He Doesn't Have to Be a Harvard Man

I often hear insinuations from various sectors that evangelical schools are not as academically rigorous as other secular schools. There may be some truth to this when discussing religious schools in general, but this has not been my experience in my education. I attended secular schools before I went to Moody in my undergrad and I’ve also attended UPenn in my grad, as well as having a knowledge of what other schools are teaching from professors, students, and syllabi/courses offered from those schools. So I wanted to just compare some of the courses I’ve taken in my graduate studies with the main courses that a PhD or ThD student from Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School must take. This, of course, doesn’t necessarily tell you how rigorous the courses are, but in my experience, they are pretty equivalent to one another.

Trinity/Westminster MA/ThM/PhD Courses	Havard MA/PhD Courses (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Program)
Religions of the Ancient Near East	Introduction to Mesopotamian Religion
Akkadian I & II	Introduction to Akkadian
Biblical and Targumic Aramaic	Introduction to Ancient Aramaic and Targumic and Related Aramaic
Middle Egyptian	Introduction to Egyptian Hieroglyphs I & II
Readings in Biblical Hebrew	Rapid Reading in Classical Hebrew I & II
Hebrew Exegesis	Intermediate Classical Hebrew
History of Israel	Problems in Literature, History, and Religion of Ancient Israel
West-Semitic Inscriptions	Introduction to Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Ugaritic	Introduction to Ugaritic
Sumerian	Elementary Sumerian
Biblical Interpretation in the Second Temple Period	Inner-Biblical Interpretation
Qumran Scrolls (Classical Hebrew Readings)
Egypt and the Bible
Theological German	German for Reading

Now, these are just the courses that my schools have in common with Harvard’s PhD program in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Obviously, at Harvard you can do further readings in some of the literature (as I experienced at UPenn). These are just the courses that I took, not everything that was offered either. My point here is to say that these “evangelical schools” are far more rigorous than one might think, as the bulk of their courses intersect heavily with those at the top Ivy League schools in our country.

Here is a comparison between Harvard’s Divinity School ThD and the Biblical Courses I’ve taken.

Biblical Interpretation in the Second Temple Period	Apocalyptic Literature of the Second Temple Period
History of the Ancient Near East	History of the Ancient Near East
Hebrew Exegesis and Advanced Hebrew Exegesis	Intermediate Hebrew I & II
New Testament Textual Criticism	New Testament Manuscript Studies and Textual Criticism
West-Semitic Inscriptions	Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
Hebrew Reading Skills	Classical Hebrew, Rapid Reading I & II
The Septuagint and the New Testament	Readings in the Septuagint
Greek Exegesis I & II	Intermediate Greek I & II
New Testament Interpretation	Diversity in New Testament Interpretation
Advanced Greek Grammar and Greek Discourse Analysis	Advanced Greek I & II
Theological German	Advanced Intermediate German Readings
Patristic Exegesis
Epistemology
The Hebrew Synoptics
Greek Exegesis of the Gospel of Luke
History of the Reformation

To tell you the truth, Havard’s divinity school is inundated with a lot sociological studies about this or that, a lot of contemporary studies that have to do with feminist biblical interpretation and gender studies, pietism, and world religious studies (studies in Buddhism, Islam, etc.) that wouldn’t overlap. The vast majority of what they offer in terms of biblical studies is represented above. One can see the overlap with just the courses I’ve taken (and much more was offered, of course, at Trinity and Westminster that I didn’t take). It also doesn’t take into account the continued readings I had to do in my Old Testament and New Testament theses.

Hence, the idea that evangelical schools are somehow less academic is complete nonsense. I only wish I could have stayed longer and taken more courses offered, like “The Origins of Israel,” or “Advanced Hebrew Exegesis in Judges,” or “Advanced Hebrew Grammar,” or “Advanced Greek Exegesis in Hebrews,” etc.

Of course, I have more overlap with what Harvard offers in my undergrad as well, but I was comparing my Grad Schools with their Grad School. If I compared my undergrad with their Undergrad/Grad, I could show a lot more overlap (History of Judaism and Islam, World Religions, Biblical Hermeneutics, Greek Grammar I & II, Hebrews, Isaiah, Survey of the Old and New Testament, Systematic Theology I, II, and III, History of Doctrine, Church History, Biblical Homiletics, Christian Ethics, German, etc.).

I think this shows that that, in many cases, the schools overlap in what they teach and the amount of work that one can do in order to obtain his degree. In some cases, Harvard offers courses to continue on in things like Sumerian and Akkadian that one would have to make a special request at Trinity to pursue (although the profs there I’m sure would comply). But in many cases, my schools offered more in other areas than Harvard does. In fact, Peter Machinist, when I went to interview there years ago, simply admitted to me, when I informed him that I wanted to pursue Egyptological studies, as well as Assyriological and Hebrew studies, in my degree, that the school was just too ill-equipped in that area. There also seems to be very little study of theory at the school in terms of applying metaphysical and epistemological insights to biblical and historical study, even though they are assumed throughout. This is a common problem, and one that I think creates the myth that evangelical schools are less rigorous simply because they do not approach the subject as philosophic naturalists.

And that seems to be the real origin of the claim that these schools are less academically rigorous. The attitude is that, unless you hold our worldview when you approach your topic of study, you are not as scholarly as we are. This is why people with less education than I have can tell me how uneducated I am, merely because if I were really educated, I would hold to their worldview and epistemology. But the assertion has nothing to do with being educated, only into which worldview one is educated. Of course, if philosophic/metaphysical naturalism is false, then the epistemology is false, and the education of the secular university is what is less scholarly, having come to faulty conclusions and a process of knowledge that is incoherent and self-defeating.

In essence, however, you don't have to be a Harvard Man to have a Harvard education, just a Harvard indoctrination.