Angel, H. J. Revealed Texts, Hidden Meanings: Finding the Religious Significance in Tanakh. Jersey City: Ktav, 2009.
J. T. Barrera. The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible. ET Leiden: Brill/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. BS 445.
William Abraham. Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology. Oxford/New York: OUP, 1998.
John Barton (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation. Cambridge/New York: CUP, 1998.
Stephen D. Benin. The Footprints of God: Divine Accommodation in Jewish and Christain Thought. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1993.
J. M. Brenneman. Canons in Conflict. 1997.
David J. A. Clines. The Bible and the Modern World. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
Harriet A. Harris. Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. Oxford/New York: OUP, 1998.
Charles J. Scalise. Hermeneutics as Theological Prolegomena. Macon, GA: Mercer UP, 1994.
— From Scripture to Theology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996.
Rasiah. S. Sugirtharajah. Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998/Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.
— (ed.). Voices from the Margin. New ed., London: SPCK/Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995.^
— Vernacular Hermenutics. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. BS 476
W. R. Tate. Biblical Interpretation. 1997.
Vincent L. Tollers and John Maier (ed.). Mappings of the Biblical Terrain. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP/London: Associated University Presses, 1990.
The paper needs depth not breadth – not like mine. Also be critical, not like mine.
Add the weighting
Not Daniel for lib th – for post colo?
Gottwald
Tamez new ed.
Watson Text and Truth 95-126 for Speech-act/historical/there is meaning (eResources)
Semeia 41 (speech act): The authors are Hugh C. White, Michael Hancher, Susan S. Lanser, Daniel Patte, Ronald L. Grimes, Martin J. Buss, Robert Detweiler, Charles E. Jarrett
Semeia 59 (ideology): Sheila Briggs, Fred W. Burnett, Robert P. Carroll, Norman K. Gottwald, Fredric Jameson, David Jobling, John Milbank, Itumeleng J. Mosala, Carol A. Newsom, David Penchansky, Tina Pippin, Vernon K. Robbins, Jane Schaberg, Renita J. Weems
Fuller Theological Seminary
OT856/OT556 OT Hermeneutics Seminar
Syllabus and Course Notes
Spring 2012
John Goldingay
This Syllabus and Course Notes is also available online at
CONTACT INFORMATION
Office: Payton 213. 626 584 5609
Home: 111 South Orange Grove Boulevard, # 108. 626 405 0626. .
Faculty Assistant: Janna Gould. 626 304 3701. Payton 216. .
Office hours: I can usually meet with you in my office:
Monday 5.00-6.30 (I can see you for happy hour at McCormick’s if you would like)
Wednesday 11.00-12.00
Thursday 5.00-6.30 (or for happy hour at McCormick’s).
The course makes use of Moodle (moodle.fuller.edu). I will sometimes communicate with the class by posting news to the Moodle course site, and these postings will automatically be emailed to your fuller.edu account. Click on the Moodle link on Portico to access Moodle.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Students who successful complete the course will have demonstrated that they have:
(1)considered a variety of approaches to Old Testament hermeneutics and formed a view on more helpful and less helpful approaches;
(2)reflected on approaches to the relationship between Old Testament faith and New Testament faith and formed a view on more appropriate and less appropriate approaches;
(3)applied these approaches to specific Old Testament texts.
ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING
For OT856, the course notionally takes 360 hours, for OT556 120 hours. This works out approximately as follows:
a) Class: 30 hours
b) Bible study in preparation for class, with posting of notes on Moodle by 12 noon on the day before class:
OT856: 54 hours, or6 hours each week from weeks 2 to 10. Post 300-350 words of notes.
OT556:18 hours, or 2 hours each week from weeks 2 to 10. Post 200-250 words of notes.
Your reading of the scriptural material should focus not on exegetical-type questions but on questions such as:
What helps people understand this passage?
What hinders understanding?
Where does interpretation often fall short, and why?
Where does interpretation go wrong, and why?
If you wish and if you have chance, you can then look at other people’s postings before the class. I will read the postings in preparation for the class and tell individuals by e-mail whether they pass OK. I grade them pass-fail.
