edit table of contents, footnotes, page numbers, correct bibliography
HOWA PHILOSOPHICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE TEXT OF MARK 4:35-41 ILLUMINATES AN UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE AUTHORITY IN THE PERSON OF JESUS
by
MOISES A. ROBLETO
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty
of the James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology
at Mercer University
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
Atlanta, GA
2021
HOW A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE TEXT OF MARK 4:35-41 ILLUMINATES AN UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE AUTHORITY IN THE PERSON OF JESUS
by
MOISES A. ROBLETO
Approved:
______________________________________________________ Date _____________
Dr. Jeffrey Willetts, Ph.D.
Faculty Supervisor for Thesis
_______________________________________________________ Date ____________
Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor for Thesis
_______________________________________________________Date _____________
Karen G. Massey, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Masters Degree Programs, School of Theology
_______________________________________________________Date _____________
C. Gregory DeLoach, D.Min.
Dean, School of Theology
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As with any project I have completed, many have been responsible for my success. I wish first to thank the faculty of the School of Theology at Mercer University. I would like to certainly lend my appreciation to my thesis advisor, Dr. Jeffrey Willetts a true Christian Philosopher of Religion for his time and assisting or directing my path writing this essay and, Dr. Lloyd Allen, a man whom I respect and admire deeply. Sincere appreciation and with deep gratitude to my Old Testament teacher Dr. deClaisse-Walford, this essay would have never been completed without her input and professionalism and help since the beginning of my academic endeavor.
While on the other hand, not directly related to my success in academic life and business endeavors I would also like to thank all that did not believe in me, especially my high school teacher that told me I would never amount to anything. (Thank you so much for being the impetus in all the good things I do)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
ABSTRACT vi
CHAPTER.1.INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………..…1
Modernity and the Bible 1
CHAPTER.2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE………………………………………………… …4
Christian Scholars and their Philosophical Attempts to Preserve Traditional Readings of the Bible 4
Modern Sensibilities and Skeptical Understanding of the Gospels 9
Ehrman’s Skepticism 11
Jewish Skepticism of Reliability of the New Testament 20
CHAPTER.3.METHODOLOGY 27
The Research Questions of this Project: Focused to Provide an Illumination of Divine Authority in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth 28
CHAPTER.4.RESULTS 30
The reliability of the Gospels is based on claims that are rooted in history. As a New Testament historian, Dr. Craig approaches the Gospels not as inspired Holy Scripture, but merely as a collection of ancient writings dated during the first century C.E. Our surprise as seminary students is that the majority of secular and Christian scholars accept as historical facts events mentioned in the Gospels. 30
The Reliability of Jesus’s Miracles as Indicated in the New Testament 35
CHAPTER .5DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 40
Discussion: Gareth Moore’s Philosophical Assessment of the Text in Mark 4:35-41 40
The Miracle in Mark 4:35-41 42
Importance of the Study 53
Conclusion: Confirming the Activity of God 53
BIBLIOGRAPHY 63
ABSTRACT
MOISES A. ROBLETO
HOW A PHILOSOPHICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE TEXT OF MARK 4:35-41 ILLUMINATES AN UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE AUTHORITY IN THE PERSON OF JESUS
Under the direction of JEFFREY WILLETS, PhD.
Explicitly or implicitly and whether we like it or not, there are problems which arise when modern Christians read the Bible as a Christian text, as part of their religious practice. The focus of this study will be on the philosophical problems caused by the historical distance between the Biblical world and ours. Those problems arise when a modern lens is applied to an ancient religious text. In this thesis, I will give particular focus to the ways that conceptual confusions arise in understanding the text by providing a philosophical analysis of the concept of miracles in Mark 4:35-41 and how this Biblical account in the life of Jesus and his disciples illuminates the concept of divine authority. I will show how modern assumptions can distort readings and meanings of the text. I will also show how the reading of the text may be freed from these confused assumptions by making a philosophical assessment of the concept of miracles to support the claim of Jesus’ divinity. There are many philosophical questions to be asked about what we find in the text of Mark 4:35-41 regarding a miracle performed by Jesus and how we can ascribe sense to it as twenty-first century readers of the Bible. The stated purpose for undertaking this inquiry was to study the concept of “Divine Authority” this was accomplished by means of a thorough study of leading postmodern scholars own published writings, and lectures, giving special consideration to the work in Philosophy of Christianity by Gareth Moore. How are we to understand the story of Jesus calming a storm? Such writings tended and clarified what we find in the story of a Storm Stilled. The story is not told in causal terms, it is not a matter of cause and effect, in fact, the story is told as one simple command and nature obeys. And so in this essay I respond to the disciples question, not “How did he do it” but, the real question, “What sort of a man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?”
Chapter One
Modernity and the Bible
Explicitly or implicitly and whether we like it or not, there are problems which arise when modern Christians read the Bible as a Christian text, as part of their religious practice. The focus of this study will be on the philosophical problems caused by the historical distance between the Biblical world and ours. Those problems arise when modern lens are applied to an ancient religious text. In this thesis, I will give particular focus to the ways that conceptual confusions arise in understanding the text by providing a philosophical analysis of the concept of miracles in Mark 4:35-41, and how this Biblical account in the life of Jesus and his disciples illuminates the concept of divine authority. I will show how modern assumptions can distort readings and meanings of the text. Moreover, I will show how the reading of the text may be freed from these confused assumptions by making a philosophical assessment of the concept of miracles to support the claim of Jesus’ divinity. There are many philosophical questions to be asked about what we find in the text of Mark 4:35-41 regarding a miracle performed by Jesus and how we can ascribe sense to it as twenty-first century readers of the Bible.
One of the most important questions that the world has continuously grappled with is: Who is Jesus? Answering the question forms the task of what is referred to as Christology, which describes the study of the person of Christ. Moreover, the subject of Christology describes a branch of theology that explicitly deals with Christ’s person both human and divine. There is no seminary student who is not under some obligation to study who Jesus is. The Christian
Scriptures are foundational to that understanding and the Gospels are central to this knowledge,
However, assessing the sense of the Gospels for Christian understanding is full of difficulties including the gap between modern and ancient forms of understanding.
The Gospel of Mark is the earliest of the four gospels within the New Testament and as such, perhaps, the most authentic of the four Gospels.[footnoteRef:2] This fact and that it survives at all is important to me. I find the book of Mark appealing because it not only shows the humanity of Jesus, but also represents Him as one with divine authority. According to accounts within the Gospels themselves, Jesus taught uniquely, and when He spoke, His disciples somehow knew He had an authority that was unlike any other prophet sent before him. During my studies of the Old Testament, time and again I have seen that God is not to be construed as the name of a person or a thing. And yet in the Gospels, there is a clear indication that the person of Jesus is one in whom we may recognize the divine. The focal point of this research will be the passage of The Gospel of Mark 4:35-41: [2: Peter M Head, “Christology and the Synoptic Problem, an Argument for Markan Priority.” Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 5]
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him![footnoteRef:3] [3: All scripture citations are from New International version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.
]
When this passage is analyzed, there are difficulties of understanding the text and that is the kind of challenges contemporary Christians face, which makes the understanding of the Bible hard. We see that the ideas underneath the disagreements are philosophical. And the question is whether those underlying assumptions by modern scholars are not themselves part of the confusion in understanding the biblical text. My goal, through grammatical philosophical analysis, is to analyze and clarify how to read the biblical text in order to avoid the problems certain modern readings inevitably create. In other words, what does it mean that Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark, is doing impossible things, things not possible for a mere human? What does it mean that Jesus can command nature, and nature obeys?
First, the philosophical approach to the question will be grammatical rather than analytic or hermeneutical. This approach was pioneered by the twentieth century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and has been further developed in the philosophy of religion by such figures as D.Z. Phillips, Peter Winch, Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, Gareth Moore, and Stephen Mulhall. Secondly, for the last two centuries the subject of the reliability of the Gospel of Mark has found no rest. The size of this paper does not permit to include a comprehensive examination of all opinions on this topic. This inquiry will focus its reflection on Mark 4:35-41 only. There are many accounts in the Gospels of miracles performed by Jesus. I am focusing on Mark 4:35-41 primarily because Mark is the earliest of the Gospels, and therefore more reliable historically, and because this particular account in Mark is a good example of the relationship between the person of Jesus and the miraculous.
lxx
CHAPTER TWO
Christian Scholars and their Philosophical Attempts to Preserve Traditional Readings of the Bible
This next chapter successfully examines the thoughts and perceptions of William Lane Craig on the credibility of the miracles performed by Jesus in the New Testament. One of the most important tools of communication for modern philosophers is the way they understand traditional readings of the biblical text. A believe in Jesus as Christ-the Messiah-separate church, synagogues, Christians and Jews.[footnoteRef:4] For more than 2000 years, billions of people have believed that the teachings of Jesus provide them salvation in this world and in the hereafter as well. The teachings of Jesus have been translated to almost all major languages, and people believing in his faith are present in all parts of the world. Christianity is today the biggest religion in the world, with 2.4 billion followers. It is not just the biggest religion of today, but it has remained as one of the key religions throughout history since its inception. For the past 2000 years, it has been expanding from one region to another and became a source of meaning and enlightenment for billions of people throughout this time. “Even the most critical historian can confidently assert that a Jew named Jesus worked as a teacher and wonder-worker in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius, was executed by crucifixion under the prefect Pontius Pilate and continued to have followers after his death.”[footnoteRef:5] And this is not just because of his teachings, but also his miracles from which people and students of the Bible even today find inspiration. [4: Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2016), 17.] [5: Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996), 123.]
The teachings, miracles, stories, words, and deeds of Jesus have been recorded in four key Gospels, the writings of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, and they have passed on from generation to generation. The Gospels acted as the main source of information, but the perception and comprehension of Gospels have changed and evolved over time. The historical study of the Bible started as the Gospels perceived as supernatural histories before the age of enlightenment. The masses believed the stories shared in the Gospel without any critical analysis. They believed that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and that he died, and God raised him from death. During the enlightenment phase, the perception about the Gospels changed. Theologians of the enlightenment began to critically analyze the teachings and miracles of Jesus presented in the Gospels and the quest for the historical Jesus continues. Under this perception, scholars provided logical rationale and reason for the stories, deeds, and actions mentioned in the Gospels. This process continued till 1835 when “The Life of Jesus Critically Examined” by David Friedrich Strauss was published. Then a new era started a type of historical guide to the life of Jesus with attention to historical authenticity of the Gospels. As perceptions about the Gospels changed, the perception of Jesus also changed. Today, questions are raised about the possibility of Jesus born of Virgin Mary and his resurrection after death. The miracles of Jesus are questioned even by the brightest minds of today.
William Lane Craig is one of the most influential philosophers who openly questions the credibility and reliability of the miracles performed by Jesus. He claims that most of the stories about miracles of Jesus are legendary and are addressed only by legends. Still, he gives the benefit of the doubt that Jesus carried out these miracles as he understands the miracles
a result of divine and supernatural causality.[footnoteRef:6] Craig claims that when historians critique the four primary sources of the life of Jesus; even the most doubtful person cannot fail to believe that Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick through his miracles, as the synoptic Gospels presuppose Jesus as a miracle worker. Craig believes that the resurrection hypothesis, in turn, is dependent on the existence of God, so his argument begins addressing the criteria of credibility which enables readers to develop a specific interest in the preaching and teachings of Jesus as a historical event. In this light, Christian scholars ended up linking Jesus to these miracles such as casting out demons and treating the sick[footnoteRef:7] But most believers today recognize that this idea of mythological leverage is traditionally inappropriate. On the other hand, Christian fundamentalist strongly oppose modern scholarship, and biblical criticism. The extraordinary life of Jesus as a miracle worker is only necessarily an indication that a person is divine. [6: William Lane Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus: The Evidence for Jesus,” Reasonable Faith 2019, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/historical-jesus/rediscovering-the-historical-jesus-the-evidence-for-jesus/ (accessed August 27, 2020).
] [7: Ibid.]
Dr. Craig states that the focus of discussion around the reliability of the Gospels, and miracles of Jesus is misplaced. It is not just the number of manuscripts or age of manuscripts which dictate the authenticity, but it is also the rationale behind these miracles which prove its correctness.[footnoteRef:8] All the manuscripts from the 1st century and 21st century carry the same stories, actions, words, and deeds of Jesus. Despite the general belief by Barth Erhman that the manuscripts have been corrupted or changed and a contrast between the first manuscripts available to them and today’s manuscripts show that there is not even a single difference in doctrine or theology. Furthermore, in the New Testament, there are approximately 140,000 words, and among this number, only 14,000 words are not authentic or do not have sufficient evidence to prove their authenticity. [8: Levine, The Misunderstood Jew, p.17.]
This number is very minimal and presents only 1% of the total word count. In other words, there exists substantial proof for the remaining 99% of words. This means that not only is the New Testament available today for preaching is as accurate as its first-ever available version, but it also contains the information which has been authenticated by sufficient sources.[footnoteRef:9] There exists a distinctive feature between Dr. Craig’s work and the work of Friedrich Strauss. David Friedrich Strauss, in his book “The Life of Jesus Critically Examined,” stated that the stories, words, deeds and miracles explained in the gospels are not actual stories but myths. He provided a unique understating of myth. He said that myth does not have a physical existence, but it is also true. Strauss said that these miracles attached to Jesus’s name did not happen, but it does not mean that his early followers misunderstood natural events as supernatural miracles. In his opinion, these miracles and stories are created to convey the attributes and abilities of Jesus. Similarly, Dr. Craig says that a miracle is an event that the natural causes at a time and place cannot produce at that time and place. In other words, they reflect the life of Jesus, his abilities, powers, and divine nature. They do not have to be historically proven because they are not presentations of history. History might state something different because there are other accounts of the past, but the Gospels are a primary source of information about Jesus, his life, and his teachings. Another perspective shared by Dr. Craig is that the miracles of Jesus have more connection with faith than scientific reasoning. For example, Jesus’ birth might seem biologically impossible, but in terms of faith and belief it is entirely possible. If one believes that God exists and he is the creator of this world, then logically we can infer that a powerful God who is capable of creating the universe can also create a human life without male intervention. What difference does it make for God to give life a chance in the womb of a virgin woman? Similarly, the death and resurrection of Jesus are differentiated perspectives in Mark and John’s Gospels. And since both are contradictory, it indicates that only one story is accurate, But Dr. Craig says that neither of the two is correct or incorrect.[footnoteRef:10] It is not the way the story is told; It is what
the story told. Both stories accept Jesus left his home and went to Jerusalem for his last meal. There, Jesus had discussions with his followers, after which he was arrested and crucified the next day. This process has some ambiguities because of two distinct versions, but Craig argues that the spirit of the story is more important than its structure. The order of story could vary, but the spirit or soul remained intact. Dr. Craig states that the fundamental truth of Christianity is dependent on the general reliability of the Gospel.[footnoteRef:11] He believes that the Gospels presents four facts that can be demonstrated historically. Dr. Craig writes in his published work that historian can examine the historical grounds for belief in Jesus’s resurrection focusing number one in the honorable burial by Joseph of Arimathea, number two the empty tomb, his post -mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.[footnoteRef:12] According to Dr. Craig the resurrection accounts are the best proof Christian have to claim that God has revealed himself decisively in Jesus. The resurrection is God’s vindication of Jesus’s radical claims to divine authority.[footnoteRef:13] [9: William Craig, “#10 Establishing the Gospels’ Reliability,” Reasonable Faith June 5 2007, Http://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/establishing-the-gospels-reliability (accessed August 27, 2020).
] [10: William Lane Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus: The Evidence for Jesus,” Reasonable Faith 2019, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/historical-jesus/rediscovering-the-historical-jesus-the-evidence-for-jesus/ (accessed August 27, 2020).
] [11: Ibid.] [12: William Craig, “#10 Establishing the Gospels’ Reliability,” Reasonable Faith June 5 2007, https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/establishing-the-gospels-reliability (accessed August 27, 2020).] [13: William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics,3rd ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 15.]
Modern Sensibilities and Skeptical Understanding of the Gospels
Bart Ehrman writes, “There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.”[footnoteRef:14] Every religion follows a unique pattern for recording and propagating the primary teachings, which can be interpreted as per the requirements of the respective era. Some religions have their whole teachings in a secured recorded manner, while others still struggle to find lost parts or confirm the authenticity of current teachings. This issue is more common in older religions that were founded when there were no proper tools for writing and recording. Even if there were sufficient tools, the key people did not think of recording it. For most monotheistic religions, the recording phase started much later than the initial date of teachings. Although maximum efforts were done to reach out to the authentic sources and record only those teachings, practices, values, and laws that are backed by sufficient evidence, to this day, many arguments exist questioning the authenticity of these teachings. These controversies around teachings exist in all Semitic religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. [14: Bart D Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels (New York: Harper One, 2016), 128.]
In Christianity, the main arguments surrounding the authenticity and reliability of teachings exist because of differences between primary sources of information: The synoptic Gospels of Luke, Mark, Matthew. Another primary source is the Gospel of John, which contains the highest Christology. The phenomenon of synoptic Gospels exists because the Gospels of Luke, Mark, and Matthew share the same stories, teachings, and in most cases, with the same words in same order. On the contrary, the Gospel of John has very distinctive content, stories, words, and theology. This chapter will explore different opinions on the reliability of Gospels with a special focus on authenticity and unreliability of gospels under the light of the work of Bart Ehrman. When world-class biblical scholar Bart Ehrman first began to study the texts of the Bible in their original languages, he began to discover the multitude of mistakes and intentional alterations that had been made by earlier translators. In his published work, Ehrman tells the story behind the mistakes and changes that ancient scribes made to the New Testament and shows the great impact they had upon the Bible we study in seminary. He frames his account with personal reflections on how his study of the Gospels in their original Greek manuscripts made him abandon his faith.
