New Testament and Early Christian Studies (research)

De studie van het Nieuwe Testament en het vroege christendom laat een heel uniek licht over de multiculturele wereld van de Late oudheid schijnen. In deze specialisatie combineer je het intensief tekstueel en archeologisch onderzoek naar de wereld van het Nieuwe Testament, het opkomende christendom en de vorming van het klassieke Judaïsme.

Starting as a Palestinian Jewish “sect”, Christianity from the outset came into contact and conflict with religious traditions of many sorts, making it an ideal case for the study of how a social and religious minority formed its identity through reflection and adaptation, and how it eventually transformed the Graeco-Roman world to lay the foundation of almost two millennia of Western culture.
Texts and material culture are equally in focus; you study base texts in the original language, do research on current positions in scholarship, reach your own conclusions through class discussion and guided self-study, and can even take part in an archaeological excavation in Galilee (www.kinneret-excavations.org).