Is a Masters of Divinity Worth it?

I have heard that many faculty members have advised Latter-day Saint students to get an M. Div. degree before getting a Ph.D. in biblical studies. These students have all had seven semesters of language courses (either Greek or Hebrew) before graduating with a bachelor's degree. Is it worth getting a divinity degree?

Let's assume that you apply for and get into a top divinity school for an M. Div. degree, what does a top divinity school train you for? Being a minister in a non-Latter-day Saint denomination. Many of them appear (at least on paper) to do that very well. They offer all sorts of courses on denominational theology, counseling for pastors, and other things that a minister might need to know about for their particular denomination. Such courses may or may not be of interest to individual Latter-day Saints. Many Master of Divinity programs require prospective students to either be an active, practicing member of the denomination or sign a confession of beliefs in order to be admitted, and some are so completely non-denominational that anyone of any religious tradition may be admitted, which means that some programs would not be appropriate for Latter-day Saints.

What are the top divinity schools? That depends on whom you ask. According to this list, the top ten divinity schools are:

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
(Kansas City, MO)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree, Biblical Languages Concentration

Number of Years to Degree: 1

Tuition per year: $7,235

Hebrew required: 2 semesters

Greek required:  2 semesters

Additional coursework: Capstone seminar

 

Liberty University
(Lynchburg, VA)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree, Biblical Languages (90 hour)

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $24,650

Hebrew required: 3 semesters

Greek required: 5 semesters

Additional coursework: 22 other classes

 

Bethel University Minnesota
(Saint Paul, MN)

Degree Considered: Masters of Divinity (Dual Language Track)

Number of Years to Degree: 4

Tuition per year: $21,060

Hebrew required: 2 semesters

Greek required: 2 semesters

Additional coursework: 19 other classes

The Master's University and Seminary
(Santa Clarita, CA)

Degree Considered: Master of Arts, Biblical Studies

Number of Years to Degree: 2

Tuition per year: $7,150

Hebrew required: 2 semesters

Greek required: 2 semesters

Additional coursework: 14 other courses

Biola University
(La Mirada, CA)

Degree Considered: Master of Arts (either New Testament or Old Testament)

Number of Years to Degree: 2-4

Tuition per year: $11,923 (charged by credit and averaged over 3 years)

Hebrew required: 3 semesters (for Old Testament)

Greek required: 3 semesters (for New Testament)

Additional coursework: 15 other classes for Old Testament and 16 for New Testament

Columbia International University
(Columbia, SC)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity in Bible Exposition

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $13,750

Hebrew required: 3 semesters either Greek or Hebrew

Greek required: 3 semesters either Greek or Hebrew

Additional coursework: 21 other classes

University of Notre Dame
(Notre Dame, IN)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $65,025

Hebrew required: 0 semesters

Greek required: 0 semesters

Additional coursework: 24 other classes

Southeastern University
(Lakeland, FL)

Degree Considered: MA in Biblical Studies

Number of Years to Degree: 2

Tuition per year: $13,080

Hebrew required: 3 semesters of Greek or Hebrew

Greek required: 3 semesters of Greek or Hebrew

Additional coursework: 13 other classes

Indiana Wesleyan University
(Marion, IN)

Degree Considered: Masters in Biblical and Theological Studies

Number of Years to Degree: 4

Tuition per year: $32,284

Hebrew required: 3 semesters

Greek required: 3 semesters

Additional coursework: 34 other classes

Moody Bible Institute
(Chicago, IL)

Degree Considered: MA in Biblical Studies

Number of Years to Degree: 2

Tuition per year: $6,468

Hebrew required: 0 semesters

Greek required: 0 semesters

Additional coursework: 12 other classes

A different site, however, has a completely different list:

 

Southern Methodist University Perkins School of Theology 

(Dallas, TX)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $27,775

Hebrew required: 1 semester either Greek or Hebrew

Greek required: 1 semester either Greek or Hebrew

Additional coursework: 24 other courses

University of Chicago Divinity School 

(Chicago, IL)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $30,000 ($10,000 per quarter)

