Courses

• STH TO 827: Violence in the Hebrew Bible
  TBA
• STH TO 831: Gender and Dominance in the Hebrew Bible
  TBA
• STH TO 832: Response Suffer
  
• STH TO 835: Current Issues in Biblical Interpretation
  Examination and evaluation of several current methods and approaches. Students are encouraged to develop a generally valid and fruitful approach. Emphasis on working with specific biblical texts.
• STH TO 838: Biblical Interpretation from Hispanic and Latin American Perspectives
  This course provides an introduction to the contexts, assumptions, and methods of Hispanic and Latin American Biblical exegesis and its major contributions to Biblical and Religious Studies. The courseâ??s objectives are: 1. To develop an awareness of the Hispanic and Latin American approaches to the Bible, their differences and points of contact.; 2. To understand the different assumptions of the Hispanic and Latin American interpretation of the Bible; 3. To develop intercultural exegetical skills and cross-cultural sensitivity; 4. To experience and develop an understanding of the reality of US Hispanics and Latin Americans through learning about its history, economy, political, social, and religious context. Selected passages from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament will be analyzed in terms of the cultural and historical situation of Latin Americans and Hispanic peoples in the United States.
• STH TO 841: The Book of the Twelve
  Expositional overview of the Book of the Twelve (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi). The goal of the course is to promote a deeper awareness of the various trends of interpretation of the Book and of its relevance for the personal and communal life.
• STH TO 846: Middle Egyptian 1
  An introduction to the classical stage of the Egyptian script and language spoken in Ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom which became the standard hieroglyphic language until the Graeco-Roman Period.
• STH TO 847: Middle Egyptian 2
  An introduction to the classical stage of the Egyptian script and language spoken in Ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom which became the standard hieroglyphic language until the Graeco-Roman Period.
• STH TO 848: Story and Storytelling
  The nature of narrative, the types of narrative, the types of narrative specific to the Bible and the Near East, and the transmission of stories. The art of storytelling and the retelling of biblical stories today.
• STH TO 901: Biblical Aramaic
  Introduction to phonology, morphology, and syntax of biblical Aramaic. Reading of the complete Aramaic text of Daniel and Ezra.
• STH TO 902: Aramaic Texts
  
• STH TO 905: Hebrew Bible: Proseminar
  A proseminar for doctoral students, introducing the problems of text criticism, semantics and philogogy, literary criticism, and historical reconstruction, the latter including introductions to epigraphy, iconography, and archaeology.
• STH TR 802: The Sociology of Religion
  This course will introduce students to the basic ideas and methods with which sociologists have analyzed the relationship between religion and society. It will explore what it means to think about religious language, symbols, communities, and practices a social phenomenon. We will also explore the social processes at work in congregations and denominations, new religious movements and conversion, religious communal identity and ethnic conflict.
• STH TR 812: Womenâ??s Leadership in Religious Organizations
  Although women constitute the majority of the participants in religious bodies, they are least represented among the leadership of religious organizations. Some sociologists of religion have noted that as religious groups become more established, they become increasingly more patriarchal.  Moreover, evidence suggests this phenomenon to be true even of groups founded by women themselves.  By examining the social and cultural factors that have hindered and supported womenâ??s access to leadership in religious organizations, the course will investigate whether or not patriarchal religious institutions are inevitable. In particular will consider how patriarchy pervades institutions despite their desire to resist its influences. Assignments will include an in-class mid-term, a mid-semester project where students will interview a woman in leadership, and a final exam.
• STH TR 860: Social Sciences Perspectives: Church and World
  The work of ministry takes place in the context of human institutions and must engage the cultures and challenges of a dynamic and changing world. This course invites students to pay attention to the social forces at work in the world, to understand the organizations that structure our lives, and to hear the cultural stories that shape how we understand our faith.
• STH TR 940: Advanced Seminar in Religion and Social Change
  This seminar examines the relationship between religious ideas and practices and the world of micro and macro social change. It gives attention to both the conservative and radical potential within religion, as well as to the structures that either limit or facilitate the exercise of religious power. It covers both major theoretical perspectives and relevant research literature, with focused attention on a variety of historical and contemporary cases.
• STH TR 964: Seminar in Social Theory: The Religious Person
  This seminar will explore a variety of theoretical perspectives on the social formation of modern persons, asking how those insights inform an understanding of individual and collective religious identity. Students will also participate in field research focused on the intersection of religious and social identities.
• STH TS 500: Encountering ET
  The discoveries of Copernicus/Galileo and Darwin (19th century) significantly altered scientific and religious worldviews. People experienced a sense of displacement from their previously perceived status in the universe. In the 21st century, as space explorations expand, Contact with extraterrestrial life--including intelligent life--becomes ever more possible (some people already claim to have had visual or physical contact with UFOs and their alien occupants). Using perspectives from science, science fiction, religion, and United Nations space treaties, and narratives about peoples' claims of encounters with extraterrestrial beings, this course will discuss current and projected understandings of the human place in the cosmos; reflect on how discovery of extraterrestrial life might impact the human sense of place in the universe; and consider how the impacts of ET encounters (actual or theoretical) might be positively incorporated into human consciousness and contexts.
• STH TS 800: International Conflict and the Ministry of Reconciliation
  This course proposes a theology of reconciliation for religious peace-building in the realms of ethnic division and nationalism, race, economic injustice and environmental degradation. Churches and communities of faith are not simply local and parochial bodies but are parts of wider communities of faith and practice. The course explores such corporate practice toward a public theology for the public square for Christians to live faithfully in a world of difference.
• STH TS 817: African American Religious Experience
  Comparative and historical survey of features distinctive to the black religious experience. Attention to African and Caribbean roots and contemporary expressions.

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