BA Religions, Theology and Ethics

This course helps you to understand the ideas of the most influential Christian writer. You will learn to interpret the apostle Paul’s main letters. You will learn to discuss theological and ethical ideas in them, and ways in which Paul’s ideas are used both by Christian churches and secular philosophers. You will gain a set of skills for evaluating such uses.

You do not need to have studied a New Testament course unit before and you do not need to understand Greek (although there is an option to study a key text in Greek if you have some knowledge of the language).

• To enable students to discuss ideas expressed in Paul's letters by interpreting the letters in their first-century context.
• To enable students to assess historic and current uses of Paul’s ideas.

• Interactive lectures with discussions.
• Seminars studying one of Paul’s letters in depth.
• Further web-based material to interact with provided via Blackboard

• Discuss the structure and content of Paul’s main letters
• Evaluate arguments for and against Pauline authorship of the various letters ascribed to him in the New Testament
• Discuss theological and ethical issues in Paul's letters
• Evaluate scholarly understandings of Paul’s ideas
• Evaluate uses of Paul’s ideas by either churches or recent philosophers (or both)

• Use appropriate strategies to interpret Paul’s letters in their context
• Use appropriate strategies to evaluate uses of Paul’s letters
• [For students studying the letters in English only] discuss issues in using English translations of key Pauline texts and implement strategies for handling such issues
• [For students studying the letters in both English and Greek] translate and interpret passages in Paul's letters where the Greek is of particular theological or ethical significance.

• Use advanced library resources for study of the New Testament
• Identify and appropriately use good quality New Testament scholarly resources on the internet
• Identify past and present uses of Paul’s letters and ideas in various media
• Implement strategies for assessing such usage

• Use research and critical skills in an essay project
• Synthesise information and present it in various written forms
• Show ability to plan work and to work well in a group.
• Demonstrate good presentation skills

• Oral and written feedback on group presentation
• Written feedback on all assessment tasks
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

David Horrell, An Introduction to the Study of Paul, London: T&T Clark Intl, 2006, 2nd edn;

David Horrell, Solidarity and Difference Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul's Ethics (London: T&T Clark Intl, 2005)

John Milbank, Slavoj Zizek, Creston Davis, Paul's new moment: continental philosophy and the future of Christian theology (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010)

Peter Frick, ed., Paul in the Grip of the Philosophers: the Apostle and Contemporary Continental Philosophy (Fortress, 2013)

Tom Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said (Oxford: Lion, 1997)

Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The `Lutheran' Paul and his Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004);

Peter Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level (London: SPCK/Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009)

Information
Free Choice : Yes

EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS

By the end of this course students will be able to:

•         discuss reference to, and usage of Paul’s ideas in the kinds of cultural and political contexts encountered in areas of work such as the media

•         Evaluate uses by people working in such fields

•         Accurately handle issues relating to Paul (and ethical and philosophical issues related to his ideas) likely to arise in R.E. teaching in schools

•         Accurately handle Paul’s letters in contexts of use in churches
 

A full description of this course can be found in MyManchester.