DR103A/DR203A (Online) The Theology and Practice of Preaching

Course Codes(s): DR103A/DR203A (Online) The Theology and Practice of Preaching

Course Co-ordinator: Rev Dr Ken Jeffrey

(https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/ksjeffrey)

Course Description:

THIS IS A COURSE IN HOMILETICS WHICH ENGAGES STUDENTS IN CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE THEORY, PRACTICE, AND THEOLOGY OF THE ART OF EFFECTIVE AND RESPONSIBLE PREACHING IN THE CONTEXT OF CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. THIS COURSE EXPLORES THE DISCIPLINE OF HOMILETICS, THE ARTFUL VERBAL COMMUNICATION OF THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL IN THE CONTEXT OF PUBLIC WORSHIP AND BEYOND. TOPICS TO BE CONSIDERED INCLUDE THE THEOLOGY OF PREACHING, THE ROLE OF BIBLICAL EXEGESIS IN SERMON PREPARATION, THE FORMS AND AIMS OF THE SERMON, THE PLACE OF PREACHING WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND THE QUESTION OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION TO DIVERSE AUDIENCES. WE WILL ENGAGE THESE TOPICS THROUGH A COMBINATION OF DIRECTED READING, FORMATIVE EXERCISES, WEB-FACILITATED SEMINAR DISCUSSION AND SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS.

Selected Reading:

Stewart, J.S., Heralds of God: A Practical Book on Preaching (London: Regent College Publishing, 1946)

Wilson, P.S., The Practice of Preaching (Oxford: Abingdon Press, 2007).

DR DR103C/DR103D/DR203D/DR203CThe Pilgrim City

Course Code(s): DR103C/DR103D/DR203D/DRxxxx The Pilgrim City

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/divinity-religious-studies/profiles/m.ehrenschwendtner

Course Description:

This course traces the history of Christianity from its establishment as the religion of the Roman Empire to the period just prior to the Reformation in the early 16th century. Lectures and seminars examine some of the main strands of Christian theology, spirituality and institutional life in this period. The course also considers marginal groups such as the Cathars and Waldensians, as well as efforts of church reform after the Black Death.

The course provides useful historical and theological background for students interested in the Reformation period as well as in mediaeval art, literature and history.

Selected Reading:

Rosenwein, H.B., A Short History of the Middle Ages, (Toronto: UTP, 1st edn. 2001 (5th edn., 2018)

Medieval copyists and illuminators produced most beautiful manuscripts for liturgical and contemplative purposes; see e.g.: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/illuminated/manuscript/discover

DR1039/DR1078 Greek Language (New Testament) I

Course Codes(s): DR1039/DR1078 Greek Language (New Testament) I

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Sam Newington (s.newington@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/s.newington

Course Description:

The course will introduce students to the form of Greek found in the New Testament and help students to begin to read the New Testament in Greek. Particular focus will be given to grammar, language learning and appreciation of the ancient texts and translations.

Selected Reading:

Duff, J., Elements of New Testament Greek, 3rd Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

DR1042 Hebrew I

Course Code: DR1042 Hebrew I

Course Co-ordinator: Professor Joachim Schaper (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/j.schaper)

Course Description:

This course is an introduction to biblical (‘classical’) Hebrew without presupposing any prior knowledge. It involves the study of grammar and syntax and the translation of simple Hebrew prose texts. Hebrew I is taught on the basis of the first 15 chapters and excursuses A-F of C.L. Seow, A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew, Nashville: Abingdon Press, revised edition 1995. Classical Hebrew will be taught with the help of this book, and the homework will be based on the tasks set out in it.

Selected Reading:

Brown, F., Driver, S.R. & Briggs, C.A., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907)

Seow, C. L., A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Nashville: Abingdon Press, revised edition 1995)

The students are required to consult this dictionary in order to prepare the homework. Students can either buy it or consult a library copy.

For students working in the electronic environment: the programmes Logos, Bible Works, and Bible Windows include this dictionary.

DR1089/ DR2089/DR1090/DR2090 Exploring the Tradition of Western Ethics

Course Codes(s): DR1089/ DR2089/DR1090/DR2090) Exploring the

Tradition of Western Ethics

Course Co-ordinators: Dr Robert Heimburger & Dr Michael Laffin

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/divinity-religious-studies/index.php

Course Description:

What does it mean to live a good life? This course provides an opportunity for students from any or no religious background to explore Christian and Western traditions of moral reflection and formation. Students will examine how various theologians and philosophers from the past might shed light on contemporary moral questions and issues regarding war, inequality, human enhancement, and more.

