This September (in just a few weeks) I will be visiting lecturer at CFI's online campus, teaching their one-month intro course The Real Origins of Christianity alongside Dr. John Shook (we co-taught the last course, on naturalism). Anyone can attend and receive a certificate of completion (though only students at UB receive college credit). It is all online and all flextime (you can work at any time of day or week).
Course description: This course examines the historical origins of the Christian religion from a secular and skeptical perspective. Course topics include the origins and composition of the New Testament; the sociological, cultural, and religious context and how they caused early Christian beliefs; discerning the historical, mythical and theological Jesus; and explaining early belief in his resurrection. It aims to give students a basic primer on the issue of early Christian origins and how to understand what happened without relying on dogma or the supernatural.
Course description: This course examines the historical origins of the Christian religion from a secular and skeptical perspective. Course topics include the origins and composition of the New Testament; the sociological, cultural, and religious context and how they caused early Christian beliefs; discerning the historical, mythical and theological Jesus; and explaining early belief in his resurrection. It aims to give students a basic primer on the issue of early Christian origins and how to understand what happened without relying on dogma or the supernatural.
2 comments:
Very excited about this. Richard, do you know of any future classes that will focus on biblical studies? Textual criticism or "higher" criticism classes would be fantastic.
I always like to hear your presentations (i.e. on-line) so there's no doubt this short course would be a step above passive listening. I won't be registering, sadly - but perhaps in future!
However, I did follow the link to the PDF of NTIF, and I was flabbergasted at the price. $2.50? SOLD. Ah, the magic of electronic publishing.
I do have a bone to pick, though: the title of the course. The Real Origins of Christianity? I get a bit suspicious when people get insistent like that. It's a bit too much a self-assured, Lee Strobel type of a title (e.g. The Case for the Real Jesus - yeah, pick one!).
There's a history mini-series by Simon Schama, A History of Britain. I have the documentary mini-series, A History of Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch (haven't watched it yet). In the light of those titles, how about just The Origins of Christianity? Obviously it is not a devotional course, but still, ditch the 'skeptical perspective' bit. How about just a 'scholarly perspective'?
Just my two mites, as usual.
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