Boy oh boy I am working through a VERY busy period at the moment, so any thoughts on the following will be appreciated. The essay titles are for second year undergrads.
- Jesus said that 'the kingdom of God has come near'. What might he have meant?
- Why is the resurrection of Jesus so important for the first Christians?
- How should the apocalyptic language in the Olivet Discourse be understood?
Bear in mind that obscure or expensive books may not be at the top of my list to order for our library!
Seriously, your thoughts are much appreciated as ever.
UPDATE: As this post was completely unclear (I was very tired when I wrote it!) let me try again: the essay titles are already fixed (not related to the previous but one post) and I wanted suggestions for a reading list for each essay. Help is appreciated!
7 comments:
Could you swop the 'why' from front to back in #2 - "Is the resurrection [the most important event] for early Christians? Why?" Not that I'm suggesting you've got American Jesus Seminar students buried in your classes, assuming the earliest Christians only had the "gospels" of "Q" and "Thomas" (help) and didn't believe in the resurrection. I just thought swopping the 'why' allowed a broader interpretation.
On the Olivet Discourse, an interesting book is The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul, giving the Preterist position, one that seems to make sense of a lot of apocalyptic passages.
You are spoon feeding these students. Make them develop their own reading lists. That's what they made us do when *I* studied theology and it made us much better people. :-)
How about Perrin, Norman, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom Philadelphia: SCM, 1976? The library almost certainly already has it and although it's not exactly new, my memory suggests that it has some interesting stuff on Jewish understandings of the term "kingdom" as reign rather than location.
Bird and Crossley's new book (which is paperback and therefore not all that expensive but possibly not detailed enough for what your students need) has an interesting segment on the resurrection which has some bibliographical suggestions. It's in my gym bag at the moment, though. I will try to remember to have a look and see what they suggest.
Bird and Crossley have 10 references on the resurrection. I am lazy. I will scan them tomorrow rather than typing them now. Not sure if you want 10 references in the comments here? If you email me at jredman at une dot edu dot au I can email them to you.
Surely all you need for the resurrection topic is Wright's RSOG and his bibliography. ;-)
Like Judy, we made our own reading choices. It's all part of the research training.
yea, no doubt spoon feeding, but I'm just such a nice guy!
Judy, thanks, I already have that book!
Pastor Bob, thanks.
Olivet discourse - Cross at a Distance by Peter Bolt. He argues it's all about the cross...
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