syllabus for course 503: jesus of nazareth, our hebrew...

COURSE DESCRIPTION:Bible course 503 features lectures by Dr. Dwight Pryor, the president and founder of the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies in Dayton, Ohio.

This is the first of a two-part series that focuses on the Jewishness of Jesus, as this might be better understood with reference to Jesus’ Jewish cultural context and historical and theological background. In addition, this series documents the humanity of Jesus as a Jew in a Jewish family and a Jewish community, establishes Jesus’ Hebraic worldview and mindset, and analyzes the Hebraic nature of Jesus’ fundamental teachings and practices. This series continues with Bible course 504.

While the requirements for this course have been designed for graduate students, a version of this course for undergraduates is also available (103), as is the opportunity to view this course’s video lectures for personal development (without academic credit).

Required texts for 503 include the Bible (especially the Gospels of Matthew and Mark), and four other books (discussed further below). Course requirements also include successful completion of sixteen online tests concerning the readings and video lectures, as well as three papers: two essays concerning Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (together about 4500 words long) and a two-part essay (about 2000 words long).

You may have up until one year from the date that you registered for this course to complete all your work for this course. Should you need any additional time beyond one year, any request for an

Syllabus for BIB 503: Jesus of Nazareth, Our Hebrew Lord, Part 1(2nd ed., rev. 2009-08)

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Syllabus for Course 503:Jesus of Nazareth, Our Hebrew Lord,

Part 1Lecturer: Dwight A. Pryor, Th.D.Tutor: Robert W. Bleakney, Ph.D.

E-Mail: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

extension, along with appropriate documentation (such as a letter from your physician--preferably, on his or her medical center’s stationery) should be mailed to Dr. John Garr, Chancellor, Hebraic Heritage Christian Center at the address on our Web site.

When viewing Dr. Pryor’s lectures or taking any online tests, you may find it helpful to make sure that you turn off any software providing periodic reception of emails or text messages, lest such interfere with video streaming or distract you when answering time-sensitive test questions.

We welcome feedback from students concerning this course, and reserve the option of updating this syllabus at a later time.

REQUIRED TEXTS:

1. THE BIBLEAt HHCC, we affirm “the divine inspiration, full authority and trustworthiness of the Holy Bible” (“Affirmations, Beliefs, and Concerns,” http://www.hebraiccenter.org/beliefs.html). All our courses, including this one, are deeply anchored in the authority of the Scriptures, and so this course will include significant study of Scriptures. Please be sure to have a Bible opened before you every time you view Dr Pryor’s lectures, or whenever you tackle work given by me through Assignment Sheets.

You may find it useful to know that there are many translations of the Bible online on the Web, including at http://www.biblegateway.com/ and

http://www.studylight.org. These include the English Standard Version, New King James Version, New International Version and others. No one version of Scripture is required, but the use of a Bible version that seeks to provide a reliable translation (as opposed to only a loose paraphrase) is encouraged.

For this course, your assigned readings will include passages from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (the Gospels of Luke and John will be assigned for course 504). Please study them carefully (you may wish to underline or otherwise mark key passages to help you remember them later).

2. FOUR OTHER TEXTBOOKS

In addition to the Bible, four textbooks will be required. Brad Young’s Jesus the Jewish Theologian and David Bivin’s New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus (like the lectures of Dr.


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http://www.studylight.org/

http://www.biblegateway.com/

http://www.hebraiccenter.org/beliefs.html

Pryor) seek to better understand Jesus’ teachings in the context of 1st-century Judaism. Two others are also helpful in understanding Jesus in his historical context: Michael Wilkins and J.P. Moreland’s (eds.) Jesus Under Fire presents articles by New Testament scholars that collectively make a case for the historical reliability of Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus, and Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (in the words of its publisher) “argues that the four Gospels are closely based on the eyewitness testimony of those who personally knew Jesus.”

We hope to stimulate your thinking about Jesus of Nazareth Our Hebrew Lord from varied perspectives, and trust you’ll find each of these resources helpful (though HHCC does not endorse any specific views they may present).

David Bivin’s New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus is available through HHCC’s online bookstore (http://www.hebraiccenter.org/wps/portal/bookstore). Should you have any questions, please contact either the Web site’s bookstore interface or [email protected].

To obtain the other textbooks, we encourage you to contact online vendors such as Christian Book Distributors (USA) at http://www.christianbook.com/ or Amazon (www.amazon.com). As you may already be aware, Amazon has sites for customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and China.

