCRIPTION: The course focus is the Pentateuch (Genesis--Deuteronomy) and its
interpretation in the context of the Church in mission. This means attention to
the content of the Pentateuch itself, its historical-cultural context,
questions of interpretive method, and questions of contemporary application.
COURSE OBJECTIVES/LEARNING OUTCOMES: The course is designed to help students
acquire (1) tools necessary for an ongoing disciplined reading of the
Pentateuch; (2) an understanding of and commitment to this reading; (3) an
awareness of fundamental issues in the Pentateuch; (4) a sense of the
contributions and limitations of various critical methods and of the challenge
of reading and application in pre-modern, modern, and post-modern contexts.
RELEVANCE FOR MINISTRY: Our ministries both feed off and reveal who we believe
God and human beings are, what we believe a good church or a good society might
look like, etc. Scripture takes these beliefs to be at best a first
approximation: we see through a glass, darkly. The Chilean Segundo Galilea puts
it this way: "Knowledge of and conversion to the God of the Gospels is a
lifelong task, for everyone. Spirituality is the gradual conversion to the God
of Jesus." A disciplined reading of Scripture in the context of ministry is a
part of this process of conversion.
COURSE FORMAT: The course will meet twice weekly for two-hour sessions for
lecture and discussion.
REQUIRED READING: