development of Old Testament

The old testament CHRI 3301

Students will write a theological essay of 3,000 to 3,500 words in which they trace a theological

idea or theme through its development in the Old Testament and how it relates to the New

Testament (choose one of the six topics listed below). Considering 12-point Times New Roman

font and double-spaced with one-inch margins, typically such a word count will produce 11-13

pages of text (not including the title page). For a sample title page, see the “Theological Essay

Title Page Example” document.

For an example of tracing a theological theme, consider how Waltke develops a theology of land

in An Old Testament Theology, Chapters 19-20, or of kingship in Chapter 24. This essay will not

be as detailed as these treatments, given the space constraints of the assignment.

The goal of this assignment is not to survey the secondary literature (i.e., what other people say

about the Bible) on these topics; rather, it is to enable students to practice engaging in theological

analysis of the biblical texts themselves (the primary sources/literature). Consequently, the main

source for this paper should be the Bible, and the lion’s share of the

writing should involve reflections/ideas about the Scriptures being considered and their

implications for developing a theological perspective on the theme. Citations of writings from

others should be kept to a minimum unless citing is necessary to avoid plagiarism. Furthermore,

since this is a course in Old Testament theology, resist the urge to stay with the familiar by

turning this assignment into a New Testament theology paper.

At least two-thirds of the paper must be devoted to the theological theme’s Old Testament

development before getting on to the New Testament development of it. Finally,

students will submit the Final Draft of their essay

through SafeAssign in Blackboard.

When looking for passages that deal with one of these themes, students should not restrict

themselves to simply searching for the individual word that represents the topic. For example, if

the theme is king/kingship, look up occurrences in the Bible not only for king-related words (like

king, kingship, kingly, kingdom), but also for related concepts like throne, reign (noun and verb),

dominion, royal, etc.

Also, students should pay attention to the historical, literary, and theological contexts of the

passages being used to develop the essay theme.