Regent Summer School
Many of you may know my general opinions about advertising, especially from classic posts such as "I Strongly Dislike Advertising". However, in this case I will definitely make an exception. Regent Summer school was great when I attended. Some of the most interesting courses, and Profs, come out for the summer. So, I am happy to pass on the word here.
You can check out the summer school offerings on their website, here. I just did and I have to say that it has made me really want to take several of the courses being offered this summer...
Did you know that, as well as all the regular faculty who are quite good, Christopher Wright is coming out? He is here for the first week of Spring Classes, teaching a course entitled "God's Word, God's World, and God's Mission: Reading the Whole Bible for Mission". He is not the only name that caught my attention. Allister McGrath, Mark Noll, Christopher Hall, and Paul Helm will all be there too. When, or where, else do you have a chance to interact with scholars such as these? Never, that's when. Never.
Therefore, I am confident in saying that if you have the chance to go to any of these, the courses I have mentioned or others, you should. Really.
If you want to send me, that would be great too :)
Comments
As a former student of several of the mentioned professors, I can personally testify that each of them are first rate scholars (with Cambridge PhDs!) who are respected around the world in the academic community. Furthermore, having spent time with these professors I would add they are kind, accommodating, and always enjoy a good question.
I also think ad hominem attacks on people are cheap and inappropriate. Especially when they are simply false. So perhaps you should delete the comment, since Regent College is arguably one of the most respected and gifted graduate schools for not only biblical studies, but systematic theology, missions, anglican studies, and christianity and the arts.
I found the profs to be quite friendly, and am surprised that you think of Ian Provan as a jerk...
As to the comments pertaining to them as biblical scholars, I am unsurprised we disagree on this. Dana has also shared his dislike for C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright on comments on this blog.
Dana is, however, a friend, so I am not going to delete his comment.
Still, I would ask you, Dana, to moderate your venom in terms of personal attacks? :)
I will add this: Provan does excellently when questioned (I know because I've questioned him), Long is a fantastic biblical scholar (his course on Joshua is excellent) and Watts is at the forefront of Markan research.
I read your bio online just now, and you mention there that you think the gospel is interesting when read from a 'socialist perspective'. I can only assume that means you prefer political readings of scripture to others. Such an a priori judgment might explain your skewed perspective on good biblical scholarship.
I will rephrase things in a more friendly way. But I was not joking. I stand by everything i said. In my experience Regent college (while it may be a good seminary) has very poor biblical scholarship in my experience. I haven't read everything from the scholars there, except watts who i've had a few beers with and he is a nice guy i just disagree with his conclusions about Mark.
I must say, entirely from a historiography prospective Provan and Long's book "a biblical history of Israel" is one of the worst books I've ever read. You can find out more about it herehttp://www.amazon.com/Biblical-History-Israel-Iain-Provan/dp/0664220908.
You may feel free to disagree. But in my experience and my reading the biblical scholarship that comes out of regent is theologically very bias. I'm not saying this because I'm anti-christian (although I am), because I would say that if you want to learn biblical studies the best school in all of canada is not that far from regent. Trinity Western has amazing biblical scholars (except Flint and Broyle).
C.S. lewis can't even be called a biblical scholar. At best he was a church layman who was not only wrong, but he was an amazing anglo-saxon literature scholar. But it was disappointing that he was never able to translate those skills to the bible.
N.T. Wright was a good Paul scholar who tried to apply the same methods and principles to the historical Jesus and failed miserably. It was interesting as a T.A. for a historical jesus class with evangelicals and watching them read the borg/wright book and watching them wanting to believe wright but slowly realizing how poor his method is and how solid borg's is. I was asked (by an Evangelical) at my Thesis defense why I didn't cite N.T. wright, and my answer was that he hasn't written anything about the gospel of Mark that is worth citing.
Don't even get me started on Dunn or Ben Witherington III.
Jeremy your assessment of my view of biblical scholarship is partly right. I'm very interested in socio-economic readings or studies of the gospel of mark. I'm also very interested in oral cultures, and the ways that orality and folk-lore theories affect biblical scholarship, and i'm very interested in the applications of social-science methods to the study of the new testament (mostly mark). But that doesn't mean I believe those are the only valid methods. Those are just what I read and the types of studies i used to write.
Sorry andrew for causing a stir on your blog. I should have censored myself more. I tried to rewrite it in a more friendly way.
Once again I thank you for you grace.
You don't need to apologize for causing a stir though!
I appreciate your opinions even if I disagree; that is why I only asked you to hold back on personal attacks :)
With that said, I do own the Provan/Long/Longman book and have been disappointed with it the few times I have turned to it as a resource on Kings. I have also listened to audio courses by Provan on Kings, Daniel and Psalms. I found him to be an engaging lecturer with some insightful comments along the way (ie. some of his work on the coronation of Solomon), however I probably wouldn't use him as my first resource if I was trying to really understand a text.
For a book like Daniel, I understand the challenges of doing a real detailed study in a 2 week course, however I felt like Provan just wasn't in the the same class as scholars like J.J. Collins and John Goldingay.
I know that they are getting older now and teaching fewer courses, but Regent does have two scholars I highly respect (but certainly don't always agree with) in Bruce Waltke and Gordon Fee.
I have a BA with a Classics minor and appreciate studying the history and language issues of a text, however having been out of school for a few years now I have found a need to go beyond simply understanding the original meaning of a text and the importance of personal application. Regent seems to have a good balance there.