Religion Course: Who Was Jesus?

Religion & Spirituality. Learn about systems of faith and worship.

Learn about beliefs, cultural systems, and world views the smart way with Religion & Spirituality courses at the University of Sydney.

Join us for a day-long workshop on Jesus. What are the Christian views? What are the secular views? And did he even exist? Learn about the many ways people in the past and today have thought about Jesus, and learn about how the debate over Jesus' very existence is becoming more mainstream and academic. We shall also expose the false dichotomy that people must be sure that Jesus either did or did not exist, introducing the increasingly fashionable ‘agnostic position’.

Aims

Learn to confidently describe and discuss the various confessional and secular views about Jesus. This course aims to introduce diverse ideas about Christian origins and theology.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• describe the various views about Jesus, and the methods for determining which should be preferred
• debate on the existence of Jesus
• apply epistemological concepts to other historical questions.

Content

Session 1: Christian Jesuses

• The Jesuses of the Bible
• The Jesuses of Christians

Session 2: Secular Jesuses

• The quest for the historical Jesus
• The Jesuses of contemporary secular scholars

Session 3: Debating Jesus' Existence

• The poor state of the sources and methods
• The game-changing alternative hypothesis

Intended Audience

Anyone with an interest in the various views about Jesus and in the possibility that he did not exist.

Prerequisites

None

Delivery Style

All-day workshop