Colour Me Yale

My winter studies included the subject of theology and I found myself dissatisfied with the way I was progressing.  I started out by reading my old catechism for my confirmation into the Lutheran church while at the same time I began reading the Bible on a scheduled basis “The Bible in One Year”.   Then I found a book on Forgiveness and another one on Buddhism which gave me some balance from straight Christianity.  However, I thought I should take a more disciplined approach.

The miracle of Google led me to Open Yale where I discovered free online courses from Yale professors and bingo I found just what I needed, a course on the history of the New Testament.  I spent the month of March taking a daily lecture from Professor Dale Martin and I felt rewarded by learning a great deal from a historical rather than a theological perspective with respect to the creation of the New Testament. 

You may wonder, what does the history have to do with theology?  For me, one word answer, everything.  Understanding from a scholarly view how the writers are identified (or not), when they were written (or not), why some writings were chosen as scripture or canon while others were not are all very important to understanding how Christianity developed into the “orthodox” religion some 1,500 years ago.  Taking a critical look at the holy scripture of Christianity will help balance the review of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism as well as other religions.  I think in studying theology it is important to have as unbiased a view of all thinking as is humanly possible (and that is sometimes quite difficult).

Since the vast majority of humanity at least nominally declares they believe in one religion or another I think this is a big step in understanding the quixotic nature of people.

Maybe.