PAGE
FORMAT:
All writing for essays and assignments MUST be DOUBLE
SPACED, and must have MARGINS of 1 inch minimum on the top, bottom, left
and right. This will make the job of reading easier, and will also facilitate
writing corrections and comments on the paper. Papers should be typed or
printed.
PLANNING
AND STRUCTURE:
It is best to have a clear outline of what you intend
to write before you begin. Make sure your outline makes sense, and presents
the facts in a clear and reasonable manner. Then fill in your outline to
make the body of your paper. Have an introductory sentence that tells what
you are going to do. Provide a summary paragraph at the end. If your reasoning
is not clear, or if there is no apparent reason for your introducing certain
facts or arguments into the discussion, the reader will conclude that you
yourself are muddled.
If it is an exegetical paper, then the literary structure
of the passage should determine the order of the paper in part, with other
sections of the paper devoted perhaps to history of interpretation, historical
background, or textual problems.
A ROUGH
GUIDE TO EXEGESIS:
Exegesis simply means "bringing out the original meaning
of a passage." Before we ask what scripture says to us personally, we need
to ask first what the writer intended to say, by means of studying the
literary structure and the historical and theological environment of the
writer and/or his audience.
The paper must consider the following items at minimum:
The LITERARY CONTEXT of the target passage. What is the
literary structure of the book as a whole, and how does this passage fit
into it? What is the immediate context, before and after the target passage
(could be a paragraph or a chapter), and does the context affect our interpretation
of the passage? (in other words, does the author give any clues as to how
a passage is to be understood by where he has put it?).
What is the literary structure of the target passage?
This may be simple and obvious (as in a parable), or it may be more complex
(as in 1 John). Read the passage through 3-4 times, in context, before
deciding on its structure. Commentaries are helpful here.
What is the major point (or points) that the author is
making here? What does this passage tell us about his "theology" (in a
broad sense)?
Why should this be important to the original reader?
Try to be aware of the writer's use of themes, issues,
or terms which appear to be important.
Explain and elaborate on any words/phrases which are of
importance to the passage, or are important in the writer's theology, or
as literary themes which recur, or terms which the English translation
cannot fully or accurately represent (e.g., "flesh" in Paul; "sign" in
John).
Remember, your job is to SIMPLY EXPLAIN WHAT IS THERE,
not to make up clever outlines with alliterated points, nor to try to come
up with something original which no commentary or preacher has ever said
before. (Originality is a fine thing, but if it happens it should be a
consequence of careful study, not forced into your paper as a goal in and
of itself). Write as if your paper were going to be read by someone
who has never read the passage.
The HISTORICAL CONTEXT of the passage. How does the environment
of ancient life (political, social-cultural, industrial/economical, religious)
help explain the meaning of the passage? Commentaries will be helpful.
Be aware of the chronological and cultural distance between yourself and
the original author and his audience. Try to think yourself into their
shoes.
What problems is this writing meant to solve, or what
issues does it address? How did the author intend to benefit his readers,
and why?
You may also wish to consider the CANONICAL
CONTEXT: what
does this passage or this writer contribute to Biblical theology as a whole?
Is his the only view on this subject, or is it supplemented in scripture
with other perspectives? Is his view found in other NT or OT writers? Is
there "tension" between this passage and other Biblical viewpoints? If
so, how are we to deal with that?
You may wish to comment on APPLICATION, namely, what has
this passage to say to believers/the church today? Are there difficulties
in applying it? If so, why, and how would you suggest we try to overcome
them and hear the voice of God in scripture? Application must not be the
primary focus of the paper, nor take up a very large part of it. If you
include this, please make it no more than than 1 page in a longer paper,
or 10% in a short paper.
PLAGIARISM:
Plagiarism is the copying of sentences or parts of sentences
from another author and putting it into your paper as if it were your own
writing. No matter whether that other author is a dictionary, a commentary
or theological book, or another student's paper, plagiarism is wrong and
will not be tolerated. If any student has plagiarized material in his or
her coursework, the professor will give no credit for the assignment.
