Starting with the spring 2020 semester on January 15, Hesston College will take another step to make its well-known Biblical Literature course accessible to people outside of Hesston College with a sixteen-week online course offering.
With the college’s recent announcement of taking Bib Lit, as it is commonly known, on the road to congregations and other groups with Weekend College, online Bib Lit will be a deeper dive into the curriculum that reveals the Bible as a narrative of God and the people of God instead of a compilation of stories.
“Online Bib Lit will allow students in the course to get the full Bib Lit curriculum and learning,” said Michele Hershberger, Bible and Ministry professor. “It’s for people who want the immersive Bib Lit experience and, perhaps, a new way of understanding the biblical narrative and their own faith journey.”
Hershberger, who has nearly 20 years of experience teaching Bib Lit, and who is co-author of the courses’ textbook The Bible as Story: An Introduction to Biblical Literature, designed the online course and has taught Bib Lit online in the past. Bible professor Nick Ladd will teach the spring 2020 online course. Ladd is a 2014 Hesston College Pastoral Ministries graduate who has been teaching at Hesston since 2018.
Throughout the course, students will wrestle with three major themes: Bible study that includes the original contexts, biblical interpretation and the biblical narrative as a connected story. Students will explore cultural, historical and literary contexts of the Bible stories as they work together to complete an inductive Bible study. Students in the course who live locally will be welcome to do the in-class inductive on campus, offering a bit of a hybrid learning option, while students at a distance will connect remotely.
“Students will discuss ways to work through the ‘problem’ of the Bible seeming to disagree with itself on key ethical issues,” said Hershberger. “Most of the class will reveal how individual Bible stories connect with each other and how they work together to show God working to heal broken relationships through a Shalom people of God.”
Online Bib Lit can be taken for credit for $1,200 or audited for $240. Financial aid is not available.
Interested participants should register for the course by January 8. Non-degree seeking students can enroll by completing the community application online. Degree-seeking students should complete the regular application process online.