Study includes the entire biblical corpus, with a specific concentration in either Old Testament/Hebrew Bible or New Testament. In addition to the canonical, deuterocanonical, and extra-canonical materials, courses are also available in the background and literature of early Israel, biblical and post-biblical Judaism, and early Christianity.

Objectives
Students who complete the degree achieve competence in languages central to the program; acquire skills for the critical study of primary texts; acquire skill in the application of particular methodological approaches to the study of biblical texts; and are prepared to engage interdisciplinary discourses that shape research and teaching in biblical studies.

Admission Requirements
The program of study presumes recent critical study in all areas of the Bible. A minimum of four semesters of study in the language of the student’s primary Testament and two semesters in that of the other Testament must be in evidence for an applicant to be considered. Intermediate and advanced Hebrew and Greek language courses are available each semester to deepen the student’s knowledge of these languages.

Diagnostic Language Examinations and Interviews
The entering student will be required to take exams for diagnostic purposes in both Hebrew and Greek prior to fall registration. These language exams will be evaluated prior to the diagnostic interview. A primary advisor in the student’s chosen specialization and a secondary advisor from the other Testament are assigned to meet with the student for a diagnostic conference during registration week. Together the student and advisors will determine areas of interest and competence and identify areas where further study is advisable.

Complementary Concentration
Within the first year, the student will also identify a complementary concentration, which can consist of a traditional area of religious studies (e.g. patristics, rabbinics, ethics, history of religions, theology), or a methodology (e.g. literary criticisms, sociology, anthropology, comparative linguistics, rhetoric, psychology), or a field of history and culture adjacent to but distinct from the Bible per se (e.g., ancient Near East, Greco-Roman world, Judaica), or an interdisciplinary focus (e.g., feminisms, ethnic studies, performance theory, cultural studies).

Language Requirements
Primary Biblical Language: Biblical language exams are offered prior to fall registration each year. Students certify by enrolling in course work until the examinations are passed.

Secondary Biblical Language: Complete advanced course with B+ or better.
Biblical Aramaic: Complete one-semester course with B or higher.

Two Modern Languages other than the student’s native language, ordinarily the major research languages of German and French. International students may substitute English.

Course Work
Two Area Foundation Seminars are required; they provide an introduction to the state of biblical studies and the primary methodologies for each Testament; five other courses at the doctoral (5000-6000) level are required, selected in consultation with the complementary concentration advisor and the primary advisor. In the second year of the program, the student will take a student-organized Teaching/Introduction Seminar that provides the opportunity both to survey available published introductions in both Testaments and to teach with or observe and interview faculty offering introductory courses at the M.A.and M.Div. level.

Comprehensive Examinations
When course work is completed and languages are certified, students will take the comprehensive examinations. The exams consist of two standardized closed-book tests (one in each Testament, including “Intertestamental”) drawn from the “Areas and Topics” documents for each Testament and two examinations proposed by the student (papers or tests), one in some aspect of the student’s primary Testament and one in some aspect of the complementary concentration. This written work will be followed by an oral examination. All of the examinations will be graded. Part of the oral examination will involve discussion of the student’s dissertation interest.

Dissertation
After successfully completing the Comprehensive Examinations the student submits a dissertation proposal to the Biblical Studies area faculty and the Doctoral Council for approval. An oral defense is conducted upon completion of the dissertation.

CORE DOCTORAL FACULTY IN BIBLICAL STUDIES

DAVID L. BALCH • Professor of New Testament, PLTS
Paul; Luke-Acts; house churches in the first and second centuries CE, especially their social aspects including the roles of women, slaves, children, and the function of meals; Roman houses in Pompeii, espcially Roman domestic art and architecture; the Isis cult in the Greco-Roman world.

AARON BRODY • Assistant Professor of Bible and Archaeology, PSR
Archaeology of the Southern Levant; archaeology of religion; cultures of the Hebrew Bible; ancient economy; Tell en-Nasbeh.

