Church and Empire in the Holy Land: Christian Perspectives from Jesus to Justinian

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course introduces students to the shifting relations that characterized Christians' experience and understanding of the Roman empire during the first half-millennium of the Christian era. Focusing on the Church in the Holy Land as a unique historical laboratory richly intertwining culture, doctrine, and praxis, the course will be divided into three parts, surveying three major epochs: (1) the New Testament era; (2) the minority Church of the martyrs; and (3) Christian Byzantium. Profiting from the particular opportunities presented by the location at Tantur, the course will give special attention to sites of historical significance that may be visited and explored beyond the classroom. Students will thus gain an overview of general trends and acquire in-depth knowledge of certain key points of interest, while engaging various important dialectical relationships at work in the formation of normative Christian theological thought: e.g. Church and state, Christianity and non-Christian religions (both paganism and Judaism), Church and culture (inculturation), etc. As such, the course fulfills the expectations of a second required course in theology, exploring how "theology, as reflection on a living Tradition, is at once and inseparably both doctrinal and dialogical."