The Gospels of the New Testament are the most inspiring, powerful, moving, and beautiful books for seminary students. Their stories about Jesus of Nazareth’s deeds and words are a major source of knowledge for those who seek guidance from God through Jesus. They have defined moral, ethical, and social laws for generation after generation. The Gospels have been the most important source of information and teachings in the Christian tradition for almost the last two thousand years, including information regarding creation, morality, a loving God, mankind in need of a savior, and Jesus coming to the world in a particular time in history. The scope of these books is so extensive that they remain equally crucial for civilizations and for individual lives. Despite their evident significance throughout history, there is not sufficient evidence that the books are historically accurate. “There were some books, such as the Gospels, that had been written anonymously, only later to be ascribed to certain authors who probably did not write them.” [footnoteRef:15] [15: Mitchell Reddish, An Introduction to the Gospels (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011), 13.
]
Ehrman’s Skepticism
Erhman argues that we do not possess any original copies of the Gospels; all we have are copies that contain mistakes and changes made to the original manuscripts.[footnoteRef:16] There is no denying that they include valuable information that is historically very significant about the life and death of Jesus, but the content of the books is also non-historical as well. This opinion about non-historical content is shared by critical scholars across the globe. And finally Erhman insists that as a historian all miracles performed by Jesus cannot be accounted as historical events due to their incomprehensible supernatural nature. [16: Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels, 128.
]
The Gospels remained a significant part of the lives of masses throughout history, but their understanding and comprehension of these religious books varied from time to time and from civilization to civilization. According to Ehrman, the overall comprehension of the Gospels can be divided into three eras: Gospels as supernatural histories; Gospels as natural histories; and Gospels as non-historical myths.[footnoteRef:17] The first era of understanding, the Gospels as supernatural histories, was the duration of time from the 1st century to 17th century, from the beginning of the Christian faith until the bloody wars which decimated the population in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This was a stage where scholars studying the Bible believed and stated that the teachings and stories mentioned in the Gospels were, in fact, supernatural histories. This era was the comprehension of the gospel before humanity reached the Enlightenment period. Before the advent of the 18th century, the general belief of scholars termed this era as supernatural history because only it provided them with a possible explanation of the stories and miracles mentioned in the gospels. They believed that the books are based on supernatural events, and that is why they include stories about remarkable and miraculous happenings, such as Jesus calming a storm, commanding nature as God does. The gospels are full of miracle stories from the birth of Jesus until his resurrection. From start to end, the Gospels are filled with miracles and magical events for which the human mind has no explanation, so postmodern scholars believed them to be supernatural stories. Scholars called them supernatural but believed them in full spirit. They were convinced that these events happened with the help of God, with the exception of the miracle with the storm where Jesus does not ask for help and calms the wind and waves on his own, not with power, but with Divine Authority. [17: Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 15.
]
Furthermore, the second phase of understanding named “The Gospels as natural histories” was the era of enlightenment. During this time, scholars looked and perceived things very differently, and they broke free from the previous restrictions imposed by the Church, and they created a rational way of seeing and analyzing things. During this phase, the emphasis remained on the possibility of all human reasons for comprehending the world and the nature and origins of life in it. During this time, scholars found scientific and rational reasons for the miracles that happened during the lifetime of Jesus. For example, the crucifixion and resurrection were explained by Paulus as the body of Jesus going into a coma because of severe stress. Later, he came out of the coma, which has been perceived as given a new life after death.[footnoteRef:18] [18: Joseph W. Bergeron, “The Crucifixion of Jesus: Review of Hypothesized Mechanisms of Death and Implications of Shock and Trauma-induced Coagulopathy,” Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine 19.3 (2012): 113-16.
]
The third phase, named ‘The Gospels as non-historical myths,’ started in 1835-36 when David Friedrich Strauss published his book ‘The Life of Jesus Critically Examined.’ This publication initiated the third stage of Gospels’ comprehension. He argued that both previous comprehensions were not right and that gospels were neither supernatural histories nor natural histories; in fact, they are not histories at all. He presented the argument that the gospels were actually myths; the stories mentioned in them never happened. They were created by human minds and presented to the rest of the world as reality.[footnoteRef:19] Here the understanding of myth is crucial. Friedrich explained myth is something that never happened, but usually the main character in a myth is a god, or supernatural humans.[footnoteRef:20] In other words, the miracles mentioned in the gospels never happened, but the message they want to communicate about Jesus is true. The stories were created to tell the world truth about Jesus. [19: Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, 15.
] [20: Reddish, An Introduction to the Gospels, 13. ]
Erhman argues the stories mentioned in the gospels are historically inaccurate, but they attempt to convey and communicate a true comprehension of Jesus.[footnoteRef:21] It is certain that some information mentioned about Jesus in gospels is correct, but their order and additional information are not. For example, the incident of Jesus leaving his home, going to the city of Jerusalem and having a Passover meal (the last supper) is, in fact, true. It is true that this meal and meeting enraged the Roman authorities, and they ordered the arrest of Jesus; the details about where the meal was prepared, who prepared it, where Jesus met his followers when he was arrested, and when he was crucified are all different. The major differences exist in the versions explained in the Gospel of John and in the Gospel of Mark. The two primary sources have distinctive differences, and their versions of the story contradict each other. John’s version is theologically correct but historically inaccurate, while on the other hand, Mark presents a theologically incorrect but historically accepted version. This does not mean that the miracle of Jesus calming the storm occurred. Either one of these versions is correct, and the other is not, or it is possible that neither of the two versions is correct. Perhaps something else happened, maybe it stopped raining or the whole story was a fabrication. But the two Gospel authors perceived them in different ways and then explained in their own unique manner.[footnoteRef:22] [21: Ehrman, Jesus Before the Gospels, 128.] [22: Bart Ehrman, “Ehrman & Licona: Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? Part 1” The Bart Ehrman Blog: The History & Literature of Early Christianity, March 18, 2018, https://ehrmanblog.org/ehrman-licona-are-gospels-reliable-part-1 accessed March 18, 2021. ]
Furthermore, the stories mentioned in the Gospels might have higher religious and theological significance, but they are historically inaccurate. The life of Jesus was influenced and impacted by the culture and values of that time. His birth, life, and death, including the miracle of the storm, are all influenced by the traditions of his time, but some accounts in the Gospels present stories that do not relate to the traditions of that time, which indicates that these stories are historically inaccurate. This is the same point presented by David Friedrich Strauss and Ehrman as they argued that gospels are full of such stories that cannot be correct under historical lenses.[footnoteRef:23] There are a wide range of inaccurate historical stories, including the one about Jesus’ last meal and crucifixion, the Gospels presents different accounts sometimes irreconcilable. This is not limited to this one incident. Many stories mentioned in these gospels contradict each other or contradict with the historical values of that time. [23: Ibid.]
Another crucial point that raises the question on the reliability and authenticity of gospels is that there is little to no information about the authors of gospels. Even though throughout history, the Gospels have been deemed as the most significant source of information about the life of Jesus, and they have been called by their authors “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,” there is no information about the authors. The four most crucial books of the largest religion in the world are anonymous. The names of authors were never announced in early manuscripts.[footnoteRef:24] The four Gospels with the most important information about the life of Jesus of Nazareth circulated anonymously for decades after they were written.[footnoteRef:25] A general perception existed in history that these four authors were followers of Jesus who eye-witnessed his struggles and his life and then wrote these versions of Jesus’ life, but this is not true. The followers of Jesus were illiterate villagers belonging to the lower class and Aramaic speaking individuals.[footnoteRef:26] These books were written by well trained and highly educated individuals who had a very good grip on the Greek language. They were probably elite Christians living in big cities and had never witnessed the struggle of Jesus or even met him.[footnoteRef:27] Their account of Jesus’s life is dependent on the stories they heard. Their source of information was not written, but oral stories about Jesus’s birth, deeds, words, death, and then resurrection. There is enough evidence to support the claim that scribes altered or changed the New Testament on purpose to fit their agenda, they added and deleted information not found in older manuscripts, in short, there are lots of reasons to discredit the authenticity of gospels. Moreover, the gospels were written some 40-65 years later between 70-95CE. The difference of four to six decades is a long time, and in that time, the stories changed generations and no true account was available. Also, the intention behind these writings is unclear, which raises questions on the authenticity of these accounts. In brief, the integrity of authors is as crucial as the integrity of the content. [footnoteRef:28] [24: Reddish, An Introduction to the Gospels, 14.
] [25: Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 76.] [26: Acts 4:5-13. ] [27: Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed The Bible (San Francisco Harper Collins, 2007), 85.] [28: Robert B. Stewart, Bart D. Ehrman and Daniel B. Wallace in Dialogue (Minneapolis Augsburg Fortress Press, 2011).]
The gospels are the biggest source of information about Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, but their authenticity remains questionable. The comprehension of the gospels passed through three different phases, including Ehrman’s proposed ‘Gospels as supernatural histories,’ ‘Gospels as natural histories’ and ‘Gospels as non-historical myths.’ The last of these states that gospels are non-historical myths because the stories mentioned in the gospels never happened, but the message they want to communicate about Jesus is true.[footnoteRef:29] The stories were created to tell the world truth about Jesus. This is supported by the analysis of stories in the light of history. These stories might be theologically right, but they are historically unauthentic. Furthermore, they were not written by those who had first-hand knowledge of these events. The stories were written by Greek Christians living in far away in big cities, and they did not have first-hand knowledge of any of these events.[footnoteRef:30] The authors of Mark, Mathew, Luke, and John are anonymous, and their identities are never revealed, which makes the integrity of writing ambiguous. [29: Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, 135.
] [30: Ehrman, New Testament, 81. ]
Ehrman wonders whether the New Testament’s gospel has historically accurate stories. He states that there is no historical evidence of most of the teachings in the New Testament.[footnoteRef:31] Ehrman does not blame Christians for believing in the New Testament as he believes that sometimes it is not easy to demonstrate what exactly happened due to lack of evidence or lack of information.[footnoteRef:32] Furthermore, it is not easy to keep records of everything that happens daily, and that is nobody’s fault. But this fact makes Bart Ehrman doubt the preaching and miracles performed in the New Testament, especially the passage in Mark 4:35-41, claiming that miracles cannot be demonstrated historically. Matthew 8:23-27 presents a similar but different account: [31: D. B. Wallace, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2019), 51.] [32: R. W. Yarbrough, “The Epistle of John,” in The Historical Reliability of the New Testament: Countering the Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs, ed. Robert B. Stewart and Craig L. Blomberg (Nashville: B&H Academic Publishing, 2016), 599.]
“Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
Ehrman does not condemn the New Testament’s Gospel despite not having historical proof of the events that happened in the New Testament.[footnoteRef:33] He compares the writers of the New Testament to historians who do not share all the detailed information about some of the historical events, but still get their audience to believe in their accounts. Just like the New Testament writers, historians cannot show all the aesthetic sensitivities of what exactly happened. This means that the Christian writers could just assume some of the things they wrote in the New Testament. [33: D.P. Nystrom, “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 61 (2018): 381-84.
]
Based on the arguments about historians failing to record every detail about the historical events, it is not fair to judge the Christian writers based on their failure to present historical facts about the Gospel in the New Testament.[footnoteRef:34] Still, Erhman argues that secular historians do not have the same religious beliefs as Christians. This means that the historians in their historical proceedings cannot demonstrate that Christian God existed in history as they do not show him anywhere in their writings. Still, Christian historians share one common trait that is the unified demonstrated facts that the New Testament was written anonymously, all originals documents have been lost or destroyed, and miracles of Jesus fall outside of historical spectrum,[footnoteRef:35] as a non-believer and historian Ehrman asserts is not appropriate to discuss what probably happened in the past, especially supernatural events. [34: C.L. Blomberg “The Formation of the Synoptic Gospels,”, in The Historical Reliability of the New Testament: Countering the Challenges to Evangelical Christian Beliefs ed. Robert B. Stewart and Craig L. Blomberg, (Nashville: B&H Academic Publishing, 2016), 42.] [35: Yarbrough, “The Epistle of John” in The H, 599.]
Jewish Skepticism of Reliability of the New Testament
This section presents a case against the New Testament, as highlighted by one of the leading Jewish scholars of our time identified as Tovia Singer. It is nearly impossible not to mention a leading Jewish scholar in this work to state the importance of Jesus Jewishness. Modern scholars like Erhman and Singer have rejected the idea of Jesus being the Messiah. For
over two thousand years now, Christians have believed that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jewish people and all the nations. Both Tovia Singer and Bart Ehrman develop positions against the New Testament and miracles allegedly performed by Jesus. The most common position is that Jesus failed to fulfill prophecy to the Jewish people, and this made them base their values and beliefs on a national revelation or Torah. They claimed that Jesus never fulfilled most of the promises he made to Jewish people and as such, they could not believe that he was their savior. Today, most Jewish branches uphold the idea that Jesus is not their Messiah.[footnoteRef:36] [36: Yarbrough, “The Epistle of John,” 599.]
Singer proposes that the miracle recorded in Mark 4:35-41 probably never occurred. In recent decades, discussion of this miracle presents a variety of problems and has moved in a number of directions. According to Singer the miracle stories in the New Testament are fabrications. He turns to the beginning of Deuteronomy where the Torah addresses miracles: In Deuteronomy 13:1-2, the Bible raises the question of how to respond to a “prophet” who offers to show a miracle to support his message.[footnoteRef:37] How are we to respond if, in fact, the promised miracle comes to pass just as he predicted? Should we then follow this “prophet” even if he encourages us to worship other gods which our fathers did not know? “You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer,” the Almighty emphatically declares. “I did not send him,” says the Lord.[footnoteRef:38] For Rabbi Singer miracles performed by Jesus are just a test from God. This poses certain challenges that modern readers of the text must face, such as the scientific inquiry and criticism from Rabbi Singer, who believes that the messianic age has not and cannot be here yet because prophecy has not yet been fulfilled.[footnoteRef:39] For example: The promise to establish the third temple is found in Ezekiel’s book, chapter thirty-seven[footnoteRef:40]Jesus also pledged to spread God’s word and bring people together in peace and harmony worldwide. However, most Jews believe that Jesus failed to fulfill all these promises. The Holy temple was destroyed in the year 70 A.D and never rebuilt. [footnoteRef:41] [37: Ibid.] [38: Ibid.] [39: Tovia Singer, Let’s Get Biblical: Why Doesn’t Judaism Accept the Christian Messiah Volume 1 (Coppell, TX, USA, RNVN Publishers, 2010). ] [40: Yarbrough, “The Epistle of John,” 368. ] [41: Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (San Francisco: Harper One, 2010), 22. ]
No one has ever fulfilled the second coming of Messiah, and in the Jewish tradition this means that there is no concept of the second coming of someone who doesn’t fulfill his or her promises.[footnoteRef:42] Jews hold that Jesus did not meet his Messianic prophecies and promises. This is not true of Christians, as most of them still believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ. And the fact that it has not happened yet does not necessarily mean that it will not happen. Paul, the Pharisee from Tarsus who became the church’s first great evangelist, confirms this messianic view, albeit filtered through his understanding of Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one. [42: Wallace, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, 304.]
The early believers and followers of Jesus were Jews who spoke Aramaic and lived in Israel and practiced Judaism, which made them conversant with the Hebrew teachings.[footnoteRef:43] They believed that Jesus was their Messiah and longed to see him come back for them. However, the Jewish leadership did not think that Jesus was their Messiah and held different perspectives. For Rabbi Singer claims of Jesus’s divinity or miracles are false. He claims that Jesus never fulfilled most of the promises clearly made to the Jewish people in the Jewish Bible or Old Testament and as such, He could not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.[footnoteRef:44] Today, most Jewish branches uphold the idea that Jesus is not their Messiah. For Singer, the reference that Jesus as being from the lineage of King David is a contradiction since according to the Gospel of Luke and Mathew Jesus was born to a virgin, and therefore be unable to claim the right to Davidic line because tribal lineage is traced exclusively through a person’s father clearly written in Torah. [footnoteRef:45] [43: Ibid.] [44: Tovia Singer, “The Jewish Response to a Christian Challenge” https://outreachjudaism.org/about-us,(Retrieved; June 2, 2020. ] [45: Numbers 1:18]
Another aspect that Singer criticizes is the miraculous birth of Jesus by virgin mother. This virgin birth is described in two books of the New Testament, namely Luke and Matthew. However, Singer claims that these two books contradict the details about the virgin birth of Jesus. For instance, the text of Matthew states that Jesus was born to Mary, who was a virgin wife to Joseph and had never had sex with her husband before.[footnoteRef:46] The book of Luke only points out that Mary was a virgin and gave birth to baby Jesus. The genealogies in books contradict each other, these two statements are controversial as they do not provide similar details of the accounts or the events leading to the birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary, and there is contradiction in the two birth narratives. Singer, alongside other Jewish biblical scholars, has long debated against the virgin birth of Jesus. Most scholars argue that no direct link displays information about this virgin birth.[footnoteRef:47] They claim that this virgin birth is only a myth. They explain that the Hebrew word for virgin is betulah adding “when missionaries try to prove the virgin birth of Jesus, they incorrectly quote Isaiah 7:14. The Hebrew word they translate is”Almah”and not ”betulah”.[footnoteRef:48] Singer also argues that Luke and Matthew present different accounts of the birth of Jesus. He also adds that Virgin Birth is not included in the early sources of Jewish readings and teachings documented in the Jewish Bible. As such, it is difficult for most Jewish people to believe something that is not present in the historical records of Judaism. Additionally, the scholar claims that there is no written evidence from history to show that Jesus was born to a virgin mother. Singer asserts that the notion of virgin birth comes from the book of Isaiah that describes an “Almah” as the virgin that gives birth. The word Almah translates to a young woman, but rabbi Singer claims that Christians translated this word to virgin and accorded the birth of Jesus to a virgin birth without strong evidence. This fact does not necessarily mean that Mary was a virgin and gave birth to baby Jesus as a virgin. Either way, other Jews think that maybe Mary was an Almah and that is the reason why she gave birth to Jesus despite being a virgin. Tovia Singer writes against the gospel of the New Testament as he believes Jesus did not fulfill his prophesies as he promised.[footnoteRef:49] [46: Yarbrough, “The Epistle of John” 381-84.] [47: Nystrom, “Historical Reliability of the Gospels,” 235.] [48: Singer, Let’s Get Biblical, 27.] [49: Nystrom, “The Historical Reliability of the New Testament,” 382.]
