Jesus Through the Ages

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Jesus of Nazareth is indisputably one of the most important figures in world history, yet for Christians even this claim is an understatement. The major Christian churches teach not only that Jesus was the foremost of the prophets, but that he is eternally the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. They also teach that his work as a man included not only his public miracles and his oral teaching but an invisible ministry of reconciling human beings to the God from whom they had been estranged by sin. Even for Christians who do not subscribe to traditional teachings, Jesus remains a moral exemplar and an object of devotion. Muslims revere him as the sixth of seven great prophets, a number of Jews and Hindus have found a place for him in their faith, and he has been a frequent subject for philosophers, poets, and novelists, whatever their religion. This course addresses the figure of Jesus both as the center of Christian proclamation and as a subject of imaginative and philosophical reflection in Christianity and beyond. The first half of the course will concern the nature, ministry, teaching, and example of Jesus as these have been understood in the historic teaching of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions; the second half of the course will turn to questions concerning the figure of Jesus as understood both in modern Christian theology, in other religious traditions, and in some recent literary and philosophical challenges to Christianity.