OPTIONAL READING:Dr. Dwight Pryor has written a book called Behold the Man! that is intended to supplement a different, shorter course of 12 lectures (as opposed to this course of 45 lectures). Since its contents do not fully correspond to the lectures for the present course, and do not contain any information not found in this course’s video lectures, you need not feel under any pressure to obtain it. Still, his book is well done, and you may find its listing of interest at the store of the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies: http://www.jcstudies.com/store/home.php REQUIREMENTS:

The requirements for this course include successful completion of sixteen online tests. In order to help you do your best on these tests, two separate documents have been prepared to assist you: “Guidelines for Odd-Numbered Tests” (for tests posing questions on the Bible and video lectures) and “Guidelines for Even-


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http://www.jcstudies.com/store/home.php

http://www.amazon.com/

http://www.christianbook.com/


http://www.hebraiccenter.org/wps/portal/bookstore

Numbered Tests” (for tests posing questions on the textbooks by Bivin, Young, Wilkins and Moreland, but not the Bible or the textbook by Bauckham). These documents are specific to this course; in other HHCC courses, different guidelines may apply.

Following registration for this course, you may expect to receive via email further instructions concerning the technical aspects of taking these online tests.

You may take the first and second tests after lecture 6, the third and fourth tests after lecture 12, and continue onward with pairs of tests, taking each test from each pair after you have studied its assigned material. Please see the multi-colored tables at the end of “Guidelines for Odd-Numbered Tests” and “Guidelines for Even-Numbered Tests” to clarify when you may take each test.

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR DISABILITIES:Hebraic Heritage Christian Center makes every effort to be sensitive to the needs of students with disabilities. Please feel free to advise us of any disability which you feel impairs your ability to take full advantage of course offerings, so that we may discuss possible accommodations with you.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY POLICY:

“Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence,but a false witness utters deceit.”

(Proverbs 12:17)

For all tests assigned for this course, please be sure that you put away any and all texts assigned for this course, as well as any notes you’ve taken. Not only each test but also each test-taker is being proctored by a heavenly Teacher who keeps watch over all

of us does according to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. Please be conscientious in ensuring that all of the work you do for this course is honorable and free of even the slightest taint of deceit.

In all of your work for this course, please be careful to avoid even the slightest appearance of taking credit for someone else’s work (including both words and ideas). Please also be sure that you avoid collaborating with any current or former student when working on tests.

WEIGHTING OF GRADES:Can weight-lifting be illustrated using the Bible? To some extent, yes! After all, as shown on the left, Judges 16 tells us of how Samson prevailed against his Philistine foes by overturning weighty pillars.

For this course, the computer will weigh all online tests equally. After you complete Test 15 (the final test for this course), it will determine the average of all of your online tests for the course as a whole.

Here are the weights you’ll need to lift in this course:


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Overall score on 16 online tests:..........................................................64%Essay: “Eyewitness Testimony?”.......................................................12%Essay: “Mistaken Identity?”...............................................................12%Two-Part Essay on All Coursework....................................................12%


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FINAL COURSE GRADES: When estimating what letter grade you might receive at the end of this course, you may find it helpful to refer to the table found below, which I intend to use as a rough starting point when determining the final course grade of students after obtaining an average of your percentage grades on Tests 1 through 8. In some cases, I might possibly assign students grades higher than those indicated below—after taking into consideration the level of difficulty that students generally seem to experience when taking tests for this course.

Table Used as a Starting Point for Grade Conversion:

Letter Grade Percentage Grade Grade Points

A+ 95-100 4.3

A 90-94 4.0

A- 87-89 3.7

B+ 83-86 3.3

B 80-82 3.0

B- 77-79 2.7

C+ 73-76 2.3

C 70-72 2.0

C- 67-69 1.7

D+ 63-66 1.3

D* 60-62 1.0


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F 0-59 0.0

*D: A final course grade of D represents the minimum needed to pass this course.

INTERACTIVE CONTACTThanks to the wonders of email, communication among us can be much faster than in the picture of a mail carrier delivering the mail shown on the right. At HHCC, one of our hopes is that students and faculty will be able to use the latest communications technology to span the potentially vast distances among us, with the result that we’ll all be able to interact effectively.

As you take this course, I (Dr. Rob Bleakney, below left) will be serving as your tutor. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] should you have any questions about this course. If you’d like, please also feel free to request and receive confirmation that I have received your message.

I’m looking forward to helping you as much as possible in the journey of learning more about both Jesus our Hebrew Lord and the Hebraic world that was so foundational to his life and his mission.

Robert W. Bleakney, Ph.D.Associate Professor, HHCCTutor for Course 503


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syllabus for course 503: jesus of nazareth, our hebrew...

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