You may always use material from other authors in your
writing, provided you show that it is not your own by setting it off in
QUOTE MARKS. You must then show the SOURCE of the quote (see on footnotes
below). But do not make your paper simply a patchwork of quotes, either.
If a quarter of an essay or more is quotes, it looks suspiciously like
padding your work. Another way to avoid plagiarism is to re-phrase the
quote in your own words (but you should still give a reference to the source).
The point is that what you read in preparing for an essay should pass through
your mind and your heart first. You should digest it, criticize it, sift
the good from the bad or the useful from the useless, think about its implications,
compare opinions of different authors, and when you are done express it
in your own words. It is inevitable (and good) that we borrow some technical
terms, phrases, language from books we read. But if you cannot express
yourself in what are basically your own thoughts, then I wonder whether
anything you have read has settled between your ears.
FOOTNOTES
AND BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Footnotes are placed at the bottom of the page, giving
references to works used or other information. You may also use endnotes
(placed after the body of the essay, on the last page/s). You must also
supply a bibliography, even if you only used one or two books. This does
not need to be on a separate page. Please make all foot- or endnote references
superscript, for clarity in reading.
When do you use a footnote? Whenever:
1) You use the very words of another source (book, journal,
magazine, another person's paper or even a movie or live voice), even if
it is only three or four words in a row. In this case you are quoting,
so you must enclose the words you have borrowed in quotation marks and
the footnote tells where the quote comes from.
2) You use information that is not common knowledge, that
is derived from your reading or other source. For instance, I know that
it is not commonly taught in high school that Corinth was destroyed in
146 B.C. and refounded by Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. That needs a footnote.
3) You have adopted a method of arguing, or a way of viewing
the evidence, from one of your sources. Here even if the words are yours,
the idea comes from someone else, and it is only courtesy to acknowledge
this. In fact, it is intellectual fraud to pretend you have not used someone
else. Positively, acknowledging this in a footnote can also lend credibility
to your argument by saying there are scholars who agree with you.
Footnotes
Footnote references are written as a single sentence,
with parts separated by commas.
Author: put author's Christian name or initials
first, then the surname (in normal order). The author of a dictionary article
is not the editor of the dictionary, unless no name is given at
the end of the article.
Title: underlined or in italics if a book; in quote
marks if a journal article. Do not use name of a commentary series
as if it were a title (Word Biblical Commentary, New International Commentary
on the New Testament, etc.); this is not the title.
Place/Publisher/Year: put in parentheses, punctuated
thus: (Place: Publisher, year). Do not include publisher & place
with journal articles.
Journals: list the name of the journal underlined
or italics (as if a book), then the volume number, the year in parentheses,
and the page numbers (see example below).
Dictionary and Encyclopedia articles: are like
a mixture of book and journal. Cite by the author of the article
(not the editor of the dictionary), article title in quotation marks. Then
say that this article is "in New International Standard Bible Encylopedia"
(or whatever the title of the work is), "edited by ____" (editor). Then
give pubisher, place, year, followed by volume and page numbers of article.
First Notes Vs. Subsequent References.
The first time you refer to a source, you must
give all the bibliographic information as in the examples below.
The second and subsequent notes that refer to this source need only
refer to the work by author(s) name (see note 7 below).
If you have more than one source by the same author, use the last name
and a shortened version of the title, followed by the page number.
Examples:
1. Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (Oxford:
Oxford University
Press, 1989), 34-58.
2. Paul Meyer, "The Holy Spirit in the Pauline Letters,"
Interpretation
33 (1979): 3-18. [this means
volume no. 33, issued in 1979, pages
3-18]
3. Terence Paige, "Holy Spirit" in Dictionary of
Paul and His Letters,
ed. G. F. Hawthorne and R.
P. Martin (Downer's Grove:
InterVarsity, 1993), 404-413.
4. M. R. Mulholland, Jr., "Sociological Criticism"
in New Testament
Criticism & Interpretation,
ed. David A. Black and David S. Dockery
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1991), 297-316.
