Living Tradition I: Reading the Gospels and Acts

This course is a survey of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in their historical and religious background with attention to hermeneutics, the patristic exegetical heritage, and modern biblical studies. The Gospels and Acts will be read in their entirety, along with other early Christian texts and literature from the same period, commentaries by church fathers and writings by scholars and theologians through to our day. Students will explore these texts as among the most important literature of first-century Judaism, examining them within the wider corpus of Second Temple Jewish writings. The course will introduce critical tools and methodological approaches which make exegesis possible, encountering modern historical-critical methods as well as critiques and alternatives offered from narrative and other post-critical approaches. Patristic, mediaeval, Reformation, and contemporary interpretations will be placed in productive dialogue, allowing these diverse perspectives to counter-inform each other and effectively resource preaching and ministry today. Recent "within Judaism" scholarship will inform the course throughout.