Introduction to the Bible : New testament

This course is an Introduction to the New Testament (NT). During approximatively 25 hours the student will "learn to read the NT". In a first part the traidtional questions are treated (the books, the aim, the authors, the dates, the structure), especially with regard to the four gospels. Moreover, we will learn to know the historical and religious environment of the NT (judaism, greco-roman culture). In order to understand the modern approaches of the texts, we present a historical survey of the research and the methodology of the NT (source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, narrative criticism, performance criticism). The last part of the course will be devoted to specific questions: textual criticism, the transmission of the text, apocryphal texts.
introduction to the NT is a general introduction in the critical reading of biblical text. A more throughgoing reading of individual books of the NT is given in other courses in BA and MA.