Hebrew required: 3 quarters Hebrew or Greek

Greek required: 3 quarters Hebrew or Greek

Additional coursework: 24 other classes

Duke Divinity School 

(Durham, NC)

Degree Considered: Residential Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $29,200

Hebrew required: 2 semesters of either Greek or Hebrew

Greek required: 2 semesters of either Greek or Hebrew

Additional coursework: 23 other classes

Emory University Candler School of Theology 

(Bozeman, MT)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $26,500

Hebrew required: 0 semesters

Greek required: 0 semesters

Additional coursework: 23 other classes

Wake Forest University School of Divinity 

(Winston-Salem, NC)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $21,220

Hebrew required: 0 semesters

Greek required: 0 semesters

Additional coursework: 24 other classes

Vanderbilt University Divinity School 

(Nashville, TN)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $27,648

Hebrew required: 1 semester

Greek required: 1 semester

Additional coursework: 23 other classes

Boston College School of Theology and Ministry 

(Cambridge, MA)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $31,632

Hebrew required: 0 semesters

Greek required: 0 semesters

Additional coursework: 30 other classes

Princeton Theological Seminary 

(Princeton, NJ)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $21,500

Hebrew required: 0 semesters

Greek required: 0 semesters

Additional coursework: 28 other classes

Harvard School of Divinity 

(Cambridge, MA)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $30,776

Hebrew required: 3 semesters of either Hebrew or Greek

Greek required: 3 semesters of either Hebrew or Greek

Additional coursework: 21 other classes

Yale School of Divinity 

(New Haven, CT)

Degree Considered: Master of Divinity

Number of Years to Degree: 3

Tuition per year: $29,976

Hebrew required: 1 semester

Greek required: 1 semester

Additional coursework: 20 other classes.

 

Note that there is no overlap between the two lists.

 

One of the schools requires five semesters of Greek; several require three semesters of Hebrew; several require no language work at all. Only one of the schools (The Master's University) does not start the languages at the beginning level. All students to whom these programs are recommended will have already completed more language courses than the programs require. Thus the programs are of marginal utility in improving language skills.

 

The other courses may or may not be of any use to a Latter-day Saint and vary too much between schools to meaningfully compare.

 

Additionally, a prospective student will be paying an average of 22,881.60 per year just in tuition for generally three years. 

A Master of Divinity degree is a lot of time and money for minimal benefit for a Latter-day Saint. It would be of more use to them to get a different degree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Different Levels of Scholarship

Looking up a rather obscure point in biblical scholarship, I was struck by the differences between scholars on how they dealt with the problem:

The non-scholar ignores the problem.

The theologian makes up an answer.

The third-rate scholar looks up the answer in an encyclopedia.

The second-rate scholar can explain the consensus.

The first-rate scholar can explain why the consensus is wrong.

Jan Assmann (1938-2024)

 I was saddened to learn that Jan Assmann passed away yesterday. Three short memories:

(1) After I presented a paper at the International Congress of Egyptologists in 2000, Professor Assmann pulled me aside and we had a long talk about what I had presented. I was flattered when he cited the unpublished version in his book, Tod und Jeneseits im Alten Ägypten.

(2) Professor Assmann was one of the outside reviewers for my rank advancement. I was told that he wrote a nice letter for me although I do not know the details.

(3) The last time I saw Professor Assmann was during the International Congress of Egyptologists at Rhodes in 2008. We shared a taxi back to the hotel from one of the venues. As ever, he was very gracious.

Professor Assmann will be known for his prodigious and thought-provoking output and his amazing erudition. Because fewer will know him personally, he will be less and less known for his gracious manner. He probably will not be known for his role as a father. He was tremendously proud of his daughters and their diplomatic efforts to bring peace to Iran.

Yale and BYU in the News

It is not often that two of my alma maters appear prominently in the same piece of legal analysis. Eugene Volokh uses both in his argument against secondary boycotts.

A secondary boycott is one where rather than boycott an individual or organization whom one sees as a problem, one boycotts an individual or group associated with the individual or organization whom one sees as a problem. I suppose that one can also boycott both. 