Selected Reading (sections of the following):

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

Luther, Freedom of a Christian

Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling

Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morality

DR1091/DR2077 History and Religion of Ancient Israel

Course Codes(s): DR1091/DR2077 History and Religion of Ancient Israel

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Juan Cruz

Dr Juan Cruz earned his Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary and PhD from the University of Aberdeen. He is the author of the monograph, “Who is like Yahweh?”: A Study of Divine Metaphors in the Book of Micah (FRLANT 263; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), and has published several other academic articles.

Course Description:

This course discusses the issues involved in reconstructing the history and religion of ancient Israel. It will explore the available archaeological and textual evidence that reflects the reality of ancient Israel and helps reconstruct its history. It will also examine the wider cultural, historical, and social background of ancient Israel in the ancient Near East.

Selected Reading:

Collins, J.J., Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004)

Dalley, S., Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)

Ebeling, J..J., Wright, E., Elliott, M. & Flesher, P.V.M. (eds.), The Old Testament in Archaeology and History(Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2017)

Schaper, J., Media and Monotheism: Presence, Representation, and Abstraction in Ancient Judah. ORA 33; (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019)

DR109E/DR202E Jesus in History and Culture

Course Codes(s): DR109E/DR202E Jesus in History and Culture

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Katherine Hockey (Katherine.hockey@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/katherine.hockey

Course Description:

What was "the Historical Jesus" really like and how does this figure relate both to the theological traditions of the church and to popular reworkings of the gospel stories through the centuries? To answer these questions, this course will examine the representations of Jesus in the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), as well as in a selection of non-canonical (apocryphal) Gospels. In addition to careful study of the gospel material and Historical Jesus theories, the module will also consider representations of Jesus in visual art, in novels and in films. The module will provide important foundations for advanced Honours study in New Testament, but will also be of interest to students who want to learn more about the impact of the figure of Jesus on societies and cultures for the last two millennia.

Selected Reading:

Burkett, D. (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Jesus (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010)

Marsh, C. & Moyise, S. (eds.), Jesus and the Gospels (Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2015)

SX1017 Global Issues – Global Religions

Course Codes(s): SX1017 Global Issues – Global Religions

Course Co-ordinator: Dr. Léon van Ommen Lecturer in Practical Theology

(Leon.vanommen@abdn.ac.uk) https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/leon.vanommen/

Course Description:

Religions are entangled with almost every issue of importance in the contemporary world. In an era of rapid globalization and growing interconnectedness, different peoples and cultures are constantly coming into contact with each other in new ways. This overlapping of peoples is particularly evident in the conflicts and tensions that impact on religious traditions when, as a result of globalisation, local communities are exposed to other cultures and different competing faiths. This course studies the many ways this phenomenon is experienced by different communities and traditions, and how this dynamic impacts on various spheres of modern culture, society, and politics. The course explores these issues from a variety of academic disciplines and methods, and asks questions such as the following: Should religious reasoning be permitted in public? Will secularization eventually make religions obsolete? Is being religious good for your health? Can you be a scientist and also be religious?

LT1009/LT1010 Latin I

Course Codes(s): LT1009/LT1010 Latin I

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Sam Newington (s.newington@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/s.newington

Course Description:

This offers an introduction into Latin language and ancient Roman history and society. The main focus is language and grammar, developing skills to translate and interpret ancient literary and visual sources.

Selected Reading:

Jones, P.V. & Sidwell, K.C. (eds.), Reading Latin: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises, (Cambridge: CUP, 2000)

Jones, P.V. & Sidwell, K.C. (eds.), Reading Latin: Text (Cambridge: CUP, 2000)

Wheelock, F.M., Wheelock’s Latin, 7th edition, edited by R.A. LaFleur (New York: Harper Collins, 2010)

DR151E/DR251E/DR151F/DR251F What does it mean to be dead

Course Codes(s): DR151E/DR251E/DR151F/DR251F What does it mean

to be dead

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Sam Newington (s.newington@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/s.newington

Course Description:

This course will explore ancient Greek attitudes towards death and dying and explore the

various ways in which it meant to be dead in Ancient Greece. This course will be

interdisciplinary in approach, looking at: performative texts (ancient Greek plays and epics),

visual culture (monuments, sacred sites), philosophy and science (Presocratic, Plato and

Epicurus).

