We have been having a debate in my department about how to teach introductory Bible courses. The question centers on whether students should be taught to do theology in those classes or whether theology is something that should be done in other classes after they have a good introduction to the Bible.

My approach is to focus on the content and historical setting of the Bible, without any (or at least not much) mention of how the Bible is used in theology. Despite working with Brevard Childs, I am still not convinced that theology is something that is done at the level of interpretation (I think I just heard Steve Cook’s head explode). Theology, to me, is still something that is done with the text. Now, we can always interpret the text while planning to do something theological with it afterwards, but I don’t see how this changes the process of interpretation.

I may post some on this topic in the next few days before I head to Ukraine on Sunday. For now, however, I wanted to point to a blog I just came across that deals with theological interpretation. It is called Karagrapho and is written Chris Spinks, who just completed a Ph.D. at Fuller Theological Seminary. I found it interesting that on his About page, when he is discussing his dissertation, he says that his dissertation had more to do with readings of the NT than actually reading the NT. That is my point about how I teach my intro classes. I want the students to focus more on the text at this stage and worry later about theology. It is not that I take a non-theological approach, but more a pre-theological approach. Anyway, I encourage people to check out Dr. Spinks’s blog.

Permalink