Preview a doctoral course

Introduces the methods and practices required for independent advanced research in biblical studies. Students learn to define significant research problems, formulate precise research questions and theses, establish the state of scholarship through critical literature review, identify and evaluate primary and secondary evidence, assess scholarly arguments, and design research appropriate to a defined problem. The course develops advanced use of bibliographic databases, research systems, and digital tools, including responsible and verifiable use of AI-assisted research technologies. Particular attention is given to source evaluation, citation integrity, argument construction, and the movement from research question to publishable scholarship. Students complete a substantial article-quality research paper.

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Examines the historical development of biblical interpretation and scholarship from ancient Jewish and Christian exegesis through medieval and Reformation interpretation, Renaissance philology, Enlightenment criticism, the rise of historical-critical scholarship, modern German biblical research, literary and social-scientific approaches, canonical interpretation, reception history, ideological criticism, and contemporary global and interdisciplinary developments. Particular attention is given to the intellectual, theological, cultural, and institutional assumptions that shaped major interpreters, methods, and scholarly debates. Students learn to trace the development of a research problem across periods of scholarship and to evaluate how earlier interpretive traditions continue to influence contemporary biblical research.

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Develops research-level competence in the linguistic and philological investigation of primary texts appropriate to the student's concentration. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament students undertake advanced analysis of Biblical Hebrew prose and poetry, lexical semantics, syntax, discourse, linguistic variation, inscriptions, and relevant comparative Semitic evidence. New Testament / Early Christianity students undertake advanced analysis of Koine Greek, lexical semantics, syntax, discourse, linguistic variation, Septuagintal and Jewish Greek, documentary papyri, inscriptions, and related Greco-Roman textual evidence. Emphasis is placed on evaluating linguistic evidence, using technical research resources critically, and developing defensible arguments from primary-text data. Students complete substantial primary-text analyses and a research project centered on linguistic or philological evidence.

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Examines the theory and practice of biblical textual criticism through the study of manuscript traditions, textual witnesses, scribal practices, transmission history, and critical editions. Hebrew Bible / Old Testament students engage the Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, and other relevant witnesses. New Testament / Early Christianity students engage papyri, majuscules, minuscules, lectionaries, early versions, patristic citations, the Editio Critica Maior, and principles of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. Emphasis is placed on evaluating competing readings, weighing internal and external evidence, explaining the development of textual variation, and making defensible independent textual judgments. Students complete a textual-critical dossier on a selected passage.

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Examines major hermeneutical and critical approaches used in biblical research, with particular attention to their methodological and epistemological assumptions, evidentiary requirements, interpretive capabilities, and limitations. Approaches considered include historical, source, form, redaction, narrative, rhetorical, discourse, social-scientific, canonical, reception-historical, feminist, postcolonial, ideological, and theological interpretation. Students critically adjudicate among competing methods, evaluate the compatibility and limits of methodological integration, and construct and defend methodological approaches appropriate to unresolved biblical research problems. Emphasis is placed on making explicit and defensible methodological decisions rather than applying methods mechanically. Students complete a comparative methodological study.

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Examines the methods and evidence used to investigate and reconstruct the historical worlds of biblical texts. Students critically engage literary sources, archaeology and material culture, inscriptions, papyri and documentary evidence, geography, chronology, and relevant comparative ancient sources appropriate to their concentration. Particular attention is given to source provenance and dating, evidentiary weighting, conflicting evidence, analogy and comparison, arguments from silence, historiographical assumptions, and the limits of historical inference. Students learn to distinguish historical context used for interpretation from historical reconstruction as an independent research task and to construct defensible historical arguments from incomplete and uneven evidence. Students complete a substantial historical-reconstruction research project.

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Examines a major field within the student's concentration through intensive engagement with its primary texts, history of scholarship, major research questions, current debates, methodological issues, and specialized secondary literature. Seminar topics vary by cohort and may include major corpora or research areas within Hebrew Bible / Old Testament or New Testament / Early Christianity. Emphasis is placed on developing broad bibliographic command, critically evaluating representative scholarship, locating unresolved problems within the field, and situating independent research within the larger scholarly conversation. Students complete a substantial research paper suitable for development toward publication.

