The term exegesis comes from the Greek verb exegeisthai, which means to "explain" or "interpret." Simply put, exegesis is the process of determining or bringing out the meaning of a text.  Exegesis of each verse in your passage often involves word-by-word interpretation-- the meaning of the word in English today could be much different from its Greek or Hebrew equivalent in the first century. The Bible dictionaries listed on the previous page and concordances will be helpful here.

As you begin to interpret the verses of your passage, start drafting your impressions of what they say.  You are not simply transcribing the words, you are translating their meaning based on the research you have done so far.  You are also interpreting the author's intent for the passage as a whole. 

Exegesis also involves research about what other scholars say about the passage. Once you have transcribed the verses and formed your preliminary interpretations based on the text, author, history, culture, and literary influences of the passage, you will be ready to research other scholars' interpretations of it.  This will be much more difficult if you have not prepared yourself with your own working interpretation of the passage.   

Your job in exegesis is to consider the interpretations of other scholars as it compares to your own analysis.  What are the parts of the passage in which their is a general consensus about its meaning?  Are there points of disagreement?  How do these opinions compare with your own?  What have you found in the background research that particularly fits with the overall interpretation?

The best approach for performing detailed exegesis is to get several commentaries that each cover only one biblical book. The commentaries listed on this page are just a few of the many we have in the library.  You can find more by searching the library catalog or databases. 

The "research conversation" is a metaphor to describe the process of knowledge building. Exegesis, for example, involves the work of  many scholars whose interpretations are formalized in commentaries, books and journal articles. These writings are in effect their "conversations."  They are the end-product of a process that starts with a question,( e.g., "What is the meaning of this passage?) and is answered through a combination of the author's knowledge, analysis of prior research, and his/her own research. Once the book or article is published, other scholars read it and join the conversation, utilizing the same process, thereby adding to the accumulated knowledge of the discipline. A single scholar's work is only a part of the conversations that have come before it.  Even so-called "novel" interpretations would not exist without this prior work. 

As a graduate student, you are asked to join the research conversation.  This requires some knowledge of the issue before you analyze the scholarly research. With some background knowledge, you enter the conversation by reviewing the work of various scholars who have studied the issue. Your goal is not to merely compile the answers of others, but to add to the conversation by providing your own analysis  in the form of an exegesis or other, similar writing. 

(The image, "The School of Athens," by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, is in the public domain,)