5. Wofgang Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament,
transl. D. E. Green (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 13.
6. W. S. LaSor, D. A. Hubbard, and F. W. Bush, Old
Testament Survey:
The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament
(Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), pp. 26-39.
7. Stanton, 50.
Bibliography
The same information is given in a bibiography as in
footnotes, except:
(1) books and articles are listed by author's last name,
alphabetically arranged. Author's name is given in the order first, last.
(2) the parts are separated by a period, and so there
are no parentheses around the publisher/year (except with journals, where
the year is put in parentheses).
Bibliographies are not numbered.
Examples:
LaSor, W. S.; Hubbard, D. A.; and Bush, F. W. Old
Testament Survey:
The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament.
Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.
Meyer, Paul. "The Holy Spirit in the Pauline Letters."
Interpretation
33 (1979): 3-18.
Mulholland, M. R. Jr. "Sociological Criticism" in New
Testament
Criticism & Interpretation,
eds. David A. Black and
David S. Dockery, 297-316.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991.
Paige, Terence. "Holy Spirit" in Dictionary of Paul
and His Letters,
eds. G. F. Hawthorne and
R. P. Martin, 404-413. Downer's Grove:
InterVarsity, 1993.
Schrage, Wofgang. The Ethics of the New Testament.
Translated
by D. E. Green. Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1988.
Stanton, Graham. The Gospels and Jesus. Oxford
University Press,
1989.
SOME COMMON
ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED:
1. Abuse of Abbreviations . The following abbreviations
are commonly misused. Note the punctuation as well as usage:
cf. = Latin confer, `compare'; usually used to
compare opinions or scripture verses similar to the one being discussed.
e.g. = Latin exempli gratia, `for example'
etc.
= Latin et cetera, `and so forth', `and others
like it'
ibid. = ibidem, `in the same place'. Used in footnotes
or endnotes, when you are referring to the same book and the same page
as in the previous footnote. Since it always refers to the very last
book cited (whether or not that was by the author you intend to cite),
be careful in using. Can be used with the same book and a different page
if the page number is cited. idem = `the same' (author)
i.e. = id est, `that is'
v. / vv. = verse/verses. Note the full stop; and
that there is always a space between this and the verse number. NOT used
when the book and/or chapter are cited (e.g., Jn 1:14). Examples:
a) Chapter three contains a reflection by the author in
vv. 31-36.
b) The author's reflection on the Son of Man is at Jn
3:31-36.
2. Incomplete, Awkward, or Unclear Sentences.
Sentences must have verbs in them! Try reading through
your work out loud once before handing it in, or have someone else proof
read it. Make sure it is clear what you are saying and why you are saying
it. Remember, you are graded on what you write, not on what you meant or
intended to write.
Evaluating
Exegesis Papers
You may wish to know that the following are the standards
I use to judge and grade exegetical assignments:
1) Bibliography: should contain one or more Bible Dictionary/Encyclopedia
articles; four or more journal articles (Dictionary of Jesus and the
Gospels or Dictionary of Paul articles do not count); three
or more commentaries, preferably using one of the recommended texts; a
theological dictionary, Greek lexicon, or similar tool for word studies.
Other monographs are optional. Items in the bibliography should be used
in the paper, and referred to in the paper. Do not list anything here that
you have not read (at least in part).
2) Quality of sources: are scholarly books and journals
used, or popular and devotional type literature? Are the facts up-to-date?
Does this reflect the best of recent scholarship? No sources before 1965
should be used, unless on my list of "standard exceptions," writers who
are truly gifted and classic in a way that transcends their time.
3) References. The paper should cite specific passages
in Paul that are being discussed, and when they are being discussed. Proof
of assertions that Paul or the early church thought this or did that must
be given. The reader should know where to turn in scripture to find what
you are talking about. The same goes for other portions of scripture referred
to. For instance, don't just say, "Jesus taught . . ." or "the Old Testament
view was . . .", but give specific examples. These are primary references.
The paper should also make ample use of secondary references.
