New Testament and its World (BN8025Z)

Content

In this unit, students will undertake an historical introduction to the events and literature of earliest Christianity. Why are there four Gospels and how do they differ? What was Paul's role in the formation of the early Church? How might we decode Apocalyptic texts like the book of Revelation? By situating the texts of the New Testament in their turbulent social, political, and religious contexts of early Judaism and the Greco-Roman world, the unit facilitates a fresh encounter with a collection of texts that has proven enormously influential in world history.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

Foundational unit

Pedagogy

Lectures and seminar-style discussions/tutorials of primary and secondary readings

Indicative Bibliography

Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 7th ed (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Conway, Colleen M. The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2023. [required textbook] The New Oxford Annotated Bible, 5th edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019 (or any other version of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible containing the Apocrypha). Mitzi J. Smith and Yung Suk Kim, Toward Decentering the New Testament: A Reintroduction (Eugene: Cascade, 2018). Michael J. Gorman, Elements of Biblical Exegesis: A Basic Guide for Students and Ministers, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020). Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018). Mark Allan Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey, 2nd ed (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018). Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997). Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Halvor Moxnes, A Short History of the New Testament (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014).

Assessment