BINT 302 — Introduction to Exegesis

BINT 302 teaches a seven-stage exegetical workflow: text, context, grammar, word study, structure, theology, application. Each stage is a practical discipline with its own methods, questions, and tools. The course does not stop at defining what context means or why word studies matter; it shows you how to do the work in a finite amount of time on a passage you have never studied before. By the end, you will have practiced every stage on a running case study from Romans 5 and will understand why the order of the stages is not arbitrary — each one prepares the ground for the next. The workflow taught here is the same one used by careful readers across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, because the workflow is a matter of craft, not confession. BINT 301 taught the principles behind responsible biblical interpretation — what the grammatical-historical method is, why context shapes meaning, how words carry semantic ranges that etymology alone cannot capture, and where tradition legitimately enters the reading process. BINT 302 takes those principles and turns them into executable practice. Three areas go substantially deeper here than they did in BINT 301: textual criticism (what to do when manuscripts disagree and an English footnote says "some manuscripts read"), discourse and structural analysis (how to trace the argument flow of a passage and identify patterns like chiasm, inclusio, and repetition), and the exegetical paper (how to write up what you found in a form that makes your reasoning transparent to a reader). Students who completed BINT 301 will recognize the conceptual ground; students who did not will find a brief recap in the first lesson. The course follows a single passage, Romans 5:1-11, through every workflow stage from text establishment to theological reflection. The passage was chosen because it rewards every stage of the method: verse 1 contains one of the most discussed textual variants in the New Testament, the discourse structure is explicit and traceable, and the key words carry theological weight that repays careful investigation. In Module 7, you write a short exegetical paper applying the full workflow to a passage of your choice from a set that includes Psalm 1, Genesis 22:1-19, and Proverbs 1:1-7. The paper is your demonstration that the workflow has become yours, not just a procedure you followed.