RELI 220B - Reading the Bible: The New Testament

The "New Testament" includes some of the most famous stories we have: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the birth of the ancient Christian communities, and the end of the world in a massive apocalypse. We will explore who wrote these texts, what their new religious ideas were, and what features of the ancient world gave rise to them. We will adopt the disciplinary perspectives of a Religious Studies Scholar, a Literary Critic, and a Historian to do a deep dive into Jewish and Christian culture and society in the age of the Roman Empire, including how it dealt with ancient inequalities of class, gender, and religion. We will look at the different literary genres that appear in the New Testament, explore the religious views of their authors, and consider their origins and contexts in the history of early Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean.