{"id":8756,"date":"2013-05-15T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T15:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/?p=8756"},"modified":"2015-03-13T16:44:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:44:28","slug":"what-i-learned-about-the-bible-from-undergrads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2013\/05\/15\/what-i-learned-about-the-bible-from-undergrads\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Learned about the Bible from Undergrads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019ll finish grading the final exams of the students who took \u201cIntroduction to the New Testament\u201d this Spring at St. Cloud State University. It was my first foray into undergraduate teaching, and I heartily thank all of you readers who gave me advice about teaching undergrads. The most-given piece of advice was, \u201cOwn the Classroom<\/strong>.\u201d I can\u2019t say that I did that. Although I didn\u2019t allow the students to call me by my first name, I cannot help but run a fairly informal classroom \u2014 you may have heard, but I\u2019ve got a thing against hierarchy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It seems that one of my dear students has entered me at RateMyProfessors.com<\/a>, and my first rating<\/a> is, um, positive:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ahhh, shucks. Thanks.<\/p>\n

St. Cloud State is a blue-collar school<\/strong>. I do not say that as an insult, but instead as a compliment. \u00a0Unlike where I went to college<\/a>, the SCSU students didn\u2019t put on airs. They were honest, funny, and unintimidated<\/strong>. They weren\u2019t all into the class \u2014 one student sat in the back and read a novel most class sessions; others unsurrepticiously checked their phones every five minutes. But most of them were quite engaged in the course.<\/p>\n

We used the ur-text for undergrad New Testament courses at state universities: Bart Ehrman\u2019s The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings<\/a><\/em>. About that text, I say, Meh<\/strong><\/em>. Ehrman is thorough, to be sure. In fact, the text contains far more information than any undergrad course could get through in a 14-week semester. I\u2019d be shocked to hear from another professor that they assign the entire book. It\u2019s also too expensive, at about $65 (and not available on Amazon), which is all part of the price-fixing of textbooks that is another post for another day.<\/p>\n

On the Gospels, Ehrman is good. Same goes for Acts. Same goes for the 7 undisputed Pauline letters. But once we got into the deutero-Pauline books and the pseudopigriphal books, Ehrman\u2019s skepticism starts to seep through, and it occasionally overwhelms his \u201cneutrality.\u201d<\/strong> For example, Ehrman repeatedly refers to pseudopigripha as \u201cforgery,\u201d and he adamantly argues that it was not a common practice in the ancient world. I can say that through three years of seminary and seven years of doctoral work, I never had a professor call the pseudopigriphal books forgeries.<\/p>\n

So, to help the students relativize Ehrman\u2019s authority, toward the end of the semester I showed them Ehrman\u2019s super-awkward appearances on the Colbert Report in 2006<\/a> and 2009<\/a>. Honestly, that was one of my favorite moments in class, because the conversation that ensued was how we need to interpret not just the Bible, but also the textbook that\u2019s telling us about the Bible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A couple of the students were avowed atheists (one contributed to this post<\/a>), one is seminary-bound, and others were various degrees of Christian. What I loved about the class is that they were all respectful of one another. They were, for the most part, curious students. None got defensive \u2014 none felt that they had to defend the Bible, or apologize for God, in the face of evidence that the Fourth Gospel was written at the end of the first century, or that Paul likely didn\u2019t write Ephesians, or that Hebrews and James both have messages that contradict Paul.<\/p>\n

I also realized, again, that I still have lots to learn about the New Testament<\/strong>. I\u2019m glad that this course forced me to dust off my study of it \u2014 indeed, to do some new study, since the NT wasn\u2019t part of my doctoral program.<\/p>\n

I know that lots of you readers teach. What did you learn from your students this year?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I\u2019ll finish grading the final exams of the students who took \u201cIntroduction to the New Testament\u201d this Spring at St. Cloud State University. It was my first foray into undergraduate teaching, and I heartily thank all of you readers who gave me advice about teaching undergrads. The most-given piece of advice was, \u201cOwn the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[994],"class_list":["post-8756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-teaching-2","tag-scsu"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I Learned about the Bible from Undergrads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I'll finish grading the final exams of the students who took "Introduction to the New Testament" this Spring at St. Cloud State University. 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