The goal of this class is to empower you to feel more at home in two genres of Jewish literature - Tanakh and Talmud.  We will look at both as we seek answers to questions regarding power and authority. Sefer Shmuel will speak to us about the shift from judges to kingship.  The Talmud will tell us about rabbinic authority.  What was its source?  And where is God in all this?  While these questions are fascinating, the main goal will be to grow in skills and ability as you take your first steps into challenging new worlds of discourse. 

The New Testament is a collection of diverse writings that are central to Christian faith and life. This course will introduce students to the literary characteristics, historical context, and theological content of these writings and to the methods and approaches associated with the modern discipline of biblical studies.

This seminar will engage in sustained critical examination of recent scholarly work that represents, or has the potential to become, groundbreaking for the discipline of biblical studies. At the end of this course, students should be able to comprehend and critically engage scholarly work of the highest quality in the disciplinary field.

Our study of Matthew's Gospel will attend to its literary features, social context, and theological content. In addition to helping us understand how the Matthean author used various sources to write his distinct narrative of Jesus' ministry, Passion and Resurrection, historical-criticism will assist in contextualizing both author and community within a late first-century multi-cultural context. As the most commented upon Gospel in the early Church, we will also consider how Matthew's emphasis on the OT and understanding of Jesus were received by early Christians who sought to articulate Christianity in light of the controversies at that time (e.g., Marcionism).

This is an introductory core course on the four New Testament Gospels. Among the primary aims of this course is to provide an overview of the structure and content of each of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and an analysis of various scholarly methods for interpreting them. This course will review what scholars call the Synoptic Problem, an investigation into the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) to one another, and discuss the arguments for and against the hypothetical source known as Quelle. This course will also discuss the relationship between the Gospel of John to the Synoptic Gospels, and the relationship between the Gospels and other relevant texts like the Gospel of Thomas. This study of the Gospels will be situated in an ecclesial framework that includes a theological perspective.

A literary, historical, and theological introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)—the Pentateuch, Historical Books, Wisdom Literature and Psalms, and Prophets.

This course provides a historical, literary and theological overview of the prophets and the prophetic books in the Hebrew Bible. Although we will look at the Former Prophets, most of the class will focus on the Latter (Writing) Prophets. When possible, we will read prophetic books in their entirety, but for longer books we will read selected texts. By the end of this course I hope that you will better appreciate the rich diversity of form, style and theology we find in the prophetic books.

This course will begin with an overview of feminist biblical hermeneutics – its history and variety – and then we will examine depictions of women throughout the Christian Bible. Part of this analysis will consist of looking at these depictions from different feminist perspectives. Another part of our analysis will be a consideration of the stories’ social and cultural contexts, especially what archaeology can tell us about women’s lives in antiquity.

This course examines how the Hebrew Bible addresses questions around human suffering. After surveying different biblical perspectives, we will immerse ourselves in the Book of Job, in which Job and his friends (and, ultimately, YHWH) consider the meaning of Job’s suffering. While this course is primarily interested in the theologies of the Book of Job, we will also take into account the book’s literary artistry, redaction history and historical context. By the end of this course I hope you will have a better understanding of this important book, which is as timeless, complex, and inexhaustible as the mystery it contemplates.

In this course students will read ancient Christian authors as part of a long tradition of attempting to understand God through the reading of sacred texts. The course will cover three basic topics, which will be kept distinct even while the class examines them simultaneously. The first topic is early Christians' own understanding of, and consistency with, the principles of their exegesis, especially the "rule of faith." The second topic is the early Christian practice of scriptural exegesis, especially as this exegesis was relevant to doctrinal and theological debates, and to preaching. The final topic is the social and religious context of the principles and practice of Christian exegesis. To this end I am assigning significant readings in non-Christian sources to provide context for the Christian ones. The course will proceed in a generally chronological fashion, in order to allow students to note patterns of development and change over time. Selected secondary readings will be assigned for each session as a way to introduce students to the ongoing scholarly discussions in this field. All readings will be in English translation, though students with facility in the original languages are encouraged to employ this in their reading and research. The course is aimed at doctoral students in Historical Theology/History of Christianity, though there should be significant material appealing to students in Biblical Studies, Systematics, Comparative Theology, and Ethics.

A seminar investigating the emergence and development of the Christian Bible from the first to the fourth centuries C.E. This seminar will discuss the development of a New Testament canon as well as different views of Biblical writings as revelation that developed along with competing claims to a secret or higher truth in "esoteric," non-canonical works of the same period. Students will explore the understanding of Scripture in four early Christian exegetes: Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius and Jerome. This seminar will incorporate a survey of scribes, book circulation and the role of reading circles in antiquity.

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