Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins

Program Overview

The Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins studies the world in which the New Testament was written. Between the return from exile and the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, Judaism produced the scriptures, institutions, expectations, and arguments that Jesus and the apostles assumed. Reading the New Testament without that world is reading half a conversation. Students work directly with the primary literature: the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, the targums, and the earliest rabbinic traditions, alongside inscriptions, coins, and the archaeology of Judea and Galilee. Seminars address the diversity of Judaism in the period and the problems with treating it as a single system; temple, priesthood, and purity; law observance and covenantal identity; messianic and apocalyptic expectation; synagogue and diaspora life; and the emergence of the Jesus movement as a Jewish phenomenon before it became a separate religion. The programme takes the parting of the ways seriously as a historical question and treats the long Christian habit of caricaturing Judaism as a scholarly as well as a moral failure. The dissertation makes an original contribution on a text, institution, or movement of the period, or on a New Testament question that the period's literature illuminates. Graduates teach New Testament and Judaica, write commentary and reference work, and serve churches whose reading of Scripture is strengthened by knowing its first context.

Core Courses

• STJ 801 — Literature of the Second Temple Period (6 credits)
• STJ 812 — History and Institutions of Judea (6 credits)
• STJ 824 — Law, Purity, and Covenantal Identity (6 credits)
• STJ 836 — Messianism, Apocalyptic, and Eschatology (6 credits)
• STJ 848 — Christian Origins in Jewish Context (5 credits)
• STJ 860 — Research Design in Second Temple Studies (4 credits)
• STJ 899 — Doctoral Dissertation in Second Temple Studies (24 credits)

Admission Requirements

• Master's degree in biblical studies, theology, history, or a closely related field
• Prior coursework in the biblical or historical languages the specialization requires
• Statement of purpose naming the research question you intend to pursue
• Academic writing sample, ideally an exegetical or historical research paper
• Current curriculum vitae
• Official transcripts from prior institutions when available