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Vanderbilt University Department of Religious Studies, College of Arts and Science |
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Here's a brief description of the course. Please do not hesitate to contact Daniel Patte, David Calabro, Virginia Courtney, or Monya Stubbs if you have questions, or you need clarifications, or you want to discuss whatever class-stuff there is to discuss. We'd appreciate your suggestions on how to make our class more interesting and fruitful for everyone.
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RLST 109 Themes
in New Testament
Schedule
| Requirements
| Books
| Faculty
Course Description
This introductory course focuses
on New Testament texts--with special attention to the Gospel of Matthew,
the Sermon on the Mount
in Matthew, the Cross/Resurrection
narratives according to the synoptic tradition (Mark,
Matthew, and Luke), and Paul's letter to the Romans (comparison with the
Gospel of Thomas and the Mekilta, an early Rabbinic commentary on Exodus).
Students will learn to understand how believers interpret NT texts as Scripture
(with sample interpretations
from mainline Protestant and Catholic, African-American, and
"Third-World" churches, and from feminist circles).
Themes emphasized this semester:
Discipleship, the Church (who belongs to it; its mission); ethics,
and view of Scripture in Matthew 5-7 (comparison with the Rule of the
Community of Qumran and the Gospel of Thomas); Christology, cross and resurrection
in Mark 14-16 (and parallels in Luke and Matthew); Sin, evil, and salvation
according to Romans (comparison with the Mekilta, an early Rabbinic commentary
on Exodus). Comparison of Western scholarly interpretations with interpretations
by African-American, feminist, and Third World scholars and believers
"Reading the Bible is Not
a Spectator Sport!" Participating in and contributing to roundtable
discussions is an essential part of the learning process (and thus, 25% of
your semester grade!): in groups on Friday, in general debates, and in plenary
sessions (through your questions). There will be three types of Roundtable
discussions on each text. You will need to prepare yourselves for these,
by doing readings and by writing reports.
The class will proceed in three steps (see below) which require students'
direct involvement. 1) Students will write a report on what they think is
"The Teaching for Believers Today" of each assigned text. 2) Then they will
proceed to comparing the themes and textual evidence of several
interpretations including their own. 3) Then they will discuss the relative
values of several intepretations seeking to spell out the reasons for their
choice of an interpretation.
PEDAGOGICAL GOALS: Teaching students about the New Testament and its interpretations in order to help them to gain a critical perspective on the great variety of interpretations which they encounter today. For this, students will learn a) to understand how Christian believers interpret New Testament texts as Scripture; b) to appreciate the role of religious, cultural, and social contexts in interpretation; through a reading of interpretations from different cultures; c) to know and appreciate the historical, sociological, literary, rhetorical, and religious character of central New Testament texts and of other religious texts of the New Testament period.
PROCEDURE: “Reading the Bible Is Not a Spectator Sport!” Participating in and contributing to roundtable discussions is an essential part of the learning process. There will be three types of Roundtable discussion on each text. You will need to prepare yourselves for these, by doing readings and by writing reports.
Step # 1 = PREPARING
AN HAVING ROUNDTABLE # 1: Your contribution to this first kind of roundtable
will be your presentation of what is, in your view, the Teaching of the given
Text for Christian Believers in a Particular Life-Context Today, i.e., the
presentation of your “CONTEXTUAL INTERPRETATION OF THE TEXT.” In order
to formulate this teaching you need to
a) Identify a current life-context in which the
given text (from the Gospels or Paul’s Letters) seems to have a teaching
for Christian believers today. To help you with this, a form form (attached
at the end of the syllabus) asks you in its Part A to describe this situation
and provides you with multiple choice questions to help you specify 1) the
kind of concrete needs, which these Christian believers face and about which
the text seems to have a teaching; and 2) the root-problem or need
that the teaching of the text would hopefully address for these Christian
believers.
b) Formulate the teaching that the given text
has for these believers in this context. For this Part B of the
Contextual Interpretation form ask you to present what is, according to you:
the teaching that the given text offer to these Christian believers today;
the difference this teaching makes for them in their specific situation;
the new religious insights or moral instructions this teaching offers these
believers. It also provides multiple choice questions to help you specify
what is the particular role that Scripture plays in this formulation of the
teaching of the text, and your personal assessment of this teaching..
c) With this, you will be ready to contribute to a
roundtable # 1 on this text together with other members of your group
– or at times in plenary sessions -- and to appreciate the differences among
your respective interpretations. From your participation in this roundtable
discussion you will become aware of the contextual interpretive choices you
made in formulating a teaching of this text for believers.
Step # 2 PREPARING
AND HAVING ROUNDTABLE # 2.
We now invite other interpreters to join our roundtable: four or five
people who have published their interpretations, among whom biblical scholars,
but also preachers, theologians, artists (novelists, painters, film-makers).
Your contribution to this Second Roundtable will involve presenting the differences
you see between your interpretation and at least three of these interpretations
(and its similarity with one of them). Here the discussion
concerns the themes and textual evidences which are the focus of each interpretation,
as a result of certain interpretive choices. In preparation to make
your contribution to the discussion you are invited to study closely several
interpretations, take note of their characteristics (we will help you with
this), and learn much about the text under study (a Gospel or a letter of
Paul). For this you are asked to:
a) Identify the conceptual-hermeneutical choices
that focus each interpretation on a certain theme.
How is this theme conceptualized in different ways by different
interpretations? How do Christian believers in different cultural contexts
make sense of these texts in terms of this theme? How do scholars interpret
the same theme? How did you in your interpretation? What is the
view of the text as Scripture that governed these conceptual choices?
b) Identify the analytical-textual choices
that focus each interpretation on a certain textual dimension, viewed
as most significant. In each case: What are the most significant features
of the text? That is, What is the specific (historical, literary, sociological,
etc.) textual evidence upon which these interpretations are based?
How do Christian believers and scholars ground their interpretations in the
text? How did you?
c) With this, you will be ready to contribute to a
roundtable # 2 on this text together with other members of your group,
and to have an even greater appreciation for the differences among your respective
interpretations. From your participation in this roundtable you will
become aware of the conceptual-hermeneutical and analytical-textual choices
you made in formulating a teaching of this text for believers.
Step # 3 PREPARING AND HAVING ROUNDTABLE # 3. In
the preceding steps, we will have noted that people have good reasons to
choose different interpretations. Yet, each interpreter ends
up choosing one which she or he feels is the “best” one. Now, in the
third roundtable, it is time to debate with each other why one or another
of these interpretations is the “best.” In order to assess the
relative values of the different interpretations, in a debate format, you
will be invited to make the stronger case possible for one type of
interpretation, explaining:
a)
Why this type of interpretation was chosen as the best for a given context.
Which context?
b)
What needs it addresses in this specific context, and why other interpretations
would fail to address these needs or even have problematic effects..
c) Considering another context (which we will specify):
1) How helpful would be this interpretation (as compared with the others)?
What problematic effects could it have? 2) Is this choice of an interpretation
the best when one thinks of who benefits from it and who is hurt by it? 3)
Is this choice of an interpretation the best when one thinks in terms of
basic convictions and values that Christian believers might have? 4)
Which of these issues should receive more weight?