Master the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi

If you have spent years in the Old Testament — reading it, teaching it, preaching from it — and still have the quiet sense that you are working with something you only partially understand, I want you to know: that feeling is not a failure of faith. It is an honest recognition of how deep this text actually goes.

The Old Testament was written across more than a thousand years, in a world with its own literary conventions, political structures, and theological vocabulary. It was shaped by covenants, crises, exiles, and restorations. Its poetry operates by rules most modern readers have never been taught. Its prophecy is almost always misread when we come to it without the right questions. And its grand theological story — the one that runs from the opening words of Genesis to the final line of Malachi — is breathtaking in its coherence, but only visible to those who have learned to look for it. My goal in this course is simple: to give you the eyes to see what has always been there.

I have organized this course the way I wish someone had taught it to me — beginning not with Genesis, but with the tools. Before we open a single text, we establish what the Old Testament is, how its canon was formed, what the Ancient Near Eastern world looked like, and what principles responsible interpretation actually demands of us. These are not academic formalities. They are the difference between reading the Old Testament on its own terms and unconsciously projecting our own categories onto it. Once those tools are in hand, we move through the entire Hebrew canon — Torah, Former Prophets, Latter Prophets, and Writings — with the attention each section deserves.

I also believe that intellectual honesty is itself an act of faithfulness. This course does not pretend that the hard questions do not exist. We will sit with the Documentary Hypothesis and evaluate the evidence. We will examine the authorship debates around Isaiah and Daniel. We will wrestle with what it means for ancient Israelite prophecy to be "fulfilled." My conviction is that faith is not threatened by rigorous inquiry — it is deepened by it. I have found, again and again, that the student who is willing to ask the hard questions comes out on the other side with a far more durable and mature trust in the text.

You do not need a seminary degree to take this course. You need curiosity, a willingness to read carefully, and the conviction that the Old Testament repays the effort you put into it. If that describes you, I believe this course will permanently change the way you read the Bible — and I would be honored to be your guide through it.