SYLLABUS

2007.13.01 9:50

TRL-250 Reading the New Testament  
3 cr. - satisfies core requirement in TRL - theology
R 11:00 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. *(We have a problem: see below*)
F 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. (or 2:00, if needed) - extra session, mostly voluntary; if nobody shows up, I leave
F 6:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. open AIM (iChat)
W 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. open AIM
Professor: Jon Taylor
MSN Messenger -  Jtaylor01@ugf.edu
AIM: jtaylor01@mac.com
message board (participation required)

Assessment sheets (.rtf files):

• Student work (a web-fillable version is here)
• Professor & Course (a web-fillable version is here (soon))

Ext: 5357 (communicate by email - it's more dependable and often faster)
Office hours (PRHL Faculty Lounge & Argo Café: HERE  

*Due to an oversight (we won't mention any names), the online stayed on Thursday instead of moving to Wednesday. I have a Thursday committee meeting. We will come up with something for the Meeting days. If everyone will faithfully use the Message Board and AIM sessions or Yahoo Messenger, better because a) there's audio - and video; b) it will handle multiple participants), we'll gain, not lose time.

The message board as posted was coopted by a bot. The new board is or will be up shortly.

SCHEDULE

Note: Syllabi are a fantasy in advance of a course. This syllabus will be completed during the course, in collaboration with the participants. It is open to change as the course takes this or that turn. There are few fixed points.  

Description

We read the New Testament, and see what literary and other tools are available to help us engage what the texts are trying to communicate (in contrast to what people read into them). This is an online course. There are no tapes, no DVDs. We engage in discussion online, through a message board, and on AIM. You read the books from the bookstore, and others that you acquire through interlibrary loan or from our library. The whole operation is designed to be completely interactive.

What I want From You

I want to see you produce work that shows you are reading the New Testament primarily synchronically, but with awareness of the influence of diachrony in every reading of a text more than three minutes old. (You get the point here: reading is a complex act, not just peeling words from a page and sticking them on your forehead.)

• Whose voice do you hear when you read the text? Your own? someone out of the past calling to you? God calling to you out of time?
• What do you have to do to compensate for the fact that you don't know the language of the original text?
• How much do you need to know about the world of the text? What about the world in the text?

Some Stuff UGF Wants You to Learn and be Able to Do

The University wants you to reflect on the question of what it means to be human, making use of the intellectual resources available to you, considering the spiritual and practical dimensions of human existence. In the context of our course, this means encountering the visions of humanity present in the New Testament as the premier expression of the Christian Community. See the TRL home page for further description. Major, minor and core competencies may be found here (these have been revised some recently, but the revisions, insignificant in nature, have not yet been posted.

• To come to a better understanding of the New Testament:
• What was the world like then and how did people live and what does that have to do with the meaning we come to from the text?
• How do we understand the background of the text itself - how it was put together, edited, deveoped over time - and what does that have to do with how we read it?
• How do you deal with conflicting narratives?
• How do we read in depth, with clarity, to find the greatest value amd insight of the text - what makes it a 'classic' text?
• How do we use the text as we develop a foundation for a Christian way of life?
• How do we understand Jesus' call, his life and mission, in relation to the Christian way of life? How do the texts see Jesus' relationship to his followers' lives?

