Open Bible School

From Door43

One of the greatest needs of believers all over the world, across all cultures and languages, is solid biblical teaching to help them understand the Bible better.

The Open Bible School is a free Bible School curriculum released under a Creative Commons license (see Door43:Copyrights), designed to provide believers in any language and culture with biblical training in three tracks: Book studies (Old and New Testament), History (Biblical and Church), and Bible Doctrine (Basic and Advanced). The course is:

• Modular – each study unit is self-contained as a module and fits into the non-linear organization of the course

• Flexible – because the design of the course is modular, numerous study tracks are available, from only a few modules on a topic to an abbreviated study course to the complete course that includes all the modules.

• Extensible – The Open Bible School is a work-in-progress that will continue to grow and improve as users create new content and teaching modules.

• Intended for self-taught or guided study – the course can be self-taught or used as the source material for teaching others in any context from home study to classroom.

• Distributed on-line in text and audio formats – each module is released in an outline format for teaching, a text format for reading and an accompanying audio format for listening on mobile devices.

• Intended for use in any culture, anywhere in the world – the content of the Open Bible School is being designed and refined by people around the world from different cultures with the goal of creating training resources that are accessible to people from any culture, not just Western.

• Intended for translation into any language – The Open Bible School is being built as part of the Door43 wiki so that teams can work together anywhere in the world to translate the content into any language.

• Released under a Creative Commons license – As with everything in Door43, the Open Bible School is being given away free of charge and with the legal freedom to be translated, adapted, modified, used, and distributed anywhere, by anyone without royalties or legal implications due to copyright law.

Purpose

Specific purpose: Provide sound biblical training in a flexible, extensible and non-linear curriculum, free to translate (and adapt), record, distribute and use anywhere, in any language.

Getting Started

The Open Bible School uses a "modular" layout, where each training unit is self-contained but may be dependent on other training units in order for it to be best understood. We are still working on the layout and design of the Open Bible School. Feel free to join us in building it. The current draft of the modules in the Open Bible School can be downloaded here.

The Open Bible School study modules are organized into three tracks with two sections in each track:

• Book Studies Track
  • Old Testament Book Studies (yellow)
  • New Testament Book Studies (orange)
• History Track
  • Biblical History (bright green)
  • Church History (light green)
• Doctrine Track
  • Basic Bible Doctrine (bright blue)
  • Advanced Bible Doctrine (dark blue)

Choose your own study program

Because of the modular design, the material in the Open Bible School can be studied (or taught) in a non-linear and flexible format. Modules can be included or excluded as desired to create an optimum approach for any study context. The diagrams that you see in the Open Bible School pages show the dependencies of the various modules. Each section starts at the bottom and lays the foundation with the first modules, then builds upward to the rest of the modules.

While they may look confusing at first, the diagrams are not difficult to understand. If a module has another module pointing to it, it means that the module pointing to it needs to be completed first in order for it to be best understood. For instance:

Module A -----> Module B

In this example, Module A should be completed before Module B.

We recommend starting with the Getting Started section and then studying whatever is of interest to you in the other sections. The organization of the tracks for this curriculum is listed in the diagram above. Click on any section to go to the page for that section where you will find more information about the section and links to all the modules in that section.

A traditional approach

If you would prefer a more traditional approach, a study guide is available that lays out all the modules in an approach that covers the entire Open Bible School curriculum, taking all the module dependencies into account. Use this if you just want to get started right away.