THEO44830: Christianity in The Second Century

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• To provide students with awareness of continuities and discontinuites in Christian belief and practice during the second century CE;
• To provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary for interpreting Christian texts from this period;
• To provide students with a foundation upon which they can interpret current attempts to appropriate second century Christianity in modern Christianity

• This module will explore the development of Christian thought and practice in the pivotal period between the writing of the documents that came to be gathered into the New Testament and the early literary activity of Origen of Alexandria in the early third century (c.110 and c. 220). Subjects to be studied include the development of Christian institutions, the development of Christian intellectual life, the relationship between Christianity and the educational, rhetorical and philosophical culture in which it found itself, and the phenomenon of Gnosticism.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• An advanced understanding of Christianity in the second century.

Subject-specific Skills:

• An ability to analyse and write about Christian texts and practices of the period with intellectual rigour and historical depth.

Key Skills:

• An ability to read complex texts with intellectual nuance; research, presentation and writing skills; an ability to ask scholarly questions about sources and adaptation of sources.

• Seminars (including seminar presentations) enhance subject-specific knowledge and understanding, promoting a conversation among differing viewpoints.
• Teaching as a short fat module enables immersion in the subject through a long weekly seminar, and provides extensive subsequent time for developing final project.
• Summative essays assess subject-specific knowledge and understanding, along with student skills in research, analysis and argumentation.

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