New Testament Programs and Ancient Med.
Teaching graduate students in the field of Ancient Mediterranean Religions – even if one’s subfield is the New Testament and early Christianity – can be very different from teaching the same field in a divinity school, as I began to indicate last time. At least it is very different from the field as it was taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, where I went. New Testament faculty there principally taught courses on exegesis – that is the interpretation of Scripture. These courses did have a strong historical component to them. But the only real concerns were the books of the New Testament, their interpretation, and the history that they both presuppose and illuminate. At UNC, I have never taught an exegesis course. Now it’s true, my students in New Testament (most of them actually are working outside the New Testament, as I’ll explain in a moment) do need to learn the science and art of exegesis. But there’s only one of me, and I can teach only one seminar a semester, and I don’t have time [...]