Pedagogy and the 2011 Workshops

Thanks be to God! Josa and I returned safely to our home in Israel after two months on the road. We conducted workshops in London, U.K., Stroud, OK, Houston, TX, Grants Pass, OR, and Zeeland, MI. How wonderful it was to meet old friends and make many new ones. Attendance was 50% higher than in previous years, and, judging from the reaction of students, satisfaction was at an all-time high.

However, there is a pedagogical problem. Jerusalem Perspective has created a bad learning situation. Here’s what happens: Bivin comes to a city to present a workshop. Students get excited as they participate in two days of interactive study. Unfortunately, Bivin is unable to return each month to conduct additional studies. Excitement wains, and students discover how difficult it is to find a "study buddy" with the same deep desire to dig into the Scriptures. Study drops off, or ceases entirely.

Here's a partial solution: each month we will send to the addresses in our online database a stimulating synoptic problem, and we will open a topic in our online Discussion Forum. There, David and interested students will interact to solve the problem.

This month, we will examine a difficulty found in the "Parable of the Wicked Tenants" (Matthew 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19; Throckmorton pericope number 204; Aland 278): Do the tenants take the son out of the vineyard and kill him, or do they kill him inside the vineyard, and, afterward, dump his body outside?

Let's begin the discussion! Please go to the topic, "Where did the wicked tenants kill the son?" in the Jerusalem Perspective Discussion Forum:

http://forum.jerusalemperspective.com/viewtopic.php?p=2948#2948

Join fellow students in an online discussion. Read the thoughts of others, and contribute your own thoughts.

Next month we will publish the answer(s) to this months problem, and present a new synoptic difficulty.

Here's good news for those who couldn't make it to one of workshops just completed: Steve Sullivan (the son of the late Denny Sullivan, of blessed memory) created a Web page while taking part in the Zeeland, MI workshop discussions.

http://sites.google.com/site/bivinzeeland/

Browse the links on this exciting page. Clicking on the link, "Workshop Outline," for example, will enable you to download the 17-page workshop handout, which includes the texts workshop participants studied, as well as the workshop bibliography.