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Research |
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Research
Topics | |
The following
topics are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather are offered to indicate the
nature of the assignment and to stimulate your own interests. You are encouraged
to consider a topic more aligned with your own interests and to submit a topic
statement and sources. The professor will work with you to be certain that the
topic suits the course. As students choose topics, their names and
e-mail addresses will be accessible from this page so that you can contact them
to share resources and ideas.
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Exegetical
Paper | - Historical
Analysis of a Passage
- Select
a passage from the canonical or non-canonical gospels that has at least one parallel
text in another gospel, and analyze the historicity of that passage in terms of
the criteria developed in this course.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- Redaction-critical
and Historical Analysis of a Passage
- Select
a passage that is present in either the double or the triple tradition. Lay the
related passages out alongside each other (or better yet, use a Gospel
Synopsis that already does this for you), and analyze the changes made
by the later source. What can you discern about the theological perspective of
one of those gospels based on your exegesis? Redaction criticism is critical
inquiry that tries to build a picture of an evangelist's theological perspective
based on editorial (="redactional") changes.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- The
Messianic Secret in Mark
- Even
more than any of the other canonical gospels, Mark emphasizes the secrecy of Jesus'
messianic identity. How and why does he do this?
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- Researchers:
Tessa Peralta
| Bibliography |
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Thematic
Paper | - The
Messiahs at the Turn of the Era
- Christians
were not the only Jews to speculate that a messiah would return. In the Dead Sea
Scrolls, we hear of two and maybe even three messiahs, and in 132 CE a man named
Simon bar Kosiba, who led a Jewish Revolt against Rome, was acknowledged as messiah
by many contemporary Jews. What are the origins of messianism, and how did Christians
work within but also expand the title?
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- Researchers:
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Bibliography |
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- The
Kingdom of God
- Jesus
in the Gospel of Matthew preaches the advent of the Kingdom of God. Is it something
we can trace to the historical Jesus? If so, what did he mean by this topic, and
how did he teach it?
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- Researchers:
Meagan Williams
| Bibliography |
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- Jesus
in Q
- Study
"Q" in The Complete Gospels, as well as secondary sources, to
determine the portrait of Jesus in this list of sayings. Since Q appears to be
so early, does this portrait appear more historical to you? Why or why not?
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- The
Gnostic Jesus
- The
Jesus in the Gnostic gospels appears quite different from the Jesus of the synoptic
gospels. Research how this Jesus differs in the context of gnosticism,
and assess the historicity of the Gnostic Jesus.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- Jesus
as...
- Select
one of the portraits of Jesus we are discussing in class during the second half
of the quarter (but not the one your dialogue group will discuss). Analyze the
texts that ground this portrait, and assess whether the portrait makes historical
sense.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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Historical
Paper | - Jesus
and Jewish Culture
- Select
some aspect of the culture of Jesus and analyze it. Then, using at least two gospels,
determine whether Jesus was consistent or inconsistent with his culture's view
of that institution. Possible topics include the treatment of women, taxation,
purity laws, views of children, views of the afterlife, perspectives on Jewish
law, or the view of the Temple.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- Jesus'
Interaction with Women
- Was
Jesus a feminist? Can we answer this question? For this paper, examine Christian
feminist reconstructions of Jesus and Jewish feminist responses, or select a female
figure with whom Jesus interacts and trace the development of the tradition.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- Jesus
and the Dead Sea Scrolls
- Some
people contend that Jesus was mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls or somehow involved
with the community that wrote them. Analyze these arguments in conjunction with
the gospels to determine their historical plausibility.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- Jesus:
The First Thirty Years
- The
canonical gospels do not tell us much about the first thirty years of Jesus' life,
but later gospels fill in the gaps. Study the developing traditions about Jesus'
early life and trace the sociological and theological pressures prompting these
developments.
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- Researchers:
Preston Graham, Can Turkmen
| Bibliography |
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- Jesus
in the Qur'an
- Jesus
is viewed as a prophet in the Qur'an, and so he is mentioned frequently. But the
Qur'an has its own themes that govern the presentation of Jesus. Analyze the Qur'anic
reference to Jesus to discover the traditions that influenced Muhammad's portrait
of the man.
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- Researchers:
David Addison, Ronnie Alvarado, Laura Martin
| Bibliography |
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- The
Reconstruction of Christian Origins in the Third Reich
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Hitler's Third Reich was founded on a principle of racial purity that demanded
the removal of those races and peoples presumed to be inferior to Aryans -- namely
Jews, homosexuals, the mentally retarded and the disabled. While his
program was nominally "scientific" rather than religious, its utopian
impulse and its focus on the Jews depended to great extent on a long history of
Christian idealism and anti-Judaism in Europe. Nor was that dependence
altogether in the past, for Germany housed some of the great Christian theological
schools, and many of its leading theologians were actively involved in Hitler's
anti-Semitic agenda. Your task in this paper is to explore how some
of Germany's biblical scholars and scholars of Christian origins constructed a
version of the historical Jesus that supported Hitler's murderous program, and
how other Christian scholars resisted conforming to this view.
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- Researchers: Kelly Esrey, Kevin Schmitt, Ben Thompson
| Bibliography |
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- The
Celluloid vs. the Historical Jesus
- Jesus
is frequently portrayed in contemporary film, both in pieced that document his
actual life in some way (e.g., "The
Last Temptation of Christ") and in interpretations of his life through
contemporary characters ("Live
Flesh"). View at least five of these movies and analyze their relationship
to the historical Jesus and to the gospels. Try to set each film in its own cultural
context.
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- Researchers:
| Bibliography |
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- Other
Topics
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- Jewish
Views of Jesus - Bill Kennedy
Jesus and Socialism - Scott Ahlstrom
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