New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Missions and evangelism are core focuses of the seminary. NOBTS offers doctoral, master, bachelor, and associate degrees. The seminary has 13 graduate centers in 5 states, 11 undergraduate centers in 5 states, and 13 on-campus research centers. The main campus is situated on over 70 acres with more than 70 buildings.

History

The Southern Baptist Convention founded the institution as the Baptist Bible Institute during the 1917 convention meeting in New Orleans. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, or NOBTS for short, was the first institution created as a direct act of the Southern Baptist Convention. The institutes's purpose was centered on missionary work, and initially established as gateway to Central America. The Seminary started as the Baptist Bible Institute in the Garden District and later relocated to the current location in the heart of Gentilly. On May 17, 1946, the SBC revised the institutes' charter to enable it to become a seminary, and the name was changed to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Missions and evangelism have remained the core focus of the seminary. In 1953, it relocated from Washington Avenue in the Garden District to a more spacious campus in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. The school purchased a 75 acre pecan orchard and transformed it into what is now a bustling campus over 100 buildings, including academic buildings, faculty and staff housing, and student housing. The new campus was designed by noted Louisiana architect A. Hays Town. In 1995, a campus was established at the Louisiana State Penitentiary following an invitation from the prison warden, Burl Cain. The school has contributed to a significant reduction in the rate of violence in the prison. By 2022, it had opened six campuses in prisons in different states. For the year 2021-2022, it had 2,004 students.

Presidents

NOBTS has had nine presidents since its founding:

Academics

Accreditation

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. The graduate programs are also accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. NOBTS is also an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music and has authorization to operate in the State of Florida.

Extension centers and hubs

Archaeology

Timnah

Between 1977 and 1979, George L. Kelm was serving as professor of Biblical Backgrounds and Archaeology at NOBTS when he and Amihai Mazar uncovered biblical Timnah, Tel Batash in the Sorek Valley of Israel.

Gezer

In 2010 a team from NOBTS launched an effort to clear a Canaanite Water Shaft at Tel Gezer in Israel in cooperation with the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority and the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Gezer was first explored by R.A. Stewart Macalister over a hundred years earlier, but he did not complete a study of the water system because a freak storm refilled the system with debris and Macalister abandoned the effort. The NOBTS excavation has been chronicled in multiple sources including the Biblical Archaeology Review and the Baptist Press. In 2011 Dennis Cole, Dan Warner and Jim Parker from NOBTS led another team in an attempt to finish the effort.

Notable alumni

Politics

Notable faculty