This course invites students to intimately engage the text of the New Testament, while becoming familiar with critical issues surrounding its composition, authorship, and reception. Students will be expected to demonstrate the following: acute engagement with the New Testament as both an ancient text and a contemporary religious text; familiarity and facility with appropriate secondary literature; ability to articulate various viewpoints other than one’s own. Issues that will be covered in this course include the study of the historical Jesus, the canonicity of the New Testament, past and present interpretive strategies, and various issues involving the New Testament and race, sexuality, slavery, and gender.

Course fulfills the following curricular requirements:
MAIRS – Ministerial Studies: Scripture