RLST 152: INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY AND LITERATURE
http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152#sessions
Yale Open Courses
Professor Dale B. Martin
Sessions
Lecture 1 Introduction: Why Study the New Testament?
Lecture 2 From Stories to Canon
Lecture 3 The Greco-Roman World
Lecture 4 Judaism in the First Century
Lecture 5 The New Testament as History
Lecture 6 The Gospel of Mark
Lecture 7 The Gospel of Matthew
Lecture 8 The Gospel of Thomas
Lecture 9 The Gospel of Luke
Lecture 10 The Acts of the Apostles
Lecture 11 Johannine Christianity: the Gospel
Lecture 12 Johannine Christianity: the Letters
Lecture 13 The Historical Jesus
Lecture 14 Paul as Missionary
Lecture 15 Paul as Pastor
Lecture 16 Paul as Jewish Theologian
Lecture 17 Paul”s Disciples
Lecture 18 Arguing with Paul?
Lecture 19 The “Household” Paul: the Pastorals
Lecture 20 The “Anti-household” Paul: Thecla
Lecture 21 Interpreting Scripture: Hebrews
Lecture 22 Interpreting Scripture: Medieval Interpretations
Lecture 23 Apocalyptic and Resistance
Lecture 24 Apocalyptic and Accommodation
Lecture 25 Ecclesiastical Institutions: Unity, Martyrs, and Bishops
Lecture 26 The “Afterlife” of the New Testament and Postmodern Interpretation
I listened to the first episode of this class which Judy Stack-Nelson posted a link to. The audio is clear and the guy is witty and it sounds like the class will be good. Yale must have a week or so they call the ”shopping week” because he mentions that if you decide to take the class after the shopping week, he will see you next week. So students must have the ability to drop in on classes they might be interested in taking. Him talking about the syllabus and the tests and papers takes me back to the day.
Judy Stack-Nelson I”ve listened to the whole first lecture and pieces of others. He really does a good job with the historical context stuff, but I will have to see what I think about his actual interpretation. And of course as he says, his approach is to look at the likely history of early Christian thought and try to figure out “what really happened.” That is not my approach. I think it is far too speculative an enterprise. My approach is more theological- rhetorical or theological-literary–looking at the texts to try to understand how they are constructing an argument or trying to convince the reader of certain ideas about the nature of God, humanity, Jesus, the life of the church, etc. That means I do end up doing a fair bit comparison–his idea of looking at the diversity rather than trying to construct a theological unity out of all the books–and thus teasing apart the various perspectives.
For me as a prof, though, it is nice to see that he isn”t completely polished and flowing all the time. He has to look at his notes, etc. Good to know even top profs can be like that.
Mary Koepke Fields • 2 mutual friends
back in the day . .
Steve Ranney Yes from what I know that is a more comprehensive approach. Otherwise you just leave the pieces of the watch on the table. It”s interesting and worthwhile to look at the development of the text but, given the text as it stands, I want to read and understand it.