Into the New Testament as a whole.

1.       Regular people can gain competence in scholarly Bible reading.

2.       Careful and repeated reading leads to insight missed on cursory and/or first readings.

3.       Bible passages always mean more than one thing.

4.       There are limits to what a Bible passage may mean. That is, some interpretations are unconvincing.

5.       It is impossible to understand the New Testament apart from its use of and relation to the Old Testament.

1.    Where do we start?

2.    Is the Bible true?

3.    How is the Bible relevant to Christians' lives?

4.    How do I know if I'm right when I interpret the Bible?

5.    Who's to say what the Bible doesn't mean? (On what basis do we decide a reading is convincing or unconvincing?)

6.    Is the New Testament literature or is it history? Is it theology? Might it be all of the above? How so?

1.          Common divisions of the New Testament, such as synoptic gospels, undisputed letters of Paul, etc., and the reasons for these divisions.

2.          How and why we have many English translations of the New Testament.

3.          That most of the New Testament writers were Jews and all of the New Testament writers were steeped in the Old Testament.

4.          What literary features are (e.g., plot, characterization and setting) and how they help shape the meaning of the New Testament.

5.          That the meaning of smaller portions of New Testament text is shaped by the larger works of which they are a part.

1.       Choose the best translation for a particular use of the New Testament.

2.       Determine which words are key to a text's meaning.

3.       Find and analyze multiple occurrences of key words in a portion of the New Testament.

4.       Discover how different New Testament authors have shaped similar material.

5.       Recognize Old Testament citations and allusions in the New Testament.

6.       Outline a story and follow an argument.

7.       Analyze the role and function of New Testament characters.

8.       Locate places referred to in the New Testament and articulate the significance of place references for the meaning of a text.

9.       Describe the pace at which events unfold in a New Testament story.

10.    Recognize apocalyptic references to time and interpret them in their literary context.

11.    Retell a New Testament text in their own words.

12.    Articulate how a small part of the New Testament fits in a broader literary context.

Comparing Translations

1.       Reading multiple translations offers insight into the text—and insight into problems with the text—that reading just one translation does not offer.

2.       Translations are written for particular times, circumstances and people.

3.       The question, "Which translation is best?" begs the question, "Best for what?"

1.    Why do we have so many translations?

2.    How do we decide that one translation is better than another?

3.    What is the relationship between the authority of the Bible and the authority of a particular translation?

1.          Background on text criticism of the New Testament (i.e., that we have no original manuscripts of the New Testament, and the manuscripts we do have often disagree).

2.          The criteria used to make educated guesses about which manuscripts are oldest and best.

3.          The "Five Ts" of translation comparison (text questions, translation questions, translators' perspective, target audience, type of translation).

1.       Recognize the "Five Ts" at work in translation differences.

2.       Evaluate translations with (a) your knowledge of Greek and/or (b) reference helps (such as, a study Bible, a lexicon and Bruce M. Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament).

3.       Follow the logic of how decisions are made for which manuscripts are likely oldest and best.

4.       Decide which translation is best for various contemporary uses of the New Testament.

Comparing Similar Texts

1.    If you think you've heard it before, you probably have.

2.    The different contexts of similar texts mean changes in focus and meaning.

3.    Biblical authors edited their sources to shape the meaning of their writing.

4.    Sometimes "similar texts" occur across the Old and New Testaments.

1.    What do we mean when we say the Holy Spirit has inspired the Scriptures?

2.    How "creative" were the New Testament writers?

3.    Do inconsistencies in the way similar stories are told cast doubt on the Bible's truthfulness?

1.          Theories of a text's development and of meaning in, behind, and in front of the text.

2.          Theories of synoptic relationships and the synoptic problem.

1.       Use a synopsis to find subtle differences in the synoptic gospels.

2.       Use Pauline Parallels and/or a concordance or study Bible to find similar Pauline texts.

Studying Words

1.       Word study does not mean word count.

2.       Key words are not always explicitly theological or technical.

3.       Exegesis requires deciding what information to disregard.

4.       The exegetical skills you're learning aren't done in isolation from each other.

1.    So what? Is what I am finding out important? How do I know?

2.    How do the skills I'm learning fit together?

1.          Sample criteria for regarding a word as "key" (e. g. the word is repeated, central to the argument, an author's favorite, has specialized meaning for an author).

2.          A working definition of word study as "a careful look at multiple New Testament contexts within which the same word is used in order to describe more fully what that word means in one particular context."

1.       Integrate exegetical tasks: e.g. compare translations & compare similar texts as part of completing a word study.

