Greek Exegesis: Philippians – NGRK 645

Course Description

An exegesis of Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians giving special attention to Christological passages.

Rationale

The primary mission of LUSOD is to train persons for ministry positions. This course seeks to enable students to understand and to communicate God’s Word properly, which is a primary function of ministry. One goal of LUSOD is “to develop cognitive skills for ministry and scholarship through rigorous interaction with the biblical text...” This course seeks to provide this “rigorous interaction” with the Greek New Testament through the actual practice of biblical exegesis and exposition and by the analysis of the argument of Philippians.

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 Module/Week 1.

Discussion Board Forums (5)

Discussion boards are collaborative learning experiences. Therefore, students must respond to a question or prompt which stimulates their thinking and reflecting on the issues raised by the prompt. In this course, students must participate in 5 Discussion Board forums. Students' participation in the Discussion Board will take the form of reading the prompt and then responding by creating a thread that addresses the questions/issues raised by the prompt. After  posting a thread in response to the prompt, students must log back in and respond to the threads of at least two classmates, affirming agreements, stating reasons for disagreements, and/or offering new insights or raising new questions unanticipated in classmates' threads.

The original thread must include a minimum of 600 words, not including footnotes and bibliography. For each Discussion Board, students are to offer replies to two separate classmates, each of which contain a minimum of 200 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. Students may use either footnotes/bibliography or parenthetical citations/bibliography, but not both. Correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation must be used. See the Discussion Board Grading Rubric for the grading criteria.

Translation Assignments (7)

Students are responsible for completing a translation assignment most weeks in which they will produce an original English translation of an assigned portion of the Greek text of Philippians. Students are to complete their translation on a provided document which must be submitted in Blackboard by 11:59 P.M. (EST) on Sunday of the assigned Week/Module. Up to 40 points may be earned for completion of each translation assignment. Students will be assessed on the basis of the completion and competency of the translation. (CLOs: A, B, C, D)

Reading Quizzes (7)

Students are to complete an online reading quiz most module/weeks of the course. For each reading quiz, students must answer questions from Joseph Hellerman’s commentary of Philippians. For example, the first quiz will cover Hellerman’s commentary of Phil 1:1-11, the same passage that students must translate. Each quiz will include 20 questions, each of which will be worth 1.5 points (30 total points). There is a 3 hour time limit for each reading quiz and students may consult the volume as they complete it. All questions are objective in nature (e.g., True/False or Multiple Choice). Each reading quiz must be completed by the final day of the week/module it is assigned. (CLOs: B, D)

Exegetical Paper

Students must complete an exegetical paper on the text of Phil 2:1-11. The paper should include information on the relevant portions contained in Blomberg’s exegetical guide summarized in the “Summary” section of A Handbook of New Testament Exegesis (located between Chapter 10 and the Appendix). While relevant historical background should be considered, the main focus of the paper should be the Greek text.

Papers should follow Turabian style, be double-spaced, written in Times New Roman font (including footnotes), and contain between 15-20 pages of text (not counting the title page, bibliography, or appendices). Be sure to include a title page, a brief introduction and conclusion, and appropriate headings and subheadings. As an appendix, students should include the complete Greek text with their original English translation.

Students are to make use of at least 12 scholarly sources in their paper. Sources published exclusively online and general resources may be consulted but will not count toward this total. Try to avoid single-volume commentaries on the entire New Testament and commentaries that are not current. Students are encouraged to make use of exegetical commentaries, scholarly monographs, Greek lexicons and dictionaries, and journal articles which focus specifically on the selected text. Block quotes should be used sparingly to support rather than dictate arguments and should amount to no more than 10% of the entire paper.