General Description

The student is required to take twelve credits, distributing the work as follows:

 
1. Courses OT2101 Orientation to Old Testament Studies, and NT2101 Introduction to the New Testament, which must be completed during the first year of work

2. One course (three credits) in New Testament and one course (three credits) in Old Testament, one of which must be designated as “close reading of the text”

Although not required for the M.Div degree, students are encouraged to take Greek and/or Hebrew, and language-based exegesis courses. Exegesis courses are offered on two tracks,  English-based and language-based. Entering students who have studied Greek and/or Hebrew in a college or university setting and who wish to have an introductory language prerequisite waived must take the appropriate language placement examination(s). Students who have studied the equivalent of two full semesters or more of a biblical language at an ATS-accredited seminary or  divinity school and have earned a grade of B or better need not take a placement examination.

Goals and Pedagogy

As a means of evaluating the student’s ability to carry on exegetical work in New Testament, the Greek placement examination will seek to determine:

1. The candidate’s ability to decline nouns, adjectives, and participles and to conjugate and parse (analyze) verbs

2. Acquaintance with fundamental syntactical construction (such as those dealt with in J.W. Voelz’s Fundamental Greek Grammar, Concordia Publishing Company)

3. Proficiency in translating moderately difficult passages from the Greek New Testament. An unmarked copy of the BDAG lexicon (Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament) may be used as a resource while taking this examination.

 
As a means of evaluating the student’s ability to carry on exegetical work in Old Testament, the Hebrew placement examination will seek to determine the candidate’s ability to:

 
1. Analyze Hebrew forms

2. Understand the fundamental syntactical construction

3. Translate prose passages from the Hebrew Bible cat1011

 
Students who have studied modern Hebrew should become familiar with an introductory grammar such as T.O. Lambdin’s Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Scribner’s) or C.L. Seow’s Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Abingdon). An unmarked copy of the BDB lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament) may be used as a resource while taking this examination.