Welcome to REL 731: Seminar in Biblical Studies! Click here for Requirements and here for the Calendar. Here is the course description:
This seminar examines a specific topic within the history and literature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and/or New Testament. Students can expect to do focused reading, discussion, and research on a particular historical, literary, and/or methodological issue pertaining to the topic.
This semester the topic is "Issues and Approaches in the Study of the New Testament." The idea here is to make issues and approaches to the issues themselves the "topic" of the seminar. This course is reminiscent of one taught on a regular basis many years ago in our program titled "Basic Issues in Biblical Studies." That course dealt with the entire Bible. It worked in the sense that many problems and methods are similar throughout biblical and related literatures, but it was highly selective given the vast span of history and texts involved. The concept should work better with a focus on the New Testament given the relatively short length and the relatively short time frame in which its contents were composed.
The other inspiration for this course was one that Bart Ehrman started offering shortly after I graduated from UNC. His course was designed to familiarize doctoral students in fields other than biblical studies with "Problems and Methods in the Study of the New Testament" so that they would know the ropes if they ever had to teach a basic undergraduate NT Intro course, a real possibility for an instructor employed in a small religion department or community college. That course had a more pedagogical focus than this one, but we will discuss ways of presenting course materials to undergraduates and the public from time to time.
Here are some specific course goals:
1) To become familiar with classic and contemporary issues and approaches in the study of early Christian history and literature. By no means will we be able to include all of these, but we'll include some of the major ones.
2) To become acquainted with exegetical methods. This will be accomplished through reading a highly regarded exegesis textbook and the writing of an exegesis paper focused on a passage chosen in consultation with the instructor. Some have humorously referred to this task as "learning how to read," by which they mean learning how to read closely, carefully, and contextually. And, as Michael Gorman would say, learning how to read "responsibly."
3) To become comfortable with articulating issues and approaches to the study of the New Testament as demonstrated by informed and competent participation in class debate and discussion.
4) To do research on a topic related to the course theme. This can take the form of either a standard research paper or critical book reviews. The range of topics can be broad, including matters pertaining to the reception history of the New Testament.
We will accomplish these goals in the context of a seminar. What is a seminar? The following definitions, gleaned from the web, will give you a good idea:
Most commonly offered as upper-level and graduate courses, these are small classes of approximately 15 students each, designed to facilitate intensive study of specific subject areas.
[A seminar] has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some particular subject, in which everyone present is requested to actively participate.
As will be clear from these definitions, this class will be unlike most you took as an undergraduate. It is impossible to sit passively in class and depend on the professor or the other students to carry the load. You must be diligent in doing the reading assignments and preparing to take part in or occasionally lead the discussions.