He claims that Jesus as Messiah separates the Jewish faith from Christianity. This distinction is not the only one, but it’s the most crucial. Prophecy to a perfect future is characterized by peace and useful life in various books, including Jeremiah 31; Isaiah 2; and Micah 4, among others. This was never fulfilled, and since we live in chaos, war, and conflicts worldwide, obviously the Jewish messiah has not yet come.
Singer believes that Paul invented Christianity and not Jesus as most Christians believe.[footnoteRef:50] Paul was a supporter of Jesus Christ, and he converted to Christianity after oppressing the disciples of the same Christianity on his way to Damascus. Jewish people believe that Paul was the principal founder of Christianity.[footnoteRef:51] Then Singer turns his attention to the New Testament he points out that Jesus never claimed to be God or messiah, while in the real sense, the apostle Paul was the principal founder of this religion. He gives evidence of the seven books in the New Testament, all written by the apostle. Jewish people believe that Paul developed Christianity from his teachings as a missionary and an apostle, and what he experienced as revelation of the resurrection of a Messiah is not true.[footnoteRef:52] Upon receiving this vision, Paul traveled to different countries within the Roman Empire to spread the gospel about the returning of Jesus from death and reappearing in the kingdom of God.[footnoteRef:53] However, critics of Singer’s work contend that Paul did not develop any religion, but he only advised people to transform their lives. Time passed, and Jesus did not return. As a result, Jesus’s early followers questioned Paul to validate his writings about the coming of Jesus, which made him establish a Christian doctrine. [50: Singer, Let’s Get Biblical, 27. ] [51: Nystrom, “Historical Reliability of the Gospels,” 232.] [52: Singer, Let’s Get Biblical,110. ] [53: Ibid.]
According to Singer, The Catholic Church glued The New Testament to Old Testament to make it more reliable, but to see and hear Jesus in his historical context enriches and validates the New Testament because “Jesus of Nazareth dressed like a Jew, prayed like a Jew (and most likely in Aramaic), instructed other Jews on how best to live according to the commandments given by God to Moses, taught like a Jew, argued like a Jew with other Jews, and died like thousands of other Jews on a Roman cross. [footnoteRef:54] [54: Singer, Let’s Get Biblical, 132. ]
Singer believes that Catholic Church attached or glued the New Testament to the Old Testament to make the story of Jesus more reliable.[footnoteRef:55] The early Church fathers also did this to demonstrate some of the events that led to Jesus’ time. [footnoteRef:56] Singer claims that the only reliable evidence in the Bible is written in the Old Testament, Tanakh is the word of God, and not the other way around, which is more different than it is similar to the new synoptic Gospels. “The assertion of Christianity is that God’s revelation to the Jewish people and to others did not end with the canonization of the Jewish scriptures, the Tanakh approximately 450 BC.[footnoteRef:57] Christians insist that God’s revelations did not end at that time but continue with the writings of the New Testament. [55: Ibid.] [56: Ibid.] [57: Wallace, Myths and Mistakes, 33-34.]
Singer believes that Christians have a sole duty to survive and defend God’s word through evangelism and fight against the enemy, Satan.[footnoteRef:58] He finds this notion contradictory as the New Testament also states that the idea of God’s kingdom is in people’s hearts and has nothing to do with our surroundings. This teaching implies that what churchgoers do outside of the church is not a concern to God. Ehrman and Singer pose an immense problem since both see the Bible simply as a work of ancient literature full of mistakes, contradictions, historically unreliable, and not as part of their religious practice. [58: Singer, Let’s Get Biblical,141.]
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
To accomplish this work, this research will examine two competing approaches to the question of the reliability of miracle stories in the Gospels, particularly in Mark 4:35-4. I will examine the philosophical assumptions driving the two points of view in the discussion of the meaning of the miracle story and how it functions, and what questions are appropriate to that discussion. The research will then apply further conceptual analysis to the two opposing views to clarify the sense in which the miracle story informs the notion of divine authority in the person of Jesus. The inquiry will be grammatical and philosophical in character and will depend on insights developed by philosophers in the grammatical, contemplative tradition in the latter half of the twentieth century.
The Research Questions of this Project: Focused to Provide an Illumination of Divine Authority in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth
Chapter 1: How can philosophical assessments of the text of Mark 4:35-41 aid in the understanding of the Divine Authority in the person of Jesus? As discussed in the introduction, my focus will be a philosophical understanding of the conceptual problems generated by modern readings of the biblical text. Specifically, what kind/s of problem does the historical and cultural distance between ancient and modern/postmodern readers present to an understanding of the notion of divine authority in Mark 4:35-41?
Chapter 2: What kind of understanding informs modern skeptical readings of the biblical text, with specific attention to the work of Bart Erhman and his reading of the Gospels and their historical reliability? This section will highlight traditional modern concerns about the reliability of the Gospels’ accounts of miracles. It will show in what ways a highly respected biblical historian raises skeptical questions about the reliability of the Gospels as a basis for believing in miracles.
Chapter 3: What kind of understanding informs modern recovery readings of the biblical text, with special attention to the work of William Lane Craig and his philosophical efforts to preserve traditional readings of the biblical text? This section will highlight how a highly respected Christian philosopher attempts to recover the validity of the Gospel accounts of miracles.
Chapter 4: How does Gareth Moore’s grammatical/philosophical assessment of Mark 4:35-41 dissolve the modern tension in reading the biblical text represented negatively in Ehrman and positively in Craig, with particular attention to the question of miracles and divine authority? In this section I will look at how Gareth Moore’s philosophical assessment of the miracle story in Mark 4:35-41 offers an alternative reading of the biblical text, presenting a challenge to the assumptions embedded in both Erhman and Craig.
Chapter 5: This chapter will summarize all the questions raised from the philosophical perspectives in the interpretation of the Bible. Also, the issues regarding the person of Jesus and his life in reference to the book of Mark 4: 35-41 shall be tackled. How does Moore’s grammatical, philosophical approach suggest a better way to read the biblical texts, moving toward a more coherent understanding of the biblical concept of divine authority in the person of Jesus? In this section, I will show how Moore’s alternative reading suggests an alternative way of reading the bible, with attention to his work as the central problem in the philosophy of religion, as an example of a grammatical reading of divine authority. I will demonstrate how a grammatical, philosophical reading relates the reading of the stories of miracles in the Gospels with the divine authority of Jesus.
Most of the comments discussed revolve around Christianity, and mostly what I have learned in seminary. In this essay I looked at problems that may torment the modern-day seminary student of the Bible. There are many issues involved in reading the Bible; one is to read it as a work of ancient literature. My concern was with problems arising for Christian students from reading the Bible as a specifically Christian book. Half of the Bible, the part we students call “Tanakh” or the Old Testament is also what Jewish students use. That is a part that I did not cover in this essay, since there may be different problems that arise for Jewish students reading the Jewish Bible today from those that arise for Christian students reading the Christian Bible or New Testament. I do not speak for other students, but since I come from a Christian culture, as, I guess, do all my classmates, my comments are only a small contribution to the philosophy of Christianity and not religious philosophy.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
The reliability of the Gospels is based on claims that are rooted in history. As a New Testament historian, Dr. Craig approaches the Gospels not as inspired Holy Scripture, but merely as a collection of ancient writings dated during the first century C..E. Our surprise as seminary students is that the majority of secular and Christian scholars accept as historical facts events mentioned in the Gospels.[footnoteRef:59] [59: D. B. Wallace, Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2019), 16-19.]
Fact #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.[footnoteRef:60] this fact is highly significant because it shows the tomb or burial location was known to Jews, in that case, the disciples could never have proclaimed his resurrection in Jerusalem if the tomb had not been empty.[footnoteRef:61] A respected scholar John A. T. Robinson of Cambridge University writes.[footnoteRef:62]“the burial of Jesus in the tomb is one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus.”[footnoteRef:63] [60: Luke 23: 50-53.] [61: William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics,3rd ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 278.] [62: Wallace, Myths and Mistakes, 33-34.] [63: John A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), 131.]
Fact #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’s tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. The fact that women testimony was discounted in first century Palestine stands in favor of the women’s role in discovering the tomb.
Fact #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. The appearance traditions in the Gospels provide multiple, independent attestation of these appearances; this is one of the most important marks of historicity. According to the Oxford classical dictionary, historicity denotes actuality of past events, authenticity, factuality, and focuses on true value of knowledge claims about the past. [footnoteRef:64] [64: Simon Homblower, “Historicity,” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary Denver, Colorado, USA: Oxford University Press, 2012), 79.]
Fact #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was raised from the dead despite having every predisposition to the contrary. Jesus followers were Jews, and they found themselves between a rock and hard place, first their leader and master was dead. Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising Messiah, the reason Jews until this day do not acknowledge Jesus is because the Messiah was supposed to overthrow Jews enemies, not be killed, like Jesus was. They like us believed dead people stayed dead, there was no belief in a risen Messiah, or any dead person at the time. The significance of those facts gives us firm faith in the existence of God and that He sent His message through Jesus, there leaves no room for doubt. God is the almighty and everything is under his power, if He is capable of creating the universe in six days, He is capable of doing small miracles as well.[footnoteRef:65] The facts about Jesus’ arrest, death, burial, and then empty tomb and resurrection can be assessed and established separately. These stories might not seem historically correct, but Jesus was a beacon of change. He changed the world altogether and introduced the biggest religion of the world which ruled and existed with full power for 2000 years, and it is still prospering in Asia, Africa and Latin America.[footnoteRef:66] That makes the Gospels reliability significant. [65: Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 16.] [66: Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, Vol 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (San Francisco: Harper One, 2010),43.]
Jesus was capable of doing things that might not fall in the general historic context. All the big names in the religious world, from Buddha to Confucius and from Mohammad to Guru Nanak challenged the status-quo, and they did not necessarily comply with the historic traditions and customs.[footnoteRef:67] heir teachings, words, and deeds were different, and they did not mold their lives according to the values and customs of their time. Instead, they brought new values, customs, and concepts of right and wrong. They not only followed these values themselves but propagated the message to the masses. This was not just anybody that was resurrected from the dead, but Jesus of Nazareth a man approved by God.[footnoteRef:68] [67: Craig, Reasonable Faith, 33.] [68: Acts 2:22.]
There is no denying that some differences exist in the accounts mentioned in the Gospels of John and Mark, but these differences only present two different perspectives, and they do not mean that the actual event did not happen. It could mean that an event happened, and two different individuals perceived it in a different manner, and then these different perceptions reflected in their writings. The miracle in Mark 4:35-41 is presented first chronologically using Markan priority, and then the same account is described by another source Matthew 8:23-27. The fact that the story of the storm is found twice in the New Testament confirms it happened. One principle historian take in consideration to establish the probability of an event or saying is multiple early attestations, according to contemporary scholarship, when two different sources providing the same story can be used as enough historical evidence that an event possibly occurred. [footnoteRef:69] Major critics point out that Jesus’s miracles are not reliable because they are not historically correct, but the important question is: Is the written record of history correct? The history of that time is not well reported either. There are some books and historic recordings which tell about the values, traditions and customs of that time but raised questions just like questions are raised on the authenticity of religious books including the Gospels and other manuscripts. Since little evidence is preserved, the authenticity of the manuscripts and books about the history of that time is controversial. [69: Robert Stein, The Criteria for Authenticity (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 2012), 198. 225- 63]
Lastly, New Testament scholars claim that there exists a difference of four to six decades between the actual happening of events and their recording time.[footnoteRef:70] It is true that the gospels were not written right away after Jesus’s resurrection, but this does not mean that their recording was all incorrect. After the resurrection of Jesus, many stories were attached to him but not all of them must have been included in the Gospels, as it is stated by the critics like Erhman that the gospels were written by trained and well-educated authors in big cities.[footnoteRef:71] It remained the norm among contemporary scholarship to credit the author of the Gospel of Luke and book of Acts that while recording the historic events, he also worked on its authenticity. This is the case with the gospels of Mark, Mathew, and John as well. They did not write all the stories they heard about deeds, actions, and words of Jesus. They investigated it by tracking down the real records; they checked the integrity of the person who is stating the story. They looked into whether or not a person telling a story is deemed as an honest person by his fellow men in society. It was taken into account that the story is not narrated by just one person and that multiple eyewitnesses existed for a single miracle or story.[footnoteRef:72] Similarly, in some cases, some eyewitnesses were interviewed, and their first-hand knowledge was recorded. This is not unique to Gospels in Christianity. This same process was achieved in Judaism, and repeated in Islam as well when the hadith of Mohammad were recorded in four main books of Sun-nah.[footnoteRef:73] [70: Pheme Perkins. The Synoptic Gospels and the Act of the Apostles: Telling the Christian. Story (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) 241.] [71: Ibid.] [72: Stein, The Criteria for Authenticity, 225-63.] [73: William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, 2019), 14.]
In short, it can be deduced that the time difference is not a right medium basis on which the miracles of Jesus mentioned in Gospels can be rejected. The most distinguishing factor about Christianity is that Christians believe that God revealed himself throughout history as presented in the Bible, at a particular time and place in times of Palestinian Judaism. As the philosopher William Lane Craig analyzes, the Christian faith comprises different past experiences that define the faith through God’s Gospel and miracles performed by Jesus.
The Reliability of Jesus’s Miracles as Indicated in the New Testament
Craig highlights five reasons that make him believe that most Christians tend to assume that the miracles performed by Jesus were reliable.[footnoteRef:74] First, he states that there was inadequate time for the people during this time to obliterate the historical facts surrounding the miracles of Jesus. This is because the time interval between when the miracles took place and the spreading of the Gospel was too short for the authors to memorize all the happenings that led to the miracles. Secondly, he states that the miracles were not analogous to the modern-day and folk tales, especially living in an age of reason and science. These tales do not show the historical events that led to the narratives of Jesus’ miracles. [74: Ibid.]
Third, Craig highlights that the Jewish transmission of the sacred traditions was highly reliable and established. The ability to learn and remember all the information in large tracts was considered a sophisticated skill for the people who oversaw some of these miracles.[footnoteRef:75] The philosopher also adds that great consensus has been established in the New Testament scholarship that is closed to the genre of the traditional biographies. [footnoteRef:76]Furthermore, the generations were so highly sacred that they never dared to question the reliability of these miracles. Instead, they would have exercised the same care using the Gospels and the miracles of Jesus. [75: Craig S. Keener, Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2019), 107.] [76: Ibid.]
The fourth reason for the assumption that the miracles were reliable is that there were significant limitations on the embellishment of the traditions about Jesus using criteria of dissimilarity.[footnoteRef:77] These factors would naturally implement on the facts that preserved the significance of Jesus in believers’ lives. Finally, Craig believes that most people would assume the reliability of the miracles of Jesus because the Gospel writers have a reliable track record of the historical facts that led to these miracles’ performance. Even the most doubtful people can believe the miracles that Jesus performed and exorcism recorded in the Gospels are “Authentic.”[footnoteRef:78] He concludes that the only reason one can deny that Jesus performed miracles is the assumption of the existence of the supernatural powers during the time of these happenings, which cannot be justified.[footnoteRef:79] [77: Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus,”18.] [78: William Lane Craig, “The Reliability of the Gospels,” in The Good Book Blog: Talbot School of Theology Faculty Blog, May 29, 2015, https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2015/the-reliability-of-the-gospels Accessed August 27, 2020.] [79: Ibid.]
According to Craig, the abundance and the age of the documents that contain the Gospels is enough proof for their reliability, as observed by the Christian faith.[footnoteRef:80] Craig agrees that the New Testament is the best demonstration in contemporary history in terms of manuscripts’ closeness and the number of the documents presented in an original form.[footnoteRef:81] This notion proves that the writings in the New Testament are 99 % similar as the original texts that were written in the first century times. The philosopher also adds that nearly 140,000 words in the New Testament resemble the original texts’ words, and only 1,300 still don’t do the same.[footnoteRef:82] As such, the Gospel in the New Testament is 99% established according to Craig. This implies that the readers are guaranteed the original texts in the Gospel of the New Testament. [80: Craig, “Establishing the Gospels’ Reliability,” 49.] [81: . Keener,“Christo biography: Memory, History and the Reliability of the Gospels”,51.
