Reading the Old Testament as Story: A Pedagogy for Spiritual Formation

Abstract

Since the middle of the 20th century, noted Old Testament scholars and theologians like Bernard Anderson, Hans Frei, Craig Bartholomew, and Michael Goheen have raised the concern that the contemporary church not only has lost reading and understanding the Old Testament as story, but that this loss has hindered its spiritual formation. While affirming their concern, qualitative research composed of interviews, narrative descriptions, and questionnaires of 138 college-aged students who largely identify with the Evangelical tradition will be presented showing that when the Old Testament is recovered as story, God is encountered, transformation is experienced, and faith is developed.

Biblical field study as experiential pedagogy: Jerusalem University College as a case study

“…Most Christians who travel to Israel/Palestine seek increased knowledge of the Bible, as well as spiritual encounter and formation (Brisben and Klein, 2012). Most of the survey respondents said they have incorporated what they learned about the biblical context into their spiritual and devotional life in the years since the field study.…”