We shall read a bit of the book in Hebrew in class, as listed for each week. You may prepare it if you wish, to avoid embarrassment!
c) Set reading each week from the required, recommended, and other reading listed below, or other books by negotiation:
OT856: 224 hours over weeks 2-9, an average of 28 hours per week, plus some review for week 10. This would come to about 500-600 pages per week. On the basis of your reading, you post ten one-sentence questions and comments on some or all of the following:
What were key points as the authors saw them in reading you did this week?
How do they apply to the scriptural material for this week – or for any other OT material?
What are the important issues the reading raises as you yourself see it?
What are the important insights?
What do you question?
What do you not understand?
OT556: 56 hours over weeks 2-9, an average of 7 hours per week, plus some review for week 10. This would come to about 200 pages per week. On the basis of your reading, you post five one-sentence questions and comments on some or all of those questions.
Whichever program you are in, you post your sentences on Moodle by 12 noon each Wednesday. If you wish and if you have chance, you can then look at other people’s postings before the class. I will read the postings in preparation for the class, and tell individuals by e-mail whether they pass OK. I grade the postings pass-fail
d) Presentations to class:
OT856students spend 40 hours preparing two presentations for the class (20 hours for each), each presentation being on one of the books from the lists below(other than the ones listed for preparation for each week which everyone will read) or on other books by negotiation. Each presentation is to be 2000 words. It should be not be a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book; we want to have the key ideas, the key assumptions, some analysis, and some critique. Post your presentation by 12 noon on the day before the class for people to read before the class. At the class bring a one page handout on which you have put a 500-word summary of the paper as a lead-in to discussion. The two presentations together countfor 25% of the final grade.
e) Final Paper:
OT856: you spend 40 hours writing a 9-10,000-word paper on the basis of the class and the reading during the quarter(I don’t expect you to do any further reading for this paper). One possibility is to write a paper on either “Hermeneutics of the Narrative Books” (Joshua-Nehemiah) or “Hermeneutics of the Latter Prophets” along the lines of my papers “Hermeneutics of the Pentateuch” and “Hermeneutics of the Poetic Books and Short Stories” ( Or you can negotiate some other title.
75%**
OT556: you spend 16 hours writing a 5-6000-word final paper, otherwise as specified for OT856. Alternatively you may write a 4000-word paper plus a 2000-word paper along the lines of the presentations described under (d). You may then negotiate to offer this 2000-word presentation to the class if they wish, depending on how many OT856 students there are.
Email your paper(s) to (not as a PDF) by 11.59 p.m. on Friday June 8. Use single space,proper English and gender-inclusive language. Do not use endnotes; footnotes are OK, but it is better to put references in brackets in the text, APA-style, and put a bibliography at the end. Include your name in the file title (that is, don’t call it “final paper”). Put your name and the course number and title at the top of the actual paper. Transliterate Hebrew or embed truetype fonts.
If you e-mail your paper before the deadline day, I will try to grade it within three working days. Then if you do not like the grade and wish to revise it and turn it in again, you can do so by the deadline day. If you turn it in on the deadline day, I will try to grade it within two weeks. If you have not received your paper back within those time frames, you can ask me whether I have received it.
I comment on papers using the “Comment” facility in Word and return them electronically. Using MS Word you can see my comments if you go “Alt-View” then “Reading Layout.” If you don’t have MS Word, you can download software to enable you to read the comments from or from
POLICIES
(a) Attendance at classes
You must attend all classes. If you miss an evening your grade is lowered by .1. If you miss more than one evening, you fail the course. If you have to miss class through some unexpected event beyond your control such as illness, send me an e-mail and I will excuse you. Otherwise you do not have to inform me if you expect to miss class.
(b) Your grade for the course
Your grade comes from your paper but before the classes you must also post satisfactory preparation notes on the prescribed reading for weeks 2-9 and on the biblical material for weeks 2-10. Missing more than one class, or missing or failing more than one posting, means you fail the course.
(c) Incompletes
ForOT556 students, if you are unable to complete your paper(s) because of a serious problem that was unpredictable and unavoidable, I can grant you an “Incomplete.” You mustdownload the form from the Registry and get it signed before the end of the quarter. If you need to get this done after the last class, e-mail me about it. We will then arrange for my Faculty Assistant to sign the form on my behalf. I do not have the power to grant an Incomplete on the basis of (e.g.) your agreeing to take on extra work or pastoral or mission commitments, or other busyness that you could have foreseen (see Student Handbook on “Academic Policies”). I do not grant Incompletes with regard to the preparation, because it is preparation for the class.
