BI-6203 New Testament Backgrounds

Step into the world in which the New Testament was written, and learn to read, preach and teach it with a better grasp of its context.

The course follows Green and McDonald's The World of the New Testament, in which a team of scholars, most of them members of the evangelical Institute for Biblical Research, introduces the Jewish, Greek and Roman setting of the early church. Chapter by chapter, you ask what setting each topic describes, what evidence supports it, which New Testament texts it illuminates, and why it matters for interpretation.

What you will study

• Why context matters, and how New Testament events are dated
• The Jewish heritage: exile, the Maccabees, the Herods, and the Scriptures and their interpretation
• Roman Hellenism: Greek religion, emperor worship, philosophy, slavery, family life and education
• The Jewish people under Rome: temple, synagogue, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls
• How texts were written and read, and the literary forms of the New Testament
• Josephus, Philo, rabbinic literature and early Christian writings outside the New Testament
• Archaeology and the lands and cities of the New Testament, from Palestine to Rome

Course materials

• The World of the New Testament (Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald, eds.), the textbook you obtain
• The Bible