The reception of the New Testament in literature and art

Course content will be the reception as: • A theoretical interpretation model of reading the biblical text and The way in which the biblical texts-especially those of the New Testament – were received and interpreted in new contexts in literature and visual texts.

Objectives

After the successful completion of the course the students: • will have acquired a critical and in depth knowledge of the reception theory and the they will be able to describe coherently and clearly methodological issues, to discern problems and to suggest solutions. • will be able to trace analogies, interpretative techniques, and reception mechanisms of the biblical text in various forms of human artistic creation. • will be able to discern in the New Testament text theological themers that are mainly related to Christology and to explain how they are embedded into the their original narrative context and how they are further employed in new narrative frameworks. • will be able to use their previous knowledge in matters of New Testament interpretation and theology in order to understand and evaluate various works of human artistic creation and will be able to work interdisciplinary and use tools from various disciplines in order to suggest new readings of the biblical text.

Prerequisites

Degree of theology or other university school

Syllabus

The topic of the course is the way the biblical texts -and in our case those of the New Testament- were received and interpreted within new aesthetic frameworks in history. Since the range of the topic is very wide the focus will be on: 1. The presentation of the major landmarks in the modern theory of reception Ι (forerunners: Russian formalism, H.-J. Gadamer). 2. The presentation of the major landmarks in the modern theory of reception ΙI (Jauss, Iser). 3. The theory and modern approaches (Stanley Fish, Roland Barhes, Jacques Derrida, Hayden White). 4. The description of the major principles of the theory. 5. The application of the theory in the New Testament interpretation I (types of reception, theoretical framework). 6. The application of the theory in the New Testament interpretation II (problems and boundaries). 7. Reception and historical criticism. 8. The reception of Jesus in the film I. 9. The reception of Jesus in the film II. 10. The reception of Jesus and New Testament passages in literature (Greek and foreign). 11. The reception of the New Testament in art. 12. The reception of New Testament in popular culture and politics, and Results, evaluation of the method.