UNISA Old Testament Course Module 2024-2025
Old Testament is not offered as a major at the undergraduate level. For information on the undergraduate modules on offer, consult the subject Scripture Studies or Biblical Studies.
Old Testament can only be taken at postgraduate level.
| Research Proposal in the Old Testament – HPOTS81 |
| Honours |
Year module |
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 12 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To introduce students to research done in the field of Old Testament since the end of the nineteenth century. They will be familiarized with the scientific method and three paradigms in the study of the Old Testament: (1) the confessional paradigm, (2) the historical-critical paradigm, and (3) the modern literary paradigm. Some of the outcomes of research done within the different paradigms will be scrutinized, discussed and criticized. The module will enable students to understand the research being done by leading Old Testament scholars, and to adjudicate scholarly articles and assess whether the author used sound scholarly practices. |
| Old Testament Research Report – HROTS85 |
| Honours |
|
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 36 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To assist and guide students in formulating a viable research proposal for a small research report related to one of the three honours modules which they have completed; secondly, to design a structure for a research essay or report and thirdly, to document, under the guidance of a supervisor, the outcomes of the research using standard practices in the field of Old Testament research. |
| Understanding the Old Testament – OTS4802 |
| Honours |
|
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 24 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To deal with hermeneutics, i.e. understanding the Bible and problems that pertains to understanding Scripture. It takes up the need to account for the author of the text, the audience for whom the text was intended and the reader of the text, focusing on the issue of historicity of the author, the text and the interpreter. The aim is to have the students realise that these three entities are all products of history, namely that once one realised that people and their products are historical data, the biblical text needs to be read in terms of its historical contexts and with historical awareness. |
| Reading the Old Testament – OTS4803 |
| Honours |
|
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 24 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To acquaint students with the practice of exegesis. The purpose of exegesis is twofold: (1) to establish what the author(s) of a biblical book intended to communicate in the original context (i.e. ‘what the text meant’); (2) to establish whether this communication is still relevant for our day and age, and how it can be applied to a new context (i.e. ‘what the text means’). It will introduce students to information which is important in order to read the books of the Old Testament with understanding. Information concerning the background, content, literary issues and the message of some of the books of the Old Testament will be studied. This will enable students to engage the Bible in a responsible manner. |
| Contextualising the Old Testament – OTS4804 |
| Honours |
|
NQF level: 8 |
Credits: 24 |
| Module presented in English |
Module presented online |
| Purpose: To understand the backdrop against which the Old Testament books were written. Emphasis is also placed on the contribution of archaeology which informs readers about aspects not contained in the biblical text. The period from 1200 BCE until 333 BCE is covered. This information will then be used to guide studetns into the field of study known as theology of the Old Testament. This discipline concerns itself with the entire Old Testament and how it can communicate in new contexts. Students will acquire an understanding of the problems inherent to the practice of Old Testament theology, and be exposed to different approachees to Old Testament theology. They will eventually explore an answer to the question whether the Old Testament has ‘a’ message or ‘a’ coherent systematic core of ideas about God, humans and the rest of creation. |