New Academy Session Begins Tonight!
Friday, May 1, 2009 at 09:30AM 
The Academy resumes tonight at 7:30 p.m. Rev. Andrew Compton will begin a new series entitled "Current Trends in Old Testament Studies." Join us for a lively evening of discussion followed by a question and answer period and refreshments.
Lecture title: Issues in Old Testament History and Archaeology, Part 1
Hermeneutics, the study of how people interpret texts, has revealed three “worlds” to which texts point. There is a world inside of the text, a world in front of the text (referring to how a text changes the world of the reader), and a world that lies behind the text. This world behind the text is the world studied by historians and yet access to this world is fraught with difficulty. In this lecture, we will study how the Old Testament relates to the world standing behind it and consider how the Bible and archaeology interact as we try to reconstruct history. We will find that though neither the Old Testament or archaeology provide simple answers, they do provide us with much information to help us better understand how the worlds lying behind and inside of the text relate to one another.
Recommended Books: Iain Provan, Tremper Longman and V. Phillips Long, A Biblical History of Israel, James VanderKam & Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Rev. Andrew Compton is an assistant pastor at Christ Reformed Church and a 2007 graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has done graduate work at Claremont Graduate University and is a current graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles where his focus is on Old Testament. He has contributed to such publications as The Outlook, Westminster Theological Journal, and the forthcoming final volume of the New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon Press, 2009). His professional areas of interest include line forms in Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry, reported speech in biblical Hebrew, biblical wisdom literature (especially the book of Proverbs), and the portrayal of Solomon in 1 Kings and later literature (both biblical and extra-biblical). Theological interests include hermeneutics, the doctrine of scripture, innerbiblical exegesis and following the "New Perspecitves on Paul." Andrew lives in Upland, CA with his wife Pamela and daughter and enjoys running, biking, brewing beer, playing trumpet and cheering for USC football
Reader Comments (8)
Good to hear from you. How's Italy?
Andrew has assured me that he is lecturing in Akkadian and then simultaneously translating into Ugaritic. His powerpoint slides are written in Aramaic.
Italy is fantastic, beautiful, and altogether stunning. If only the wonders of the Reformation were to take hold here, then I don't know what else I could ask for.
Truly, on that note, it will be a pleasure most great, to once again worship in our local congregation at Christ Reformed, meeting with the Risen Christ on each Lord's Day, which I have so dearly missed.
On a similar note, it is truly mind-blowing to be in such proximity to Rome and our buddy Ratzinger... having spent three weeks in Rome made that influence and presence most tangible.
But more on that when I return in but three short weeks' time.
Until then,
Nick
PS, just try to keep a leash on Master Compton, I am guessing Aramaic powerpoint presentations don't go over so well with everybody...
It has to be a Reformed and Lutheran qualification for our pastors to brew their own beer.
I don't know how to, so I'll have to settle for Samual Adams Boston Lager, until I learn how to brew!
Watch Tombstone several times, so you can quote it.
Smoke cigars
Drink beer or wine
Listen to Led Zepplin and classical music
Sports: Lakers, Ducks, Yankees and of course USC football
For all you Angels fans Yankees beat them, so let's see who can make it through the playoffs this year. Go Yankees
Probably the reason that most people follow USC football in southern California, is that they don't have a professional football team.
The reason that they don't have a pro team in Los Angeles, is that the Rose Bowl is about 100 years old, and the Los Angeles coliseum is an out dated toilet.
I used to have Raiders season tickets from 1982 - 1989, and the coliseum was a horrible place to watch a football game back then. I can only imagine how bad it would be almost 20 years later.
The USC campus is in one of the worst areas in Los Angeles (Watts, home of the Watts riots, and near another wonderful area -- Compton).
Unlike U.C.L.A., the S.C. students risk their lives, if they should venture a few feet off of their campus.
Los Angeles actually thinks that they can lure a pro football team back to the toilet (coliseum), but the NFL, is not that dumb.
Los Angeles would love to build a new stadium, but the entire state is bankrupt, and they cannot afford to build one. (They have a hard time even gving their tax payers their state refunds.)