1. Why is the Old Testament so long? Why not have a 7 chapter text where chapters 1 through 7 are Theology Proper, Christology, Salvation, the Church, Future Things, something else, and Inspiration of the 7 chapters, respectively? This is one of the most important questions to answer. A lot of the Old Testament's length is because of the use of word pictures (word pictures are words that access the 5 senses to engage the intellect and emotions (or experiencial realm)). Thus, much of the length of the Old Testament is because the summary statement does not always convey the exact truth as the more lengthy word picture.

2. What is literary analysis? Literary analysis looks at the extended pieces of writings whereas grammatical analysis just looks at the words. It asks the questions "how" and "why" as opposed to the question "what" that is asked by the grammatical analysis. In literary analysis, one can ask questions like, why did an author use a word picture instead of the summary statement?

3. Why study the Old Testament? This is the second most important question to answer. One should study the Old Testament: (1) to better understand the New Testament (but this reason alone, which is the same as using the Old Testament as a (secondary, not primary) reference book, is not enough), (2) to learn theology systematically or by categorization (statements about God, the future, and other similar things - systematically is cognitive learning (learning facts)), and (3) to learn about God experiencially (crossing the Red Sea helps the student experience the power of God).

4. What approach will be used in this course for studying the Old Testament? The Old Testament will be examined for (1) meaning (the author's intentions), (2) exegesis (drawing out the meaning from the text - we subordinate ourselves to the text (isogesis means putting meaning into the text)), and (3) hermeneutics (the science of interpretations, coming from Hermes/Mercury (the god of communications or the interpreting god), and (4) genre (a type or kind of something - poetry/verse, narrative/prose, and wisdom). Given the same rules of interpretation, two people should reach the same meaning unless one of them is guilty of isogesis (addiing meaning to the text).

5. Why is genre important? Genre is important because the rules of interpretation change when going from one genre to another. Narratives are interpreted differently that poetry.

6. What are the 3 parts of hermeneutics? The 3 parts are: (1) grammatical (words and the levels of words in a verse - syntax relates to the words around a word and word studies are also a part of grammatical), (2) historical (a background level outside the biblical context of the verse - geography, political history, wars, economy, and pagan cultures are some of these things considered), and (3) literary (analyzes an extended passage rather than words or a verse - asks "how" or "why").

7. How will the class look at the Old Testament? The class will (1) look at passages and genres, (2) look at prophesy as a genre, (3) look at select passages in Isaiah, Joel, and Jonah, (4) consider general introduction (archaeology, geography, and history), (5) consider special introduction (author and higher and lower level criticism), and (6) examine narratives and wisdom. Over 95% of the Old Testament has current applicability.

8. Name some related books. Some good books on hermeneutics are: (1) The Language of Love, by Smalley and Trent, (2) How to Read the Bible for all Its Worth, by Defoe and Stewart, (3) Words of Delight, by Ryken (written from a narrative, wisdom, and poetry point of view), and (4) The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text, by Gresdaner.

				Tom of Bethany

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