Required:
Marcus J. Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (San Francisco:
Harper, 1995).
E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London and New York: Penguin,
1993).
Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ (New York: Riverhead, 1995).
Sourcebook available at Grafikart in Isla Vista.
Recommended: Robert J. Miller, ed., The Complete Gospels (San Francisco: Harper and Polebridge, 1994).
On readings:
Purchase of The Complete Gospels is strongly recommended because of its
useful introductions, but for those students with financial limitations, the
gospels that cannot be found in the New Testament will be placed on reserve
as xeroxes under the following titles:
The Sayings Gospel Q
Fragmentary Gospels
The Infancy Gospel of James
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Mary
Gospels of the Hebrews, Ebionites, Nazoreans
Orphan Sayings
Any standard New Testament translation (i.e., nearly anything except the King
James Version or the Living Bible) will suffice for the other gospels. If you
would like to purchase a good ecumenical translation, you might consider the
New Revised Standard Version. Readings should be completed BEFORE the lecture
(with the exception of the first class).
Part One: Images of Jesus
4 April: Introduction
Introduction in Gospels, 1-8; the Gospel of John in Gospels, 194-219
(John, chaps. 1-8).
6 April: The Sunday School Jesus:
Son of God theology and the basic teachings
Borg, 1-45; the Gospel of John in
Gospels, 220-46 (John, chaps. 9-21).
11 April: The sources for the life
and teachings of Jesus: the New Testament and Q
The Sayings Gospel Q in Gospels,
247-76; Sanders 49-77.
13 April: Jesus and Judaism: Departure
or continuity?
Borg, 46-68; Sanders, 33-48; The Sayings Gospel Q in Gospels,
276-300.
18 April: Why isn't the Gospel
of Thomas in the New Testament? and other questions about the canon of the
New Testament
Fragmentary Gospels in Gospels, 397-424; the Infancy Gospel of James
in Gospels, 380-96.
20 April: The teacher of divine
wisdom
Borg, 69-95; the Gospel of Thomas in Gospels, 301-29.
25 April: Gnosis
Borg, 96-118; the Gospel of Mary in Gospels, 357-66.
27 April: The apocalyptic prophet
Borg, 119-140; the Gospel of Mark in Gospels, 9-30 (Mark, chaps. 1-7).
2 May: midterm
4 May: "Blessed are the cheesemakers":
Jesus meets Hollywood
The Gospel of Mark in Gospels,
31-52 (Mark, chaps. 8-16).
9 May: The celluloid Jesus, part
2
Sanders, 98-131; the Gospel of Matthew
in Gospels, 53-71 (Matthew, chaps. 1-7).
11 May: no class
Part Two: The Historical Quest
16 May: The Enlightenment and beyond:
the Quest, the New Quest, and the Third Quest
Sanders, 1-14, 132-68; the Gospel of
Matthew in Gospels, 100-106 (Matthew, chaps. 23-25).
18 May: The teachings of Jesus:
the Kingdom of God
Sanders, 169-204; Sourcebook: Gandhi,
A Letter to a Hindu; Tolstoy, letter to Gandhi.
23 May: Jesus the Zionist: Jesus'
mission and self-consciousness
Sanders 205-48; the Gospel of Luke in Gospels, 115-27 (Luke chaps. 1-4).
25 May: Jesus the Martyr: the death
of Jesus and its significance
Sanders, 249-81; the Gospel of Luke
in Gospels, 152-56, 172-74 (Luke, chaps. 15-16, 24).
Part Three: Jesus and Religion(s)
30 May: Religious pluralism or,
Jesus meets the Buddha
Thich, xiii-59; Sourcebook: Gandhi,
"Talk on Board S. S. Pilsna"; What Jesus Means to Me.
1 June: The teachings of Jesus
and spiritual discourse
Thich, 60-130.
6 June: Mysticism and the monastic
tradition
Thich,
131-98; Sourcebook: Pelikan.
8 June: Review: Images of Jesus
from then to now
The Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel
of the Ebionites, the Gospel of the Nazoreans, and the "Orphan Sayings"
(agrapha) in Gospels, 425-57.
If you are a student with a disability, and would like to discuss special academic accommodations, please contact me during my office hours.
1. Participation and attendance. The lectures are essential to this course and are not duplications of the reading material. You will need them to help you structure your answers to the exam questions. Class discussion is also an integral part of this course. To encourage preparation for participation, students are required to present, once a week, a slip of paper with 1. their name; 2. a favorite quotation from the any of the readings for that week; 3. a question. Hand this in to the lecturer at the end of the class period on either Tuesday or Thursday. Completion of this assignment is ungraded, but will account for 10% of the final grade.
2. A midterm exam, consisting of essays and short identifications, on 2 May. A study guide will be circulated before the exam. The exam will account for 40% of the final grade. Please bring blue books to the exam.
3. A take-home exam will account for 50% of the final grade. The questions will be handed out at the beginning of the final week of the course. They should be turned in to the main office of the Department of Religious Studies (3d floor HSSB Tower), or to the instructorÕs mailbox in the mailroom in the same location by 5:00 pm on Weds. 14 June. Since this is a take-home exam, the exam must be not less than 5 pages, double-spaced, and typed or computer-generated; it must also be carefully written with documentation from the textbooks and sources we have read for the course. Organized and thoughtful reading of the course materials will assist tremendously with this task.
http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/faculty/thomas/courses/s00/rgst105/