RELT30652
Heresy and the Birth of Christian Controversy
20
Semester 2
Undergraduate
Level 3
Todd Klutz
Unit coordinator
Andrew Boakye
Unit coordinator
Religions & Theology
1
FHEQ level (Framework for Higher Education Qualifications) ' Last part of a Bachelors '
European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System Rating : 10.0
<p>This course focuses on a wide range of early Christian writings, discourses, and practices essential for understanding the construction of orthodoxy and heresy in the Christ movement to around the end of the fourth century CE. Selections from the writings of influential heresiographers such as Justin, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus of Rome, and Epiphanius of Salamis will be studied with the aid of a range of appropriate methodologies, including critical discourse analysis and recent theories of cultural difference and hybridity. Comparable attention will be devoted to extant writings that give first-hand presentations of ‘heretical’ perspectives (e.g., select ‘gnostic’ texts in the Nag Hammadi library). Early Christian heresy catalogues, genealogies of heresy, and particular varieties of heretical teaching will be contextualised in relation not only to their cultural resources and theological content but also in terms of power, politics, conflict, and processes of social change.</p><p> </p>
<p>This course focuses on a wide range of early Christian writings, discourses, and practices essential for understanding the construction of orthodoxy and heresy in the Christ movement to around the end of the fourth century CE. Selections from the writings of influential heresiographers such as Justin, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus of Rome, and Epiphanius of Salamis will be studied with the aid of a range of appropriate methodologies, including critical discourse analysis and recent theories of cultural difference and hybridity. Comparable attention will be devoted to extant writings that give first-hand presentations of ‘heretical’ perspectives (e.g., select ‘gnostic’ texts in the Nag Hammadi library). Early Christian heresy catalogues, genealogies of heresy, and particular varieties of heretical teaching will be contextualised in relation not only to their cultural resources and theological content but also in terms of power, politics, conflict, and processes of social change.</p><p> </p>
<ul> <li> To analyse a representative selection of early Christian writings, thinkers, groups, situations, and conflicts relevant to the construction of heresy and orthodoxy in the first four centuries of the Christ movement; and</li> <li> To explore the ways in which early Christian constructions of orthodoxy and heresy make use of discursive, social, and cognitive devices (e.g., the construction of cultural genealogies, deviance-labelling, and container metaphors entailing areas ‘inside’ and ‘outside’) attested in a very wide range of other historical settings, including contemporary political and religious discourse.</li></ul><p> </p>
<p> </p><p>By the end of this course students should be able to:</p><ul> <li> Discuss terms such as ‘heresy’, ‘orthodoxy’, and ‘Gnosticism’ with explicit awareness of their rhetorically constructed and historically contingent character;</li> <li> Describe a range of early Christian thinkers and groups whom the major heresiologists characterised as deviant and heretical;</li> <li> Discuss and contextualise a representative selection of early Christian heresiographical writings and also texts and ideas they regarded as heretical.</li></ul><p> </p>
<p>By the end of this course students should be able to:</p><ul> <li> Recognise and analyse the role played by ideological assumptions and values in early Christian constructions of orthodoxy and heresy;</li> <li> Analyse and explain examples of early Christian heresiographical discourse in which in-group difference comes to be reconceptualised as a boundary between in-group and out-group; and</li> <li> Contextualise early Christian conceptualisations of orthodoxy and heresy in relation to various Christian groups’ respective degrees of tension and accommodation with their wider sociocultural environment.</li></ul><p> </p>
<p>By the end of this course students should be able to:</p><ul> <li> identify, adapt, and apply methodological concepts and tools appropriate for increasing their knowledge and understanding of a complex field of social discourse and action;</li> <li> use electronic and other resources for compiling bibliographies for a chosen research project;</li> <li> choose and combine diverse conventions of communication based on their suitability for a given context. </li></ul><p> </p>
<p>By the end of this course students should be able to:</p><ul> <li> construct a written argument;</li> <li> think in ways that integrate critical analysis and imagination; </li> <li> manage their time and resources effectively;</li> <li> develop skills of empathy, careful listening, and tolerance for views different from their own; </li> <li> communicate in ways that are appropriate to specific audiences</li></ul><p> </p>
Analytical skills
¿ analyse, interpret, and synthesise complex sets of social information and meanings
Group/team working
¿ collaborate with peers in the preparation and presentation of analytical and interpretative work;
Problem solving
¿ engage empathetically with others.
Written communication
¿ write in a style corresponding to specific guidance for a particular purpose.
0
Other
100%
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<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:662px;" width="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="width:322px;"> <p>Feedback method</p></td> <td style="width:340px;"> <p>Formative or Summative</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:322px;"> <p>Written feedback on draft essay</p></td> <td style="width:340px;"> <p>Formative</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:322px;"> <p>Immediate oral feedback on group presentation</p></td> <td style="width:340px;"> <p>Formative</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:322px;height:7px;"> <p>Written feedback on group presentation</p></td> <td style="width:340px;height:7px;"> <p>Summative</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:322px;height:7px;"> <p>Written feedback on essay</p></td> <td style="width:340px;height:7px;"> <p>Summative</p></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width:322px;height:7px;"> <p>Feedback in one-to-one consultations during office hours or meetings by appointment</p></td> <td style="width:340px;height:7px;"> <p>Formative</p></td> </tr> </tbody></table><p> </p><p> </p>
Y
<ul> <li> Henderson, John B. <em>The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns</em>. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.</li> <li> Hultgren, Arland L., and Steven A. Haggmark (eds). <em>The Earliest Christian Heretics: Readings from Their Opponents</em>. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.</li> <li> King, Karen L. <em>What Is Gnosticism?</em> Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.</li> <li> Lieu, Judith. <em>Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century</em>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.</li> <li> Meyer, Marvin (ed.). <em>The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The International Edition</em>. New York: HarperOne, 2007.</li> <li> Smith, Geoffrey S. <em>Guilt by Association: Heresy Catalogues in Early Christianity</em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.</li></ul><p> </p>
Lectures
22
Seminars
11
167