Biblical Hermeneutics

Course Description

The goal of this class is deceptively simple: to learn to read the Bible well. Of course, reading the Bible well is a challenging task that covers a wide range of topics. What attitudes and skills make for good reading? What is the goal of reading? Should the Bible be interpreted like other great works or does its divine character require special procedures for interpretation? How does the Bible fit together, and how does that affect how we approach a particular book or passage? How should knowledge of the original languages affect the interpretative process? How do we appropriately move from what the text meant in its original context to its modern-day application? All these questions, and more besides, get at the complexity of our stated goal, but the goal is nevertheless a good and necessary one (1 Tim 3:16), and by the end, the end of the course students will be better prepared to hear the word of Christ in all the Scriptures.

Objectives:

1. Be better able to interpret a text within its literary, historical, redemptive, and canonical contexts.
2. Appreciate the Christocentric focus of the Old and New Testaments in all their variety and diversity
3. Apply a variety of linguistic tools to the interpretation of words, sentences, paragraphs, and discourses, with a particular focus on the use of the original languages in exegesis.