We are now officially three weeks into the semester. For Gordon-Conwell students that means we’re very close to being a third of the way through the semester. That thought is somewhat sobering, but I digress.

Below are my thoughts on classes so far, and how I’m feeling about each:

Interpreting the New Testament: So far things have gone well. Interpreting the NT is basically a New Testament Hermeneutics class. I’ve covered many of the topics in other classes, and in more depth as I’ve studied the Hebrew Bible. Most of the concepts are transferable. As a result I’m not feeling especially excited about this class. However, the reading–most notably Bruce Metzgers The Text of the New Testament and N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God–has been absolutely fascinating. The introduction to New Testament textual criticism provided in class was also helpful. On the whole I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the semester holds, but I’m not expecting it to be a class where I learn something amazingly new each week.

Ugaritic: I vacillate between really liking this class, and loathing vocalizing verbs and nouns. It’s taken three weeks, but I feel like I’ve finally got the basics of Ugaritic under control. Now if I can manage to push forward I think I may enjoy things. Color me undecided on this one.

Independent Reading in the Hebrew Bible: I’m reading Qohelet. What could be better? I’m also looking forward to getting into both Job and Proverbs. Overall, I’ve really, really enjoyed the course work, and the reading is interesting. I’m actually looking forward to my midterm. I learn a bit more about Hebrew grammar, idiom, etc each time I look at the texts for this course, so I’ve been very pleased so far.

Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible: This course is excellent. I can already see that this will be my favorite course this semester. Dr. Saley manages to lecture without being dry, and if a student has a question he doesn’t have the answer to off the top of his head he writes it down and brings the answer to the next class. I absolutely am going to steal that idea when I teach. Since Textual Criticism is an area I haven’t done a ton of work in I’m learning a great deal. I’m especially looking forward to the second half of the semester, when we’ll actually be doing textual criticism on a section of 1 Samuel.