PhD/THS Course Offerings in New Testament

Advanced Master’s/Doctoral Level

NT 7605 (701)    Matthew
Examination of the structure and theology of Matthew, with special attention to exegesis of specific passages. Prerequisite: NT 5210. Offered alternate years. Three hours.

NT 7607 (704)    Lukan Writings
History and theology in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Special attention is given to narrative structure. Passages are selected from both books for study in depth. Prerequisite: NT 5210. Offered alternate years. Three hours.

NT 7610 (714)    Hebrews
Stress on the technique and method of book study. The distinctive emphases of the book are considered: the person and work of Christ, the philosophy of history, and the use of the Old Testament. Prerequisite: NT 5210. Offered alternate years. Two hours master’s or doctoral.

NT 7620 (725)    Revelation
Intensive historical, doctrinal, and critical study of the Apocalypse; interpretation of the messages and visions of the book, with consideration of the preterist, historic, idealist, and futurist positions. Prerequisite: NT 5210. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 7710 (745)    Intertestamental Period
History of the period from the close of the Old Testament canon in the fifth century B.C. to the time of Christ, with special emphasis on the literature and theology of the period. Prerequisites: NT 6221 or 6222 or concurrent enrollment. Offered alternate years. Cross-list as OT. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 7720 (731)    Backgrounds of Early Christianity
Introduction to primary sources and recent literary finds in Judaism, the Hellenistic religions, and the social history of the early Roman Empire; provides a background for the study of the ministry of Jesus and the life and mission of the early church. Offered alternate years. Cross-list as CH. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 7730 (732)    New Testament History
A study of the origins and the growth of the early church in the context of the history and the culture of the early Roman Empire, with particular attention to historical events, developments, and personalities, including chronological questions, exegetical interpretation of key New Testament and extrabiblical passages, and theological analyses of major trajectories. Prerequisite: NT 5210. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 8000 (845)    Seminar: Current Issues in New Testament Studies
Issues of importance in New Testament history, criticism, interpretation, and theology discussed in a seminar setting. Two to four hours, doctoral as posted.

NT 8420 (741)    Criticism of the Gospels
Seminar in the contemporary literary and historical approaches to the Gospel narratives and the formulation of a constructive position regarding the synoptic problem, the structure of the Gospel narratives, the composition of the fourth Gospel, and the relation of faith and history. Prerequisite or concurrent enrollment in NT 6221. Offered alternate years. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 8430 (749)    History of New Testament Interpretation
A survey of the history of criticism of the New Testament primarily from the late eighteenth century to the present. Particular emphasis on the development of critical methodologies, relationships between critical approaches and worldview, and evangelical responses to the key movements. Prerequisites: NT 6221 or 6222 or current enrollment. Offered alternate years. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 8610 (763)    The Teaching of Jesus
Study in the methods and content of Jesus’ teaching with collateral reading in the modern interpreters of Jesus. Offered alternate years. Prerequisites: NT 5210, NT 6221, or concurrent enrollment. Cross-list as ST. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 8620 (762)    Johannine Theology
Study in the theology of the Johannine literature, including critical appraisal of representative modern works. Offered alternate years. Prerequisites: NT 5210, NT 6221, or concurrent enrollment. Cross-list as ST. Two hours master’s or doctoral.

NT 8630 (764)    Pauline Theology
Analysis and synthesis of Paul’s letters and related documents (e.g., Acts, the Gospels, the Old Testament) with the goal of better understanding his theology as a whole. Includes evaluation of the New Perspective. Prerequisites: NT 5210, NT 6222, or concurrent enrollment. Offered alternate years. Cross-list as ST. Two hours master’s or doctoral.

NT 8640 (761)    New Testament Theology
Study of the major themes of New Testament theology, the distinctive contributions of the biblical authors, and the issue of unity and diversity within the canon of the New Testament. Pre/concurrent requisites: NT 5210, NT 6221, or 6222 or current enrollment. Cross-list as ST. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 8720 (771)    Advanced Greek Exegesis
Intensive exegetical study of a selected book (usually Acts, 2 Corinthians, the Pastoral Epistles, or Hebrews) or series of texts, evaluating the methods and conclusions of representative commentaries in light of recent studies in grammar and textual criticism. Prerequisites: NT 5210, NT 6222, or concurrent enrollment. May be repeated as the instructor varies, register as NT 7501. Two hours master’s or doctoral.

