Due Mar 2

Christianity: a brief introduction

Many of you have read the Christian Gospels before, and all of you have at least some familiarity with Christian beliefs and tradition. So we’re spending just a single day on this vital topic, and I aim to focus on lesser-known aspects of the origin of this vital world religion. Please email me with any follow-up questions—or raise your hand in class!

Reading: selections from the New Testament, as translated by Richmond Lattimore (Blackboard: Christian Scripture.pdf).

Viewing: Christian Funerary Art from the Roman Catacombs.

(Credit: Mary Harrsch at the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Baths of Diocletian, Rome: link)

Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, posting as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:

1. Identify and comment on a repeated motif from the reading: for example, healing or feeding. Don’t just name the pattern, but focus attention on the details: if healing, who is healed and how? if feeding, who is fed and how?
2. Jesus often presents his teaching in the form of “parables.” Apply what you’ve learned in Rhetoric to explain (or perhaps question) the effectiveness of one of the parables the reading.
3. Name one of your preconceptions about Christianity and explain how it was challenged by something in today’s reading.