This 8-week class will be taught by academic and scholar Wayne Philmore LIVE via Zoom.
OUTLINE 8 WEEKS
11/12/24 6:30 PM The First Five Books (Manuscript and Textual Criticism)
How did we get the first five books of the Bible? Learn why Biblical scholars don’t hold to Moses being the author of the first five books and where that idea originated from.
11/19/24 6:30 PM The Documentary Hypothesis, Genesis, Adam and Eve, Israel
The documentary hypothesis is the standard in Biblical Criticism or Biblical scholarship. What is it? How did it form? And how does this model inform Bible scholars on the development of the Torah? How did the Adam and Eve story come to be? How did the story of Israel as read in the text come to be?
11/26/24 6:30 PM Yahweh and El | The Two Gods of Israel, The Earliest Source Texts
Piggy backing off of the Documentary Hypothesis, students will learn about how the evolution of the God of Israel. Students will learn about the Yahwists and the Elohists. How they formed and how they influenced the text of the Hebrew Bible.
12/3/24 6:30 PM The Lying Pen of the Scribes
The Bible talks about “the lying pen of the scribes”. What is that and how does this relate to source text criticism?
12/10/24 The Final Revisions of the Torah
Students will learn how we got the final edition of the Hebrew Bible we now have today. And from there on, how these redactions influenced Jewish thought.
12/17/24 The New Testament, Concepts of Messiah, The Dead Sea Scrolls, Pesher
Students will learn about the development of the concept of Messiah. Students will go through the Dead Sea Scrolls in relation to literary devices like pesher.
12/23/24 The Traditions of the New Testament, Halakah, Aggadah,
Students will learn about the oral traditions of the Jesus narrative. halakah, aggadah, and the evolution of how the 4 Gospels came to be.
(Christmas Break | Curriculum to be announced to class)
In this class, students will explore how the Bible was formed through concepts like the Documentary Hypothesis, which examines multiple sources behind the text, and redaction criticism, which studies how editors shaped and combined these sources. By understanding the processes of compilation, students will learn how historical, cultural, and theological influences led to the development of the Bible as we know it today.