NT 8721 (772)    Advanced Greek Grammar
Studies in Greek grammar and syntax as they inform New Testament exegesis with special reference to standard grammars and contemporary linguistic discussion. Prerequisites: NT 5210, NT 6221, or 6222 or current enrollment. May be repeated as the instructor varies, register as NT 7501. Master’s three hours, doctoral 3+1 hours.

NT 8722 (776)    The Septuagint and the New Testament
History of the version; translation of representative passages; consideration of the Septuagint’s influence on New Testament grammar, lexicography, and theology; interaction with past and current Septuagint scholarship. Prerequisites: NT 5211 and OT 5242. Cross-list as ST. Two hours, master’s or doctoral.

NT 8723 (778)    New Testament Textual Criticism
Analysis of the materials, history, and principles of New Testament textual criticism with application to selected passages. Prerequisites: NT 5211, NT 6221, or 6222 or current enrollment. Offered on demand. Two hours master’s or doctoral.

Doctoral Seminars

NT 9000 (910)    Issues in New Testament Theology
Topics are chosen to reflect research interests of faculty or program participants, or that explore matters of concern to New Testament theology. May be repeated. One to four hours.

NT 9150 (912)    Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament
This seminar works through representative quotations and allusions from the Old Testament in the New, in various corpora of the New Testament, in order to probe the difficult questions surrounding the relationships between the Testaments. Interest centers not only on questions of text and form but on the manner in which Old Testament texts are handled in Second Temple Judaism and on the diversity of ways in which the New Testament appeals to the Old, the appropriation techniques involved, and especially the hermeneutical axioms and warrants that explicitly or implicitly underlie such appropriation. An attempt is made to relate such findings to selected larger issues of biblical and systematic theology, in short, how Christians can have a unified canon, preaching, and teaching from the entire Bible. 3+1 hours.

NT 9160 (925)    Missions in the New Testament
This seminar integrates historical and exegetical research with theological reflection and missiological reality. Lectures and seminar papers will focus on the historical presuppositions, the geographical realities, the cultural and religious contexts, the communicative strategies, and the content of the missionary enterprise of the early Christian church. 3+1 hours.

NT 9175 (917)    Mystery in the New Testament
After surveying the possible Hellenistic and Jewish backgrounds of musthvrion, this course examines all the musthvrion passages in the New Testament, taking particular notice of the context and flow of the argument. The concern is not only to gain a competent grasp of these passages but to wrestle with the themes of hiddenness and revelation in the biblical canon and to reflect how these themes are tied to larger theological structures. In particular, it is important to weigh how the same gospel, which is sometimes said to be prophesied under the categories of the old covenant and fulfilled in terms of the new, is here said to be hidden in the past and now revealed in the new. 3+1 hours.

NT 9220 (915)    Acts and Early Christian Historiography
This seminar seeks to examine the theology and narrative structure of the Acts of the Apostles within its literary and historical contexts. Particular attention will be paid to the relevance of OT, and Second Temple Jewish and Greco-Roman historical writings for the understanding of the Lukan portrayal of the early Christian movement. Beyond the emphasis on the material content of these works, this seminar will also focus on the related methodological issues in the interpretation of ancient narrative texts. 3+1 hours.

NT 9280 (920)    Revelation and Apocalyptic Literature
This course will study the Book of Revelation from four perspectives: antecedents (the meaning and use of “apocalyptic” in the ancient world), models (Jewish and Hellenistic apocalyptic works), exegesis (the study of individual texts), and biblical theology (the study of themes in the Book of Revelation). 3+1 hours.

NT 9715 (916)    Roots, Theory & Practice of New Testament Theology
The seminar will dwell on the post-Renaissance and Enlightenment background of the discipline of New Testament Theology, seminal figures and issues in its history (especially leading up to Troeltsch and Bultmann), and the current harvest of individual New Testament theologies. Topics receiving specific attention will include definition of “New Testament theology,” indebtedness of “historical” study to philosophical and theological schools of thought, and the viability of heilsgeschichtlich in comparison to religionsgeschichtlich approaches. 3+1 hours.

NT 9735 (923)    Advanced Hermeneutics
The course studies the history of hermeneutic theory in this century, especially with regard to current challenges to the possibilities of discovering meaning in the biblical text in the post-Gadamer era, with particular attention to biblical-critical (form, redaction, narrative criticism), sociocritical (liberation, black, feminist), and postmodern (deconstruction, reader response) concerns. 3+1 hours.

Updated to 2008-09 Catalog