Hebrew Bible: Divisions

Encountering page 44

ELWELL, WALTER AND YARBROUGH, ROBERT W., Third Edition (2013) Encountering The New Testament, Grand Rapids, Baker Academic.

The late, Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, Dr. Peter Flint, was my professor at Trinity Western University. He suggested that within academia the term Hebrew Bible was to be preferred to the common term, Old Testament. I attempt to use the term Hebrew Bible within academia where reasonable.

I have documented online that I do not hold to a 'Flat Bible' biblical hermeneutic. I agree with what I was taught at Columbia Bible College and Trinity Western University that there is a new covenant (Hebrews) that replaces the Mosaic covenant of the Hebrew Bible (Exodus). This means that within Christian academia for me, my work within the New Testament has been more vast than my work within the Hebrew Bible. Learning the new covenant has taken priority.

I have taken New Testament Koine (common) Greek, but have not taken Biblical Hebrew. Typically, my academic tutors in the United Kingdom had studied academic Greek but not Hebrew. It needs to be understood that a British/European Theology/Philosophy PhD requires multiple discipline research which is a focus significantly different than studying Biblical Hebrew.

Within my MPhil/PhD theses work in the United Kingdom/Europe. I was required to do significant research on Genesis and the theological concept of the fall.

Besides my MPhil/PhD work with Genesis, I also completed a review of the book of Job as a key theodicy text.

At Columbia Bible College for my Bachelor of Arts degree, I did take Old Testament Survey, the Pentateuch (Torah) and some individual books. At Trinity Western University/Canadian Baptist Seminary, I did complete a course on Psalms.

However, much of my more recent Hebrew Bible learning is done through academic blogging and very much so through online sermon listening and online bible listening.