This study identifies the dominant modes of biblical interpretation being taught in introductory Bible courses through a qualitative analysis of course syllabi from three institutional contexts: evangelical Christian colleges, private colleges, and public universities. Despite a proliferation of methods and scholarly approaches to the Bible, this study reveals that historical-critical approaches continue to predominate in pedagogical contexts, especially private colleges and public universities. In Christian colleges, theological approaches appear more frequently, usually alongside historical criticism and rarely supplanting it. The study also shows that teachers have been deploying social scientific and ideological approaches with increasing frequency over the past decade. Additionally, the study tracked instruments of student assessment in these courses. Public universities showed a particularly high level of pedagogical conservatism in this regard, while Christian colleges exhibit the greatest diversity with respect to course assignments and evaluations. See also "Response to 'How We Teach Introductory Bible Courses'" by

What happened to Kemosh in the era after Moab’s loss of political independence? The present article first argues that this question is of interest to scholarship on the Hebrew Bible because Kemosh and Yhwh were initially twinlike: both were patron deities of Iron Age Levantine kingdoms and shared various similarities of profile. As such, comparing the postnational history of Kemosh and Yhwh can help to isolate the historical and intellectual events without which Yhwh would presumably have developed along similar lines to Kemosh. This article next argues that both deities underwent »the Greek interpretation« by becoming identified with their equivalent in the Greek pantheon. But unlike Kemosh, Yhwh’s evolution included a counterbalancing force, i.e.

In everyday English parlance, God’s name is simply “God.” In the Hebrew Bible, however, the God of Israel has a personal proper name, similar to “Susan” or “Teddy”: the four-lettered name YHWH, also known as the Tetragrammaton (Greek for “four letters”). This name is by far the most common designation for God in the Hebrew Bible. Four texts within this body of literature give special attention to God’s disclosure of the divine name to humankind: in Gen 4:25–26 shortly after the creation of the first humans; and in Exod 3, Exod 6, and Ezek 20 at the time of God’s emancipation of the Israelites from their enslavement in Egypt. English translations obscure the prominence of God’s name by replacing Hebrew YHWH with the common noun “Lord,” written in small caps. As it turns out, this practice has an ancient pedigree: already in the Second Temple era, spoken recitations of the Hebrew Bible replaced Hebrew YHWH with the Hebrew word for “Lord,” adonay, and written manuscripts marked the name YHWH with special orthography. Later Christian copies of the Greek Old Testament would bring the oral tradition directly into the text itself, substituting Greek κύριος, “Lord,” for YHWH. These customs probably trace back to the influence of several other biblical texts, including the fourth commandment of the Decalogue (Exod 20:7//Deut 5:11) and Lev 24:16. The Talmud (Pes. 50a) also records a rabbinic interpretation of Exod 3:15 according to which God says “This [YHWH] is my name to conceal.” But God has other names in the Hebrew Bible, too. Several names are formed by joining YHWH together with a second word, for example: YHWH ṣebaoth, a phrase that is usually translated into English as “the Lord of hosts”; or again, another example: YHWH elohim, translated “the Lord God.” The second part of this compound name is also an important name for God in its own right. The word elohim in Hebrew means “god” or “gods.” It is technically a plural noun, although most of the time in Hebrew it refers to a single divine agent. It is also typically a common noun similar to the English word “god”; that is, it signifies one among a class of divine beings. However, also as in English, Hebrew elohim occasionally functions as a proper name: capital-G God. Another Hebrew noun for god, eloah, shares a similarly dual purpose: mostly it is a generic word for divinity but sometimes it is the caption for the one God of Israel (i.e., YHWH). These two names—YHWH and its compound forms as well as elohim in its usage as a name—cover the majority of instances when the Hebrew Bible names God. A few other divine titles are name-like but not, properly speaking, names. The first among these is the word Shadday, but also the series of so-called “el-epithets” found in the book of Genesis: El Elyon, El the Creator of Heaven and Earth, El Roi, and El Olam.

This article gives an account of one introductory New Testament class taught in the fall of 2019; although answering to the historical interests commonplace to biblical studies instruction, it also experimented with a place-based pedagogy for spiritual growth. The article provides intellectual backgrounds, especially drawing from Willie James Jennings’s work, describes the class in terms of its course objectives and guiding epigrams, and details three “discernment projects”: the Forest Kinship Project; the Passion Project; and the Exorcism Project, each of which paired study of Scripture (Mark 1:12–13; Luke 22–23; and Synoptic accounts of exorcisms, respectively) with a place-specific experience.

A revisitation of the Yeb archives with an eye to the question of cult statuary. The present article inventories the state of the question and makes several constructive suggestions. Its primary contributions are: to address the Yeb evidence, even preliminarily, to the debate over Yhwh statuary in the Jerusalem temple; to make a fresh interpretation of tad A4.7/8; and to reread other key textual data for information about statuary.