Christian cross carved into the temple to Isis at Philae.

NT 501

INTERPRETATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT I

The principal concern of this course is to introduce the student to the New Testament, its configuration and critical study.  To that end, the student will read the New Testament in its entirety.  In addition, a selection of other texts will be read in order to provide historical, religious, and literary contexts in which to interpret the New Testament.  A second concern of the course involves using the documents of the New Testament as sources for reconstructing the early history of Christianity.  Here the different critical methodologies that have been applied to the New Testament (with varying degrees of success) will be evaluated and utilized with a view to describing the variety of early Christianities.  Finally, an attempt will be made to illuminate the religious imagination of the early Christians — that is, what it “felt like” to live in a world described and determined by their symbols, rituals, and language.

Get a copy of the current syllabus, NT501 Fall2007.pdf.

To access the student only website, click here.

To contact Dr. Brown about this course, click here.

To hear Dr. Brown’s New Testament lectures, click here.