] [82: Craig “Reliability of the Gospels,” 2015.]
Craig claims that the gospels intend to bring out humanity’s history since the creation of heaven and earth. This means that the gospels in the New Testament represent the literary genre of the historical writings and preaching of Jesus. They are highly incredible and not fiction, mythological, or fable. The philosopher also adds that great consensus has been established in the New Testament scholarship that is closed to the genre of the traditional biographies.[footnoteRef:83] Some of the things make the Gospel of the New Testament to be credible. As such, the Gospels’ writers were attempting to inscribe a historical account of people, events, and places that happened historically (Luke 3.1-3). [83: Keener,“Christo biography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels”, 82 -83.]
Craig also establishes the credibility of the Gospels of the New Testament by determining the facts provided in the Gospels.[footnoteRef:84] He addresses the criteria of credibility, which enables readers to develop a specific interest in the preaching and teachings of Jesus as a historical event. Most scholars and philosophers engaged in the pursuit of the historical teachings of Jesus have pronounced several strategies of determining the reliability of the Gospels through the authentic historical features” including “multiple attestations, dissimilarity to the teachings of Christians, retention of awkward materials, linguistic Semitisms, and rationality with other original materials and traces of Palestinian milieu.”[footnoteRef:85] It is misleading for scholars to address these arguments as criteria, as they only focus on the information’s adequacy facts presented in the New Testament. Craig highlights that this is a matter that is easy to determine.[footnoteRef:86] [84: Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus,” 88.] [85: Ibid. ] [86: Craig, “Rediscovering the Historical Jesus,” 111.]
Craig instead develops the criteria of dissimilarity that amount to the statements about the influence of the Gospels on Christians and readers using the likelihood of the different sayings in Jesus’s life.[footnoteRef:87] Some events that led to the preaching of the Gospel and evidence of the events leading to this preaching bring a meaningful knowledge to Christians who believe in God’s gospel. Craig confirms the credibility and the reliability of the Gospels of the New Testament through his criteria. It is indeed not shocking how the Gospel and the miracles of Jesus can be established considering his fundamental personal claims, arrest, burial in a tomb, and finally, his resurrection. It is almost impossible to believe how the disciples came to find out that Jesus had risen from the tomb and that God had raised him from the dead. As N.T Wright a British Christian scholars writes:” that is why, as a historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again, leaving an empty tomb behind him.”[footnoteRef:88] Still, the philosopher gives solid reasons for believing that the gospel and miracles performed by Jesus were credible based on the historical facts presented in the New Testament. This makes the gospels of Christ reliable documents and trustworthy accounts of the life of Jesus in historical times. Therefore, William Lane Craig conclusively analyzes that God has acted in history, and Christians can confirm this through the gospels included in the New Testament. [87: Ibid. ] [88: N.T. Wright, Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 26.]
To conclude, Jesus’s miracles, including the miracle regarding the storm in Mark 4:35, present stories, actions, and deeds of Jesus that are as authentic and reliable as any other historic content. Dr. Craig states that if one has a belief in God, then there is no reason for not believing in his miracles.[footnoteRef:89] If God can create the world in days, he can definitely create small miracles in no time. Furthermore, these miracles are the reason which tells that God can do anything at any time to anyone. He is capable of everything. Dr. Craig analysis gives us a clear picture of the dating of the Christian sources, its assessment provides good grounds to believe that the Gospels are and can be reliable historical documents. [89: William Lane Craig, The Son Rises: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus (Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, 2019), 14.]
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Discussion: Gareth Moore’s Philosophical Assessment of the Text in Mark 4:35-41
The topic “How a philosophical understanding of the text in Mark 4:35-41 provides an illumination of divine authority in the person of Jesus” is brought into focus in Gareth Moore’s work in philosophy for theology. In the times in which we are living, philosophy of religion has been focused in two things as we seen in the previous chapters. Number 1; attacking the reliability of the Gospels, and number 2, defending the Gospels as historically reliable ancient works of literature. Gareth Moore, OP. who was a scholar in Biblical studies takes an entire different approach and teaches us a better way in understanding the Text.
The miracle story of Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4:35-41 is important because it seems to indicate that Jesus is a divine figure. The story portrays Jesus doing what is impossible to a mere human being, hence the story under scrutiny shows that he is not a mere mortal.[footnoteRef:90] Jesus speaks and immediately the storm subsides. If we are not to understand the miracle story as cause and effect, how can we make sense of this biblical account? In this chapter is where we discuss the importance of Jesus speaking to nature and his divine authority. The story is based on a command from a man and nature obeys. How can we understand the story and also capture the clear distinction of Jesus’ close followers in what they say? They are not asking, how he calmed the storm, but “What sort of a man is this?” Who is this man, that even the winds and sea obey him? [90: Moore, Gareth. Biblical Concepts and Our World. Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. Edited by D. Z. Phillips and Mario Von Der Ruhr. (City published: Palgrave Macmillan Press Name, 2004), 3.]
The disciples understood that it was not magic or power that Jesus possessed, but his divine authority. A question: what is to believe in God, the Christian God? What exactly Christians believe about Jesus? For Jews and Muslims have an idea of God, they believe God is infinite, and has the power and authority over nature,[footnoteRef:91] what we encounter in the study is a man doing things only God can do. [91: Ibid.]
The story of Jesus calming the storm is not new. The story has been there since the first century where the story circulated orally for decades until it was written in the Gospel of Mark.[footnoteRef:92] The main question being: what problems arise caused by the distance between the biblical world and ours? We live in a world of complexity different from that of first century Palestine. We-and by ‘we’ I mean modern (or even post-modern), educated cultured western liberals-inhabit a thought-world vastly different from that of the ancient near east; does this distance itself create any problems? [footnoteRef:93] Gareth Moore’s understanding of biblical miracle narratives gives us an incredible insight how we can dissolve the modern tension between skeptical and Christian New Testament scholars, presenting an original alternative in the reading of the biblical text. [92: Mark 4: 354-35] [93: Moore” Biblical Concepts and Our World”. 47.]
For the last 200 years the problem of miracles in the biblical accounts has been analyzed from all possible expositions. The goal of this essay is not whether or not we should believe in miracles, but rather to offer a way in which miracles can make sense in our modern technological world. As discussed in chapters two and three, the problem is that for many years the academic study of the Bible, employing methods such as literary criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism, has treated the Bible in a new way, simply as any other ancient text; in this way it has introduced a way of reading the Bible quite different from that practiced by earlier readers and envisaged by the biblical authors.[footnoteRef:94] [94: Ibid.]
The Miracle in Mark 4:35-41
First, this essay speaks to seminary students, we are not atheist, therefore, one thing we have in common is that we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, infinite, and powerful with authority over nature. The miracle stories are important in the Gospels because they seem to show us something about Jesus, to indicate that he is a divine figure.[footnoteRef:95] The Author of the Gospel of Mark gives us a great picture of the miracle we have been analyzing. Mark indicates that this incident across the lake was after a long day of labor or evangelization. Jesus was wearied and felt the need of rest. He had been pressed on all day by a very great multitude and felt the need of solitude. Marks paints a picture of the terrified disciples, the account says it was late in the evening, and the sun was gone, and the storm got worse, the wind was furious, and the waves banged the side of the small ship. They awoke Jesus, and there is a touch of petulant rebuke in their appeal, and of a sailor’s impatience at a landsman lying sound asleep while the sweat is running down their faces with their hard pulling. It is to the author of the Gospel of Mark that we owe our knowledge of that accent of complain in their words, for he alone gives their ‘Carest Thou not?’ [footnoteRef:96] the crucial point is next, Again the Author of the Gospel presents the heart of this essay; Jesus gets up and says: “Be Still!.” as addressed to the tossing waves, and then there is a complete calm. At all events, the famous expression “Be Still” to lay to heart is that Jesus here exercises the divine prerogative of controlling matter by the bare expression of his will. [footnoteRef:97] One difference between our world (western, liberal, educated) and that of the biblical authors, a difference that creates a difficulty, is that our world is deeply scientific today in a way that theirs was not and could not be.[footnoteRef:98] The issue is that we understand how things work in nature, even at basic fundamental levels, and for us the story causes immense problems. We tend to ask how he did it. Moore, who is apprehended by the understanding of the story not by scientific terms, or reason, asks the better question, who is this man? And Moore explains the answer as follows. [95: Gareth Moore, Believing in God: A philosophical essay (Edinburgh: T &T Clark LTD, 1988), 1.] [96: Alexander Maclaren, “St. Mark,” in Expositions of Holy Scripture, Kindle Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977), 159.] [97: Ibid. ] [98: Moore, Believing in God,12.]
It is crucial to point out that in this story there are not any causal mechanisms, or cause and effect. This can be illustrated in a non-religious example. Suppose I am playing basketball on the street near my house and I say to the basketball, “Go in the hoop,” and the basketball does actually go in the hoop, the place where I pointed out. Immediately we assume that the whole reason the basketball went in the hoop was because of that cause: I shot the basketball before the command. That is, we don’t think of a command as a cause in cases like this. The command is useless, because we understand it was a result of a cause, not the response to my command. My friends playing with me might ask, “How did he do it” and try to duplicate the shot, but as soon as they can also make the shot, the basketball goes in the hoop. The command I gave the ball becomes irrelevant, and my words have no purpose. But the point of the trick command was to make it look to my friends that I said something to the ball, and it obeyed. That is because in our 21st century world, we understand that inanimate things or objects do not really obey commands.
On the other hand, in the biblical account of Mark 4:35-41 Jesus speaks, and the storm subsides. That is the whole story; there are no hidden causal mechanisms present. This miracle, which is more transparent than other miracles in the gospels, sheds light on Jesus divine authority. The simplicity of the story is that Jesus commands the storm to stop, and the storm stops.
The disciples do not suspect any causal mechanisms and look at each other impressed. No tricks are involved in the event, only a simple command and it occurs. That is why we keep asking the same question for centuries, “What sort of a man is this, that even the wind and waves obey him? Answer: a man with divine authority. We can expect to have a little trouble following what is going on. Christians know God can split the Red Sea, showing divine authority over nature, but Jesus here is doing exactly the same, doing what is impossible to mere humans, hence the story shows Jesus is not a mere human.
The story of Jesus calming the storm is not new. The story has been there since the first century where the story circulated orally for decades until it was written in the Gospel of Mark.
Gareth Moore’s understanding of biblical miracle narratives gives us an incredible insight how we can dissolve the modern tension between skeptical readings trying to dismiss the story on the grounds that such events are impossible to prove historically. The difficulty we have is believing that under normal circumstances in nature, a storm is the kind of thing no one can have authority over. It is an inanimate phenomenon, so if a storm changes its natural course, there must be an effect of a cause, not in response to a command. If we are to believe in the biblical account in Mark, we must accept the occurrence not as a coincidence, but a miracle performed by a human being that was teaching with a promise of ultimate security in the midst of the storm.
The disciples are in peril in a dangerous situation, and they ask Jesus to save them. Jesus gets up, commands the storm to stop, and saves them. In other biblical accounts the disciples ask Jesus for advice, and he gives them advice. In this discussion the significance is not only in Jesus calming the storm, but the disciples looking for him in a moment of desperation, looking to their master for immediate deliverance. “God” is not to be construed as the name of a person or a thing, because it functions quite different in our language from names like “Mike” or “Andrew.” The issue we have is that God does things; he performs miracles, runs the universe, and intervenes in our lives. Christians believe God intervenes or can control nature. So, the problem gets bigger when Jesus does things only God can do. Looking closely at the miracle in the Gospel of Mark, we notice this time is not God doing things or commanding nature. The miracle reported is being performed by a human being–a man named Jesus of Nazareth. As compared to first century world that was so different than ours, in the age of early Christianity, miraculous power was thought to be from the divine nature of Jesus as the son of God.[footnoteRef:99] While the more critical, analytical approach of reading the Bible among post-modern days, where the Bible is read as any other historical text, is used to address the divinity of Jesus over nature more closely. What is revealed in the story of the storm is not the power of Jesus over nature, but his Divine Authority. In the Christian tradition, the story of Jesus calming the storm reminds us of a distinctive language used by God, namely the language of command and obedience. The book of Genesis, for example, presents this king of language. When God creates the universe: And God said, “let there be light”; and there was light (Gen 1:3). This is the language of Divine authority, not the scientific language of cause and effect that modern Christians understand. [99: Maclaren, “St. Mark,”159.]
The miracles of Jesus, most of which he achieved through commanding the impossible to happen, serve to prove the divine nature of the person of Jesus, as the son of God. Jesus, as believed to be the most divine and holy man who walked Earth by Christians; As such, his life is depicted as being above the normalcy of human life, despite the belief that God intended for Jesus to live a life equal to the life of man.[footnoteRef:100] The divine presence in Jesus results in Jesus living a life distinct from that of others. Following this, Jesus is seen to achieve impossible feats in the Bible, and this is termed as miracles. The nature of the miracles, before the age of reason, served only to uplift the person of Jesus. Modern-day, however, questions the possibility of the feats being achieved. The application of a critical analysis of the miracles by the modern-day scholars challenges the possibility of the feats being achieved. If Jesus commanded the winds to stop, and they did, the assertion suggests that nature in this case wind, and waves can be commanded. Hence, if Jesus stopped the waves, then it is not the waves he spoke to, but the winds. As waves are only a consequence of wind, and logic dictates only by deterring the cause of something, can you truly deter something from happening? Only by hitting the break will you safely stop the car. Otherwise, all else held constant. You cannot bring the car to a stop. If Jesus commanded the waves to stop, it is the winds he commanded. By commanding the waves, Jesus had divine authority over the atmospheric pressure. [100: John 4: 2-3.]
What is to believe in God, the Christian God? One way to answer this question would be to show how we would explain Christian belief to somebody who did not understand it.[footnoteRef:101] We live in a scientific world where the supernatural does not occur, much different from the biblical world, including the world of first century Palestine. In our context, we might want to request to duplicate a happening that may seem supernatural. That would make sense in a world that conceives all happenings in cause-and-effect terms. But in the ancient world of Jesus and his disciples, the stilling of the storm is different because Jesus does not act upon the storm, or pretend to. In that sense, the apostles know he could not reproduce the event and the stilling of the storm does not come about as result of cause and effect. As far as we know there is nothing Jesus does; he only makes a command, and it becomes relevant. Jesus does not do anything to the storm, he just commands it to be still and the result is absolute obedience from the storm. We know than in individual lives reconciliation between religious and critical reading of the Bible is possible, for there are, and have been since the inception of critical Bible study, eminent biblical scholars who are also devout Christians of profound faith.[footnoteRef:102] [101: Moore, “Believing in God”5.] [102: Moore, “Biblical Concepts”, 160.
]
From the beginning philosophy of Christianity has been shaped by the philosophical movements that surrounded the faith. In order to work towards a solution, we first have to ask, what it might mean for somebody to read the Bible as the word of God addressed to the reader personally.[footnoteRef:103] We have been using the term Gospels, it is a familiar phrase to refer to New Testaments books that were written or addressed to an audience or readership, to illustrate the life, teachings, miracles, and crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark was written to be announced, to be proclaimed to hearers of the word. Critical New Testament scholars like Erhman or Graig are historians that can only guess the date the book was written, the place it was written, the language it was written, its literary style, the concerns of its author, and so on. We can be certain thanks to modern scholarship that the book of Mark that contains our story, was written in the first century C.E few years after Jesus, the book was written by a male Christian, probably living in Rome, and it was written for other Christians of that time. [103: Ibid.]
[footnoteRef:104] So far, a biblical text is much the same as any other text. But people in whose religion the Bible plays and important role may go further.[footnoteRef:105]as for us seminary students, we may say for instance, the Gospel of Mark is addressed not only to first-century Christians living in Rome, but also the message is addressed to us (modern day Christians students of the Bible) to say the Gospel of Mark is addressed us, it does not mean it is about us, it means it is part of our religious tradition. My purpose now is to point out some of the various connections in which the Gospel of Mark is not only an ancient work of literature, but continues to be relevant in the life of Modern Christians. I know Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t help falling in love’ is a song written for my father’s generation in the 1960s and clearly not addressed to my generation, but it will make sense to ask: what does Elvis says to us in his love song? To be able to propose answers to that question we would need to analyze the words of the song, and briefly gather important thoughts which will suggest Elvis is talking to us also, as well as previous generations. But, if we are modern-day Christians our reaction to the book of Mark is importantly different from our reaction to Elvis’s song. The essential difference is that if we say Elvis speaks to us, it is the same to saying Elvis speaks to us through the song. If, on the other hand, we say that Mark is addressing us, we could also say God is also speaking to us though the Text. The voice we hear and listen to when we read the story in Mark 4:35-41 is not merely the voice of a first century Christian that wrote the Gospel, but also that of God, the Christian God, it is the fact that modern-day Christians believe that God speaks to us through it that gives the text value and meaning, that is what is important. [104: Ibid.] [105: Ibid.]
