I finally picked a thesis topic. It is harder than one might think. You have to think of a relevant topic where you think you can say something new. In the field of New Testament / Early Christianities, that is pretty difficult to find.

After much hand-wringing, I have decided to do a socio-historical analysis of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Most of the studies of the document have been thematic, or narrative criticism, trying to get at the theological points the author wanted to convey. I’ll try to take this a step further and look at the social and historical location of both the author and the community he wrote to in the Gospel of Thomas. Specifically, I’ll look at connections and departures from a the Lucan community and the connection to the second Zeno school.

Anyway, I fell a million times better having a concrete direction to go in.

For my American Religious Experience final project, I have the freedom to look outside American religion and to my thesis field, New Testament Studies. I am interested in building a picture of lived religion for early Christianities. I don’t know yet what branch I am going to target - most likely it will be urban Christians. As to what Christianity to look at, I want to go as early as possible, so there would be no established branch that can be distinguished from another.

I need to focus on practices (lived religion) and the common people, not beliefs nor elites. Interesting thing here is the creation of elites from the common people. I think that is what is happening, especially if you define elite as “one with authority or power.” I’ll also try to keep a close eye on the changing roles of women. I preliminary guess is that, like always, they were given newfound power and responsibility at first, and then as the movement crystallized, they were shut out of authority.

As of right now, I am using the following books for the basis of my research.

• Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Wilken
• Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance by Horsley
• Christianity and the Roman Empire: Background Texts by Novak
• Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Corinthians

I plan on focusing on the religious background that the Christians developed out of and look for differences that made them stand out. I will assume for the sake of the paper that everything else was maintained. Even though I have no way of knowing if they dropped certain practices or not, I’ll assume for the preliminary examination that they do. Perhaps in a later project I can look for the differences, say perhaps in another thesis chapter?

Soon I need to come up with ideas for my thesis, ultimately picking a topic by the end of the semester. Here is a list of things I am kicking around along with my interests.

• Anything on the formulation of cannon in religion
• Anything on early Christianities and the level of doctrinal and actual laity difference.
• Heresy creation / Polemics over the years and their effect on the laity.
  • By Proto-Orthodox Christians
  • By Church fathers / Opposing bishops in church councils
  • By the Catholic Church
  • By the Leaders of Protestantism
  • In America by anti-Mormon leaders
  • By Modern Evangelical leaders
• The Relation of Philosophy and Science as the background of the formulations of Christianity
  • Utilization of Philosophies by Christians and the resulting sythesis
  • As philosophies and science change - the impact on the formulations of Christianity
  • Infancy Gospel of Thomas and Zeno
• Religion and Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle
  • Comparison between behaviors of similar scale in the movement of atoms and the religious patterns in Christianity
  • Use this as a structuralist view of religion
  • Show how large events with large populations of people can be predicted/modeled/described generally and historically
  • As you refine the picture, the ability to be predicted/modeled/described generally and historically declines with the scale
  • Set the limits of historical knowledge and embrace them as to limit errors in history and judgment
• Disconnect between denomination and the members

Those are some of the things that I have been interested in, but I know that my thesis will need to have a very specific question about a very specific group. We will see how it goes.

Growing up in the current government run education system, the history of science is presented as a grand accent up the slope of knowledge, with only one grooved path traveled. However, when looked at outside of the popular story we are told in our youth, the picture diffuses. At first glance, nothing clear comes into view. At times it seems that our current body of accepted knowledge is indeed an accumulation of previous thoughts; at other times, the path seems to twist and turn, split off into multiple segments only to unite later, and sometimes the path even backtracks. This is hardly the glossed-over golden staircase of one’s youth. What does it matter, the nature of the path? Why can we not be satisfied with where we are and continue upward? |inline

The following is a rough draft of a paper in my Gospels as Literature class. Any and all suggestions are welcome in the comments.

Introduction

The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the use of miracle stories in the Canonical and Gnostic gospels. The canonical gospels will be used to represent the Orthodox Christian community in West Asia and the Mediterranean. The Gospels of the Nag Hammadi library and other notable Gnostic texts will be representative of the Gnostic sects with the understanding Gnosticism was not a monolithic tradition, but had many forms.

First, the metaphysical basis of varying approaches to miracle stories will be examined with an emphasis on Hume and Lewis’ positions. Luke will be used as representative of the Canonical Gospel tradition. Each Gnostic gospel will be examined individually with the goal of surveying how each author uses miracles. Finally, the results of the Canonical and Gnostic gospels’ attitudes towards miracles will be compared and contrasted.

