Acts/Pauline Epistles – NBST 830

Course Description

A study of select portions of the Acts and the Pauline Epistles. The course provides a treatment of introductory issues, aspects of background that connect the narrative of Acts to the Pauline Epistles, hermeneutical principles regarding narrative literature and epistolary literature, and a functional analysis of key interpretive issues in the study of Acts and the Pauline Epistles. The course engages with current evangelical scholarship on critical issues that relate to the study of Acts and the Pauline Epistles. Special emphasis is placed on biblical theological motifs within these books, and expositional strategies to integrate standard exegesis with biblical theological awareness. 

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the Academic Course Catalog.

Rationale

This course will provide the student with an overview of the background, major themes, and interpretive challenges associated with Acts and the Pauline Epistles. As core writings of the New Testament that have had a profound influence on the church and the academy, Acts and the Pauline Epistles play a central role in Christian theology and biblical scholarship. An examination of these subjects will thus enable the student to communicate the content of these writings more effectively and to become conversant with recent scholarship.        

Course Assignment

Textbook readings and lecture presentations

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview. 

Discussions (8)

The student will complete 8 Discussions in this course. For each Discussion, you will read the prompt and then respond by creating a thread that addresses the questions/issues raised by the prompt. After you have posted your own thread in response to the prompt, you must log back in and respond to the threads of at least two of your classmates, affirming where you agree, stating your reasons why you disagree, and/or offering new insights or raising new questions unanticipated in your classmates' threads.

In each Discussion, you must address two questions/subjects. Your response to each question/subject should contain at least 350 words (i.e., at least 700 total words between the two responses). You will find that some discussion assignments list two subjects and other list three. For assignments that list only two subjects, you must respond to both. When three subjects are listed, you may choose two of the three. Unless otherwise noted, students must support their assertions with at least 4 scholarly citations in current Turabian format. This includes interaction with the assigned textbook reading and interaction with at least 1 scholarly source in the response to each of the two topics. Replies do not require scholarly citations, but all references to scholarly sources must be properly cited in current Turabian format. In addition to the assigned textbook reading, scholarly sources include sources referenced in the assigned textbook reading and scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles that may be consulted by using the ATLA database.

For each Discussion assignment, you must also submit replies to two separate classmates, each of which should contain a minimum of 150 words. The replies should be posted in the classmate’s thread. Any sources used, including assigned readings, videos, and narrated PowerPoint presentations, must be properly documented in current Turabian format. You may use either footnotes/bibliography or parenthetical citations/bibliography, but not both in the same post. Correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation must be used. See the Discussion Assignments Grading Rubric for the grading criteria.

This course utilizes the Post-First feature in all Discussions. This means you will only be able to read and interact with your classmates' threads after you have submitted your thread in response to the provided prompt. (CLO: A, B, C, D, E, F, G)

Book Critique Assignments (2)

Students will write two book critiques in the course, one on Brandon Crowe’s The Hope of Israel: The Resurrection of Christ in the Acts of the Apostles, and the other on Michael Gorman’s Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission. Each critique is to include 5-6 pages and include a summary of the book’s content and main themes and an analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. Critiques should be divided fairly evenly between summary and the critical evaluation. The critique should be double-spaced, typed in 12 point Times New Roman font, and contain one inch margins. Quotations from the book should not exceed 10% of the overall content of the critique (CLO: A, B, C, D, E)

Quizzes (8)

Each week, students will complete a weekly open-book, open-notes quiz on the assigned material. The purpose of the quizzes is to ensure that students have carefully read the assigned material and are familiar with its contents. Quizzes must be completed in 3 hours, and submitted by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on final day of the module they are due. Each quiz includes 20-40 questions, the sum of which will equate to 30 total points. (CLO: A, D, E, G)

Pauline Interpreters Essay Assignment

The student will complete a 15–20 page essay not including the title page and bibliography that interacts with the material covered in N.T. Wright’s Paul and His Interpreters: Some Contemporary Debates (Fortress Press, 2015). The purpose of the essay is to account for the major schools of thought in recent Pauline scholarship and to offer a critical assessment of the merits of these movements. The essay will enable students to become better acquainted with recent developments in Pauline scholarship and to assess the current state of the discipline.

Each essay should be written in Turabian format, double-spaced, typed in 12 point Times New Roman font, and contain one-inch margins. Quotations from the book should not exceed 10% of the overall content of the essay. (CLO: A, B, C, D, E, G)