Psalms in our Worship - The John and Kathleen Show

Fuller Theological Seminary
OT 500: THE WRITINGS AS INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
SYLLABUS AND COURSE NOTES
John Goldingay
Winter 2013 The Way This Folder Works
After the Course Description and Syllabus, a section for each evening gives
you . A page with information on the preparatory homework required, the plan
for the classroom time, and suggestions for further reading
. Worksheets and reading for preparatory homework
. Lecture outlines At the end there are some papers for reading as preparatory homework, as
specified in the section for a class. You will read other papers online
(if you want the hard copy of a journal article, it's in Periodicals, not
on the Reserve shelf.) Index 1-14 Course Description, Syllabus, Assignments 15 January 10: Introduction
16-19 Studying the OT, Studying OT History and OT Narrative
20-23 Narrative interpretation; Ezra and Nehemiah 24 January 17: Chronicles; Esther
25-26 Homework questions on Chronicles and Esther
27-29 Chronicles: Message and Origin; Further reading on Chronicles
30-31 Why Esther is in scripture; Further reading on Esther
32 Why Would There Be Fiction in the Bible? 33 January 24: Ruth; Introducing the Psalter
34-37 Homework questions on Ruth and on Psalms
38-41 What kind of story is Ruth?; Hesed; Further reading on Ruth
42-46 Introducing the Psalter; Poetry, Form, Social Context
47-59 David-Psalms; Psalms as World-creating; Compilation and
Reinterpretation
50-51 Further reading on Psalms 52 January 31: Psalms of Protest
53-54 Homework questions on Psalm 22 and on "The costly loss of lament"
55-56 Homework questions on Psalms 88 and 89
57-60 How to pray for ourselves; Individual and community; Death and
afterlife; Psalms and NT
61-64 How to pray for other people
65-67 How to pray against other people? (Psalm 137)
68 Anyone can write a psalm of protest/lament; 69 February 7: Thanksgiving psalms; Psalms of Confession; Lamentations
70-71 Homework questions: Your lament/protest psalm; Psalms 30 and
118
72-73 Homework questions on Psalms 51 and on Lamentations
74 How to give your testimony; The king in the Psalms
75-77 How to pray for the government; How to pray for your nation;
78-79 How the prayer-testimony process gets short-circuited; Anyone
can give their testimony
80 Psalm 51 and the headings referring to events in David's life
81-83 How the Babylonians prayed for forgiveness; How to say you're
sorry; Lamentations 84 February14: Psalms of trust; Introduction to Wisdom
85-86 Homework Questions: Your testimony; Psalm 139
87 Homework questions on Proverbs 22-24 and middle-eastern wisdom
88-90 How to keep hoping; Psalm 139; The interrelationship of praise and
prayer
91-92 How to learn from life; Further reading on Wisdom
93 Feminist approaches to the Wisdom books
94 February 21: Proverbs; Song of Songs
95-100 Pondering on Proverbs; with homework questions
101-3 Reading the Song of Songs; with homework questions
104-5 How to stay faithful; Gospel and wisdom
106-7 How to live sensibly; Further reading on Proverbs
108-9 How to love; Further reading on Song of Songs 110 February 28: Job
111-12 Homework questions on Job and on the Babylonian Theodicy
113-15 Introducing Job: How to cope with suffering; Further reading on
Job
116-17 Job: The Answers; Using Job in mourning 118 March 7: Ecclesiastes, Review
119-20 Homework questions on Ecclesiastes
121 Homework questions: Review
122-24 Ecclesiastes: How to live with doubt; Further reading on
Ecclesiastes
125-26 Narrative, Worship, and Wisdom in Daniel
127-29 Looking back over the Writings 130 March 14: Daniel
131-32 Homework questions on Daniel 1 - 6
133-34 Homework questions on Daniel 7 - 12
135-37 How to Study a Passage
138 Academic Integrity Commitment; Students with Disabilities
139 Sample test The Contents of "Dr John's Guide to OT Study"
(http://documents.fuller.edu/sot/faculty/goldingay) 1. The Structure of the Fuller OT course (and the structure of the
OT)/
2. Fuller's Attitude to the Bible (authority, inspiration,
infallibility, canon, etc)
3. Reading the OT as the Word of God in its Own Right
4. Reading the OT Pre-modernly, Modernly, and Post-modernly
5. An Outline of OT history
6. How I Teach and Why I Teach the Way I Do
7. Words for God (and Israel)
8. The Fall
9. Satan (and His Fall) in the OT
10. Death and Afterlife in the OT
11. The Soul
12. Expressions I Use that Might Need Explaining
13. Expressions I Don't Use and You Shouldn't
14. Text and Translation
15. Gender-inclusive Language
16. An OT Library for a Minister Course Description
John Goldingay's Contact Information
Office: Payton 213. 626 584 5609.