I will argue that in the canonical gospels, the miracle stories served a marketing function, drawing in the first and second century readers to the canonical gospels. The immediacy of the miracle stories to the gospel message formed what Hume would later term a “constant conjunction:”(Hume explained cause and effect as a mere constant conjunction between two events. For Hume, this did not necessarily mean that the two events were casually connected, only that the two events were )”: .” This constant conjunction served to link in the readers mind the practicality of the effects of the miracles and the way of life demanded by Jesus’ teachings as recorded in the gospels. The same power that manifested itself in the miracles was behind the teaching. This is the opposite effect that the non-canonical gospels intend to have on their readers. I will argue that the non-canonical gospels, the Gnostic and Docetic texts in particular, use miracles for a different function. The Gnostic texts only employ miracles sparsely, using them to emphasize the divine spark in everyone and the priority of spirit over matter. (more…)

For my final research paper on Post-Colonial Comparative Religions, I want to study the make up of what can be loosely called the “Jihad Movements” through the lens of Post-Colonialism and give a view of their alternate structure.

This draws off of a number of curiosities I have.

1. When talking about Islam, Islamic Terror, the Moderate Muslim, the various sects in Islam, ect, it is very important to get one’s terms right. In this paper, I want to survey the religion and try to sort out all of the terms that get jumbled together.
2. I want to explore how the situations the common people throughout the world interplay with the varying theologies and political aspirations of Islam present to them.
3. In the Post-Colonial critique of the current Western Heavy power structure of the world, much is said about the evils, past and present of the West towards the Rest. What I have trouble finding are alternate views of how the world should be set up. The few western voices I have read give a West-lite view while denouncing any attempt of imposing values on other cultures. I find that to be a bit hypocritical and weak-sounding.
4. I get a sense of the a alternate view of the world power structure in some of the claims of various Islamic groups, claims of the Caliphate. I want to look at this as a viable alternative to the “satellite-west” that the West is trying to impose on the rest of the world.
5. Often one slips into dichotomies when trying to talk about the West, Islam, the Third World, ect… I want to try to navigate some of these dichotomies and see how far they are true and how far they can be fragmented.

Introduction
The purpose of my research paper is to analyze the use of miracle stories in the gospels. The approach will be three-fold; first, the use of miracle stories will be analyzed within the narrative framework of each canonical gospel independently. Secondly, there will be a cross-evaluation of the miracle stories and of the miracle story approaches each gospel presents. Lastly, the theory of an M-source will be examined using the narrative results to mediate differing historical claims that are unable to be verified historically. Also included in the paper will be a similar treatment of some of the non-canonical gospels of the Gnostic tradition.

Method
First, a short introduction to the varying philosophic views on the occurrence of miracles will be given. This introduction will focus on Hume’s attack on the possibility of miracles with a rebuttal by Lewis. Lewis’ view will then be briefly critiqued.

Each of the four canonical gospels will be examined via the lens of narrative criticism. First, the pre-reading attitude towards miracle stories of the each implied reader will be examined. Then the effect that the real author intended to have on the reader about how one should view miracle stories will be examined. The purpose of this is to see how the implied reader’s attitude towards miracle stories develops. The same process will then be repeated with a few of the Gnostic gospels.

The second phase of the paper will be to examine the miracle stories in a cross-gospel frame work. The hope is to see how the different miracle accounts not only vary from gospel to gospel, but how they were changed to fit each of the gospel’s overall narrative. Such an instance of a cross-gospel miracle is the cursing of the fig tree by Jesus on the day that he cleansed the temple. The same process will then be repeated with a few of the Gnostic gospels.

The final phase of the paper will examine the results of the second phase as it pertains to the various theories of an M-Source in the formation of the gospels. It is hoped that the narrative results from phase one will help to navigate through the historical incompleteness that clouds the probability of each theory of the composition of the gospels in relation to the hypothetical M-source. The same process will then be repeated with a few of the Gnostic gospels with the purpose of seeing if there is a parallel m-source, oral or otherwise for the Gnostic tradition.

Finally, the results of the canonical and Gnostic gospels’ attitudes towards miracles will be compared and contrasted. It is hoped that a greater understanding of the implied reader and author will be illuminated.