Selected Reading:

Sourvinou- Inwood, C., Reading Greek death: To the end of the classical period (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)

Taplin, O., Homeric soundings: The shaping of the Iliad (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)

Vermeule, E., Aspects of death in early Greek art and poetry (California: University of California, 1979)

DR151H/D251R Exploring the New Testament (online)

Course Code(s): DR151H / D251R Exploring the New Testament (online)

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Katherine Hockey

(https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/katherine.hockey)

Course Lecturer: Dr J. Thomas Hewitt (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/jthomas.Hewitt)

Course Description:

The New Testament is a small library of twenty-seven texts, which were produced during the first generation of the Jesus movement, and which have had a significant impact on world history. This course explores such issues as criteria for establishing the authorship and chronology of the New Testament texts; critical interpretative approaches used in the academic discipline of Biblical Studies; the relation between the early Jesus movement and its surrounding Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts; earliest conceptualizations of Jesus’s identity and the question of diversity and coherence between those views; various understandings of salvation articulated by the New Testament authors; and considerations of continuity and discontinuity between Second Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity. Throughout, students will be introduced to both the content of the New Testament and scholarly debates about how that content may be understood.

Selected Reading:

Marshall, H., Travis, S. & Paul, I. (eds.), Exploring the New Testament: Volume 2: Letters and Revelation. 2nd revised version (London: SPCK, 2011)

Walton, S. & Wenham, D. (eds.) Exploring the New Testament: Volume 1: Gospels and Acts. 2nd revised version (London: SPCK, 2011)

DR151W/DR251W: God, Sexualities and Identity

Course Codes(s): DR151W/DR251W- God, Sexualities and Identity

Course Co-Ordinator and Lecturer(s): Dr Katie Cross

(https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/k.cross); Dr Sam Newington

Course Description:

This course is about about gender, sexuality, and identity- three intersecting areas of discourse which have never been more relevant. In this module, we will explore gender, sexuality and identity in relation to religion, or the concept of God. You will be introduced to queer and feminist critical theories, gender history, and sexual ethics as they relate to religion and philosophy. The course will be delivered by a team of lecturers, offering a variety of historical, philosophical, ethical and theological reflections on some very relevant questions: Is God a woman? Is religion innately misogynist? How has feminist or queer theory been integrated into religious traditions? What theological accounts of anthropology are there? How does religion shape identity? What do we learn from female mystics? How have the traditions of Christianity dealt with gender, sexuality and queer identities?

DR152A/DR250A/DR152B/DR250BAncient Empires

Course Codes(s): DR152A/DR152B/DR250A/DR250B Ancient Empires

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Sam Newington (s.newington@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/s.newington

Course Description:

This course will explore the rise and fall of Empires from the ancient world and beyond; examining to what extent religion, power struggles, conflict and politics impacted the shaping of an ancient Empire and the world today. Particular focus will be given Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman Empires and leading into the Medieval World.

The course will explore a range of materials: from ancient Greek, Babylonian and Roman sources. Textual and archaeological data from the 15th century BCE to 4st century CE will also be considered.

Selected Reading:

Mitchell, S., A History of the Later Roman Empire (Oxford: OUP, 2007)

Osborne, R., ‘Archaeology and the Athenian Empire’, TAPA 129 (1999), pp.319-332

Rosenstein, N. & Morstein-Marx, R. (eds), A Companion to the Roman Republic (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)

Scullard, H.H., A History of the Roman World 753-146 BC (London: Routledge, 1980)

Snell, D. (ed), A Companion to the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Wiley - Blackwell, 2020)

DR1536 Hebrew II

Course Code: DR1536 Hebrew II

Course Co-ordinator: Professor Joachim Schaper (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/j.schaper)

Course Description:

This course is the second part of an introduction to biblical (‘classical’) Hebrew. It involves the study of grammar and syntax and the translation of simple Hebrew prose texts. Only students who have passed DR1042 or equivalent are eligible to take this course.

Selected Reading:

Brown, F., Driver, S.R. & Briggs, C.A. (eds), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1907)

Seow, C.L, A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Rev. ed.; Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995)

The students are required to consult this dictionary in order to prepare the homework. Students can either buy it or consult a library copy.