What we find in the story of Mark, Jesus calming the storm is a miracle. But, what is a miracle? A miracle is what happens when God intervenes in the natural course of things to safeguard the innocent, to thwart the plans of the wicked, to confirm the truth of the faith.[footnoteRef:106] [106: Moore, Believing in God, 222. ]
If we are to believe in the biblical account in Mark, we must accept the occurrence not as a coincidence, but a miracle performed by a human being that was teaching with a promise of ultimate security in the midst of the storm. The disciples are in peril in a dangerous situation, and they ask Jesus to save them. Jesus gets up, commands the storm to stop, and saves them. In other biblical accounts the disciples ask Jesus for advice, and he gives them advice. In this discussion the significance is not only in Jesus calming the storm, but the disciples looking for him in a moment of desperation, looking to their master for immediate deliverance. “God” is not to be construed as the name of a person or a thing, because it functions quite different in our language from names like “Mike” or “Andrew.” The issue we have is that God does things; he performs miracles, runs the universe, and intervenes in our lives. Christians believe God intervenes or can control nature. So, the problem gets bigger when Jesus does things only God can do. Looking closely at the miracle in the Gospel of Mark, we notice this time is not God doing things or commanding nature. The miracle reported is being performed by a human being–a man named Jesus of Nazareth. God causes what nobody causes; is this not, after all, what makes a miracle so impressive? [footnoteRef:107] What Moore argues is that an event can happen without a cause, on the other hand, if we say after all, there was a cause for the event, and then the scenario would be less impressive.[footnoteRef:108] Perhaps the easiest way to get to the heart of Moore’s philosophy is to explain one of his remarks about miracles. The understanding of this miracle in the story of Mark is our fundamental concern. What is going on in these stories of miracles is roughly this: Events take place of a kind that we would normally attribute to an agent, one who either acts directly or who guides, supervises and coordinates the actions of others. Now let’s look at a miracle, this time one which actually involve an agent, where a miracle is recounted as being performed by a human being. Mark tells of this miracle performed by Jesus in Chapter 4:35-41, where Jesus speaks, and the storm subside. If all our commonsense and scientific laws are based solely on principles of cause and effect, how are we to understand this story? We may think or suppose some causal mechanism present? To begin with, no such mechanism is as much as hinted at. Can we even say how a man would go about controlling the weather so that he could cause a storm to subside? The story is not told in causal terms at all. It is not a matter of cause and effect, but of command and obedience.[footnoteRef:109] Moore’s analysis goes like this: In causal sequences we believe that there is some power in a cause that produces an effect. To know such power would be to know what it is that enables a cause to produce a particular effect. We would therefore know both the cause and effect and the relation between them.[footnoteRef:110] It is otherwise in Mark story. Here Jesus speaks, and the storm subsides. That is all. There is no question of filling in the story by reference to a hidden causal mechanism (perhaps operated by a hidden or bodiless accomplice). If we believe this story, what impresses us is very simple, and it impresses on account of its simplicity. It is that all that happens is that Jesus commands the storm to stop, and it does. Jesus impresses as one with authority, not power or skill.[footnoteRef:111] [107: Moore, Believing in God,223. ] [108: Ibid.] [109: Ibid] [110: Diogenes Allen and Eric O. Springsted, Philosophy for Understanding Theology, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster: John Knox Press, 2007),144.] [111: Moore, Believing in God, 244.]
Moore tells us that in order to believe or accept this story as a miracle, we have to be able to see the inanimate world as subject to authority. If we cannot do that, the story becomes unintelligible in our modern context. The way this story can be understood by modern readers of the Bible is the same way it was achieved and recognized by Jesus disciples, asking the real questions: What sort of a man is this? The actions of Jesus are believed by Christians to image in some way the activity of God. The fascinating thing about the Christian story is the proposal that seems to state a way in which the particular events in Palestine that surround Jesus have universal significance, Christians believe many different and opposed things. For that reason, the Biblical text is addressed to an audience or a readership. The Gospel of Mark was written to be proclaimed to any Christian ready to listen, not to force any belief, the key point is that the question to whom a particular text is addressed is an empirical question. God speaks to every generation in a myriad of ways, in Mark 4:35-41 He speaks to all of us.
The example used in our study was to clarify problems arising for Christians from reading the Bible as a specifically Christian book. We have relied heavily on the passage of Mark 4:35-41 as a source, not that this guarantees orthodoxy, but it is considered scripture by all Christians, and this tells us something about Jesus, something about believing in God. Gareth Moore’s philosophical assessment of the text offers a new horizon by which we are able to understand an ancient text and puts us aboard the ship with Jesus disciples asking: what sort of a man is this? The even the waves and wing obey him.
Importance of the Study
It is customary for this seminary to require a thesis or essay which will prepare students for future academic endeavors. The present essay is more than a “student thesis” and more than an apologetic justification of the seminary life. It is true that writings about Jesus and his miracles are abundant and quite plentiful, and in any case, the apologia for the seminary life tends to be overworked. It is true that explanations are owed, and therefore must be given. My seminary experience was so radically different from the rest of my classmates in the sense that I came as a believer and little by little, became very skeptical about God, the Bible, and the historical Jesus and his divinity claims that frankly, I was misleading others in the same path. Seminaries seem to be so much a thing of the past, and so alien to our technologically driven world. The life of the seminary student seems on many counts to be pointless. And these objections themselves dictate replies. It is natural to argue that the seminary student is not so different after all and to assert that he or she has a very definite role to play in our society, that he or she is part of this world, and that he or she is not useless at all. In a world of racism, noise, confusion, dirty politics, and conflict, it is necessary that there be places like the seminary where one can search for the truth, ponder the scriptures, and find inexplicable curiosity to find Christ in this particular context and in this particular moment in history.
Conclusion: Confirming the Activity of God
I would argue that in seminary, students are provided more than two ways of studying scriptures. One way is to study the text as a work of ancient literature or as any other historical document. On the other hand, seminary students can study Scripture as the inspired Word of God. For 2000 years the life and person of Jesus of Nazareth has been a subject that has dominated many Christian followers and commentators. Driven by necessity and/or curiosity, secular and Christian scholars have been made to question the validity of the Bible as an authentic book upon which the Christian principles are grounded. Through the Gospel of Mark 4:35-41, the Bible reveals Jesus as a man with Divine Authority. In the verses, Jesus is sailing together with his disciples when a storm occurs. The disciples helplessly shout at the top of their voices upon the ensnaring danger of drowning. All this time, Jesus is asleep and is only awakened by the noise from his disciples. Immediately, he gets up and simply calms the storm. Or as our translation says: Jesus utters the unforgettable words “Be Still” and the storm stops. To the surprise of his disciples who marvel at his greater power that even can command the waves and the winds. In this study, the Gospel of Mark has been used because of its simplicity and originality which makes it valid and reliable.
Through grammatical analysis of the Biblical account, this study has explored the topic of the person of Jesus as a mere human in history, one with an authority never seen before. Many Christian philosophers have tried to explain the person of Jesus, but some of their explanations have only but increased on the skepticism regarding the life of Jesus and his miracles. Doubts over the religious teachings have gone beyond Christianity to include other religions such as Islam and Judaism.[footnoteRef:112] Is Bart Ehrman notes, all the religions are skeptical about the source which are used in their teaching.[footnoteRef:113] In Christianity, most religious practices began long after the written teachings.[footnoteRef:114] Also, while some religions have organized and recorded their religious teachings as was in their early form, some continue to struggle to obtain their necessary teachings.[footnoteRef:115] Still, in other churches, Christians have the sources, written and recorded but still look at determining the authenticity of the sources. These are what have contributed to skeptics about Christian teachings. [112: Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),204.] [113: Ibid.] [114: Ibid.] [115: Ibid.]
The teachings of Jesus focused on delivering hope, forgiveness and a wholeness from evil through good. They also enlightened people about the existence and reign of God through him as the foretold savior. He thus talked about a kingdom whose nature was filled with grace and wondrous promises.[footnoteRef:116] Often, he gave the teachings using parables, which many would easily dismiss as being religious murmur.[footnoteRef:117] However, he used miracles to reinforce his claim for being linked with divinity. The miraculous events, which comprised healing the sick, raising the dead, commanding nature (Calming a Storm) including the miracle of he, himself raising from the dead, are wondrous and as such, miraculous, and many scholars see it that way. However, there are those who meet this idea with skepticism, where they are contended based on the understanding of causation and the laws of nature. Even so, there are those who view the events with an increased level of interest. Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. William Lane Craig’s historical approach to the Gospels and miracles of Jesus, have cause more confusion than clarity regarding the focus on this essay. Bart Ehrman and William Lane Craig are modern Biblical Scholars who work as professors of Theology at their various institutions of higher learning. The scholars hold different opinions on the miracles of Jesus. Their view is not only based on the writings of the Bible, but are also guided by the proof of evidence that involves their historical happenings. Bart Ehrman takes doubtful stance and thinks that these miracles such as his resurrection are not supported by solid proof, and as such, fails to see how they could have happened.[footnoteRef:118] On the other hand, William Lane Craig supports the theory of the existence of the miracle and as such, believes that there is a chance or probability that there are miraculous events that explain the paranormal happenings surrounding Jesus.[footnoteRef:119] The miracles of Jesus as narrated in the Gospel books are supernatural stories that draw the interest of many. Science comes with an assortment of clarifications of cosmic developments which include quantum, relativity, chaos and parallel theories, to name but a few, about the universe. Their interpretations barely support the perspective of mystery offered in the books of the Gospel. Scientists reject the biblical point of view, and seem to take away people regard to determining the historicity of the stories of the miracles of Jesus. Plainly, people have learned from these books about how Jesus healed the lame, the blind, the lepers, and the deaf; how he raised the dead to life; how he cast out demons; how he calmed the sea and walked on water, including transforming water into wine; how he multiplied a few bread and fish into plenty, enough to feed the huge crowds that followed him. Ehrman is a scholar who doubts the authenticity of the miracles of Jesus. In his view, miracles are both possible and impossible. Ehrman supports his argument by claiming that miracles are impossible because they are highly questionable and they happen the least in any given instance.[footnoteRef:120] They go against the laws of nature, and this is the reason why people call them miracles. Ehrman does not disagree that the resurrection did not occur or the miracle of Jesus calming the storm. However, he thinks that the argument of people claiming that Jesus’ body resurrected and that he would never taste death again plainly goes against the way nature works.[footnoteRef:121]At the same time, it is hard to account for it using natural means. [116: Mathew 13: 1-9, Parable of the Sower.] [117: Mark, 9:1] [118: Ehrman, “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium’, 183.] [119: Craig, “Reasonable faith”, 151.] [120: Ehrman, “Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium”, 185.] [121: Ibid.]
Ehrman contributes to the skepticism in a myriad way. He dissents with the reliance on the Bible for Christian teachings because its content is non-authentic and non-historical. [footnoteRef:122]The Bible was written many centuries ago and has undergone changes through history, including being written by people who were not actual authors. Further, Ehrman argues that the Bible contents, especially the Gospels have no accurate historical depiction and hence, make it difficult to analyze them from historical perspective. I[footnoteRef:123]t is worth noting that the Christian teachings have been changing throughout the ages, based on various aspects of the society or significant philosophical movements. The position of Ehrman regarding the Bible, and specifically the four Gospel accounts (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John) sets a stage for more interrogation into the person of Jesus as depicted in the Gospel of Mark 4:35-41. [122: Ibid.] [123: Ibid.]
Accordingly, the four gospels exist in three-time domains; the supernatural histories, natural history and non-historical history. Ehrman invents to these observations. [footnoteRef:124] The period before the enlightenment was characterized by strong beliefs that Jesus’s miracles were supernatural events that historically happened during the life of Jesus. The supernatural period was followed by the natural history, during which Christians believe that the miracles that were performed by Jesus were part of his great works on earth. For the non-historical myths, it is believed that miracle of Jesus did not actually happen and that were only used to explain the immense divine power that Jesus Christ had. This is the perspective that is carried on by Ehrman who also prompts that Jesus did not perform miracles in His life and all the stories recorded in the four Gospels are intended to explain the supernatural abilities of Jesus Christ. His conclusions lead to the questioning of the Christian faith especially regarding the originality of the information that is recorded in the Bible.[footnoteRef:125] [124: Bart Ehrman, The Historical Jesus, Part II (New York; The Teaching Company, 2000), 50.] [125: Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, 187.]
After Ehrman, even so, there are scholars who believe that the miracles of Jesus were real and an affirmation that he was divinity, and William Craig is one supporter. Sometimes, the incident may happen, and other times it may not. Considering this, Craig argues that the fact that the predicted event fails to take place takes away the supernatural aspect from it as it failed to intervene.[footnoteRef:126]Instead, they have ceteris paribus sections contained in them[footnoteRef:127]. This is a phrase that explains the balance that exists between things that determines results of situations. When all things are equal, they predict what will happen and when there is no equality, then they predict what will happen. Craig goes ahead to argue that in the event of miracles, things are not equal as there is an unequal force to it, which is divinity. As such, there is no violation of the law because it cannot predict what will happen under supernatural circumstances, neither does it know or understand the forces that are at work at that time. In addition, the scholar claims that a miracle cannot be classified under natural causes as it is impossible as it goes beyond the ability of human beings to be productive in that area, meaning that the people cannot control its time and place and do not have the power to influence its occurrence.[footnoteRef:128] [126: Craig, William Lane and Bart Ehrman. “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?” debate at College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts on March 26, 2006. https://www.physics.smu.edu/~pseudo/ScienceReligion/Ehrman-v-Craig.html#Notes. Accessed
Feb 20, 2021.] [127: Ibid.] [128: Craig, William Lane and Bart Ehrman. “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?” 53-60.]
Craig, a great philosopher also digs into the subject of Christianity. According to Craig, while some words in the New Testament are not authentic, he claims the thousands of New Testament manuscripts provide reliable information about the life of Jesus and his miracles. Like Ehrman, he accepts that some contents in the Bible have been tempered with but the changes or mistakes are meaningless, mostly grammatical errors due to human inability to copy the entire manuscripts by hand, and do not provide evidence that we should not trust the text about the life of Jesus. Craig asserts that the work regarding the miracles of Jesus is a legendary because it was told by legends. Nevertheless, Craig believes that the Bible provides a focal point for Christian beliefs and that some of the Gospel teachings are accurate and true manifestation of the works and the person of Jesus Christ. Craig gives an example of a prayer made for providence to explain his argument. He quotes a person who prays for a salary raise, which then happens.[footnoteRef:129] This can be considered an unusual miracle of providence, since the employer had not discussed the matter with the employee. In the scholar’s view, this is a miracle, because it happened without warning. As such, if Jesus could make supernatural things happen, then there is no way the events broke the law of nature, but instead, influence man’s thinking regarding nature under the power of the supernatural. [footnoteRef:130] [129: Ibid.] [130: Ibid.]
On his side, Gareth Moore believes that the miracles performed by Jesus Christ can manifest his divine nature.[footnoteRef:131] From the incident that occurred while Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples were more concerned about the person of Jesus or who he was rather than how he performed the miracle. Without seeking help from God, Jesus managed to command the winds and they obeyed him. Moore suggests not for a cause and effect analysis of the story because there was nothing causing the storm to stop, Jesus simply is unconcern about the storm, he is exhausted after a long day, he gets ups and commands the sea, immediately we are presented with the picture of his apostles’ new dread, awestruck looking at each other questioning Jesus Divine nature. All the miracles performed by Jesus Christ in the Gospels serve the role of depicting Jesus as possessing not supernatural powers but Divine authority.[footnoteRef:132] [131: Moore, Believing in God. 243.] [132: Ibid.]
The analysis of the various Gospel books and philosophical viewpoints can help determine the person of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark 4:35-43. While many views regarding the Bible readings have been brought into focus by different individuals, it is without doubt that miracles did happen as part of the life of Jesus. The miracles were not only supernatural, but they also manifested the divine authority of Jesus Christ as the son of God. The miracle in the Gospel of Mark presents the person of Jesus as a man doing impossible acts for a simple mortal. Notably, from the miracle, Jesus does not call for the assistance of God but manages to command the waves and they follow His commands. In that perspective, Jesus’s person contained supernatural powers over nature. While common figures like Ehrman and Craig argued that the Bible was unoriginal and contained information that was distorted, their historical perspectives do not nullify the divine person of Jesus. As highlighted, Craig argues that the miracles are myths that were used to explain the great power of Jesus, and his divine nature, and actually, the miracles could have happened.[footnoteRef:133] However, the truth is that Christians believe the miracles happened in the life of Jesus. From calming the storm to raising the dead, Jesus performed many miracles that manifested His divinity. Hence, few seminary students are insensible to the wonderful power with which the story in Mark 4:35-41 tell the story of Jesus calming a storm, his disciple’s reaction, and their prophetic question: What sort of a man is this? That even the wings and waves obey him. [133: Craig, William Lane and Bart Ehrman. “Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?” 55-58.]
