Trinity Southwest University (TSU) is an unaccredited evangelical Christian institution of

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...

with an office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Principally a theological school that encompasses both the

Bible college A Bible college, sometimes referred to as a Bible institute or theological institute, is an evangelical Christian or Restoration Movement Christian institution of higher education which prepares students for Christian ministry with theological ed ...

and

theological seminary A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...

concepts of Christian education, it offers

distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...

programs and degrees in Biblical Studies, Theological Studies, Archaeology & Biblical History, Biblical Counseling, Biblical Representational Research, and University Studies.

History

TSU was founded as Southwest Biblical Seminary in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, where it provided Bible-oriented education for local students. In 1989 it relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico. According to TSU, in 1990 it began an official association with "an internationally-known Bible college and seminary" (not identified), but it became an independent institution of higher education in 2001. Most TSU students enroll in distance education. As of 2007 the typical student was an adult between 40 and 49 years old. At that time, the school occupied a former church in Albuquerque. As of October 2021 its location was described as "a strip mall in Albuquerque."

Doctrine

TSU is

evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

in its orientation; it calls itself "trans-denominational". The school holds that biblical scripture, specifically "the ancient Hebrew Tanakh and the New Testament", is "the only written, divinely inspired representation of reality given by God to humankind, speaking with absolute and authority in all matters upon which it touches."

Affiliations and accreditation status

TSU is not

accredited Accreditation is the independent, third-party evaluation of a conformity assessment body (such as certification body, inspection body or laboratory) against recognised standards, conveying formal demonstration of its impartiality and competence to ...

by any accreditor recognized by the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Departmen ...

. The institution's position is that "any governmental association or oversight ... is inappropriate for a

faith-based organization A faith-based organization is an organization whose values are based on faith and/or beliefs, which has a mission based on social values of the particular faith, and which most often draws its activists (leaders, staff, volunteers) from a particula ...

or institution, and constitutes a fundamental violation of church/state separation". Accordingly, students are ineligible for governmental financial assistance. The institution states that it operates in New Mexico under a religious exemption authorized by state law. TSU is a member of the Association of Christian Schools International. Tall_el-Hammam_Excavation-Jordan_Valley

Archaeology

Since 2005, TSU's Executive Dean, Steven Collins, has directed excavations at

Tall el-Hammam Tell el-Hammam (also Tall al-Hammam) is an archaeological site in Jordan, in the eastern part of the lower Jordan Valley close to the mouth of the Jordan River. The site has substantial remains from the Chalcolithic, Early, Intermediate and Mid ...

in Jordan, a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

settlement which he argues was the biblical city of Sodom. He has written several books on the topic. Other

biblical archaeologists Biblical archaeology is an academic school and a subset of Biblical studies and Levantine archaeology. Biblical archaeology studies archaeological sites from the Ancient Near East and especially the Holy Land (also known as Palestine, Land of ...

have rejected the identification because it is inconsistent with

biblical literalist chronology Biblical literalist chronology is the attempt to correlate the historical dates used in the Bible with the chronology of actual events. Some of the better-known calculations include Archbishop James Ussher, who placed it in 4004 BC, Isaac Newt ...

; according to '' Christianity Today'', "few archaeologists outside of those working on the excavation team believe that Tall el-Hammam is Sodom." Collins and his colleagues claim that Tall el-Hammam was destroyed in a sudden catastrophe, based on the discovery of burnt brick, melted pottery and

geophysical Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' some ...

signatures of high temperatures. In a 2021 paper, they argued that this was a meteor air burst similar to the

Tunguska event The Tunguska event (occasionally also called the Tunguska incident) was an approximately 12- megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 3 ...

. Soon after its publication, physicist Mark Boslough, who is cited in the paper, raised several concerns about its contents and the background of its authors, and

Elisabeth Bik Elisabeth Margaretha Harbers-Bik (born 1966) is a Dutch microbiologist and scientific integrity consultant. Bik is known for her work detecting photo manipulation in scientific publications, and identifying over 4,000 potential cases of improper ...

, an expert in investigating

scientific misconduct Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. A '' Lancet'' review on ''Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countrie ...

, identified possible doctored images. The authors initially denied tampering with the photos but eventually published a correction in which they admitted to inappropriate image manipulation. On February 15, 2023, the following editor’s note was posted on this paper, "Readers are alerted that concerns raised about the data presented and the conclusions of this article are being considered by the Editors. A further editorial response will follow the resolution of these issues."

References

External links

TrinitySouthwest.com
(official website)
TSU-edu.us
(official website) {{authority control Universities and colleges established in 1990 1990 establishments in Oklahoma Seminaries and theological colleges in New Mexico Education in Albuquerque, New Mexico Evangelicalism in New Mexico Buildings and structures in Albuquerque, New Mexico Unaccredited Christian universities and colleges in the United States Evangelical universities and colleges in the United States