(d) Academic Integrity Commitment
In doing your homework and writing your papers, I expect you to:
Use your mind energetically in your study
Look to see what scripture and other reading has to say to you personally
Be faithful to God
Not to say anything that you do not think
Attribute quotations or paraphrases or sources of information that you could not check
There is a longer seminary academic integrity commitment at the end of the syllabus and course notes. There is also there a note for students with disabilities
AN INVITATION
My wife Kathleen and I invite the class (and spouses) for BBQ at 5.00 before class on May 10; we will then stay at our apartment for the class if this is not inconvenient. We live at The Rose Tree condominiums, 111 South Orange Grove Boulevard, on the corner of Green Street, one block south of Colorado Boulevard, and within sight of the Norton Simon Museum. From Fuller, drive west on Walnut to the end, then turn left into North Orange Grove Boulevard, drive for 400 yards, then turn right into Green Street and drive on to park in the Rose Tree parking lot at the end of Green Street, on the left. A gate off the parking lot leads into the pool area where the BBQ is.
Class Schedule and Bibliographies
Some goodgeneral resources, from which you will read most weeks:
Collins,John J. The Bible after Babel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.
Methods of Biblical Interpretation. Nashville: Abingdon, 2004.
Perdue, Leo G. Reconstructing Old Testament Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005.
Thiselton, Anthony C. Hermeneutics: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
Week 1: March 29
Introduction; Devotional Interpretation
Schedule
6.30-7.45 Introduction to the course and to the subject
7.45-8.05 Break
8.05-9.20Bible study: Esther, with video and discussion. Hebrew: Esther 4:12-17
David in the Psalms
Leadership
Song of Songs
***
Some things I have written:
Approaches to Old Testament Interpretation. Leicester/Downers Grove, IL: IVP, rev. ed., 1990.
Models for Interpretation of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995.
The following are at along with lots of other things:
“Hermeneutics of the Pentateuch.” In Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. D. W. Baker and T. D. Alexander. Downers Grove, IL/Leicester, UK: IVP, 2002.
“Hermeneutics of the Poetic Books and Short Stories.” InDictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry, and Writings, ed. T. Longman and P. Enns. Downers Grove, IL/Leicester, UK: IVP, 2008.
“Isaiah 53 in the Pulpit.”
“The Old Testament and Christian Faith: Jesus and the Old Testament in Matthew 1 – 5.” Themelios 8/1 (1982): 4–10; 8/2 (1983): 5–12.
“Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern in Old Testament Study” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (ed. J. W. Rogerson and J. D. G. Dunn). Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2003.
Week 2: April 5
Pre-modern Interpretation: Midrashic, Christological, Typological, Allegorical Interpretation
Preparation:
Romans: analyze its ways of using the Old Testament. My paper on “The First Testament and Christian Faith” ( could provide you with a model – not a template in the sense that the same headings will work, but an idea of the kind of way to do this.
Anthony C. Thiselton, Hermeneutics, chapters 1-7
Relevant articles in Methods of Biblical Interpretation
Some of the references below.
Schedule:
6.30-7.45 Discussion of issues from the reading
7.45-8.05 Break
8.05-8.55 Bible study: Romans (with Genesis 15:1-8 in Hebrew)
8.55-9.20 Presentation by John Goldingay: “Theological Interpretation of Scripture.”
Further Bibliography:
Barr, James. Old and New in Interpretation. London: SCM/New York: Harper, 1966.
Bornkamm, H. Luther and the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969.
Brown, R. E. The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture. Baltimore: St Mary’s University, 1955.
Bruce, F. F. This is That. Exeter: Paternoster, 1968. = The New Testament Development of Old Testament Themes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968.
Ellis, E. Earle. Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
Gundry, R. H. The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Leiden: Brill, 1967.
Hays, Richard B. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven: Yale UP, 1989.
Juel, D. Messianic Exegesis. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.
Knowles, Melody, and others (ed.). Contesting Texts: Jews and Christians in Conversation about the Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007.
