Analysis of the text in its context may be accompanied by a contemporary contextual reading, how the text speaks to contemporary readers.

. Your text should be 5-10 sequential verses that you find interesting or even troubling.
Be sure to read that chapter and the ones before and after it to get a sense of its
literary context. What would you like to know about this passage? What would you
like to write about in this passage? This is the basis for your introduction.
3. Your first paragraph (or two) should introduce the text and your approach. Say
clearly what you intend to do. (Write in the first person singular, I will examine
not plural, we will not be writing this paper together. And write in the active voice.
The paper will not be written; you will write the paper.) Remember to revisit and revise
this paragraph after you finish your paper; frequently papers take on a life of their own
and migrate to a new topic.
4. You may have either a specific thesis question or problem, i.e. Is Job an Israelite or a
Gentile, or a specific methodology, i.e literary and/or feminist reading of X.
.
Prospectus
6. You will submit a Prospectus that identifies your text, topic and thesis or
methodology, a paragraph or two is sufficient. Your prospectus will include your
initial research from both books and journal articles. You will need at least three of
each type of resource. This is generally worth at least 10 points of your final grade.
3
Research and Resources
7. There are several resources that are industry standards that will save you some time,
use these preferentially in each category, i.e. substitutions are not recommended.
8. For an overview of your topic consult the (Yale) Anchor Bible Dictionary.
9. For commentaries, begin with the JPS Torah Commentary, the Anchor Bible series or
Hermeneia series. There also are a number of good individual volumes, and some
decent volumes in other series, but the quality is more varied. You should start with
these and stay away from commentaries for preaching; they are generally not
thorough enough for academic papers.
10. For specific vocabulary and word-studies, the Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old
Testament (HALOT), the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) and The
Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH). You may use the Brown, Drivers, Briggs lexicon
and those that come with your biblical software as starting places, but you will need
to supplement those unless you have the unabridged form of one of these. If you are
using the Septuagint, (LXX), the Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrinch Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (BDAG) and T.
Muraokas Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint are standard.
11. Your assigned textbooks are not appropriate primary sources for this paper. You
may be inspired by something you read, research it further and cite that.
12. As a general rule, materials that pre-date the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947)
are no longer useful.
13. Limit your direct quotations. Restate the argument of your source in your own
words and annotate appropriately. Avoid large block quotations wherever possible.
Translation
14. Use the best translation of your passage you can; if you rely on a publicly available
one, i.e., NRSV, JPS or one assigned for the course there is no need to include it,
simply identify it. If you have completed Hebrew, provide your own translation, or
provide or adapt, cite and annotate an appropriate scholarly translation: using
biblical studies software such as Accordance or published annotated translations and
commentaries choose a translation that you find best communicates the text and
4
discuss specific word choices in footnotes. You may also alter a published or
standard translation, identifying it as NRSV, adapted, for example.
15. If you are translating yourself, provide a smooth translation, suitable for public
reading. Use footnotes to annotate your translation choices, discussing issues in the
text and places where you depart from standard translations.
16. If you have no Hebrew language and are using Accordance or another primary
language tool, remember that without detailed knowledge of Biblical Hebrew you do
not have sufficient knowledge or information to legitimately dispute the work of
scholars. You can question how/why scholars/translations vary. You can: suggest
synonyms for key words, render the Divine Name in ways that reflect your theology,
make a text inclusive, acknowledge your preferences among scholarly translations.
17. An appropriate scholarly translation is one from one of the assigned translations in
this course or an individual scholars translation that you find in the research.
18. This section may precede your introduction if you like.
Body
19. Begin to explore your topic or argue your thesis. As you discuss your passage, topic
or thesis, enter into conversation with the scholars you have discovered during your
research.
20. You do not need to summarize the biblical text or tell me the story.
21. Your analysis of the text in its context may be accompanied by a contemporary
contextual reading, how the text speaks to contemporary readers. Be certain that you
do not import contemporary religious (i.e. Christian), social or political concerns into
the text. You may ask those questions of the text.
22. Be sure to include your own voice. I want to know what you think. I want to read
your informed opinion. Do you find the scholarship youve read convincing? Why or
why not? It is not necessary or appropriate to assess each authors work, but it is ok
to say that you were really taken (or taken aback) by an author. Be sure to support
your own claims with an evidentiary argument: Why do you think/believe what you
do based on the biblical text and/or other scholarship?
5
23. Write in the active voice, (I will explore not the topic selected for exploration) and
speak for yourself, not your reader, (I not we).
24. Your conclusion should be a brief restatement of your thesis and how you proved it
and/or a summary of your main points. You may state where you would like the
research to go if you had more time, space or if new questions arose along the way.
Formatting, Bibliography, Citation and Plagiarism
25. You must have a bibliography in addition to footnotes. List all of the material you
used, not just the works you cited. Use the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Handbook
of Style to properly format your footnotes and bibliography. No other style is
acceptable! The SBL guidelines accommodate biblical and other ancient texts like
the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature and classical commentaries like Luthers
Works and the Church Fathers, etc. There is a brief style guide reference sheet on the
website with some footnote and bibliography examples. For other issues you can
download the whole handbook as a free pdf.
26. Every quote, reference, allusion and inspiration drawn from another person or source must be
documented with a footnote and a bibliographic citation for texts. For example, I first
heard this term in class discussion Footnote, the class, speaker date, etc. While
the Smith article asked these questions, I began to wonder about Footnote
appropriately
27. Plagiarism includes failure to cite appropriately even with quotation marks and/or
a bibliographic reference. If you do not supply a footnote in the text for words or ideas that
are not your own, you have committed plagiarism.
28. Passing off someone elses work as your own in part or in whole is completely
unacceptable, academically and ethically.
29. All suspected cases of plagiarism will be reported to the Dean. If substantiated they
will be reported to the entire faculty and result in a 0 for the assignment (for a first
offence). Successive offences will result in failure of the course.
30. Use page numbers.
31. If an author spells out the Divine Name, use brackets to indicate your modification:
Smith says, YHWH

Attention, Please note that you are not supposed to upload any files with additional pages (extra instructions) until Administration informs you on the payment receipt.