ROBERT COOTE • Professor of Old Testament, SFTS
Tribalism in the ancient New East and the OT; the formation of the Prophetic corpus; the use of Scripture in the NT; critical interpretation of the Bible in the church.

JOHN C. ENDRES, SJ • Professor of Sacred Scripture, JSTB
Book of Jubilees and Qumran; Chronicles; Psalms.

LEANN SNOW FLESHER • Professor of Old Testament, ABSW
Biblical laments; Apocalyptic literature; Psalms; hermeneutics/global perspective; protest literature of the Bible.

BARBARA GREEN, OP • Professor of Biblical Studies, DSPT
Deuteronomy; hermeneutics; Mikhael Bakhtin.

GINA HENS-PIAZZA • Professor of Biblical Studies, JSTB
Prophets; Deuteronomistic history; feminist readings; new historicism and cultural studies.

KAH-JIN (JEFFREY) KUAN • Associate Professor of Old Testament, PSR
Asian and Asian-American biblical hermeneutics; the book of Joshua; the book of Job; ancient near eastern history in the first millennium BCE; Israelite and Judean history in the First Temple period; pluralism and Old Testament theology.

TAT-SIONG BENNY LIEW • Associate Professor of New Testament, PSR Inter(con)textual and interdisciplinary reading/ studying of the New Testament, Colonial/ Postcolonial studies, Gender/ Sexuality studies, Racial/ ethnic studies, particularly Asian-American studies, Philosophical hermeneutics/ literary theory, Studies on the Greco-Roman world

Gospel of Matthew and formative Judaism; new perspective on Paul; biblical hermeneutics; Greco-Roman background for the New Testament; classical Greek.

JEAN-FRANCOIS RACINE • Assistant Professor of New Testament, JSTB
New Testament textual criticism; narrative criticism study of the gospels; biblical hermeneutics; Luke-Acts; Paul’s letters-context and theology.

ANNETTE SCHELLENBERG • Assistant Professor of Old Testament, SFTS
Old Testament anthropology; Wisdom literature; interrelations between the Old Testament world and the Ancient Near East and Egyptian context; reception history of Old Testament texts (e.g. musical settings); Old Testament theology and theologies.

JUDY YATES SIKER • Associate Professor of New Testament, ABSW
Rethinking women in the New Testament; Jewish/Christian relations in antiquity and contemporary society; identity issues in the Gospel of Matthew.

MARY ANN TOLBERT • Professor of Biblical Studies, PSR
Feminist Biblical hermeneutics; feminist and queer theory; feminism, queer theory, and the Bible; Ancient Mediterranean social, religious and literary history as the context for Christian origins.

CONSORTIAL FACULTY RESOURCES

Beginning Greek, Greek reading groups.

STEED DAVIDSON • Assistant Professor of Old Testament, PLTS
Ancient Near Eastern empires; the intersection of postcolonial theory and biblical studies for the exploration of exile, diaspora, and displacement.

MICHAEL GUINAN, OFM • Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, FST
Creation theology; Psalms; Wisdom; biblical roots of Franciscan spirituality.

DONN MORGAN • Professor of Old Testament, CDSP
Biblical wisdom literature; education (ancient and modern); Canonical studies.

SANDRA SCHNEIDERS, IHM • Professor of New Testament Studies and Christian Spirituality, JSTB
Gospel of John; biblical hermeneutics; Roman Catholic Religious life; spirituality.

MARY DONOVAN TURNER • Associate Professor of Preaching, PSR
Hebrew Bible and preaching; Women, voice and preaching.

ANNETTE WEISSENRIEDER • Assistant Professor of New Testament, SFTS
Ancient medical texts/iconography and the New Testament; transsubjective pneumatology in Pauline theology; Western patristic and Pauline interpretations of Holy Communion against the background of ancient culture and philosophy.