Attendance, participation and class etiquette affect your grade. Attendance sheets will be circulated.  If your attendance, participation and etiquette have been excellent, I will add as much as two points to your course grade to raise it to the next letter grade. 

You will need to provide documentation for excused absences.  To paraphrase the Undergraduate Catalog, you may be excused from class without penalty:

1) for University sanctioned activities,

2) for severe illness as evidenced by a written doctor’s excuse, and

3) for a death in your immediate family.

You are allowed two unexcused absences without penalty.  Each additional unexcused absence will result in a 1 pt. deduction from your course grade. 

Also, being a frequent distraction will adversely affect your grade.  Do not make a habit of arriving late, leaving early, or talking to your neighbor. Cell phones must be turned off during class.  The policy of the Office of Academic Affairs is as follows:

. . . the Office of Academic Affairs prohibits the use by students of cell phones, pagers, or similar communication devices during scheduled classes. All such devices must be turned off or put in a silent mode and cannot be taken out during class. At the discretion of the instructor, exception to this policy is possible in special circumstances.  Sanctions for violation of this policy are determined by the instructor and may include dismissal from the class – see Class Disruption (http://www.missouristate.edu/recreg/classdis.html).

Reading

The reading assignments are the lifeblood of the course. The Roetzel introductory textbook that will serve as the historical-critical and literary-critical backbone of the course.  Each assigned reading will overlap with the lecture/discussion outline of the day to make sure we are getting the basics.  But do not forget that the main texts for this class are the undisputed Pauline epistles, the Deutero-Paulines, the Pastorals, and Acts.  The tests will include plenty of questions regarding the content of the readings.  You will probably not do well on them if you do not read and study the assignments.

Exams, Quizzes, and Papers

There will be three reading quizzes during the semester  and a take home final exam.   Make-up quizzes will be given if the absence is excusable according to university policy (see above).  It is in your best interest to take exams on time and avoid make-up exams.  Most students perform poorly on them.

There will be four short papers. The written assignments will prepare you for class discussions on the dates they are due. They must be typed double-spaced. Specific directions for each assignment will appear on the schedule. Late papers will not be accepted—no exceptions.  But a make up assignment will be made available to those with a legitimate excuse.  If you know you must miss the class session at which a paper is due you should turn the assigned paper in early instead of opting for a make up assignment.

Your single most involved assignment will be a twelve to fifteen page exegesis/research paper.

Wiring

An email account and some basic web surfing are required in this course. You must have an Missouri State email address and use it so I can easily send messages to the entire class using the "send to groups" feature of the campus network.  You can earn 2 extra points immediately by completing the email assignment found on the first day of the Schedule page within ten days.  

Grading

Your Course Grade is based on a standard 10 pt scale, so 90-100% (i.e. 180-200 pts.) is an A, 80-89% (i.e. 160-179 pts.) is a B, etc. As someone has said, "Earnestly desire the higher gifts."

Grades will be kept on the course's Blackboard site so that you can check your performance in the class on your own at any time.

An incomplete (i.e., grade "I") will be given for the course if you miss the Final, have a legitimate excuse, and request one within 24 hours after the Final was given.  Any other missed assignments must be made up by Study Day--the day make up exams are given--or you will receive no points for those assignments.

Textbooks (Required)

Roetzel, Calvin J. The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context. 5th ed., Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

Gorman, Michael. Elements of Biblical Exegesis.  Hendrickson, 2001. 

A Bible (one that is fairly "literal" and very accurate).  I strongly recommend the NRSV in one of the following study Bible editions:

The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3d ed.) or the The HarperCollins Study Bible.  (The Access Study Bible from Oxford is an acceptable more economical alternative.)

Click here for a discussion of Bible translation theory and a fuller discussion of the following recommendations.  The ranking here is not intended to suggest that you should read only one translation, the NRSV.  Serious academic Bible study always involves comparing several good translations.  But I am suggesting that if you care about accuracy in translation, you should use one of the higher ranked choices as your everyday Bible.

Best Choice for Serious Bible Study:

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

The NRSV is an extremely accurate translation, faithful to the earliest and best manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (HB/OT) and the Greek New Testament (NT).  It is fairly literal and is the translation most often quoted by a wide variety of biblical scholars (Evangelicals, Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Jews, secular historians, etc.) in the top academic publications. 

Acceptable Second Best Choices for Serious Bible Study:

1) The Revised Standard Version (RSV).  The RSV is an excellent fairly literal translation, but it is often gender inaccurate and retains some of the 17th century English of the King James Version.

2) NET Bible (NET).  The NET is an excellent fairly literal internet-based translation that attempts to be gender accurate.  It includes thousands of helpful study footnotes that are mostly very scholarly though sometimes betraying a conservative Christian bias. 

Acceptable Third Best Choices for Serious Bible Study:

The following translations are fairly accurate, but clearly reflect the doctrinal biases of some particular brand of Christianity here and there (e.g., Isa 7:14).

1) The New American Bible (NAB).

2) The New American Standard Bible (NASB).

3) The English Standard Version (ESV).

Unacceptable for Serious Bible Study:

The following translations have serious shortcomings of various sorts as discussed on my translations page.

1) The King James Version (KJV) or The New King James Version (NKJV). 

2) The New International Version (NIV) and Today's New International Version (TNIV).

3) All mainly "dynamic/functional equivalency" versions (TEV, CEV, LB, NLT, Amplified, The Message, etc.)