I teach within the New Testament Studies department at DTS, so as you can imagine most everything I do centers around the NT. We have seven required courses in NT here for students in the Master of Theology program, and I teach five of them.
NT101 and NT102 cover the basic elements of the Greek language. These courses focus on giving students a working knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and syntax with an emphasis on translation and recognition of common elements in the NT. These courses are very enjoyable for me to teach because often this is where students come alive in their appreciation for the language. More than once a student has told me that they fell in love with Greek in these classes.
NT103 is our intermediate course on syntax and textual criticism. The majority of the course focuses on syntax, with an emphasis upon recognition of the varied uses of morphological elements (e.g., the objective and subjective genitive) and the impact of syntax upon the resultant meaning we can understand from the text. The course also covers the basic method for textual criticism (I'm a reasoned eclectic for those who are interested in knowing!).
More to come!
Dr. Michael Burer is Assistant Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He is the assistant project director for the NET Bible and has contributed various studies to the bible.org site. His first book - A New Reader's Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, co-authored with Jeff Miller - was published Fall of 2008. 
Sorry to have this question hit me three months after reading your posts on the courses you teach, but what are the prescribed and supplemental textbooks that you use for the courses you teach?
It is great to get to know you a little better in your blogs. However, I wondered if you could explain what you mean by "reasoned eclectic?" Does that hold some meaning here or are you merely stating that you are eclectic in your approach and employ reason in determining which approach to use in each case?
Thanks!
In a nutshell, "reasoned eclecticism" is a particular method of textual criticism which argues that evidence from the manuscript tradition (known as external evidence) and evidence from within the manuscripts themselves (known as internal evidence) must both be weighed and evaluated when handling a particular problem. It is "eclectic" in that it does not favor any one category of evidence but is always willing to look at multiple categories of evidence, and it is "reasoned" in that it constantly weighs evidence, recognizing that each problem has to be solved on a case-by-case basis. There are other methods advocated by other scholars, and part of the debate within textual criticism is which method is best. Presently at DTS we make the argument for reasoned eclecticism in NT103, but we don't mandate that students follow this method; if another method is better in their view, they are free to follow it. The conviction of the NT faculty, though, is that reasoned eclecticism is the best method.
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