In this survey of philosophy for Christianity in the Gospel of Mark, we have traced the uses and problems which arise when seminary students read the Bible as a Christian text and as part of their religious tradition. We have also considered some of the more important “philosophers” of our times, with their respective worldviews, our account culminated in the work of Gareth Moore, which saw the best reading of the text, but also ironically the way seminary students should understand the Biblical text. This is not the essay for an extended discussion of the many factors that led to the Christian belief in God, but I do like to point out that a very important factor in the understanding of the passage in Mark and its eventual clarification was the work of philosophy by Moore. The event in the passage of Mark 4:35-41 is called a “miracle”, not because the text addresses a problematic of cause and effect, we understand the passage better if we don’t try to see the event with our modern lenses, part of the difficulty we have in understanding the miracle or the action of Jesus properly is that we try to understand it in the wrong way, we are preoccupied with our scientific understanding of nature, and we see the story with what we already know about nature. God is not to be understood by trying to strain beyond what can be seen, by transcending the world of the senses, but by resisting the temptation to do that, by learning to be happy with what we have. Jesus and his Divine activity in the passage are to be seen, in only the basics, as described in the text, not by any attempt to look beyond or behind it. Jesus of Nazareth simply commands nature, and nature obeys. In the year 2018 I decided to attend the School of Theology, pursuing a degree in the field of divinity and theology that would help me build a strong foundation in biblical and theological studies. I develop the skills set needed to become well-trained, well-grounded and well-equipped for my unique calling, but honestly, I became skeptical about the Bible, the reliability of the Gospels, and Jesus Divine nature. After completing this essay, I can respond with confidence to the disciple’s question: Who is this man? That even the winds and waves obey. ANSWER: He was truly the Son of God!!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3. METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4. RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
First level Subheading as an example of a heading of longer than a
single line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
First level Subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
Page
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
First level Subheading as an example of a heading of longer than a
single line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
A. TITLE OF APPENDIX A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
B. TITLE OF APPENDIX B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
C. TITLE OF APPENDIX C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
D. TITLE OF APPENDIX D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
E. TITLE OF APPENDIX E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
F. TITLE OF APPENDIX F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
G. TITLE OF APPENDIX G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
H. TITLE OF APPENDIX H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
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1
FORMATTING THE THESIS/DISSERTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Nontraditional Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Page Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Spacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Pagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
Font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Widows and Orphans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
Color Images and Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
Figures and Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS/DISSERTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
Levels of Headings and Subheadings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Document Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Front Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Title Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Approvals Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10
Copyright Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11
Acknowledgments Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
Other Lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Text Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14
Back Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
15
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
6
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
3 COPYRIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
7
Use of Copyrighted Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
Registering Copyright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18
4 SUBMISSION TO THE PROVOST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
A. SAMPLE TITLE PAGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22
B. SAMPLE APPROVALS PAGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
32
C. SAMPLE COPYRIGHT PAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
41
D. SAMPLE TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
44
E. SAMPLE LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
49
F. SAMPLE LIST OF TABLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
52
G. SAMPLE LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
55
H. SAMPLE ABSTRACT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
57
I. SUBMISSION FORM AND INSTRUCTIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
59
iii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1 An example of a widow and an orphan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Levels of headings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 Document order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4 Copyright notice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
iv
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 File Types Migrated by ProQuest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Fonts Recommended by ProQuest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
v
OVERVIEW
For a graduate student, the thesis or dissertation is the culmination of an intense period of
professional growth and development. The thesis or dissertation is a representation of a student’s
academic work and also a reflection on the faculty advisor, the graduate program, the College
or School, and Mercer University. The signed Approvals Page signifies the document has been
examined and approved by the faculty advisor, committee, and program director and meets the
content expectations and stylistic requirements of the program and school.
As a condition of graduation, students are required to publish their graduate thesis or
dissertation. Publication documents are submitted in PDF format and are digitally published.
Once published, submissions will be available for other scholars globally. As such, the
University sets forth basic guidelines to ensure that all theses and dissertations are professional
in appearance and consistent with institutional standards.
The Provost’s review of submissions is limited to formatting and publication requirements
and does not extend to the discipline-specific content of the submissions. Each program,
department, college, or school may have additional requirements for the written presentation
of graduate research, which may complement but may not supersede this Guide. This Guide
outlines the formatting requirements, as well as information regarding submitting and publishing
the thesis or dissertation. Mercer University will only accept document submissions that meet
these requirements. This Guide is not intended to be a template for formatting, except where
noted. Your academic department may have a template available for your use. Failure to adhere
to these standards may result in the delay of degree conferral.
The signed Approvals Page must be received by the Office of the Provost and uploaded
as a supplementary file in ProQuest ETD Administrator prior to University Review of your
submission. ProQuest ETD Administrator is the online tool for electronic submissions, and
documents are published by ProQuest Dissertation Publishing both of which will be referred
to as ProQuest. In addition to the thesis or dissertation, students are required to electronically
vi
submit the signed Approvals Page as a supplementary file in ProQuest. Approval signatures
do not appear in the published thesis or dissertation. Additionally, a copy of the Title Page,
Abstract Page, signed Approvals Page, and the Mercer University Electronic Thesis/Dissertation
Submission Form must be submitted electronically to snow la@mercer.edu. Alternatively, hard
copies may be submitted to:
ATTN: Dean of Graduate Studies
Office of the Provost
Godsey Administration Building Room
30
7
Mercer University Campus Mail
vii
mailto: snow_la@mercer.edu
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
Graduate students are expected to adhere to the highest standards of professional ethics
and academic integrity in research and scholarship. Plagiarism, falsification or fabrication of
data, or other unethical behaviors are violations of the University Honor Code. Allegations of
misconduct are handled according to the Graduate Honor System.
Graduate students engaged in research, regardless of venue or academic requirement,
must ensure compliance with the policies and procedures established by the Institutional Review
Board (IRB) or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), as appropriate. If
approval is relevant to the research, a student must verify compliance with the appropriate
approval procedures prior to the initiation of the related research. Consult with the research
advisor, department chair, program director, and/or the Office of Research Compliance for
guidance on compliance.
Although your advisor and committee supervises the preparation and final drafts of
your manuscript to assure the highest level of quality, the responsibility for writing, editing, and
formatting rests on you, the student. It is also your responsibility to meet applicable submission
deadlines and degree approval processes. The deadlines are published on the Provost’s website.
As a permanent record of scholarly research, all theses and dissertations completed at
Mercer University are publicly available through the University Library and are published online
by ProQuest.
viii
http://provost.mercer.edu/www/mu-provost/handbooks/upload/graduatehonorsystem
https://orc.mercer.edu/
https://provost.mercer.edu/resources/theses/theses.cfm
CHAPTER 1
FORMATTING THE THESIS/DISSERTATION
When preparing the thesis or dissertation for submission, students must follow strict
formatting requirements. Any deviation from these requirements will lead to required revisions.
Failure to adhere to formatting requirements may result in rejection of the submission and delay
in conferral of the degree.
Name
The name on your submission is to be the official, legal name recognized by Mercer
University. Your name must match in all documents associated with your submission. This
includes Title Page, Abstract Page, Copyright Page, and
Approvals Page.
Nontraditional Formats
The inclusion of nontraditional theses or dissertations, in part or whole, such as digital,
artistic, video, or performance materials (i.e., no written text, chapters, or articles) is acceptable
if approved by your committee and graduate program. If the dissertation is comprised entirely
of such nontraditional content, a PDF document with a Title Page, Copyright Page, and
Abstract
Page at minimum is required to be submitted along with any relevant supplemental files.
Multimedia content shall be submitted as supplemental files, rather than embedding
multimedia in PDFs. ProQuest will accept multimedia content of all file types. File types listed
in Table 1 will be migrated by ProQuest. File types other than those listed in Table 1 are not
guaranteed to be migrated.
Table 1. File Types Migrated by ProQuest
Images GIF (.gif); JPEG ( ); TIFF (.tif)
Video Apple Quick Time (.mov); Microsoft Audio Video Interleaved (.avi);
MPEG (.mgp)
Audio AIF (.aif); CD-DA; CD-ROM/XA; MIDI (.midi); MPEG-2; SND (.snd); WAV
(.wav)
Adapted with permission from ProQuest
1
Page Size
• All pages in the document are to be 8.5” × 11”. Landscape pages, where needed, are
acceptable but they must be 11” × 8.5”.
Margins
• Margins must be uniform throughout
the
document.
• Margins must be at least 1” and equal on all sides (top, bottom, left, and right).
• Margin requirements apply to all materials, including figures, headers/footers,
footnotes/endnotes, and full-page images.
• Margin requirements do not apply to page numbers, which should be inserted within the
page footer. Page numbers must be at least 0.75” from the edge of the
page.
Style
• Students should employ the style manual (e.g. Chicago, APA, ASA, MLA, etc.) or journal
format adopted by their program or approved by their committee.
• Where the adopted style manual conflicts with this Guide, this document takes precedence.
• A consistent style must be employed throughout the document.
Spacing
• Doublespacing is required for the abstract, dedication, acknowledgments, and within the
body of the text.
• Spacing in the table of contents requires doublespacing between major heading entries and
single spacing between subheadings.
• Singlespacing or 1.5 spacing is acceptable for long tables, lengthy quotations, footnotes,
appendices, or other areas in which readability would be improved.
• Lengthy quotations (a prose quotation of two or more sentences that run to five or more
typewritten lines) must be in block form.
• Adhere to governing style manual for guidelines regarding the spacing of footnotes,
bibliographic entries, long quoted passages, figure and table captions, and items in lists
and tables.
• Each individual entry in the reference list should be singlespaced. Doublespace between
2
entries.
• In the body of the document, indent the first sentence in each paragraph by 0.5”. Indent
consistently throughout the document.
• Do not begin new pages for subheadings and do not leave gaps on pages, except when
required to correctly place a figure or table.
• Avoid excessive division of words at the end of a line. Do not divide words between pages.
• Do not center the text or use right justification.
Pagination
• Page numbers are bottom centered within the margins, at least 0.75” from the edge of the
page.
• Count, but do not place visible page numbers on, the Title Page, Copyright Page, or
Approvals Page.
• All visible page numbers in the front matter are lowercase Roman numerals (iii, iv, v, etc.).
• Page numbers for the body and back matter are Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.).
• There must be a double space between the page number and the nearest line of text.
Font
• To ensure clear and legible text for all copies, choose a TrueType font recommended
by ProQuest Dissertation Publishing. A list of recommended fonts can be found on the
ProQuest website.
• Recommended fonts are identified in Table 2.
• Text requires a minimum of 10-point font; the norm is 12-point font.
• All document text with the exception of items embedded in figures must be black.
• Font size and font type must be consistent throughout the document.
• Follow the approved style guide on the acceptable use of italics.
• Different fonts can be used to highlight examples, quotations, tables, and charts from the
rest of the text, as long as all fonts are of similar size and are easily readable.
• Superscripts and subscripts (e.g., formulas, or footnote or endnote numbers) should be no
more than 2 points smaller than the font size used for the body of the text.
3
https://www.proquest.com/documents/Disserations_-_Preparing_Your_Manuscript.html
Table 2. Fonts Recommended by ProQuest
Font Name Font Size Font Name Font Size
†Ariel 10 pt Century 11pt
†Courier New 10pt Garamond 12 pt
†Georgia 11pt Lucinda Bright 10pt
Microsoft Sans Serif 10pt Tahoma 10pt
†Times New Roman 12pt †Trebuchet MS 10pt
†Verdana 10pt
† Web font. Designed to improve screen readability in a virtual format. Indicated fonts are
recommended since many readers are likely to view your thesis or dissertation online.
Adapted with permission from ProQuest
Widows and Orphans
• A widow line occurs when the last line of a paragraph appears at the top of a page. An
example is given in Figure 1.
• An orphan lines occurs when the first line of a paragraph appears at the bottom of a page.
An example is given in Figure 1.
• Widows and orphans are not prohibited but should be minimized. Avoiding widows and
orphans improves the professional appearance and readability of the document.
Figure 1. An example of a widow and an orphan.
Original Image. This figure in presented in color.
4
Color Text and Images
• The use of color is discouraged because, in some formats, reproductions of the document
may not be true.
• If the use of color is necessary and approved by the advisory committee, add an appropriate
statement such as, This figure is presented in color, to the caption or within the section
where color is necessary.
• Native digital manuscripts will appear in color when viewed electronically.
• PDF and print reproductions will include all color material.
• Microfilm reproductions will NOT preserve color; colors will appear in shades of gray.
• Data and information that are color-coded or based on color shading may not be
interpretable. For best results, have color photographs reprinted in black and white by a
professional lab.
Figures and Tables
• Figures and tables are numbered consecutively, in a separate series, throughout the body of
the document.
• There may not be any duplication of numbering of figures or tables.
• The numbering style of figures and tables must be consistent throughout the document.
• Figures and tables are respectively referred to as Figure # or Table # (in italics), where #
denotes the appropriate number in the body.
• Each figure or table should have a title or caption as designated by your governing style
guide or program requirement. The figure number and title are presented consistently in
either the title or caption.
– A title is single spaced, above the figure or table.
– A caption is single-spaced, below the figure or table.
– All notes are placed immediately below the table, i.e., not as footnotes. Use
superscript lowercase letters for table notes.
• Text within figures or tables may be single spaced with consistency throughout the
document.
5
• A legend, where required, is placed within the figure or table.
• In placing a figure or table with text, it is preferable to leave two lines (triple space) above
and two lines (triple space) below the figure.
• A figure or table is inserted as close as possible to its reference in the text or within the
appendix. For body placement, it is generally best to complete the paragraph of text in
which the reference occurs before inserting the figure or table.
• If, after including the paragraph with reference to the table, the remaining space on the
page cannot accommodate the entire figure or table, the figure or table should be placed
on the next page, either by itself or with text following.
• Figures and tables should conform to the standard margin requirements.
• Large figures or tables may be continued on the following page.
– The heading should not repeat the title but should read “Table # – continued.” or
“Figure # – continued.”
• A wide image may be placed in landscape orientation on
the page.
– These pages must be formatted such that, when viewing the page in portrait
orientation, the bottom of the figure or table is toward the right margin.
– The figure‘s title and/or caption must be landscape oriented to match.
– The page number for the landscape-oriented page(s) must be in the same location and
orientation as page numbers found on all other pages in the document.
– Only figures or tables should be placed on landscape pages; no paragraphs should be
included on a landscape page.
• Figure or tables taken or adapted from other sources must adhere to the copyright
requirements in Chapter 3. All figures must identify the production status in the caption
or notes. Examples of such identifying statements include:
– Original image.
– Reprinted (with permission) from
– Adapted (with permission) from
– Reprinted (public domain) from
6
– Adapted (public domain) from
• Modifying the size of a figure or table may make text or images illegible. After
modification, all lettering must be large enough to fulfill the font size requirements, and
must be clear and readable.
7
CHAPTER 2
ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS/DISSERTATION
The thesis or dissertation is a multiple sectioned academic document based on original
research. Such documents can be intimidating to know where to start. Within this chapter, the
organization and structure of the document is made explicit.
Major Heading and Subheadings
CENTERED, BOLD ALL UPPERCASE headings should be used as major headings
for the following: DEDICATION, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, TABLE OF CONTENTS, LIST
OF TABLES, LIST OF FIGURES, ABSTRACT, CHAPTER TITLES, REFERENCES, and
APPENDICES. Guidelines for subheadings are detailed below.
• If subheadings are used, at least two subheadings are required per section.
• Avoid putting headings together without text between them.
• Avoid using a heading for a single paragraph.
• Major Heading and five levels of headings are shown in Figure 2.
• Check with the individual department, school, or college for heading requirements if more
than five levels of subheadings are needed.
Figure 2. Levels of headings.
MAJOR HEADING: CHAPTER #
SECOND LINE TITLE NAME: CENTERED, BOLD, UPPERCASE
The first paragraph of any chapter is understood to be introductory and thus is not require to be
headed as such. If the introduction has subsections, those subsections should begin with Level 2 headings.
Level 1: Centered, Bold, Title-Case
The text following a Level 1 heading begins as a new paragraph with appropriate indentation.
Level 2: Flush Left, Bold, Title-case
The text following a Level 2 heading begins as a new paragraph with appropriate indentation.
Level 3: Flush Left, Bold, Italic, Title-case
The text following a Level 3 heading begins as a new paragraph with appropriate indentation.
Level 4: Indented, Bold, Title-case, Ending With a Period. The text following a Level 4
heading begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph.
Level 5: Indented, Bold, Italic, Title-case, Ending With a Period. The text following a
Level 5 heading begins on the same line and continues as a regular paragraph.
Original Image
8
Document Order
Every thesis and dissertation is comprised of some basic elements. Some of these pages
are required, but some are optional. These pages are listed below, including some general
information about them, including whether they are required or optional. The broad structure
of the document can be divided into three main sections: (1) Front Matter, (2) Text Body, and (3)
Back Matter as illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Document order.
Front Matter
Title Page
Approvals Page
Copyright Page
Dedication (optional)
Acknowledgments (optional)
Table of Contents
List of Figures (if applicable)
List of Tables (if applicable)
Other lists (such as nomenclature or symbols, when necessary)
Abstract
Body Chapters
Back Matter
References
Appendices (if applicable)
Original Image
Front Matter
The front matter provides a guide to the content and the nature of the thesis or
dissertation. Page numbers for front matter elements are lowercase Roman numerals (e.g. iii,
iv, v, etc) placed at the bottom center of the page. Formatting requirement for each front matter
element follows.
Title Page
The Title page is the first page of the document. The title page includes the title, subtitle,
author, academic unit, and degree. The tile page is formatted as prescribed below with college or
9
school specific samples included in Appendix A.
• The Title page is page i but pagination is not visible.
• The Title page is not included in the Table of Contents.
• Doctoral candidates, use dissertation on the title page. All others, use thesis.
• Use your legal name and use it consistently in all cases.
• Typeset the title in CAPITAL LETTERS, centered 2” from the top of the page.
• Typeset your name in CAPITAL LETTERS.