2.       Go beyond data-gathering to analysis when using a concordance.

3.       Use a lexicon alongside a concordance, rather than using either in isolation.

Finding OT Connections

1.     The New Testament is predominately a collection of Jewish writings.

2.    To make sense of Jesus, New Testament writers went to the Old Testament.

3.     For Christians, neither the OT or NT makes sense in isolation from the other.

1.     How should Christians regard the Old Testament?

2.     Is it accurate to call the church "the new Israel?" Is it ethical?

1.     Distinctions between various forms of the OT in the NT (citation, allusion, echo, etc.).

2.     Distinctions between various functions of the OT in the NT (prophecy-fulfillment, typology, etc.).

1.     Use study Bible notes and (if using Greek) the Nestle-Aland text to find OT occurrences in the NT.

2.     Analyze OT occurrences in the NT to determine their form and function.

Tracing Action & Argument

1.    Plot helps the reader answer why things happen, not just in what order they happen.

2.    Plot comprises several interlocking elements (story details, conflict, complication, climax, resolution).

3.    Both narrative and non-narrative texts use a variety of strategies to change a reader's mind.

1.    What is going on here? How do I know?

2.    Is all writing an attempt at persuasion?

1.      Aristotle's rhetorical categories of logos, ethos and pathos and their role in persuasion.

2.      The elements of plot.

3.      That repetition (whether of word forms or words themselves) is key to tracing action & argument.

1.       Identify conflict and other plot elements in a text.

2.       Recognize gaps in a plot.

3.       Distinguish premises from conclusions in an argument.

4.       Outline a story or argument.

5.       Identify repetition of grammatical forms (if using Greek) as a possible plot- or argument-shaping feature.

Getting to Know Characters

1.    Different NT authors develop the same characters in ways that emphasize different traits.

2.    Even without a name, someone can be a character in a story.

3.    God is a character in the New Testament.

1.    Does getting to know NT characters make the world of the NT seem closer to our own world, or more distant?

2.    What would a character study of God in this story (or letter, or passage) reveal?

1.    The four sources of information for characters in a narrative [what the character (a) says & (b) does, (c) what others say/think about her, (d) what the narrator says about her].

2.    E. M. Forster's distinction between flat and round characters.

1.       Use a concordance to find references to a character throughout the NT.

2.       Compare and  contrast characterizations of the same figure in different texts.

3.       List a character's traits, offering textual support for each trait.

4.       Analyze a character's role and function in a New Testament story.

Paying Attention to Place

1.    You don't always need a map when paying attention to place. (That is, setting includes references to particular locations but also to geographical features, architecture, "props," etc.)

2.    Sometimes you do need a map when paying attention to place.

3.    Context matters. (That is, reading what is before and after a specific text in order to see where the action has been and will be can shed light on where we are now.)

1.    How would this story (or other text) be different if it were transplanted into another location?

2.    Have we been here before? What's the same and what's different?

3.    Where are we going?

1.    Matthew Skinner's five functions of setting in narrative [(a) creating limits & possibilities for action, (b) contributing to mood, (c)  creating archetypes, (d) creating symbolic oppositions, (e) patterning events].

2.    Location of territories & cities in Palestine and Asia Minor that play a major role in the NT.

1.     Use a concordance to find references to specific places (Capernaum, Corinth, etc.) and to generic settings ("home," "synagogue," "mountain," etc.)

2.     Use a map and a Bible dictionary or study Bible notes to locate and research historical locations.

3.     Determine the function(s) of setting in a New Testament text.

Paying Attention to Time

1.    God's future (a. k. a. the kingdom) is at hand.

2.    NT texts have at least three different kind of time within them: calendar time, cosmic time, and narrative time.

1.    What time is it?

2.    What does eschatology mean for daily life? (or, "What does it mean for Christians to live godly lives 'ahead of time?'")

3.    What does the future hold?

1.    Background on New Testament apocalyptic images, worldview and types of apocalyptic theology.

2.    That a text's verbs are always a clue to its sense of time and the relative timing of events.

1.    Identify the pace at which action unfolds in a New Testament text.

2.    Create timelines to chart events that are narrated in a story or letter.

3.    Distinguish between

a. calendar time (e.g. days, festivals),

b. cosmic time (eschatological references), and 

c.  narrative time (at what pace the action occurs).

Writing Your Own Paraphrase

1.    A paraphrase is not a translation.

2.    A paraphrase is never "cut out of whole cloth." Instead, it depends on a text for both its shape and  its content.

1.    Is it possible to be too imaginative when reading the New Testament?

2.    How would I tell this part of the New Testament to someone who knew nothing of the Bible? How would I tell it to a child?

3.    What am I missing? What did my paraphrase omit from, add to or misrepresent about the text?

1.    The differences between types of translation (such as verbal or dynamic equivalence) and a paraphrase.

2.    How grammatical structure, including parallel forms and repeated words, is the backbone of an accurate paraphrase.

1.    Break a text into "moves" or sense units by paying close attention to grammatical structure & repetition.

2.    Create a visual representation of a text's movement and content.

3.    Write a paraphrase of a text without the text immediately at hand.

Seeing the Big Picture

1.    New Testament documents were composed as whole works, not as a series of small text units, or a collection of pearls on a string.

2.    The context within which a reader sees a text shapes what a reader sees in the text itself.

3.    Reading the whole book always helps to figure out what any part of the book means.

1.    Have we been here before? What's the same and what's different?

2.    Where are we going?

3.    Where does this text fit in the big picture?

1.    That shared vocabulary often links a smaller text unit with the themes of the larger work of which it is a part.

2.    That any NT text exists within several important literary contexts:

a.       immediate literary context (the chapter, argument or section of which it is a part),

b.       broader literary context (the book of which it is a part),

c.        the context of the author's extant work (which could be the same as "b" but isn't always),

d.       the context of the NT as a whole, and

e.       the canonical context of the OT and NT together.

1.    Identify shared vocabulary, recurring themes, reappearing characters, etc. between a part of a NT book and the whole book.

2.    Articulate how a text relates to the major themes of the work within which the text is found.