In this case, the problem is Yale's Law School's policies and their implementation go against the free speech rights of certain students but not others. (Institutionally Yale has been leaning this direction for a long time and I noticed earlier stages when I was a student there thirty years ago.) Earlier this year, Yale law students disrupted the presentation of a speaker with whom they disagreed. Yale excused the law students' bad behavior. Recently several judges have called for a boycott of hiring clerks who have graduated from Yale Law School. For a law school that has prided itself on being the number one law school in the country, having your students ineligible from receiving a clerkship based solely on attending your school is a severe blow, at least to one's pride.

As Volokh points out, this is a secondary boycott. It cannot possibly punish the perpetrators of bad policy. Instead it punishes those who are guilty of association with the perpetrators, and may be involuntary associates. I wonder how many law students decide which law school to attend based on who the dean is.

Yale's policies, however, seem to work against the preparation of effective lawyers. Law, by its nature, is an adversarial occupation. A lawyer may have to work for clients who hold opinions he or she personally is opposed to. He or she will certainly have to face legal opponents with whom he or she disagrees. Many lawyers laudably pursue conciliatory courses designed to minimize disagreements, but such a course of action may not be available in every case. Usually suppression of one's legal opponent and their right to present their case is not an option. Law schools do their students a disservice if they allow them options in law school that they are not allowed in court.

Yale Law School has since claimed to have made changes in the direction of free speech. Whether they actually have remains to be seen.

Even if Professor Volokh's understanding of the situation at BYU does not match facts on the ground (and to be fair, he proposes it as a hypothetical), his points about the problems of secondary boycotts remain.

The Babylon Bee Strikes Again

The Babylon Bee is a satirical site that pokes fun of politics and religion. Every so often, they poke fun at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The title of one of their recent efforts says it all:

Member Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Wishes There Were A Shorter Way To Say Member Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints

Of course, if their really wanted to point out the problem, they would have pointed out that this is much worse in Greek: μελος της Εκκλησιας του Ιησου Χριστου των Αγιων των Τελευταιων Ημερων. The Greek phrase has twenty-four syllables twice as many as the twelve of the English phrase.

Kudos to Jeffrey Chadwick

I was pleased to see that de Gruyter has published a Festschrift in honor of my BYU colleague Jeffrey Chadwick. He is a faculty member of the Department of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. Since he is an archaeologist who regularly digs in Israel, this has always seemed an unusual arrangement. The Festschrift is archaeologically oriented. I am pleased to see the de Gruyter is allowing individuals to order again.

Congratulations!

Cowardice, Courage, and Cancellation

 Bari Weiss has a worthwhile analysis of cancellation culture entitled "We Got Here Because of Cowardice. We Get Out With Courage." There are two quotes worth highlighting:

The first is about one of the contributing factors to cancellation culture:

The revolution has been met with almost no resistance by those who have the title CEO or leader or president or principal in front of their names. The refusal of the adults in the room to speak the truth, their refusal to say no to efforts to undermine the mission of their institutions, their fear of being called a bad name and that fear trumping their responsibility—that is how we got here.

The second is a suggestion for a solution to the problem:

All that had to change for the entire story to turn out differently was for the person in charge, the person tasked with being a steward for the newspaper or the magazine or the college or the school district or the private high school or the kindergarten, to say: No.

Cancellation culture has been around for a long time, though not under that name nor necessarily pushing the same political program. Here is an account from two millennia ago that survives in Greek:

Πρωΐας δὲ γενομένης συμβούλιον ἔλαβον πάντες οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι τοῦ λαοῦ κατὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ὥστε θανατῶσαι αὐτόν· καὶ δήσαντες αὐτὸν ἀπήγαγον καὶ παρέδωκαν αὐτὸν Ποντίῳ Πιλάτῳ τῷ ἡγεμόνι. . . .

Ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἐστάθη ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ ἡγεμόνος· καὶ ἐπηρώτησεν αὐτὸν ὁ ἡγεμὼν λέγων, Σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἔφη, αὐτῷ Σὺ λέγεις. καὶ ἐν τῷ κατηγορεῖσθαι αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχιερέων καὶ πρεσβυτέρων οὐδὲν ἀπεκρίνατο. τότε λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος, Οὐκ ἀκούεις πόσα σου καταμαρτυροῦσιν; καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ πρὸς οὐδὲ ἓν ῥῆμα, ὥστε θαυμάζειν τὸν ἡγεμόνα λίαν.

Κατὰ δὲ ἑορτὴν εἰώθει ὁ ἡγεμὼν ἀπολύειν ἕνα τῷ ὄχλῳ δέσμιον ὃν ἤθελον. εἶχον δὲ τότε δέσμιον ἐπίσημον λεγόμενον  Βαραββᾶν. συνηγμένων οὖν αὐτῶν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Πιλᾶτος, Τίνα θέλετε ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν, τὸν Βαραββᾶν ἢ Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον Χριστόν; ᾔδει γὰρ ὅτι διὰ φθόνον παρέδωκαν αὐτόν. Καθημένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοῦ βήματος ἀπέστειλεν πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ λέγουσα, Μηδὲν σοὶ καὶ τῷ δικαίῳ ἐκείνῳ, πολλὰ γὰρ ἔπαθον σήμερον κατ’ ὄναρ δι’ αὐτόν.

Οἱ δὲ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεισαν τοὺς ὄχλους ἵνα αἰτήσωνται τὸν Βαραββᾶν τὸν δὲ Ἰησοῦν ἀπολέσωσιν. ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ ἡγεμὼν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Τίνα θέλετε ἀπὸ τῶν δύο ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν; οἱ δὲ εἶπαν, Τὸν Βαραββᾶν. λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Πιλᾶτος, Τί οὖν ποιήσω Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον Χριστόν; λέγουσιν αὐτῷ πάντες, Σταυρωθήτω. ὁ δὲ ἡγεμών ἔφη, Τί γὰρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν; οἱ δὲ περισσῶς ἔκραζον λέγοντες, Σταυρωθήτω. ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ Πιλᾶτος ὅτι οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον θόρυβος γίνεται, λαβὼν ὕδωρ ἀπενίψατο τὰς χεῖρας ἀπέναντι τοῦ ὄχλου, λέγων, Ἀθῷός εἰμι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ δικαίου τούτου· ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε.

When it was morning all the high priest and elders of the people took council against Jesus so that they could kill him, and, having bound him, they led him forth and delivered him to the ruler, Pontius Pilate. . . .

Jesus stood before the ruler and the ruler asked him saying: Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said: So you say. And he did not begin to respond to his condemnation by the high priests and elders. Then Pilate said to him: Can't you hear how much they testify against you? And he did not answer him, so that the ruler was very surprised.

During the feast, it was customary for the ruler to release a prisoner, whom they wanted, to the mob. He then had a prisoner, a cutthroat called Bar-Abba. Having conferred with them, Pilate asked them: Whom would you like me to release to you: Bar-Abba or Jesus, who is called Christ? For he knew that they delivered him because of envy. While he was sitting on the dias, his wife sent to him saying: This righteous man is no affair for you, for I have suffered much today in a dream because of him.

The high priests and the elders persuaded the mob to ask for Bar-Abba, and to destroy Jesus. The leader asked them: Whom of the two should I release to them. They said: Bar-Abba. Pilate said to them: What then should I do to Jesus, who is called Christ. Everyone said to him: Let him be crucified. The ruler said: What crime has he done? They shouted louder: Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that it was was no use, but rather that it would cause a bigger ruckus, he took water and washed his hands before the mob, saying: I am guiltless for the blood of this righteous man; you see to it. (Matthew 27:1–2, 11–24)

To this, we can add the appropriate observation worth pondering by those who capitulate to the mob today:

Pilate sought to refuse responsibility for deciding about Christ, but Pilate’s hands were never dirtier than just after he had washed them. (Neal A. Maxwell, "Why Not Now?" Ensign (November 1974))