Approvals Page
The Approvals page includes the title, author, and full list of committee members. The
page is formatted to allow for approval signatures of each committee member, the program
director, and the academic dean, and the date of that approval. The unsigned Approvals page
must be included in the published document. A signed copy of the Approvals page, with
original signatures on a single page, must be uploaded in ProQuest separately as a supplemental
document. Format features of the Approvals page are given below with college or school specific
samples included in Appendix B.
• The Approvals page is page ii but pagination is not visible.
• The Approvals page is not included in the Table of Contents.
• Signatures do not appear in the published version of the thesis or dissertation.
• Typeset the title in CAPITAL LETTERS, centered 1” from the top of the page.
• Sample Approvals pages are provided in Appendix B.
Copyright Page
All theses/dissertations are copyrighted and the University requires the inclusion of
a copyright notice —the copyright symbol ( c©), the year of publication, and the name of the
copyright holder— as an explicit statement of protection. The Copyright page is the appropriate
location of that statement with the required format features given below and samples provided in
Appendix C.
• The Copyright page is page iii but pagination is not visible.
• The Copyright page is not included in the Table of Contents.
10
• Two options for formatting the notice appears in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Copyright notice.
c© 2020
YOUR LEGAL NAME
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2020
YOUR LEGAL NAME
All Rights Reserved
Original Image
• No other text should appear on the Copyright page.
• Registration of the copyright is optional. Information regarding copyright registration is
found in Chapter 3.
Dedication
The Dedication provides the author the opportunity to name the person(s) for whom
the book is written. It is for the author to decide whether to have a dedication or not. It is not
necessary to identify the person(s) to whom the work is dedicated. Formatting of the Dedication
must adhere to the following:
• The Dedication is optional.
• Pagination is visible, bottom-centered.
• The Dedication, if included, is listed in the Table of Contents.
• The heading, DEDICATION, is centered, 1” from the top edge of the page.
Acknowledgments
The Acknowledgments provides an opportunity to thank those who have contributed
to your research by providing academic supervision or administrative, physical, emotional, or
spiritual support. The Acknowledgments are the only place in the thesis or dissertation where you
may reveal personal information about yourself and your life. It is less formal than the rest of the
document and can include jokes, sentences in a foreign language, etc. Keep in mind though that
the thesis or dissertation is a public document, so you should not be too personal and revealing.
Acknowledgments meets the following formatting guidelines.
• The Acknowledgments is optional.
11
• Pagination is visible, bottom-centered.
• Acknowledgments, if included, is listed in the Table of Contents.
• The heading, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, is centered, 1” from the top edge of the page.
Table of Contents
The Table of Contents should identify and provide the initial page number of each section
of the document that follows the Table of Contents. All sections of the document with visible
numbering, with the exception of the Table of Contents, should be listed in the Table of Contents.
The Table of Contents is formatted as prescribed below with a sample included in Appendix D.
• Table of Contents is required for all theses or dissertations.
• Pagination is visible, bottom-centered.
• The heading, TABLE OF CONTENTS, is centered, 1” from the top edge of the page.
• Each subsequent page of the Table of Contents is headed “TABLE OF CONTENTS
(Continued)” on the left margin, with a
1”
margin at the top of the page.
• Include all levels of subheadings, with exact wording, followed by a dot leader and the
initial page number, which is right justified at the margin.
List of Figures
The List of Figures contains all figures and illustrations in the document and the page
numbers where they can be found. If there are various types of figures, the list may be divided
into parts, such as Figures, Maps, etc. The title of a figure need not correspond exactly to the
captions; shortened titles are allowed. The List of Figures is formatted as prescribed below with a
sample included in Appendix E.
• List of Figures is required only if the document contains figures in the body of the
document.
• Pagination is visible, bottom-centered.
• The List of Figures is listed in the Table of Contents.
• The heading, LIST OF FIGURES, is centered, 1” from the top edge of the page.
• After the first page, type “LIST OF FIGURES (Continued)” on the left margin, leaving a
1” margin at the top of the page.
12
• Single space within entries, double space between entries.
List of Tables
A List of Tables contains all tables in the document and the page numbers where they can
be found. The titles of the tables may be shortened, if needed. The List of Tables is formatted as
prescribed below with a sample included in Appendix F.
• List of Tables is required only if the document contains tables in the body of the document.
• Pagination is visible, bottom-centered.
• The List of Tables is listed in the Table of Contents.
• The heading, LIST OF TABLES, is centered, 1” from the top edge of the page.
• After the first page, type “LIST OF TABLES (Continued)” on the left margin, leaving a 1”
margin at the top of the page.
• Single space within entries, double space between entries.
Other Lists
A List of Appendices may be included, provided an iterated listing of appendices is not
included in the Table of Contents. Other lists may also be included as appropriate based upon
the contents of the document body. Formatting for all other lists is consistent with the formatting
guidelines for the List of Figures and List of Tables. A sample independent List of
Appendices
included in Appendix G.
Abstract
The abstract includes a concise description of the research presented in the document.
The abstract must focus on the result of the research, rather than the background and
methodology for the investigation. The abstract is a self-contained text and should not contain
references; if needed, include the whole reference in the abstract. Formatting guidelines for the
Abstract are given below and a sample is provided in Appendix H.
• Pagination is visible, bottom-centered.
• The heading, ABSTRACT, is centered, 1” from the top edge of the page.
• After a double space, left justified, type your name in all caps.
• After a double space, type the title of the document in all capital letters, single spaced and
13
left justified.
• After a double space, left justified, type Under the direction of name (in all caps) and degree>.
• After a double space, begin the abstract text without paragraph indentation.
• The abstract must not exceed 35 0 words.
• Include at least the following: a general statement of the problem; purpose of the
study; research methodology; summary of procedures; results and conclusions; and
recommendations for further study.
• Abstract contents may vary for different programs; consult your committee chair or
program director for the contents of the abstract required by your program.
Text Body
The body contains the main text of the thesis or dissertation, divided into distinct
chapters. Each chapter title should provide a reasonable clue to the contents of the chapter. Short
chapter titles are preferable to avoid formatting issues in the Table of Contents.
Each chapter must begin on a new page and all pages must be numbered consecutively
with Arabic numerals starting with page 1 for the first page of the first chapter. The Body must
not contain blank pages.
Long chapters may be divided into sections, which may be further divided into
subsections and sub-subsections. When a chapter is divided in sections, there should be at least
two of them. Just one section in a chapter is illogical and asymmetric — you should not have any
sections at all in such case. The same applies to subsections and sub-subsections.
Formatting within the Body must adhere to the following guidelines:
• Page numbers are bottom centered within the margin, at least three-fourths of an inch from
the edge of the page. Chapter 1 begins at page 1.
• All pages begin at the top margin.
• A common structure for dissertations and theses is a five-chapter organization (usually
INTRODUCTION, REVIEW OF LITERATURE, METHODOLOGY, RESULTS, and
DISCUSSION). The number of chapters and their titles may vary according to the topic
14 and discipline. Follow the specific requirements of your academic program or college.
• Provide a full reference citation for a chapter that represents a published paper. This
will appear on the first page of the chapter, double-space following the chapter title and
centered. The citation should begin with the text “This chapter published as:” and then
insert the full citation.
Back Matter
The body of the thesis or dissertation is followed by the back matter. The back matter
consists of the the References (Bibliography or Literature Cited) and Appendices. The back
matter is paginated consecutively from the last page of the body and must meet the same margin
requirements as the rest of the document.
References A reference list includes all sources cited in the document. A bibliography contains
all sources the author has consulted, including sources that are not cited in the work such as
background readings, relevant articles, etc. Regardless, whether you have a reference list or a
bibliography, make sure that all works cited in the text are included. Common formatting for the
References is as follows:
• Reference materials typically appear in the back matter, but may be presented at the end of
each chapter with consistency for all chapters.
• The heading, REFERENCES, or appropriate substitute is centered, 1” from the top edge of
the page. • Use the specific style guide adopted by your academic program or college for listing your
sources.
• Each individual entry in the reference list should be singlespaced. Doublespace between • Use digital object identifiers (doi numbers) when possible.
• Do not divide a reference at the bottom of the page.
15 Appendices The material found in the appendix is not appropriate for inclusion in the body, but can
be helpful for the reader who seeks further information. Examples of items appropriate to the
appendix includes source texts, lists, survey questionnaires, and sometimes even charts and
tables. The appendix should not be a repository of raw data that the author has not been able to
work into the main text. Formatting for the Appendices is as follows:
• For only one appendix, the cover page should say APPENDIX typed 1” from the top edge
of the page with the page number at the bottom center. The title of the appendix after a
double space. The contents of the appendix begin on the next page.
• For multiple appendices, include a cover page with the word APPENDICES typed 1” from
the top edge of the page with the page number at the bottom center. The Appendices begin
on the next page. – Each appendix must be lettered and titled (e.g., APPENDIX A (double space)
MERCER IRB APPROVAL) on a cover page before the appendix item. The cover
page begins 1” from the top of the page and has the page number in the bottom center.
– If the number of appendices is small, it is advisable to provide a distinct listing within
the Table of Contents. For a more extensive listing, or if different heading levels are
listed in the appendices, a separate List of Appendices is suggested. A separate List of
Appendices may be located after the Table of Contents or after the Appendices cover
page. • Include a copy of any IRB or IACUC approval letter(s) necessary for your study.
16 CHAPTER 3
COPYRIGHT
A copyright is an intangible right granted to the author or originator of certain literary or
artistic productions, under which they are invested for a limited period with the sole, exclusive
privilege of making copies and publishing and selling them. In this chapter we discuss the
appropriate use of copyrighted sources and how you may protect the intellectual property rights
of your document.
Use of Copyrighted Materials
The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 established the concept of “fair use” of copyright
material in published work, but it does not provide absolute guidelines. Although ProQuest will
publish your dissertation, ProQuest does not have the responsibility of seeking permissions for
you. ProQuest uses The Chicago Manual of Style definition of “fair use.” You should become
familiar with the concepts outlined there. Generally, the use of a complete unit (a poem, journal
article, photograph, map, letter, and so on) requires permission. It is more difficult to define at
what point a lengthy excerpt exceeds fair use. Good judgment will tell you that reproducing a
significant proportion of another author’s work is not “fair.” However, be aware that “fair use”
also touches on scholarly ethics and the use to which the quotation or excerpt will be put in
your work. Another author’s work should not be used as a substitute for your own analysis and
argument. When in doubt, seek permission; it is usually granted.
• You are responsible for securing all necessary permissions and paying any permission fees
in advance of using copyrighted materials in your work.
• Documentation of permission or open access status should either be included in the
appendix or as a supplementary file in ProQuest.
• Copyright requirements apply to figures and tables taken or adapted from another work.
Figures and tables must include a statement acknowledging appropriate copyright
permissions for inclusion in the caption or notes. Copyright permission is required to reuse
a survey or assessment instrument in original or amended form.
17 • Questions regarding usage of copyrighted materials should be directed to the Mercer
University library staff.
Registering Copyright
You may wish to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library
of Congress. As mentioned above, copyright registration is not a limiting condition to copyright
protection. Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright, but there are
advantages to filing for registration within three months of publication.
• Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form.
• There is no requirement that the work be published or registered to obtain protection under
copyright law.
• The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created
the work, unless it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written
agreement.
• By completing the required Non-Exclusive Distribution License, you grant to Mercer
University the non-exclusive right to reproduce, translate (as defined below), and/or
distribute your submission, including the abstract.
• While you are not required to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office, there
are advantages to registration, particularly if you have a claim of infringement on your
copyright.
• There are two main ways for you to file for copyright of your thesis or dissertation:
1. You may empower ProQuest to file the application on your behalf. When you submit
your thesis or dissertation, ProQuest charges a fee for this service ($55, subject to
change). The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your
application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing
you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress.
2. Alternately, you may file for copyright directly. Visit the U.S. Copyright website for
more information about registering your work. There is a copyright fee for filing
copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office ($35, subject to change).
18 https://www.copyright.gov CHAPTER 4
SUBMISSION TO THE PROVOST
• All theses and dissertations must be submitted to the Provost for processing and approval
before the degree audit can be completed and the degree conferred. There are three
submission deadlines each year: April 1, July 1, and November 1. If the submission
deadline is during the weekend, then submissions will be accepted the Monday following.
Additional information is published on the Provost’s webpage.
• The Provost will examine all works and verify adherence to the University policies
specified in this Guide for materials and format.
• Note that the specified requirements of the Guide take precedence over all style guides. Do
not use other theses or dissertations as guides for format. Any exceptions to the procedures
outlined in this Guide must be preapproved IN ADVANCE by the Provost.
• Doctoral dissertations must be published electronically by ProQuest.
• The student has the option to copyright the thesis or dissertation.
• The signed Approvals Page must be submitted electrically on ProQuest as a supplementary
file.
• The following items must be submitted directly to the Office of the Provost:
– Title Page
– Abstract
– Signed Approvals Page
– Mercer University Electronic Thesis/Dissertation Submission Form
• The above items are to be submitted electronically to snow la@mercer.edu. Alternatively,
hard copies may be submitted to:
19 https://provost.mercer.edu/resources/theses/theses.cfm mailto: snow_la@mercer.edu ATTN: Dean of Graduate Studies • The submission form and instructions are found in Appendix I.
20 APPENDICES
21 APPENDIX A
SAMPLE TITLE PAGES
22
EXPLORING SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND BODY IMAGE CONCERNS IN MIDLIFE
AND OLDER WOMEN: A MIXED METHODS APPROACH.
