What were the religious and cultural landscapes within which Christianity emerged? How did inhabitants of the ancient Mediterranean world speak about the concept and significance of the concept of religion? How was Jesus understood? In the first half of this course, we shall address these questions by examining the formation of Christianity from its origins as a Jewish movement until its legalization, using a comparative sociohistorical approach. In the second half of the course, we shall examine the earliest literature produced by the Jesus movement and consider it within the comparative framework developed in the first half of the course. Readings will include: Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine; Greg Riley, One Jesus, Many Christs; John Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography; Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician; Michel Foucault, The Care of the Self; as well as primary sources from Mediterranean antiquity. Class format: lecture, discussions, workshops. Requirements: one class presentation; 4 brief papers (2-3 pages); one historiographical essay (5 pages), and one historical research paper (15 pages).
Open to all classes without prerequisite. Enrollment limited to 30.