NT Survey Reflections

It has been an enjoyable month and a half as I have waded my way through the New Testament again, getting reacquainted with the scholarly issues of exegesis, hermeneutics, and appropriation of Scripture. The final session for the course was last night and I'll find out in a week and a half or so what everyone's evaluation was of the course and my instruction. I hope the report will be favourable and that I will get another opportunity to teach it or another course in the programme (perhaps in the Summer). (Aside: I am getting acquainted with British spellings, etc. for my doctoral programme so get used to some non-American spellings of certain words.)

The class members, made up of adults who are currently in careers or other full-time pursuits (like stay-at-home parenting), were quite contributive to the discussions and at times they'd be quite lengthy. Everyone was eager to make it to Revelation but by the time we got there, I could see many heavy eyes that were not completely attentive...he he. It was 10:00 pm, after all, and most of them had been up since having to go to work at or before 8:00 am. That means the days they have classes make for LONG days!

My only complaint really is that the nature of the ACHIEVE programme requires the course to use a pre-set syllabus with a textbook not used elsewhere in the College and assignments already included in the syllabus. Hopefully, the Bible/Theology Department will be granted some freedom to adapt the syllabus at least a little to where a textbook used in the other NT Survey courses can be used instead. That would certainly provide some continuity between the traditional programme and this evening programme in which I taught.