by
KATHLEEN E. BAZILE
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty in the Counselor Education and
Supervision Program of the College of
Professional Advancement
at Mercer University
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Atlanta, GA
2019
23 TITLE OF YOUR NURSING DISSERTATION IN ALL CAPS CENTERED, DOUBLE SPACED, TWO
INCHES FROM TOP OF PAGE
(two double spaces)
by YOUR OFFICIAL LEGAL NAME RECOGNIZED BY MERCER
(two double spaces) A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University
in Partial Fulfillment of the (two double spaces)
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (FOUR double spaces)
Atlanta, GA YEAR
24 USING A 1” MARGIN ON THE LEFT, 1” RIGHT AND BOTTOM, TYPE THE TITLE OF YOUR
THESIS, CENTERED 2” FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE: DOUBLE SPACE
(after a double double-space, type “by”)
by (after a double double-space, type your name) YOUR FULL NAME (after a double double-space, type the following) A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology at Mercer University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree (after a double double-space, type the following) DOCTOR OF MINISTRY (after a quadruple double-space, type the location, double space, then the year) Atlanta, GA 2020 25 USING A 1” MARGIN ON THE LEFT, 1” RIGHT AND BOTTOM, TYPE THE TITLE OF YOUR (after a double double-space, type “by”) by (after a double double-space, type your name) YOUR FULL NAME (after a double double-space, type the following) A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology at Mercer University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree (after a double double-space, type the following) MASTER OF DIVINITY (after a quadruple double-space, type the location, double space, then the year) Atlanta, GA 2020 26 USING A 1” MARGIN ON THE LEFT, 1” RIGHT AND BOTTOM, TYPE THE TITLE OF YOUR (after a double double-space, type “by”) by (after a double double-space, type your name) YOUR FULL NAME (after a double double-space, type the following) A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology at Mercer University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree (after a double double-space, type the following) MASTER OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES (after a quadruple double-space, type the location, double space, then the year) Atlanta, GA 2020 27 21 VAPOR SORPTION EQUILIBRIA AND OTHER WATER-STARCH
INTERACTIONS: A PHYSIOCHEMICAL APPROACH
{Note: if more than one line is required for the title, it should be double-spaced} by ALICE W. MCWILLIAMS
B. S. Pharm., The University of South Carolina, 1994 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Mercer University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Atlanta, GA 2004
28 22 THE ANALYTICAL DETERMINATION OF THE TEMPERATURE
DISTRIBUTION AND THE INVERSE SOLUTION TO THE THERMAL
CONDUCTION OF FLAME RETARDANT EPOXY RESIN COMPOUNDS
{Note: if more than one line is required for the title, it should be double-spaced}
By STEVEN LAWRENCE ALEXANDER B. M. E., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1990 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of Mercer University School of Engineering
in Partial Fulfillment of the MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ENGINEERING Macon, GA 2004 29 STILL OUT THERE DOING IT: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF MOTIVATIONS AMONG
FEMALE AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENS IN AN AFTER-SCHOOL PHYSICAL FITNESS PROGRAM
by
CAROLYN COUTURE MURPHY
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty
of Tift College of Education
at Mercer University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Atlanta, GA 2017
30 TITLE
by YOUR NAME
Your degree, Field, Undergraduate Institution, Date
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty
of Mercer University School of Medicine in Partial Fulfillment of the MASTER OF SCIENCE IN BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES Macon, Georgia
Month, Year
31 APPENDIX B
SAMPLE APPROVALS PAGES
32 EXPLORING SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND BODY IMAGE CONCERNS IN MIDLIFE by KATHLEEN E. BAZILE Approved:
R. Tyler Wilkinson, Ph.D. Date Caroline Brackette Ph.D. Date Morgan Kiper-Riechel, Ph.D. Date Karen Rowland, Ph.D Date
Priscilla R. Danheiser, Ph.D. Date 33 TITLE OF YOUR NURSING DISSERTATION BEGINS ONE INCH FROM THE TOP OF THE
PAGE CENTERED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS
(two double spaces) YOUR OFFICIAL LEGAL NAME RECOGNIZED BY MERCER IN ALL CAPS
(two double spaces)
___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ 34 USING A 1” MARGIN ON THE LEFT, 1” RIGHT AND BOTTOM, TYPE THE TITLE OF YOUR THESIS, CENTERED 1” FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE: DOUBLE SPACE
(after a double double-space, type “by”) by (after a double double-space, type your name) YOUR FULL NAME (after a double double-space, type “Approved” 1” from the left) Approved: ______________________________________________________Date _________________________ _______________________________________________________ Date ________________________ _______________________________________________________ Date ________________________ ________________________________________________________ Date _______________________ ________________________________________________________ Date _______________________ 35 USING A 1” MARGIN ON THE LEFT, 1” RIGHT AND BOTTOM, TYPE THE TITLE OF YOUR by (after a double double-space, type your name) YOUR FULL NAME (after a double double-space, type “Approved” 1” from the left) Approved: ______________________________________________________ Date _________________________ _______________________________________________________ Date ________________________ _______________________________________________________Date ________________________ _______________________________________________________Date ________________________ 36 30 VAPOR SORPTION EQUILIBRIA AND OTHER WATER-STARCH by ALICE W. MCWILLIAMS Approved: Date Date Date Date Date Date 37 31 THE ANALYTICAL DETERMINATION OF THE TEMPERATURE by STEVEN LAWRENCE ALEXANDER Approved: Date Date Date Date
Date 38 MORE THAN MONEY: AN EXAMINATION OF CULTURAL CAPITAL
VARIABLES ON FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE ENROLLMENT
by MATTHEW MCLENDON
Approved: ____________________________________________________________________________
[Chair’s full name & degree] Date ___________________________________________________________________________________
[Member’s full name & degree] Date
___________________________________________________________________________________
[Member’s full name & degree] Date ___________________________________________________________________________________ Jane West, Ed.D. Date
Director of Doctoral Studies, Tift College of Education
___________________________________________________________________________________ Thomas R. Koballa, Jr., Ph.D. Date
Dean, Tift College of Education
39 TITLE by YOUR NAME APPROVED:
______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 40 APPENDIX C
SAMPLE COPYRIGHT PAGE
41 c© 2020 42 Copyright 2020 43 APPENDIX D
SAMPLE TABLE OF CONTENTS
44 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3. METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4. RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
First level Subheading as an example of a heading of longer than a
single line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
First level Subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
45 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
A. TITLE OF APPENDIX A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
B. TITLE OF APPENDIX B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
C. TITLE OF APPENDIX C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
D. TITLE OF APPENDIX D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
E. TITLE OF APPENDIX E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
F. TITLE OF APPENDIX F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
G. TITLE OF APPENDIX G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
H. TITLE OF APPENDIX H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
46 TABLE OF CONTENTS 47 TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) 48 APPENDIX E
SAMPLE LIST OF FIGURES
49 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Title of the First Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2. Title of the Second Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3. Title of the Third Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4. Title of the Fourth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Single Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5. Title of the Fifth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 6. Title of the Sixth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7. Title of the Seventh Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
8. Title of the Eighth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Single Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
9. Title of the Ninth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
10. Title of the Tenth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
11. Title of the Eleventh Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
12. Title of the Twelfth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
13. Title of the Thirteenth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
14. Title of the Fourteenth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
15. Title of the Fifteenth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
16. Title of the Sixteenth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
17. Title of the Seventeenth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
18. Title of the Eighteenth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
19. Title of the Nineteenth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for Even a Double Line and Wraps Across Multiple Lines as
Illustrated Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
20. Title of the Twentieth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
21. Title of the Twenty-first Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
22. Title of the Twenty-second Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
23. Title of the Twenty-third Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
50 LIST OF FIGURES (Continued)
Figure Page 24. Title of the Twenty-fourth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
25. Title of the Twenty-fifth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
26. Title of the Twenty-sixth Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
27. Title of the Twenty-second Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
28. Title of the Twenty-eight Figure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
29. Title of the Twenty-ninth Figure, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for Even a Double Line and Wraps Across Multiple Lines as Illustrated Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
51 APPENDIX F
SAMPLE LIST OF TABLES
52 LIST OF TABLES 1. Title of the First Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2. Title of the Second Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3. Title of the Third Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4. Title of the Fourth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Single Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 5. Title of the Fifth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6. Title of the Sixth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
7. Title of the Seventh Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
8. Title of the Eighth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Single Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 9. Title of the Ninth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
10. Title of the Tenth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
11. Title of the Eleventh Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
12. Title of the Twelfth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 13. Title of the Thirteenth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
14. Title of the Fourteenth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 15. Title of the Fifteenth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 16. Title of the Sixteenth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
17. Title of the Seventeenth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
18. Title of the Eighteenth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
19. Title of the Nineteenth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for Even a Double Line and Wraps Across Multiple Lines as 20. Title of the Twentieth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
21. Title of the Twenty-first Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
22. Title of the Twenty-second Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 23. Title of the Twenty-third Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
53 LIST OF TABLES (Continued)
Table Page 24. Title of the Twenty-fourth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 25. Title of the Twenty-fifth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for a Line and Wraps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 26. Title of the Twenty-sixth Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
27. Title of the Twenty-second Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
28. Title of the Twenty-eight Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
29. Title of the Twenty-ninth Table, Which Has a Very Long Title That Is
Too Long for Even a Double Line and Wraps Across Multiple Lines as 54 APPENDIX G
SAMPLE LIST OF APPENDICES
55 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page
A. TITLE OF APPENDIX A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
B. TITLE OF APPENDIX B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
C. TITLE OF APPENDIX C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
D. TITLE OF APPENDIX D, WHICH HAS A VERY LONG TITLE THAT IS
TOO LONG FOR A SINGLE LINE AND WRAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
E. TITLE OF APPENDIX E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
E.1 Title of First Section of Appendix E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
E.2 Title of Second Section of Appendix E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
E.3 Title of Third Section of Appendix E. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
F. TITLE OF APPENDIX F . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
G. TITLE OF APPENDIX G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
G.1 Title of First Section of Appendix G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
G.2 Title of Second Section of Appendix G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
G.3 Title of Third Section of Appendix G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
G.4 Title of Fourth Section of Appendix G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
G.5 Title of Fifth Section of Appendix G. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
H. TITLE OF APPENDIX H, WHICH HAS A VERY LONG TITLE THAT IS
TOO LONG FOR EVEN A DOUBLE LINE AND WRAPS ACROSS
MULTIPLE LINES AS ILLUSTRATED HERE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
H.1 Title of First Section of Appendix H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
H.2 Title of Second Section of Appendix H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
I. TITLE OF APPENDIX I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
J. TITLE OF APPENDIX J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
K. TITLE OF APPENDIX K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
56 APPENDIX H
SAMPLE ABSTRACT
57 ABSTRACT YOUR NAME IN ALL CAPS
DISSERTATION (OR THESIS) TITLE IN ALL CAPS
Under the direction of COMMITTEE CHAIR’S NAME and degree
Do not indent and begin typing your abstract. The abstract, which must not exceed 350
words should give a succinct account of the work including general statements of: (a) the
problem and purpose of the research, (b) research methodology and summary of procedures,
(c) results and conclusions, and (d) recommendations for further study. The abstract will
probably be several paragraphs, which should be indented as necessary.
58 APPENDIX I
SUBMISSION FORM AND INSTRUCTIONS
59 Electronic Thesis/Dissertations Submission Process
Visit the Provost’s website for the format guide and templates. Candidates must adhere to the following 1. Upon successful defense of the dissertation, obtain the requisite signatures of all committee members 2. Once your committee has determined that your document is in its final form and consistent with the • Embed all fonts 3. Go to www.etdadmin.com/mercer to complete the submission process. Give attention to all required 4. In addition to the thesis/dissertation, upload the signed Approvals Page as a supplemental file with 5. Submit a hard copy of the following:
• Mercer University Electronic Thesis/Dissertation Submission Form (next page) – Title Page – Signed Approvals page
– Abstract Mail to: Dean of Graduate Studies, Office of the Provost, Godsey Administration Building, Room 307, 6. A representative in your school will receive notice of the submission from the ETD Administrator and 7. Once your school approves your document, the Dean of Graduate studies will provide a final review of 60 Mercer University Electronic Thesis/Dissertation Submission Form Name Student ID Date
Submission Type: Thesis Dissertation
Publication Status: Available for immediate publication Embargoed for years
Submission due date: Nov. 1 Apr. 1 Jul. 1
College/School:
Business Education Engineering Health Professions
Law Liberal Arts & Sci Medicine Music
Nursing Prof. Advancement Pharmacy Theology
Campus Location:
Macon Atlanta Savannah Columbus
Henry County Douglas County Other
Department/Program
Degree
Program Director
Committee Chair
Title of Thesis/Dissertation
Attachments:
Title Page 61 Restricted Thesis/Dissertation Name
College/School
Advisor/Chair
Title Type of document ___ Thesis Reason for restriction ___ Intend to make a patent application concerning the subject matter of the research national security Location of document ___ Military Base ________________________________________________________ Time period for ___ 1 year Attached documents* ___ Title page *Note: All materials submitted are open to public access. AUTHORIZATIONS: Signature of Student: ______________________________________ Date: _____________ Signature of Advisor/Chair: ______________________________________ Date: _____________ Signature of Dean: ______________________________________ Date: _____________ Signature from Provost Office: ______________________________________ Date: _____________
62 DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES ETD Administrator Site Guidance Overview • My ETDs – step-by-step ETD submission instructions issues; creating PDFs; copyright and open access questions 1. Go to the Mercer ETD Administrator Site If the email message is not in your inbox, it may have been blocked or 6. The email message includes a link to activate your account. Select the link to Submit your thesis/dissertation column. ProQuest Dissertation Publishing 63 DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES personal copies must be paid at the time of submission. The agreement gives ProQuest Mercer University Digital Repository License 64
entries.
Office of the Provost
Godsey Administration Building Room 307
Mercer University Campus Mail
(two double spaces)
Requirements for the Degree
THESIS, CENTERED 2” FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE: DOUBLE SPACE
THESIS, CENTERED 2” FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE: DOUBLE SPACE
{Note: Undergraduate Degree, Major, University Name, Date Degree Awarded}
{Note: Undergraduate Degree, Major, University Name, Date Degree Awarded}
Requirements for the Degree
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Department of Biomedical Sciences
Requirements for the Degree
AND OLDER WOMEN: A MIXED METHODS APPROACH.
Dissertation Committee Chair
Dissertation Committee Member
Dissertation Committee Member
Chair, Department of Counseling
Dean, College of Professional Advancement
by
(two double spaces)
Approved:
Name, Credentials Date
Dissertation Chair
Name, Credentials Date
Committee Member
Name, Credentials Date
Committee Member
Name, Credentials Date
Associate Dean, Graduate Programs
Name, Credentials Date
Dean
Full Name, Ph.D. (or other degree, as applicable)
Faculty Supervisor
Full Name, Ph.D. (or other degree, as applicable)
Ministry Coach (or Preaching Consultant or Spiritual Director, as applicable)
Full Name, Ph.D. (or other degree, as applicable)
Faculty Reader
Robert N. Nash, Jr., Ph.D.
Associate Dean, D.Min. Degree Program, School of Theology
C. Gregory DeLoach, D.Min.
Dean, School of Theology
THESIS, CENTERED 1” FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE: DOUBLE SPACE
(after a double double-space, type “by”)
Full Name, Ph.D. (or other degree, as applicable)
Faculty Supervisor for Thesis
Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford, Ph.D.
Faculty Advisor for Thesis
Karen G. Massey, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Masters Degree Programs, School of Theology
C. Gregory DeLoach, D.Min.
Dean, School of Theology
INTERACTIONS: A PHYSIOCHEMICAL APPROACH
Advisor
Ph.D. Dissertation Committee Member
Ph.D. Dissertation Committee Member
Ph.D. Dissertation Committee Member
Ph.D. Dissertation Committee Member
Dean, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
DISTRIBUTION AND THE INVERSE SOLUTION TO THE THERMAL
CONDUCTION OF FLAME RETARDANT EPOXY RESIN COMPOUNDS
Advisor
Committee Member
Committee Member
Committee Member
Dean, School of Engineering
Dissertation Committee Chair
Dissertation Committee Member
Dissertation Committee Member
Name of your mentor Date
Advisor
Christy C. Bridges, PhD Date
Program Director
Name of committee member Date
Committee Member
Name of committee member Date
Committee Member
Jean R. Sumner, MD Date
Dean, School of Medicine
YOUR LEGAL NAME
All Rights Reserved
YOUR LEGAL NAME
All Rights Reserved
Page
Page
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
First level Subheading as an example of a heading of longer than a
single line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3. METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4. RESULTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
First level Subheading as an example of a heading of longer than a
single line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
First level Subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Page
First level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
First level Subheading as an example of a heading of longer than a
single line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Second level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Third level subheading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Figure Page
Table Page
Illustrated Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Illustrated Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
procedures to submit a thesis or dissertation electronically:
and relevant administrators on the Approval Page of the dissertation/thesis.
Format Guide, prepare and convert the document to a PDF. The unsigned Approvals page should be
included in the document. Please note that the PDF conversion may be achieved on the ProQuest
Administrative site. When preparing your PDF, be sure to do the following:
• Ensure there is no password protection on the PDF
• Ensure that security settings allow printing
• Format as individual, single pages
information and permissions. By submitting the dissertation online there is no publishing fee; however,
if you chose to register a copyright, the fee is $55 and is payable at the time of submission. If you want
to order bound (paper) copies of your document or if your school requires the submission of copies,
you should purchase the copies through ProQuest.
the description labeled Approvals Page. Please note that the signed Approvals page will not appear in
the published document for the protection of the committee members.
• From the thesis/dissertation
Mercer University Macon Campus or electronically to snow la@mercer.edu.
will review the document to ensure the document is complete and meets formatting guidelines. You
may be asked to make appropriate formatting changes and reload your corrected document as part of
this review.
your document. You will receive an email notification of approval or additional revision requirements
two to three weeks after the official submission deadline.
Abstract
Signed Approvals Page
Submission Request
___ Dissertation
___ Plan to publish and public access will jeopardize intellectual property rights
___ The subject(s) right to privacy is in danger of being infringed
___ Agreement in place to protect the information which is of commercial value
___ Compliance with the law or to protect public safety where it refers to issues of
___ Other (please explain): _______________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
___ MERC ___ Swilley Library
___ College/School ___ Law Library
___ Tarver Library (Archives) ___Medical School Library
___ Other: ______________________________________________________________
restriction
___ 2 years
___ (please specify) _______
___ Indefinitely
(include as many as
are appropriate)
___ Approval page
___ Table of contents
___ Abstract
There are two major sections in the Mercer University (MU) ETD
Administrator Site:
• Resources & Guidelines – information such as format guidelines; copyright
Activate your account
To get started, you must activate your account in the MU ETD Administrator Site. You
are encouraged to do so well before you submit your thesis or dissertation so you can
become familiar with the MU ETD Administrator Site.
2. Select “Submit my dissertation/thesis” under “Ready to begin?”
3. Select “Create an Account” under “New user?”
4. Fill in the required fields and select the “Sign Up” button
5. Check for an email message from “UMI ETD Administrator
Administrator: Account Confirmation for [your name]”
Troubleshooting:
filtered into your spam or junk email box. If it is not in one of these
locations, you can try to login to re-send the email message but first
make sure your account is set-up to accept email messages from the
domain@proquest.com. If you need further technical assistance
retrieving the email message, please call ProQuest at 1.877.408.5027
– available 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday
(excluding U.S. holidays).
confirm your account. You should be taken to Instructions under the My
ETDs section.
1. Go to the Mercer University ETD Administrator Site.
2. Select “Submit my dissertation/thesis” under “Ready to begin?”
3. Login with your username and password.
4. Read the Instructions under the My ETDs section.
5. Begin the submission process. Submission steps are outlined in the left-hand
In submitting your thesis/dissertation, you are required to complete the ProQuest
publishing agreement in the online submission tool. All fees related to publishing or
specific rights to publish the Abstract in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.
The agreement further allows ProQuest to distribute copies of the dissertation in
microfilm, paper, and digital forms, pursuant to any embargo. The ProQuest publishing
agreement is non-exclusive and in no way prohibits the author from making any
disposition of other manuscript copies, nor does it prohibit the author from publishing the
dissertation at any time. For more information about ProQuest services, visit
http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/.
You are required to agree to have your submission published in URSA (Mercer
University’s Digital Repository). Under this agreement, Mercer University Libraries will
maintain an electronic copy of the dissertation. OVERVIEW
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES
FORMATTING THE THESIS/DISSERTATION
Name
Nontraditional Formats
Page Size
Margins
Style
Spacing
Pagination
Font
Widows and Orphans
Color Images and Photographs
Figures and Tables
ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS/DISSERTATION
Levels of Headings and Subheadings
Document Order
Front Matter
Title Page
Approvals Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Other Lists
Abstract
Text Body
Back Matter
References
Appendices
COPYRIGHT
Use of Copyrighted Materials
Registering Copyright
SUBMISSION TO THE PROVOST
APPENDICES
A. SAMPLE TITLE PAGES
B. SAMPLE APPROVALS PAGES
C. SAMPLE COPYRIGHT PAGE
D. SAMPLE TABLE OF CONTENTS
E. SAMPLE LIST OF FIGURES
F. SAMPLE LIST OF TABLES
G. SAMPLE LIST OF APPENDICES
H. SAMPLE ABSTRACT
I. SUBMISSION FORM AND INSTRUCTIONS
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Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
