Our Student Riham Khair Discusses Her Final Project Seminar
Our Student Riham Khair Discusses Her Final Project Seminar
Our fourth-year student in the Biblical Studies program, Riham Khair, discussed her final project paper on a critical topic under the supervision of Mr. Yousef AlKhouri.
The title of her research is The Crisis (Nakba) of Faith in Reading the Old Testament in Palestinian Christian Context.
This research reviews one of the most controversial topics that constitute a crisis of faith for some Palestinian theologians and the Palestinian Christian people, in general. The dilemma is to read and interpret some Old Testament texts misused and analyzed to support colonial political ideologies.
Riham Says about her Project: “This topic is of great importance to Palestinian Christians because it places them under a crisis of faith in the identity of the God of the Old Testament and the credibility of the text itself. The research is based on the thought of the Palestinian theologian, Pastor Naim Ateeq, who is considered the spiritual father of Palestinian liberation theology. Ateeq is an example and a model for the struggle of Palestinian Christians with the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. As an ecclesiastical leader and theologian, he wrote clearly and frankly on this matter. In his well-known book, Palestinian Liberation Theology (2017), Ateeq discusses several catastrophes that the Palestinian people are experiencing, one of which is the “Nakba of Faith.”
The research stems from the comparative methodology to compare the thought, and theology of the Palestinian theologian Naim Ateeq and other Palestinian theologians including Father Patriarch Michael Sabbah, the first Palestinian Arab patriarch of the Latin Catholic Church who influenced the formulation and composition of contextual theology. Reverend Dr. Yohanna Katanacho, Reverend Munther Isaac. The paper is based on Stephen Bevans seminal work Models of Contextual Theology, which reviews various models and characteristics of contextual theology.
About why she chose this specific topic, she said: “This topic interests me, and I wanted to dig into it and study it more myself, and through my studies, I discovered that there is no wrong or right when it comes to theology, they all complete each other and focuses on one goal: the centrality of Christ in interpretation!
BethBC’s professor, academic dean, and president praised Riham for her outstanding presentation and demonstration of conducting high-quality theological research. BethBC is proud to continue to equip and empower a new generation of Christian leaders in Palestine.