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Provides advanced training in an additional language or technical research tool selected according to the student's concentration, specialization, and anticipated dissertation needs. Approved areas may include Aramaic, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Syriac, Latin, Coptic, advanced Septuagint Greek, epigraphy, papyrology, corpus linguistics, digital textual analysis, or another research tool approved for the student's field. Emphasis is placed on developing sufficient competence to locate, interpret, evaluate, and employ evidence from the selected language or technical field in independent biblical research. The specific content and research product vary according to the approved area of study.

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Provides intensive research in a specialized area within the student's concentration, normally related to the student's developing research interests. Students engage the area's primary evidence, specialized bibliography, history of scholarship, major debates, methodological problems, and unresolved research questions at advanced research depth. Emphasis is placed on achieving command of a narrowly defined scholarly conversation, identifying opportunities for original contribution, and conducting independent research capable of advancing that conversation. The seminar may contribute to the development of the student's eventual dissertation area but does not require commitment to a dissertation topic. Students complete a substantial specialization research project.

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Provides advanced study in a cognate discipline outside the student's immediate biblical specialization. Approved areas may include linguistics, literary theory, archaeology, ancient historiography, classics, Jewish studies, anthropology, sociology of religion, philosophy of language, digital humanities, manuscript studies, reception history, or another field relevant to the student's research. Emphasis is placed on understanding the discipline's major concepts, methods, evidentiary practices, and scholarly debates and on evaluating how its approaches may be responsibly integrated into biblical research. The specific content and research product vary according to the approved field of study.

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Prepares advanced research students for professional scholarly communication, publication, teaching, and participation in the academic community. Students examine the processes of selecting appropriate journals and conferences, preparing and submitting manuscripts and proposals, responding to peer review, revising scholarly work for publication, and observing research and publication ethics. The course also introduces principles of effective postsecondary teaching in biblical studies, including course design, learning outcomes, assessment, and responsible use of primary texts and scholarship in instruction. Attention is given to conference participation, professional societies, scholarly collaboration, academic service, and the development of a sustainable research and publication agenda. Students prepare scholarly and professional materials suitable for use beyond the course.

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Guides students in the development and defense of the formal dissertation prospectus. Under faculty supervision, students refine a significant and feasible research problem, formulate the central research question and thesis or working hypothesis, establish the state of scholarship, define the primary-source corpus, justify the proposed methodology, articulate the anticipated original contribution, and develop the structure and timetable for the dissertation. Students prepare a formal prospectus including an annotated research bibliography, chapter outline, and feasibility assessment and defend the proposed project before faculty and peers.

Preview dates have not been announced. A preview shows only introductory methods and examples, never a student’s unpublished prospectus.

Conducts the first sustained phase of dissertation research under faculty supervision. Students execute the approved research plan through concentrated investigation of relevant primary and secondary evidence, establish and maintain an organized research archive, refine the dissertation bibliography and chapter architecture as the evidence requires, and begin sustained dissertation writing. Regular dissertation workshops provide structured opportunities for research reporting, scholarly critique, problem solving, and revision. By the conclusion of the course, students complete a substantive dissertation chapter for faculty review.

No Preview Week: supervised dissertation research

Continues sustained dissertation research and writing under faculty supervision. Students extend the dissertation argument through additional substantive chapters, revise previously completed work in response to scholarly critique, and evaluate the coherence of the developing dissertation across chapters, evidence, methodology, and conclusions. Students also adapt a significant portion of the dissertation research for journal publication and present work in progress in the research colloquium for critical discussion.

No Preview Week: supervised dissertation research

Guides students through the completion and substantive revision of the full dissertation manuscript under faculty supervision. Emphasis is placed on strengthening the coherence of the central argument, chapter architecture, historiographical engagement, use of evidence, methodological consistency, citation and documentation, scholarly prose, and the relationship between individual chapters and the dissertation as a whole. Students participate in a structured writing group for critical review and revision and consider how portions of the completed research may be developed for future publication. By the conclusion of the course, a complete dissertation draft is submitted for Academic Board review.

No Preview Week: supervised dissertation research

Guides students through the final review, defense, revision, and scholarly dissemination of the dissertation. Students prepare to explain and defend the dissertation's research problem, methodology, evidence, argument, conclusions, limitations, and original contribution before the Academic Board. Following the defense, students complete any revisions required by the Board and submit the final approved dissertation. The course also guides students in developing a publication strategy for extending dissertation research into appropriate scholarly venues.

No Preview Week: supervised dissertation research