Home: 111 South Orange Grove Boulevard, # 108. 626 405 0626.
johngold@fuller.edu.
Faculty Assistant: Hannah Kelley. 626 304 3701. Payton 216.
hannahkelley@fuller.edu .
Hannah works 20 hours per week; when she is not there, talk to Mark Baker-
Wright in the Dean's Office. Office hours: I can usually meet with you in my office:
Monday 5.00-6.30 (I can see you for happy hour at McCormick's if you would
like)
Wednesday 11.00-12.00
Thursday 5.00-6.30 (or for happy hour at McCormick's).
Call 626 405 0626 to arrange one of these times or another time.
Or talk to me after class (but not in the break, as I need to rest my
voice) Call me John if you can, but anything else is fine if you can't manage a
Christian name. The TAs:
Erica Monge. em@writingcoach.me Nathan Yearian nyearian@gmail.com Erica and Nathan grade the homework. I grade the papers, but you can talk
to them about how to write the papers, and I especially encourage you to do
so if you know you do not find it easy to write correct English, or to
structure a paper. Note that the ESL program and the Writing Center (cal-
writing@cp.fuller.edu) offer help in writing papers in good English (see
the Student Handbook). But talk to John about questions concerning paper topics, extensions for a
paper, or Incompletes. 1 Course Description
The course introduces study of the Old Testament as the Word of God, a work
of literature, a work emerging out of Israel's history, and a work that
needs to be studied critically to grasp its significance. It focuses on
the third section of the Jewish scriptures, the Writings: Psalms, Job,
Proverbs, the Scrolls (Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, and
Esther), Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. My aim is that by the end
of the course students should have become convinced about the wide-ranging
significance of these books for our life with God and committed to shaping
their lives by them and using them in their mission and ministry. The course makes use of the Moodle course management system. Click on the
Moodle link from Portico vis the "My Courses" tab. If you have trouble
with Moodle, call or email my faculty assistant or me - not a T.A. I will
sometimes communicate with the class by posting news to the Moodle course
site, and these postings will then be automatically emailed to your Fuller
account. Make sure you empty your inbox so there is room for such messages
and that your Fuller account forwards if necessary. 2 Learning Outcomes Students who successfully complete the course will have demonstrated that
they:
(1) have grasped the outline of Israel's history as portrayed in Old and
New Testaments and in light of modern study;
(2) understand the nature and process of the Old Testament's composition,
especially as illustrated by Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Daniel;
(3) understand the nature of worship, prayer, and wisdom as illustrated by
the Writings and its relationship with ancient Near Eastern equivalents;
(4) know how to interpret Old Testament narrative, as illustrated by the
Writings;
(5) have looked at aspects of the Writings from angles other than those of
the male, white, Western world;
(6) have reflected on the significance of the Writings for Christian faith,
theology, mission, and discipleship. 3 Assignments and Evaluation These are the same whether you are registered for a grade or taking the
course pass-fail. (a) Preparation Homework (36 hours) There is homework to do before most classes. You do this work on the pages
in the course notes headed "homework 2a," "homework 2b," etc (there is no
"homework 1" because there is no homework before the first class). There
are usually two homeworks each with two pages. These are usually designed
to take about two hours each (four hours per week) before class. Write 200-
250 words per page of this folder (that is, 400-500 words for the typical
homework that has two pages, and thus 800-1000 words for the two homeworks
for a typical evening). Each week you post your homework by 11.00 p.m.on the Monday before the
class. To post your homework, log in at moodle.fuller.edu and click on the
course number. Look for the appropriate homework assignment and click on
it (e.g., "Homework 2a"). Click on "Add a New Discussion Topic." Under
"Subject," put your name (not the homework number, because that is the same
for everyone). Upload by copy-and-paste, not by uploading an attachment.
Keep a copy of your work on your own computer (Moodle has been known to
lose homework). If you accidentally post the wrong document, after 30
minutes you can't delete it, so post the right version and email me so I
can delete the wrong one. While