10544 - Philology and New Testament Exegesis (1)

Learning outcomes

The students will get basis knowledge of the structures and formation of the New Testament, and of its historical, philological, and literary place. In the second part of the course, they will learn the use of exegetical instruments (critical editions, lexica, concordances, commentaries; electronic data-bases) through researches applied to New Testament texts.

Course contents

The students will get basis knowledge of the structures and formation of the New Testament, and of its historical, philological, and literary place. In addition, the importance of the New Testament in the western thought will be deepened.

The program of the course will be developed as follows:

i) List, dating, content of the New Testament writings (10 hours).

ii) History of New Testament research. The beginnings of New Testament philology and the main stages of its historical development, from Late Antiquity (Origen, II/III a.D.; Jerome, IV/V a.D.) to Renaissance (Erasmus, Luther) and to the rise of the modern critical research (XVIII/XIX centuries) and its growth in contemporary times. Main trends in today's New Testament research (10 hours).

ii) The formation of New Testament: from the oral teaching of Jesus and of the apostles to progressive constitution, and later ‘canonization', of a literary corpus. The text of the New Testament. Language, style, and literary forms characteristic of New Testament writings (10 hours).

Readings/Bibliography

• Full reading of the New Testament in a modern Italian translation; the edition CEI (= “Conferenza Episcopale Italiana”), 2008 (freely downloadable; the text will be also uploaded by the teacher within teaching material). The CEI translation is printed also in Bibbia di Gerusalemme (1^a ed., EDB, Bologna 1974 [e rist.]; 2^a ed., EDB, Bologna 2009 [e rist.]), complete with a rich annotation.
• One of the following handbooks by student’s choice:

— R.E. BROWN, Introduzione al Nuovo Testamento, Queriniana, Brescia 2001 (only pp. 31-192; 553-593; 1063-1093);

— B.D. EHRMAN, Il Nuovo Testamento: un'introduzione, Carocci, Roma 2015 (only pp. 95ff.).

• The students who cannot attend the lessons, in addition to the above program, will replace the class notes with the reading of 2 articles at their choice included in the following collections of essays:

— E. PRINZIVALLI (a cura di), C. Gianotto, E. Norelli, M. Pesce, L'enigma Gesù. Fonti e metodi della ricerca storica, Carocci, Roma 2008 (rist.);

— R. PENNA (a cura di), Le origini del cristianesimo. Una guida, Roma, Carocci 2004 (rist.)

— R. PENNA, Le prime comunità cristiane. Persone, tempi, luoghi, forme, credenze, Roma, Carocci 2011 (rist.).

 

Teaching methods

Lectures; use of bibliographic and electronic databases.

Assessment methods

– in the first part of the exam, the students will demonstrate a complete reading of the New Testament in a modern italian translation.

– in the second part of the exam, the students will discuss, on the basis of the chosen handbook and essays, the main critical problems concerning the New Testament, and especially its historical and literary contents, its tradition and the textual and literary forms which it contains.

In order to obtain a good grade, the students should show the knowledge of the contents of both parts of the exam.

Teaching tools

Projector; PC.

Office hours

See the website of Antonio Cacciari