Next Semester Classes

Though I still have a lot of work to finish for this semester, I recently worked out which classes I’m going to take in the Spring. It looks like it will prove to be another challenging, yet very rewarding, set of classes.

RLHB 720: Accommodation, Resistance, Rebellion:  Jews in the Persian and Hellenistic Empires

Carol Newsom
Friday 9:00-12:00pm

Content: Whether in Yehud or in diaspora, Jews had to negotiate their relation to the Persian and Hellenistic empires in complex ways in which accommodation and resistance were often intermingled. At a crucial moment in history resistance took the form of armed rebellion in the Maccabean revolt. The book of Daniel uniquely provides insight into some of the complexities of this negotiation and renegotiation of relationship with Gentile empires. The Persian and early Hellenistic era narratives of Daniel 1-6 manifest the ambivalent strategies employed to facilitate participation in and resistance to Gentile imperial power structures. In so doing they engage Gentile thought forms to construct a theory of political history that has been powerfully influential in western thought. The apocalypses in Daniel 7-12 revise and radicalize this earlier analysis of Gentile imperial power under the pressure of the Antiochene persecutions. The result is a canonical book that is a conflicted and unresolved reflection on the relations among divine sovereignty, the politics of empire, and the difficult location of those who find themselves subject to both forms of authority.

Texts: Readings required for the course may include material from the following, as well as other sources:

• Berquist, J. Judaism in Persia’s Shadow
• Briant, P., From Cyrus to Alexander
• Collins, J., Daniel
• Schäfer, P., The History of the Jews in Antiquity
• Scott, J. C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts
• Wills, L. The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King

Prerequisites: Intermediate knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic; elementary knowledge of Greek desirable.

Course requirements: regular participation, seminar presentations, research paper.

RLNT 740: Jewish Background of the New Testament

Walter Wilson
Thursday 2:30-5:30pm

The seminar introduces NT graduate students to aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman world that are relevant to understanding the NT and Christian origins. Besides providing a broad historical framework for understanding Judaism from the time of Alexander the Great to Hadrian, it examines a broad range of topics, e.g., Jewish groups and movements, Jewish apocalyptic, Qumran, Septuagint, Hellenization and Judaism, Rabbinic traditions, Philo, and Josephus. The aim is to read representative primary texts and secondary literature relating to each topic with a view to identifying current issues of scholarly debate, especially as they relate to the NT. Likely textbooks:

• J. M. G. Barclay. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
• J. H. Charlesworth, ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. Garden City: Doubleday, 1983, 1985.
• F. García Martínez. The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. 2^nd ed. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
• Schäfer, Peter. The History of the Jews in the Graeco-Roman World. London/New York: Routledge, 2003.

RLNT 770: History of Interpretation II — Reformation to the Present

Vernon Robbins
Monday 1:30-4:30pm

Content:  This seminar covers interpretation of the New Testament from the sixteenth century to the present.  It will begin with an exploration of forces at work in New Testament interpretation during the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter Reformation, and new developments during the eighteenth century.  After this, it will investigate the nineteenth and twentieth century contexts of analysis and interpretation of history, myth, philosophical truth, and biblical theology in which the literary-historical methods of text, source, form, tradition, and redaction criticism emerged.  Then the seminar will turn to late twentieth century and current twenty-first century modes and methods for interpreting the New Testament.  An overall goal of the seminar is to gain an understanding of the contexts that gave rise to literary-historical approaches and to assess their relation to additional approaches that emerged during the last four decades of analysis and interpretation.

Participants in the seminar will read secondary sources as guides to primary interpretive literature.  The emphasis, however, will be on primary interpretive sources.  Specific examples of interpretation will be especially important. 

Texts:

• William Baird, History of New Testament Research, Volumes 1-2
• Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament.
• Werner Georg Kümmel, The New Testament: the history of the investigation of its problems. 
• Wayne A. Meeks, Writings of St. Paul
• Magnus Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship
• Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition
• Heiki Raisanen, Beyond New Testament Theology (Second edition, 2000)
• John K. Riches, A Century of New Testament Study
• Vernon K. Robbins, The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse
• Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus
• Anthony C. Thiselton, New Horizons in Hermeneutics 

Particulars:  Seminar participants will write short weekly reports on the history of the interpretation of various NT writings through the centuries from the Reformation to the present.  These will be expanded, revised, and incorporated into a final paper.

TATT 605: Teaching Assistantship

I’ll be TAing for one of the sections of NT 502 in the School of Theology, which is the second semester of the NT intro course.

RLR 700H — First Year Colloquy

William Gilders
Tuesday 11:00-1:00pm

The purpose of the colloquy is to provide time for discussion about a variety of issues in the academic study of religion and theology, and about life as PhD students in the Graduate Division of Religion (GDR). After a session of introductions, we will learn more about the two academic bodies that co-constitute the GDR faculty, the Department of Religion in Emory College and the Candler School of Theology. Then we will consider various methodological and professional issues that affect your development as scholars/teachers of religion and theology. For each session, except the introductory and concluding sessions, one or two faculty members will attend to make some introductory remarks and to participate in the conversation. Occasionally, there will be some short readings or reviews of websites.