Bible

Abraham and His Seed: An Introduction to the Patriarchs

Bible

The backbone of the book of Genesis is the story of Abraham and his descendants – and yet many of us do not have a firm grasp of this strange, dense, lengthy narrative. Without such a grasp, we cannot understand the rest of the Scriptures. Through close reading of Genesis and other Scriptures, this course will explore the unity of the patriarchal narrative, its key themes, its importance for the rest of Scripture, and its relevance for contemporary readers.

Taught by Dr. Alastair Roberts.

Runs 1/10-3/19/21.

Auditing: participate in readings and live class sessions, but no graded assignments and no course credit
Full course part-time: individual classes on a for-credit basis; you can later apply them toward a Certificate or Degree
Full course full-time: for-credit courses (at least four per term) toward our Certificate or M.Litt in Classical Protestantism

This course is full. Email Lynette at registrar@davenantinstitute.org to be put on the waiting list.

Description

This Bible course will be taught by Dr. Alastair Roberts, and will run from January 10th through March 19th 2022. The syllabus will be available soon.

Genesis is undoubtedly a book many think they know well. It certainly contains many of Scripture’s most famous stories. Yet how well do any of us know a densely written ancient Hebrew narrative? For every classic Sunday school story, there are two more in Genesis which many of us barely know at all. And even those stories we think we know well – the call of Abraham, the binding of Isaac, Joseph and his brothers – are full of strange details once we give them sustained attention. What does it all mean? And how on earth does it all fit together? Our grasp of Genesis is, likely, not as firm as we think it is. And yet without a firm grasp of Genesis we cannot hope to navigate the rest of Scripture.

The backbone of Genesis is the story of Abraham and his descendants, which will be the focus of this course. Through close reading of Genesis and other parts of Scripture, this course will explore the unity of the patriarchal narrative, its key themes, its importance for the rest of Scripture, and its relevance for contemporary readers.

Dr. Alastair Roberts (PhD, University of Durham) teaches for both the Davenant and Theopolis Institutes. He is co-author of Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption Through Scripture (Crossway, 2018). He also participates in the Mere Fidelity and Theopolis podcasts, blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria, posts regular videos on theology on his YouTube account, and tweets at @zugzwanged.

Online only, runs 10 weeks, meeting 2 hr./wk. via Zoom. Students will also have the option to participate in class discussion on the Davenant Common Room Discord server. Register to reserve your spot and schedule will be set after a poll of participating students; if the class time does not fit your schedule, you will be eligible for a full refund.

This is a graduate-level course. Although a BA is not a necessary pre-requisite for this course, students should come prepared to do graduate-level work.