Lindsey, Hal. The Late Great Planet Earth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970.
Longenecker, R. N. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.
-- “Can We Reproduce the Exegesis of the New Testament?” Tyndale Bulletin 21 (1970): 3-38. Available online at books.google.com if you Google this title.
-- “‘Who is the Prophet Talking about?’” Themelios 13/1 (1987): 4-8.
Preus, J. S. From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1969.
Steinmetz, David C. “The Superiority of Pre-critical Exegesis.” Theology Today 37 (1980): 27-38.
Week 3: April 12
Experiential Interpretation
Preparation:
Psalms 87 and 88, and the commentaries on these psalms by Augustine, Calvin, and Spurgeon (Google “Augustine Psalms,” “Calvin Psalms,” and “Spurgeon Treasury”).
Anthony C. Thiselton, Hermeneutics, chapters 8-11
Relevant articles in Methods of Biblical Interpretation
Some of the references below.
Schedule:
6.30-7.45 Discussion of issues from the reading
7.45-8.05 Break
8.05-8.55 Bible study: Psalms 87 (with Hebrew, but it’s very tricky) and 88
8.55-9.20 Presentation
Further Bibliography:
Dilthey, Wilhelm. “The Development of Hermeneutics.” In Dilthey, Selected Writings. Cambridge/New York: CUP, 1976. Also in The Hermeneutics Reader (ed. K. Mueller-Vollmer), 149-64. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
Gadamer, H. G. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad, 1982.
Goldingay, John. Models for Interpretation of Scripture, 216-32, 251-65. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995.
Schleiermacher, F. D. E. Hermeneutics. Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977.
Thiselton, Anthony C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), chs 6-7 and 9
Thiselton, AnthonyC. The Two Horizons. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979. Esp. for the treatment of Gadamer, which Thiselton’s newer book New Horizons presupposes.
Week 4: April 19
Modern, Historical, and Speech-Act Interpretation
Preparation:
Isaiah 41:8-16; 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 52:13 – 53:12
John J. Collins,The Bible after Babel(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), chs 1-2.
Semeia 41 (1988), 59 (1992). Available through ATLA.
Relevant articles in Methods of Biblical Interpretation
Some of the references below.
Schedule
6.30-7.20Presentation by Professor Jim Adams
7.20-8.10Discussion of issues from the reading
8.10-8.30Break
8.30-9.20 Bible Study (with Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 in Hebrew, but it’s tricky)
Further Bibliography:
Adams, James W. Speech Act Theory, Biblical Interpretation, and Isaiah 40 – 55. Diss. Fuller Theological Seminary, 2004. =
Adams, Jim W. The Performative Nature and Function of Isaiah 40 – 55. New York/London: Clark, 2006.
Assmann, Jan. Religion and Cultural Memory. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2006. Ch 5.
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford/New York: OUP, 1962.
Barr, James. History and Ideology in the Old Testament. Oxford/London: OUP, 2000.
Clines, David J. A. I, He, We and They. Sheffield: JSOT, 1976.
Evans, Donald D. The Logic of Self-Involvement. London: SCM, 1963.
Harvey, Van A. The Historian and the Believer. New York: Macmillan, 1966.
Hirsch, E. D. The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1976.
-- Validity in Interpretation. New Haven/London: Yale UP, 1967.
Krentz, Edgar. The Historical-Critical Method. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.
Kuhn, Karl Allen. Having Word with God: The Bible as Conversation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008.
Morgan, Robert, with John Barton. Biblical Interpretation. Oxford/New York: OUP, 1988.
Pannenberg, Wolfgang. Basic Questions in Theology. 2 vols. London: SCM, 1970/Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971.
-- (ed.). Revelation as History. New York/London: Macmillan, 1968.
Perdue, Leo G. The Collapse of History. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994.
Ramsey, George W. The Quest for the Historical Israel. Atlanta: Knox, 1981/London: SCM, 1982.
Robinson, James M., and John B. Cobb. Theology as History. New York: Harper, 1967.
Thiselton, Anthony C. New Horizons in Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. Chs 8-9.
Wright, G. Ernest. God Who Acts. London: SCM, 1952.
Week 5: April 26: Post-modern Interpretation
Preparation:
Job 1 - 5, 38 - 42