For students working in the electronic environment: the programmes Logos, Bible Works, and Bible Windows include this dictionary.

DR1538/DR1578 Greek Language (New Testament) II

Course Codes(s): DR1538/DR1578 Greek Language (New Testament) II

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Sam Newington (s.newington@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/s.newington

Course Description:

This course, which builds on the foundations laid in DR1039, introduces further study of the grammar and vocabulary of New Testament Greek. Particular focus will be to grammar, language learning and appreciation of the ancient texts and translations.

Selected Reading:

Duff, J., Elements of New Testament Greek, 3rd Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

LT1507/LT1508 Latin II

Course Codes(s): LT1507/LT1508 Latin II

Course Co-ordinator: Dr Sam Newington (s.newington@abdn.ac.uk)

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/s.newington

Course Description:

Following on from semester 1, this course continues to offer a further understanding into classical Latin language and ancient Roman history and society. The main areas of focus are language and grammar, developing skills to translate and interpret ancient literary and visual sources.

Selected Reading:

Jones, P.V. & Sidwell, K.C. (eds.), Reading Latin: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises, (Cambridge: CUP, 2000)

Jones, P.V. & Sidwell, K.C. (eds.), Reading Latin: Text (Cambridge: CUP, 2000)

Wheelock, F.M., Wheelock’s Latin, 7th edition, edited by R.A. LaFleur (New York: Harper Collins, 2010)

DR2065/ME33FP Film as a Public Ethical Arena

Course Codes(s): DR2065/ME33FP Film as a Public Ethical Arena

Course Co-ordinator: Professor Brian Brock (https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/b.brock)

Course Description:

The basis of this course is an understanding of film as a unique medium through which to bring our contemporary world and the moral presuppositions which characterize it into better view. This course will study various aspects of film production in order to give students a better grasp of how moral issues in the contemporary world can be introduced in cinematic form, as well as teaching students that filmmaking (especially documentary making) is a form of active citizenship which invites and provokes active citizenship from viewers.

Selected Reading:

DR2076 God, Sex and Death in our Technological Age

Course Codes(s): DR2076 God, Sex and Death in our Technological Age

Course Co-ordinator: Professor Grant Macaskill

(https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/grant.macaskill)

Course Description:

We live in a world that our ancestors could scarcely have imagined, with the progress of science and technology opening to us the workings of the universe and new ways to live within it as human beings. Rapid technological advancements in computing, robotics, materials, genetics, biological engineering other technical fields hold immense promise for the augmentation and transformation of our humanity, but they pose deeply disorienting questions about just what it means—and what it will mean in the future—to be a human being at all. Can any of the ways of thinking about human being and significance that were held in the past be sustained today, or in the future? Are the issues less straightforward than those who have grown up in the modern West or the Global North might assume? Can they be explored simply through scientific analysis, or do we require other, more imaginative ways of reflecting on them? The pace of change and the diversity of human experience ensure there is no one story to be told here: but our preoccupations with life at its extremes—its origins and ends, its most intimate and intense, and in relation to questions of ultimate reality and meaning—invite open- ended questioning of what we are making of ourselves, or indeed, what is being made of us, in our technological age.

Selected Reading:

DR2566 Does God Exist: An Introduction to Philosophy of Religion

Course Code(s): DR2566 Does God Exist: An Introduction to the

Philosophy of Religion

Course Code(s): Dr Edward Epsen: edward.epseniii@abdn.ac.uk

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/people/profiles/edward.epseniii

Course Description:

The Philosophy of Religion investigates fundamental and long-standing questions about the nature and rationality of religious beliefs and practices. Key topics include arguments for the existence of God, the concept and attributes of God, the nature of religious language, the problem of evil, the question of miracles, and the challenges of religious pluralism. In this course we will explore such questions through close attention to classic texts within the mainstream tradition of Philosophy of Religion. The course presumes no previous philosophical or religious knowledge, only a keen interest in thinking patiently and critically about the subject matter. Programmatic lectures are paired with tutorial discussion of concise selections from relevant primary texts.

Selected Reading:

Meister, C., Introducing Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Routledge, 2009)

https://www.routledge.com/Introducing-Philosophy-of-Religion/Meister/p/book/9780415403276

Meister, C., The Philosophy of Religion Reader (Oxford: Routledge, 2007)

https://www.routledge.com/The-Philosophy-of-Religion-Reader/Meister/p/book/9780415408912