The Al Mowafaqa Institute invites me to teach “Introduction to the Bible” to its first year students.

Here are the questions I will cover:

• What Is the Bible? Notions and Definitions.
• Where Do Our Bibles Come From? The Genealogy of the Biblical Text.
• Where Was the Bible Born? The Biblical World.
• What Does the Bible Recount? The Biblical Stories.
• How Was the Bible Written? Literary Genres and Devices.
• What Books Are in the Bible? Survey of the Biblical Books.
• How Do We Understand the Bible? The Interpretation of Scriptures.

These fundamental questions will be the individual chapters of my course, which I will teach on July 12–15, 2013.

I will limit myself, on some aspects, to pre-Christian writings (the “Old Testament”) since my course will be followed by an Introduction to the New Testament by Paulin Poucouta, priest and professor at the Catholic University of Central Africa.

The Al Mowafaqa Ecumenical Institute of Theology, which opens this year, offers a university training in Christian Theology accredited by the Catholic University of Paris (for Catholic students) and the University of Strasbourg (for Protestant and Evangelical students). To apply, please visit almowafaqa.com.