New Testament and Early Christian Studies (research)

Studying the New Testament and Early Christianity throws a very unique light upon the multicultural world of Late Antiquity. In this specialisation you combine in-depth textual and archaeological research on the world of the New Testament, emerging Christianity and the shaping of classical Judaism.

Starting as a Palestinian Jewish “sect”, Christianity from the outset came into contact and conflict with religious traditions of many sorts, making it an ideal case for the study of how a social and religious minority formed its identity through reflection and adaptation, and how it eventually transformed the Graeco-Roman world to lay the foundation of almost two millennia of Western culture.
Texts and material culture are equally in focus; you study base texts in the original language, do research on current positions in scholarship, reach your own conclusions through class discussion and guided self-study, and can even take part in an archaeological excavation in Galilee (www.kinneret-excavations.org).