Here are my justifications for each year:
9th- this is my hope of TRULY having an ecumenical program that is not just bible, but christianity as a whole. It deals with church history, worship, and the place of the bible and bible studies. It correlated well to a freshman level history class.

10th- I feel very strongly that the hermaneutical abilities are far more foundational and critical and deserve primary focus (i.e. their own year prior to any content study). The actual “what’s in the bible” can always be filled in later in life.

11th- yes, it is obviously a total cram if you plan on being exhaustive. But so is teaching the entire world of physics in one year! A high level overview is all that this should be- and yet from an academic standpoint. Juniors can handle this simultaneously fast pace, and deep reach.

12th- it’s ok if they take one and not the other (no theology for instance). The church should be providing these items anyway (whereas, depending on the tradition, I don’t expect it should for the former three items). Not to say they aren’t valuable- Let the seniors go way deep here! Otherwise, perhaps a semester approach to these elevtives is possible, I’m open here.

I have planned on writing and publishing a curriculum that covers the 9th and 10th info asap. I have some work done. I would love feedback on this as well.

Thanks for your post.

Re: #1 – Honestly, I think forcing ancient Greek upon high school students would be met with open rebellion in the classroom. Ha!

Re: #2 – To me, it sounds like Paul is sending an entourage before him to Rome. This goes along with the idea that Romans is a letter of introduction, paving the way for Paul’s future ministry there (at this point, he’s not been to Rome).

What happened to these people? Not sure. “After their encounter with Paul” it appears they went to Rome! What happened there? I don’t know. I’d have to consult a good commentary on Romans to see if there’s any information about any of them in “secular” history.
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2. What is your thoughts about the people list in Romans the last chapter. Who were they and where did they come from and where did they go after their encounter with Paul? Can they be found in secular history?

Jerry Collins

I completely agree that 1 semester for an overview of the OT and then 1 semester for an overview of the NT is inadequate. When our department researched other schools, however, we found that this was fairly common. As I thought about it, I came to the conclusion that 1 year is really insufficient to introduce the student to all of the stuff that we want them to get out of the OT (and the same goes for the NT).

So, how to solve this problem? Well, my “solution” focuses on building skills that will equip the student to read and understand on his/her own.

I do think it’s a chicken-and-egg issue, honestly. The problem is extremely circular:

- In order to understand hermeneutics, students need a certain amount of Biblical knowledge.
- In order to understand the Bible, students need certain hermeneutical skills.

So, where do you start?

Maybe your solution is best: integrate hermeneutics as you go. I believe that is what our department does at the moment. My fear, though, is that the student might have difficulty categorizing different hermeneutical modes and methods because there is not enough focus on those operations (since the focus is probably MORE on the Biblical knowledge).

BUT, maybe you (or someone else out there) have a different whiz-bang solution to this whole conundrum.

Thanks again!

However, at least based on my experience, I am not sure that you can roll OT/NT Survey into one year. I teach OT to the 9th and NT to the 10th, and I am constantly shocked/appalled/depressed by the lack of basic Bible knowledge, with occasional exception of the good ol’ Southern Baptist kid who has been in Sunday School his whole life, or the student who did AWANA growing up. Yet, I simply don’t have enough time to cover everything that I feel like Christian high school students should know, especially from the OT.

Of course, I am also trying to integrate what looks like your 9th grade hermeneutics goals as I go through each section of Scripture, but I would still humbly suggest that there may be some value in giving the students a basic (one-year) overview of the Bible before the hermeneutics class. Or maybe it’s just a chicken-and-egg issue.

I have been talking with Fourth about this after I had him read your post. He agrees with the 9 – 10 formulation; however, don’t you think this point works against what you told be about those schools you visited: “Therefore, the Freshman course needs to be less academic, less rigorous than the rest.”

My point: A school is a school and a church is a church. It seems that if expectations for academics are low the first year they will continue to be low.

And here is my response:

“My point: A school is a school and a church is a church. It seems that if expectations for academics are low the first year they will continue to be low.”

Couldn’t agree more. The desire for a less academic feel in the lower level courses was an idea that was placed in our laps from up above. At the moment, I don’t see that changing.

It seems to me that an academically challenging institution should be academically challenging from top-to-bottom, no matter what department you’re in.

There are a couple of thoughts behind delaying the OT/NT Surveys:

(1) At some point I think the student needs to learn different methods for reading these texts (you can call it “hermeneutics,” but it’s really much more rudimentary than that). I’m sure this can be done on the fly, but I’m not sure if it can be done in a survey setting where we are trying to get the bird’s-eye-view of what these materials contain.

(2) There is a desire from up on top to have the courses become increasingly academic as the student progresses through the program. Therefore, the Freshman course needs to be less academic, less rigorous than the rest.

That being said, I’d love to find a way to free up some more room in the schedule. If OT/NT Survey were done freshman year, then perhaps the senior year could be elective courses. Or, we could find something else entirely to do with the added year available.

My point: Why not devote one semester during the Freshman year to the OT survey and a semester to NT survey, which then allows more room to explore more subject matter.