What You Have to Do

• Read the New Testament cover to cover
• Read Jack Miles' reading of the NT in Christ: a crisis in the life of God
• Ways you will show that you are doing the reading will include participation in the weekly class, message board, and messenger discussions on the NT texts, concepts, and other readings. There are assessment criteria related to your ability to discuss ideas, positions, and arguments that have come up in these discussions. Having no questions or being unable to contribute to discussions thus has serious implictions for grading.
• You have to expand your reading and resources beyond the course required readings to deal with your project (see next).
• Also in the first weeks of class, begin developing a project either on your own or with partners, in which you will investigate an issue taking you broadly across the NT literature (e.g., "the meanings of 'faith' in different NT books';"how is Jesus presented in different books?"). You will present your results in a paper due during finals week, with a summary (e.g., in PowerPoint form) to be posted on the web. (This final thing is still under study: we're looking for the best way to do it, to make it more consistent with the way I do it on campus.)
  • Step 1: IDEAS
    In the first two weeks of class, come up with ideas for your final project. Anything relating to the NT is fair game.
    Post your ideas on the message board for reactions and suggestions.
  • Step 2: OUTLINE (email ca. 31 January)
    At the end of week 3 , produce a WRITTEN sketch of what you have decided to do. include some of the bibliography you have found, basic theme or topic, the central question you are addressing.
  • Step 3: DRAFT I (email ca. 28 February)
    This is a rough draft of your work
  • Step 4: DRAFT II (email ca. 28 March)
  • Step 5: FINAL DRAFT (email ca. 20 April)
• Keep a reading journal listing reading (and viewing - TV, films...) you do related to the course with brief assessments of your reading.
• Assessment of your work will be in accord with the criteria - standards - set for course work.

Required Readings Grades

Oxford Study Bible (Bring to every class!)
Commentaries and journal articles as assigned
Jack Miles, Christ, a Crisis in the Life of God

recommended:
Josipovici, Gabriel, The Book of God, ch. 1 The Reader
Pelikan, Jaroslav, Whose Bible is It?
Anchor Bible Dictionary - relevant articles assigned

.... more to come

What I have to do

• Create a situation in which you can learn
• Provide a reasonable organization, set of objectives, and appropriate work, and clear criteria both to assess and evaluate (aka grade) your learning
• Give you feedback (aka assessment) of your work - when you want it and even when you don't.

• 'A' - You achieve the course objectives with no major weaknesses and overall excellence of performance. At the end of the course, your work is, on the whole, clear, precise, and well reasoned, You have only occasional lapses into weak reasoning. Your analyses are usually clear and precise. You normally formulate the information clearly, distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant, recognize key qeustionable assumptions, effectively clarify key concepts, and use language in keeping with educated usage. You are able to apply multiple approaches to your interpretive activity.You often identify competing points of view, and generally reason carefully from clear premises. You draw practical proposals for action, as well as take not of important implications and consequences.
• 'B' - You achieve the course objectives demonstrating more strengths than weakness, and while you show consistent high level performance, you do have some distinctive weakness, but not major ones. You show demnstrable skill in interpetation, and clearly demonstrate a range of interpetive thinking skills. You show the beginngs of taking charge of our own ideas, assumptions, inferences and intellectual processes. The specific, distinctive weaknesses in your performance will be laid out in your assessments.
• 'C' - You achieve the objectives with more than minimum skill, but with considerable inconsistency, and as many weaknesses as strengths. You show an inconsistent grasp of what the Old Testament is about, and have developed modest thinking skills in dealing with it. Though some assignments are reasonably well done, others re poorly done or at best mediocre. You have more than occasional lapses in preparation and reasoning. Though you use the language of the field sometimes effectively, sometimes you use it incorrectly and ineffectively. You occasionally show disipline and clarity, ocasionally analyze and formulate issues clearly and precisley. At times you give the feeling of merely going thorugh the motions of the assignments, carrying out form without spirit. You show modest and inconsistent, and at times downright weak, reasoning and problem-solving skills, Specific weaknesses will appear in your assessments.
• 'F' - You demonstrate only a minimum understanding of moral, just reasoning and skill in just thinking. You show little evidence of reasoning through the assignments, nor of developing skills to deal with issues of social justice. Assignments are poorly done, both in form and in content. Contribution to the advancement of the class is minimal. You do not show good interpretive reasoning and problem-solving skills, and often display poor interpretive and skills. You show an overall weakness in meeting the criteria in performance to show achievement of the course objectives. You fail to do the required work of the course, including participation in course activities (classes and classe substitutes), and demonstrate a pattern of not thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.