Whenever the student uses information from a book or article, it must be
documented whether or not there is a direct quote. Information that is
obvious, or seems to be derived from a simple, unsophisticated reading
of the text is exempt; otherwise, the source of information must be given.
Items in the bibliography should be used in the paper,
and referred to in the paper. If you take time to read a book or article
and put it in the bibliography, you can refer to its contents at least
once, even if you disagree with the author. If you make no reference to
a source, the professor will regard it as not having been read and therefore
not counting as part of the bibliography.
References should follow the footnote standard for Biblical
and Historical scholarship, given in the class handout. (Chicago Manual
of Style / Turabian).
4) Use of historical, background information and word
studies. Is the reader told what the original audience would have thought
of this message? What the original significance of important concepts and
words would have been (e.g., redemption, propitiation, Christ, etc.)? Is
the reader told why background or technical information is being given
and what effect it has on understanding the text, or is information carelessly
thrown at the reader without explanation? In what ways does the world of
the Biblical author differ from ours? In what ways is it similar? How do
we build bridges from the text and that world to our world? What situations
in our world correspond to the situations addressed by scripture? For word
studies, test your comprehension by attempting to restate key terms in
other (everyday English) words.
One may ask how this writer's message is similar to, influenced
by, or differs from: (1) the OT; (2) second temple Judaism; (3) the teaching
of Jesus; (4) other NT authors; (5) the pagan Greco-Roman world [philosophic
writers, historians, literary authors and dramatists; orators; popular
views evidenced from inscriptions, papyri, ostraca, or other evidence.
. .]; (6) the early church.
5) Organization of paper: is there a clear and logical
order to the way things are presented? Are things grouped together that
belong together? Are things thrown together in a haphazard or unclear way?
Are there good opening and closing statements?
6) Argument: is evidence given to support the point of
view? Is the evidence good? Where there is a problem or controversy, is
more than one side shown? Is the argument clear, logical (from a Christian
perspective) and convincing? Does it use scripture appropriately? Is it
easy to follow?
7) Treatment of the text: The paper should show awareness
of the literary context of the Biblical text. There should be a clear discussion
of the flow of thought of the text; a sensitivity to what the key issues,
words, and ideas are; an avoidance of irrelevant or unimportant details.
The reader should be able to tell what the text is about and how Paul makes
his point without needing to search the NT text. The original significance
of the writer's words and thoughts should be explained in modern terms.
Avoid "explaining" one technical expression by another.
8) Canonical context: are connections drawn between this
writer's thought and the OT? Are connections noted to Jesus or to other
NT authors? (e.g., for Paul, between his teaching and that of and Jesus;
for Luke, note links with the teaching of Paul or Peter).
9) English: Is the paper written in clear English, in
complete sentences, using words properly? Correct spelling? Are transitions
between sections, or from one topic to another, clearly marked? Is there
a clear introduction and conclusion?
For further help, the student
may consult:
The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. University
of Chicago Press, 1993. Ref. Z253 C572
Fee, Gordon. New Testament Exegesis. Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1983. BS2331 F44
Fee, Gordon, and Stuart, D. How to Read the Bible for
All Its Worth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982. BS600.2 F43
Hagner, Donald. Writing Exegesis and Research Papers
in New Testament Studies: A Guide for Seminarians. Published by the
author, 1984. On reserve in library.
McKnight, Scot. Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988. BS2555.2 M39
__________. Introducing New Testament Interpretation.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989. BS2361.2 I58
Morgan, Robert and Barton, John. Biblical Interpretation.
Oxford University Press, 1988. BS511.2 M67
Osborne, Grant. The Hermeneutical Spiral. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991. BS476 O79
Schreiner, Thomas R. Interpreting the Pauline Epistles.
Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990. BS2650.2 S36
Stein, Robert H. Playing by the Rules: A Basic Guide
to Interpreting the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker.
Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers,
Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
1996. LB2369 T8
Conzelmann, Hans, and Lindemann, A. Interpreting the
New Testament. Transl. S. Schatzmann. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988.
BS2330.2 C66
