INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
- In 2023, I took a trip to Italy with 21 members of seminary community, teaching a class called "Italian Art as Biblical Interpretation."
- UDTS has planned future trips to Dominica Republic, Ireland, and Greece/Turkey
- I regularly refer students to this bibliography, which features many majority world scholars.
- UDTS has invited and covered the cost of international students to take online courses, exposing our domestic students to their perspectives:
- Invited and covered the cost of enrollment in Hebrew Intro & Hebrew Exegesis for Kojo Okoye, Senior Lecturer at University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast - Ghana (Fall 2021, Spring 2022)
- Invited and covered the cost of enrollment in Old Testament Introduction for John Tee of the United Methodist University of Liberia (Fall 2023)
- Invited and covered the cost of enrollment in Old Testament in the Reformed Tradition for Barsino Bubu, Jr. of the United Methodist University of Liberia (Fall 2023)
- Invited and covered the cost of enrollment in Hebrew Intro & Hebrew Exegesis for Kojo Okoye, Senior Lecturer at University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast - Ghana (Fall 2021, Spring 2022)
- My Old Testament Intro class (BI511) avoids the use of an introductory textbook by a single author, which would inhibit global awareness. Instead, it uses materials in two study Bibles so that students are exposed to dozens of biblical scholars from various parts of the globe:
- Coogan, Michael, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0190276089.
- Green, Joel, ed. The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Common English Bible, 2013. ISBN: 978-1609260286.
- The same class features a lecture on "Life in Biblical Israel," which is focused on cultural differences between the modern West and ancient Middle East.
- The same class equips students with the tools to understand additional cultural differences between the modern West and ancient Middle East. Example assignment.
- My class for laity Old Testament Introduction includes a week--with lectures, assignment, and readings--devoted to "Old Testament Culture."
- My Hebrew classes (BI500 and BI624) utilize my book 70 Hebrew Words Every Christian Should Know, which has a chapter on the differences between modern western cultural values and those reflected in the Hebrew Bible.
- My African American Biblical Interpretation (BI652) gives some attention to apartheid, the church's response, and Black Theology (esp. Desmond Tutu) in South Africa.
- I recently helped teach a Bible study with Iowa Methodists where we got to learn about conditions in Ukraine and Gaza from the United Methodist (UM) Bishop overseeing Ukraine, the UM liaison to the United Nations, and the UM advocate in Jerusalem.
- I'm writing a commentary on Genesis for a series called The Bible in God's World that has an international group of authors from places such as the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, Singapore. About one-half of the Old Testament authors are from outside the United States.
- In the commentary just mentioned, I interact heavily with scholars from outside the United States, especially scholars in Argentina and South Africa.
- I recently published an essay with a group of international scholars in Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair (Lexington, 2023).
- I have published in internationally renown journals like Journal of Biblical Literature.
- I published “The Paradoxes of Fear in the Hebrew Bible.” Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok 84 (2019): 25–50. (A Swedish journal.)
- I published “At Sin’s Entryway (Gen 4,7): A Reply to C. L. Crouch.” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 124, no. 3 (2012): 409–415. (An international and German journal.)
- I recorded video commentaries for a Disciple Bible Study app, which is aimed at an international audience.
In 2018, I delivered the lecture “The Paradoxes of Fear in the Hebrew Bible” for the Stockholm School of Theology, Stockholm, Sweden.
In the last few years, I have refereed works for Cambridge University Press, Oxford Research Encyclopedias, and T & T Clark (UK).
- Before COVID, I traveled to Southeast Asia and taught Old Testament at a seminary there.
- Before COVID, I gave a paper at Oxford on John Wesley's use of the Old Testament.