Christ Reformed Info

The Academy/Author's Forum is on summber break until late August.  New class information will be posted in July for the next Academy class series.

The Academy will resume on Friday, May 1st at 7:30 p.m.  Rev. Andrew Compton will begin a new series entitled "Current Trends in Old Testament Studies."  Join us for a lively evening of discussion followed by a question and answer period and refreshments.

Rev. Andrew Compton is an assistant pastor at Christ Reformed Church and a 2007 graduate of Westminster Seminary California. He has done graduate work at Claremont Graduate University and is a current graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles where his focus is on Old Testament. He has contributed to such publications as The Outlook, Westminster Theological Journal, and the forthcoming final volume of the New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon Press, 2009). His professional areas of interest include line forms in Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry, reported speech in biblical Hebrew, biblical wisdom literature (especially the book of Proverbs), and the portrayal of Solomon in 1 Kings and later literature (both biblical and extra-biblical). Theological interests include hermeneutics, the doctrine of scripture, innerbiblical exegesis and following the "New Perspecitves on Paul." Andrew lives in Upland, CA with his wife Pamela and daughter and enjoys running, biking, brewing beer, playing trumpet and cheering for USC football.

Hermeneutics, the study of how people interpret texts, has revealed three “worlds” to which texts point. There is a world inside of the text, a world in front of the text (referring to how a text changes the world of the reader), and a world that lies behind the text. This world behind the text is the world studied by historians and yet access to this world is fraught with difficulty. In this lecture, we will study how the Old Testament relates to the world standing behind it and consider how the Bible and archaeology interact as we try to reconstruct history. We will find that though neither the Old Testament or archaeology provide simple answers, they do provide us with much information to help us better understand how the worlds lying behind and inside of the text relate to one another.

Recommended Books:  Iain Provan, Tremper Longman and V. Phillips Long, A Biblical History of Israel, James VanderKam & Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Join us Friday, May 8th at 7:30 p.m. Rev. Andrew Compton will continue a new series entitled "Current Trends in Old Testament Studies." Join us for a lively evening of discussion followed by a question and answer period and refreshments.

Lecture title: Issues in Old Testament History and Archaeology, Part 2

Hermeneutics, the study of how people interpret texts, has revealed three “worlds” to which texts point. There is a world inside of the text, a world in front of the text (referring to how a text changes the world of the reader), and a world that lies behind the text. This world behind the text is the world studied by historians and yet access to this world is fraught with difficulty. In this lecture, we will study how the Old Testament relates to the world standing behind it and consider how the Bible and archaeology interact as we try to reconstruct history. We will find that though neither the Old Testament or archaeology provide simple answers, they do provide us with much information to help us better understand how the worlds lying behind and inside of the text relate to one another.

Recommended Books: Iain Provan, Tremper Longman and V. Phillips Long, A Biblical History of Israel, James VanderKam & Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Join us Friday, May 15th at 7:30 p.m. Rev. Andrew Compton will continue the series entitled "Current Trends in Old Testament Studies." Join us for a lively evening of discussion followed by a question and answer period and refreshments.

Lecture title: Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Part 1

Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, in its rewriting of church history, cited among other things, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, since the scrolls’ discovery in 1947, much uncertainty and speculation has ensued over if and how the scrolls relate to the early Christianity. In this lecture, we’ll cover some of the basics of one of the greatest discoveries of the 20^th century for Old Testament studies. We’ll discuss the site of Qumran, the kinds of scrolls found, the Jewish community reflected in the non-biblical scrolls, how the biblical scrolls help us understand the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and whether the scrolls speak of Christ or the apostolic era. Once the rumors and uncertainty are cleared up, we’ll see that the scrolls are indeed a wonderful historical discovery that tell us a great deal of the evolution of Judaism and the canonization of the Old Testament in the final centuries before Christ.

Recommended Books: Iain Provan, Tremper Longman and V. Phillips Long, A Biblical History of Israel, James VanderKam & Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Join us Friday, May 22^nd at 7:30 p.m. Rev. Andrew Compton will continue the series entitled "Current Trends in Old Testament Studies." Join us for a lively evening of discussion followed by a question and answer period and refreshments.

Lecture title: Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Part 2

Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, in its rewriting of church history, cited among other things, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, since the scrolls’ discovery in 1947, much uncertainty and speculation has ensued over if and how the scrolls relate to the early Christianity. In this lecture, we’ll cover some of the basics of one of the greatest discoveries of the 20^th century for Old Testament studies. We’ll discuss the site of Qumran, the kinds of scrolls found, the Jewish community reflected in the non-biblical scrolls, how the biblical scrolls help us understand the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, and whether the scrolls speak of Christ or the apostolic era. Once the rumors and uncertainty are cleared up, we’ll see that the scrolls are indeed a wonderful historical discovery that tell us a great deal of the evolution of Judaism and the canonization of the Old Testament in the final centuries before Christ.

Recommended Books: Iain Provan, Tremper Longman and V. Phillips Long, A Biblical History of Israel, James VanderKam & Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls