Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: The World Religions Paradigm has been the subject of critique and controversy in Religious Studies for many years. After World Religions provides a rationale for overhauling the World Religions curriculum, as well as a roadmap for doing so. The volume offers concise and practical introductions to cutting-edge Religious Studies method and theory, introducing a wide range of pedagogical situations and innovative solutions. An international team of scholars addresses the challenges presented in their different departmental, institutional, and geographical contexts. Instructors developing syllabi will find supplementary reading lists and specific suggestions to help guide their teaching. Students at all levels will find the book an invaluable entry point into an area of ongoing scholarly debate. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
List of Contributors
Forward: Before the 'After' in 'After World Religions': Wilfred Cantwell Smith on the Meaning and End of Religion (James L. Cox)

ch. 1 Introduction: The ‘World Religions’ Paradigm in Contemporary Religious Studies (Christopher R. Cotter & David G. Robertson)

Part I: Subservie Pedagogies: Data and Methods
ch. 2 The Problem of ‘Religions’: Teaching Against the Grain with ‘New Age Stuff” (Steven J. Sutcliffe)
ch. 3 Not a Task for Amateurs’: Graduate Instructors and Critical Theory in the World Religions Classroom (Tara Baldrick-Morrone, Michael Graziano and Brad Stoddard)
ch. 4 The Critical Embrace: Teaching the World Religion Paradigm as Data (Steven Ramey)

Part II: Alternative Pedagogies: Power and Politics
ch. 5 Religion as Ideology: Recycled Culture vs. World Religions (Craig Martin)
ch. 6 Doing Things with ‘Religion’: A Discursive Approach in Rethinking the World Religions Paradigm (Teemu Taira)
ch. 7 Looking Back on the End of Religion: Opening Re Marx (Paul-Francois Tremlett)
ch. 8 The Sacred Alternative (Suzanne Owen)

Part III: Innovative Pedagogies: Methods and Media
ch. 9 The Desjardins Diet for World Religions Paradigm Loss (Michel Desjardins)
ch. 10 Narrating the USA’s Religious Pluralism: Escaping World Religions through Media (David W. McConeghy)
ch. 11 Archaeology and the 'World Religions' Paradigm: The European Neolithic, Religion, and Cultural Imperialism (Carole M. Cusack)
ch. 12 Complex Learning and the World Religions Paradigm: Teaching Religion in a Shifting Subject Landscape (Dominic Corrywright)

Afterword: On Utility and Limits (Russell T. McCutcheon)
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Additional Info:
This work responds to a renewed emphasis on teaching in the academy. Written from the perspective of a classroom teacher, it is a practical application of the principles behind the Critical Thinking movement to the study of religion. Emphasizing that the acquisition of critical thinking depends less on what is taught than on how it is taught, the author presents concrete examples from his own experience to illustrate a student centered approach to teaching. By demonstrating how the study of religion contributes to the development of critical thinking - through the acquisition of problem-solving, decision-making, and metacognitive skills - Penaskovic suggests its value to a broader liberal arts curriculum as well. Both a theoretical review of Critical Thinking and a "nuts-and-bolts" manual on how it can be used and assessed in the classroom, this work will challenge new and veteran teachers alike to re-examine and renew what they do in the classroom. The book includes a selected, annotated bibliography on Critical Thinking. Every teacher of religion will want to read this book. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgements
Preface

ch. 1 What Is Critical Thinking?
ch. 2 Barriers to Critical Thinking?
ch. 3 The Three Levels of Learning
ch. 4 Teaching in the Active Mode
ch. 5 Cooperative Learning
ch. 6 Critical Thinking and Creativity
ch. 7 The Assessment of Critical Thinking
ch. 8 Unsolved Mysteries

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms
Select Annotated Bibliography

Additional Info:
A groundbreaking book on using meditation in education and how it can enhance teaching and learning.

Meditation and the Classroom inventively articulates how educators can use meditation to educate the whole student. Notably, a number of universities have initiated contemplative studies options and others have opened contemplative spaces. This represents an attempt to address the inner life. It is also a sign of a new era, one in which the United States is more spiritually diverse than ever before. Examples from university classrooms and statements by students indicate benefits include increased self-awareness, creativity, and compassion.

The religious studies scholars who have contributed to this book often teach about meditation, but here they include reflections on how meditation has affected them and their teaching. Until recently, though, even many religious studies professors would find sharing meditation experiences, let alone teaching meditation techniques, a breach of disciplinary and academic protocols. The value of teaching meditation and teaching about meditation is discussed. Ethical issues such as pluralism, respect, qualifications, power and coercion, and avoiding actual or perceived proselytization are also examined. While methods for religious studies are emphasized, the book provides valuable guidance for all those interested in this endeavor. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgments
Editors’ Introduction

I. Why Contemplatives Pedagogy? The Religious Studies Dialogue
ch. 1 The Convergence of Liberal Education and Contemplative Education—Inevitable?
ch. 2 Meditation and Education: India, Tibet, and Modern America
ch. 3 Contemplative Studies: Can It Flourish in the Religious Studies Classrom?
ch. 4 Contemplative Studies and the Art of Persuasion: The Institutional Challenge

II. The Contemplative Professor
ch. 5 From Content, to Context, to Contemplation: One Professor’s Journey
ch. 6 The Collective Dynamics of Contemplative Practice
ch. 7 The Mindful Teacher as the Foundation of Contemplative Pedagogy
ch. 8 Compassion Beyond Fatigue: Contemplative Training for Educators and Other Helping Professionals
ch. 9 Field Notes from a Daoist Professor

III. Critical Issues In Contemplative Teaching
ch. 10 Training the Heart Responsibly: Ethical Considerations in Contemplative Teaching
ch. 11 Invitation and Coercion in Contemplative Pedagogy
ch. 12 Interiority and Higher Education: The Neurophenomenology of Contemplation

IV. Contemplative-Based Courses
ch. 13 Embodied Contemplative Learning: Aikido as a Case Study
ch. 14 Reflections on Theory and Practice: The Case of Modern Yoga
ch. 15 Sustaining Life: Contemplative Pedagogies in a Religion and Ecology Course
ch. 16 Adab: Courteous Behavior in the Classroom
ch. 17 Experiencing Medieval Christian Spirituality

V. Contemplative Exercises For The Classroom
ch. 18 Awareness Practices in an Undergraduate Buddhism Course
ch. 19 Contemplative Inquiry: Beyond the Disembodied Subject
ch. 20 Love of Wisdom Puts You on the Spot: The Warrior Exam
ch. 21 A Meeting of the Minds in Cyberspace: Eco-contemplative Methods for Online Teaching
ch. 22 Mindfulness in the History Classroom: Teaching as Interbeing
ch. 23 Two Contemplative Practices That Animate the Study of Religion
ch. 24 Mindfulness and Contemplative Practice in Art and Religion

VI. Conclusion: Does It Work? Evaluations From Our Students
ch. 25 Emotional Learning: Re-cognizing Emotion and Thought in a Buddhism Course
ch. 26 Meditation in the Classroom: What Do the Students Say They Learn?

Selected Bibliography List of Contributors Index

Additional Info:
This volume collects essays and lectures of renowned scholar of religion Jonathan Z. Smith, many previously published in out-of-the-way periodicals or unavailable in print.

For more than thirty years, Jonathan Z. Smith has been perhaps the most important voice of critical reflection within the academic study of religion. His essays are cited constantly, his books used in undergraduate and graduate classes. Smith has also produced a significant corpus of essays and lectures on teaching and on the essential role of academic scholarship on religion in matters of education and public policy. Many of these articles appeared in education journals, which unfortunately most academic scholars do not read; others are collected in specialist volumes of conference proceedings on Judaic Studies, for example. Many were originally delivered as keynote speeches to the AAR and other major scholarly organizations, and although scholars reminisce about hearing Smith deliver them, the works themselves are not readily available. Education is not a side issue for Smith, and his essays continually shed light on fundamental questions. What differentiates college from high school? What are the proper functions of an introductory course? What functions should a department serve in undergraduate and graduate education? How should a major or concentration be conceived--if at all? What roles should the academic guilds play in public discourse on education and on religion? Most importantly, what does it mean to say that one is both a scholar and a teacher, and what responsibilities does this entail? On Teaching Religion collects the best of these essays and lectures into one volume, along with a new essay by Smith. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
A Prefatory Note
Introduction: Approaching the College Classroom

Part One: Religion in the Academy
ch. 1 The Introductory Course: Less Is Better
ch. 2 Basic Problems In the Study of Religion
ch. 3 Scriptures and Histories
ch. 4 Here and Now: Prospects for Graduate Education
ch. 5 Connections
ch. 6 Religious Studies: Whither (Wither) and Why?
ch. 7 Are Theological and Religious Studies Compatible?
ch. 8 'Religion' and 'Religious Studies': No Difference at All

Part Two: The Academic Profession
ch. 9 Re-Forming the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Retrospective
ch. 10 Why the College Major?: Questioning the Great Unexplained Aspect of Undergraduate Education
ch. 11 Puzzlement
ch. 12 Towards Imagining New Frontiers
ch. 13 To Double Business Bound

Editorial Remarks (Christopher I. Lehrich)
Index

Additional Info:
Introductory courses in theology and religion are taught at most colleges and universities across the US and UK. From public to private, non-sectarian to faith-based institutions, theology courses fulfill humanities general education requirements, and provide a foundational education for students intending further theological study. This book describes the best and most effective ways of teaching these courses. Offering practical, realistic, research-based guidance, this volume explores the best and most recent methods in teaching-theory. This book addresses the questions and concerns frequently posed by the professors and graduate students who instruct these multifaceted courses. It covers issues such as a teacher's role in defining theology and religion, the teaching and learning process, course structure, and content. The volume also examines recent case studies of theology and religious studies courses at various institutions, including a private non-sectarian university, a public research university, a Catholic masters-level university, and at a Protestant baccalaureate college. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction

ch. 1 Faculty and Student Goals for Learning: The Great Divide
ch. 2 Were the Goals Met? Students’ Academic and Spiritual Development
ch. 3 Pedagogies: What Influenced Student Learning?
ch. 4 Case Studies: Large Classes
ch. 5 Case Studies: Small Classes in World Religions, Introduction to Religion
ch. 6 Case Studies: Small Classes in Theology, Bible, Christian Formation

Appendix A: Faculty Demographics
Appendix B: Student Demographics
Appendix C: IDEA Surveys
Appendix D: Discipline-Specific Surveys Administered to Highly Effective Classes
Appendix E: Choosing Highly-Effective Faculty
Appendix F: Data Tally for Highly-Effective Classes
Appendix G: Prompts for Student In-Class Reflections
Appendix H: Suggestions for Leading Faculty Workshops

References
Index

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Using a new model focused on four core capacities-intellectual complexity, social location, empathetic accountability, and motivated action--Teaching Civic Engagement explores the significance of religious studies in fostering a vibrant, just, and democratic civic order.

In the first section of the book, contributors detail this theoretical model and offer an initial application to the sources and methods that already define much teaching in the disciplines of religious studies and theology. A second section offers chapters focused on specific strategies for teaching civic engagement in religion classrooms, including traditional textual studies, reflective writing, community-based learning, field trips, media analysis, ethnographic methods, direct community engagement and a reflective practice of "ascetic withdrawal." The final section of the volume explores theoretical issues, including the delimitation of the "civic" as a category, connections between local and global in the civic project, the question of political advocacy in the classroom, and the role of normative commitments.

Collectively these chapters illustrate the real possibility of connecting the scholarly study of religion with the societies in which we, our students, and our institutions exist. The contributing authors model new ways of engaging questions of civic belonging and social activism in the religion classroom, belying the stereotype of the ivory tower intellectual. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Contributors
Introduction

Section I: What are the Dimensions of Teaching Civic Engagement in the Religious Studies or Theology Classroom?
ch. 1 Discourse, Democracy, and the Many Faces of Civic Engagement: Four Guiding Objectives for the University Classroom (Reid B. Locklin, with Ellen Posman)
ch. 2 Sacred Sites and Staging Grounds: The Four Guiding Objectives of Civic Engagement in the Religion Classroom (Ellen Posman, with Reid B. Locklin)

Section II: What Practical Strategies and Questions Emerge from Teaching Civic Engagement in Religious Studies and Theology?
ch. 3 Teaching for Civic Engagement: Insights from a Two-Year Workshop (Melissa Stewart)
ch. 4 Giving and Receiving Hospitality during Community Engagement Courses (Marianne Delaporte)
ch. 5 Civic Engagement in the Heart of the City (Rebekka King)
ch. 6 Engaging Media and Messages in the Religion Classroom (Hans Wiersma)
ch. 7 Service and Community-Based Learning: A Pedagogy for Civic Engagement and Critical Thinking (Phil Wingeier-Rayo)
ch. 8 Religious Diversity, Civic Engagement and Community-Engaged Pedagogy: Forging Bonds of Solidarity through Interfaith Dialogue (Nicholas Rademacher)
ch. 9 Stopping the Zombie Apocalypse: Ascetic Withdrawal as a Form of Civic Learning (Elizabeth W. Corrie)

Section III: What are the Theoretical Issues and Challenges in Teaching Civic Engagement in Religious Studies and Theology?
ch. 10 Thinking about the 'Civic' in Civic Engagement and Its Deployment in the Religion Classroom (Carolyn M. Jones Medine)
ch. 11 More than Global Citizenship: How Religious Studies Expands Participation in Global Communities (Karen Derris and Erin Runions)
ch. 12 Political Involvement, the Advocacy of Process, and the Religion Classroom (Forrest Clingerman and Swasti Bhattacharyya)
ch. 13 The Difference between Religious Studies and Theology in the Teaching of Civic Engagement (Tom Pearson)
ch. 14 Dreams of Democracy (Tina Pippin)

Bibliography
Index

Additional Info:
Teaching biblical studies in the undergraduate liberal arts classroom poses many challenges. Do biblical studies deserve a place at a secular liberal arts college? In church-affiliated colleges, should courses in Bible toe the denominational line? Can we claim that biblical studies advance the goals of liberal education, whatever we might think they are?

On a more practical level, how can an instructor engage the attention of students who are taking a course in biblical studies only to fulfill a requirement? How best to begin with students from non-religious backgrounds who begin a course with no real knowledge of the Bible at all? How best to deal with students who already think they know what the Bible is all about, and resist any ideas or approaches that might threaten their ideas?

This collection of pedagogical essays reflects the practical experience of instructors who have spent years teaching biblical studies successfully to undergraduates at liberal arts colleges. The essays address both methodological approaches and specific classroom strategies for teaching biblical studies effectively in a way that advances the skills of thinking and expression that are essential to a liberal arts education. The product of several years of conversation among working professors from an array of liberal arts colleges, these essays offer insights and inspiration for biblical studies instructors who work in a very specific and demanding academic environment. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Part I: Biblical Studies In The Liberal Arts
ch. 1 A Forensic Rationale for Biblical Studies in American Liberal Education (Matthew C. Baldwin)
ch. 2 Occupy Academic Bible Teaching (Susanne Scholz)
ch. 3 Challenges to Teaching Biblical Literature as a General Education Requirement (Stan Harstine and Phillip Wisely)
ch. 4 ‘Not as the Scribes’: Teaching Biblical Studies in the Liberal Arts Curriculum (Glenn S. Holland)
ch. 5 What Do Athens and Jerusalem Have to Do with Sioux Falls? (Murray Joseph Haar and Anna Madesen)
ch. 6 Teaching the Bible in a Secular School (Christian Brady)
ch. 7 Engaging Diverse Students in a Required Biblical Studies Course (Margaret P. Cowan)
ch. 8 Arts Integration and Service-Learning in Introduction to Biblical Literature (Sharon Betsworth)
ch. 9 The Role of the Upper-Level Biblical Studies Seminar (Benjamin White)

Part II: Pedagogical Theory and Biblical Studies
ch. 10 Teaching the Material and Teaching the Students (Shane Kirkpatrick
ch. 11 Service-Learning in Undergraduate Biblical Studies Courses (Janet S. Everhart)
ch. 12 The Reality of Multiple Voices in Biblical Religion (J. Bradley Chance)
ch. 13 Collaborative Learning and the Pedagogy of the Bible (Alison Schofield)
ch. 14 Shifting Contexts and Goals for Introducing the Bible (Bryan D. Bibb)

Part III: Case Studies
ch. 15 Bible-Trek, Next Generation: Adapting a Bible Survey Course for a New Audience (Jonathan David Lawrence)
ch. 16 Dildos and Dismemberment: Reading Difficult Biblical Texts Classroom (Janet Everhart)
ch. 17 Reading Textual Violence as ‘Real’ Violence (Amy C. Cottrill)
ch. 18 Engaging Students Online: Using Wiki Technology (Carl Toney)
ch. 19 What’s the Harm in Harmonization? Using Jesus Films (Margaret E. Ramey)
ch. 20 Teaching with Meta-questions (Jane S. Webster)
ch. 21 Course Design and the Use of Meta-Questions (Russell Arnold)
ch. 22 Biblical Studies and Metacognitive Reading Skills (Rodney K. Duke)
ch. 23 Teaching Revelation to the Left Behind Generation (Susan E. Hylen)

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Eugene V. Gallagher, Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies at Connecticut College, writes: ‘In a context where the general value of the Humanities has increasingly come under question by those who see a college education as necessarily being directly tied to the first job that students will have after they graduate, an ability to make a vigorous case about the contribution of studying the Bible to any college student’s education is crucial for any teacher’.

This second collection of essays edited by Jane Webster and Glenn Holland seeks not only to promote the role of biblical studies in an undergraduate liberal arts education, but also to suggest strategies and approaches for teaching the Bible in a range of academic situations. Combining the theoretical and the practical, this volume will be another useful source of guidance and support for teachers of biblical studies at any point in their professional careers. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Forward (Thomas Pearson)
Preface
Contributors
Introduction (Jane S. Webster and Glenn S. Holland)

PART I: TACTICS
ch. 1 Twitter in the Classroom (Anthony L. Abell)
ch. 2 What Has Wikipedia to Do with Judah? Using Modern Collaborative Technologies to Teach Pentateuchal Formation (Nicole L. Tilford)
ch. 3 Choose Your Own Adventure: Teaching, Participatory Hermeneutics, and the Book of Revelation (Robby Waddell)
ch. 4 Biblical Studies and Digital Storytelling (Anne W. Stewart and Nicole L. Tilford)
ch. 5 Drama in the Biblical Studies Classroom: Using Role-Plays to Understand History, Do Theology, and Teach Hermeneutics (Eric A. Seibert)
ch. 6 Holistic Learning: Charitable Giving as a Tool to Teach Empathy (Seth Heringer)

PART II: STRATEGIES
ch. 7 Creative Writing in Biblical Studies: Engaging Students through Biblical Narratives (Geoffrey David Miller)
ch. 8 ‘Framing’ the Book of Job: Teaching at the Intersection of Biblical Studies and Academic Writing (Benjamin J. Laugelli)
ch. 9 Fantasy: The ‘Renewed’ Genre for Making Necessary a Biblical Education for Understanding our Contemporary World (Sonya Shetty Cronin)
ch. 10 Teaching Foodways as a Fresh Entrée into the World of the Bible (Margaret Cohen)

PART III: PRINCIPLES
ch. 11 Reading Biblical Texts with an Ecological Lens (Janet Everhart)
ch. 12 Supersessionism as a ‘Narrative Problem’ for New Testament Introductory Courses (Lee A. Johnson)
ch. 13 When God Smites: Talking with Students about the Violence of God in the Hebrew Bible (Eric A. Seibert)

PART IV: BIBLICAL STUDIES IN THE LIBERAL ARTS CURRICULUM
ch. 14 Teaching Biblical Studies in an Ability-based Curriculum (Steven Dunn)
ch. 15 Creating Common Ground: Strategies for Teaching Undergraduate Students from Non-Religious Backgrounds (Katy E. Valentine)
ch. 16 In the Beginning: Some Preliminary Thoughts on the Problem of Teaching the Introductory Biblical Studies Course in the General Education Curriculum (Charles William Miller)

Bibliography
General Index
Index of Authors

Additional Info:
This volume gathers together papers from a broad variety of voices in biblical criticism and theological studies. The papers are divided into four major sections in keeping with their major concerns and aims: Biblical interpretation and theological education, social location and Biblical pedagogy in the US, social location and Biblical pedagogy in global perspective, and Biblical interpretation. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Pedagogical Discourse and Practices in Contemporary Biblical Criticism

Part I Biblical Interpretation and Theological Education
ch. 1 Theological Education in a New Context: Reflections from the Perspective of Brazilian Theology (Paulo Fernando Carneiro de Andrade)
ch. 2 Constructive Theology and Biblical Worlds (Peter Hodgson)
ch. 3 Globalization in Theological Education (Joseph C. Hough, Jr.)
ch. 4 Jesus/the Native: Biblical Studies from a Postcolonial Perspective (Kwok Pui-lan)
ch. 5 Four Faces of Theology: Four Johannine Conversations (Jean-Pierre Ruiz)

Part II Social Location and Biblical Pedagogy in the United States
ch. 6 Crossing the Line: Three Scenes of Divine-Human Engagement in the Hebrew Bible (Francisco Garcia-Treto)
ch. 7 Reading from an Indigenous Place (Mark Lewis Taylor)
ch. 8 Pedagogical Discourse and Practices in Cultural Studies: Toward a Contextual Biblical Pedagogy (Fernando F. Segovia)
ch. 9 A New Teaching with Authority: A Re-evaluation of the Authority of the Bible (Mary Ann Tolbert)
ch. 10 A Meeting of Worlds: African Americans and the Bible (Vincent L. Wimbush)

Part III Social Location and Biblical Pedagogy in Global Perspective
ch. 11 A Reading of the Story of the Tower of Babel from the Perspective of Non-Identity: Gen 11:1-9 in the Context of Its Production (J. Severino Croatto)
ch. 12 "Go Therefore and Make Disciples of All Nations" (Matt 28:19a): A Postcolonial Perspective on Biblical Criticism and Pedagogy (Musa W. Duba)
ch. 13 Cross-Textual Interpretation and Its Implications for Biblical Studies (Archie C. C. Lee)
ch. 14 Biblical Exegesis and Its Shortcomings in Theological Education (Temba L. J. Mafico)
ch. 15 The Hermeneutics of Liberation: Theoretical Grounding for the Communitarian Reading of the Bible (Pablo Richard)
ch. 16 Biblical Studies in India: From Imperialistic Scholarship to Postcolonial Interpretation (R.S. Sugirtharajah)

Part IV Biblical Interpretation: Pedagogical Practices
ch. 17 A Rhetorical Paradigm for Pedagogy (Rebecca S. Chopp)
ch. 18 Reading the Bible in the Global Context: Issues in Methodology and Pedagogy (Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, Sharon H. Ringe, and Frederick C. Tiffany)
ch. 19 Crossing Borders: Biblical Studies in a Trans-Cultural World (Kathleen M. O'Connor)
ch. 20 Weaving a New Web of Creative Remembering (Elaine M. Wainwright)
ch. 21 Lessons for North America from a Third-World Seminary (Antoinette Clark Wire)

Contributors
Index

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Teaching the Historical Jesus in his Jewish context to students of varied religious backgrounds presents instructors with not only challenges, but also opportunities to sustain interfaith dialogue and foster mutual understanding and respect. This new collection explores these challenges and opportunities, gathering together experiential lessons drawn from teaching Jesus in a wide variety of settings—from the public, secular two- or four-year college, to the Jesuit university, to the Rabbinic school or seminary, to the orthodox, religious Israeli university. A diverse group of Jewish and Christian scholars reflect on their own classroom experiences and explicates crucial issues for teaching Jesus in a way that encourages students at every level to enter into an encounter with the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament without paternalism, parochialism, or prejudice. This volume is a valuable resource for instructors and graduate students interested in an interfaith approach in the classroom, and provides practical case studies for scholars working on Jewish-Christian relations. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction (Zev Garber)

Section 1: Jesus in Undergraduate Education
ch. 1 Teaching Jewish Studies, Hebrew Scriptures and the Historical Jesus in the Context of Jewish Studies at a Two-Year Public College: Rationale, Objectives, Evaluation (Zev Garber)
ch. 2 Untangling Myths and Misconceptions: A Narrative of the Undergraduate Classroom (Rochelle L. Millen)
ch. 3 Jesus "in the Trenches": Pedagogical Challenges Posed by Teaching the Nazarene in the Context of Judaic Studies (Ken Hanson)
ch. 4 Teaching Jesus at the University of Alabama (Steven Leonard Jacobs)
ch. 5 Teaching about Jesus in a Catholic University (Richard L. Libowitz)
ch. 6 Teaching about Jesus and Early Christianity at US Rabbinic Schools (Joel Gereboff)
ch. 7 The Jewish Jesus: An Evaluation after Three Years (Herbert W. Basser)
ch. 8 Dialogue as Integral to Teaching about the Jewish Jesus (James F. Moore and Joseph Edelheit)
ch. 9 Between the Literary and the Historical Jesus: Teaching the Modern Jewish Writers’ Jesus (Neta Stahl)

Section 2: Some Issues in Teaching Jesus
ch. 10 Jesus the Jew: Who Says So? (Norman Simms)
ch. 11 Reflections on a Course: ‘Judaism and Early Christianity: The Parting of the Ways’—When? Where? Why? (Leonard Greenspoon)
ch. 12 Typical Christian Misunderstandings of Jesus and Judaism (Eugene J. Fisher)
ch. 13 Teaching Jesus in a Halakhic Jewish Setting in Israel: Kosher, Treif or Pareve? (Joshua Schwartz)
ch. 14 Jewish Artists and the Perception of the Crucifixion (Nathan Harpaz)
ch. 15 Jesus on Film: Cinema as a Tool in the Discovery of the Jewish Jesus (Penny Wheeler)
ch. 16 Gravitating to Luke's Historical Jesus: Help or Hindrance? (Michael J. Cook)

Section 3: Teaching Views on Jesus
ch. 17 Jesus, the Pharisees, and Mediterranean Manliness (S. Scott Bartchy)
ch. 18 Jesus as Sadducee and Pharisee: Teaching the Teacher in the Gospel of Mark (Peter Zaas)
ch. 19 Jesus as a Seditionist: The Intertwining of Politics and Religion in His Teaching and Deeds (Fernando Bermejo-Rubio)
ch. 20 Was Jesus a Pharisee? And Does it Matter? (John Pawlikowski)

Contributors
Bibliography
Index
Source Index

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Today’s seminary and religious-education instructors are expected to design and redesign their courses more nimbly than in the past. We have to adapt our courses to novel learning environments, for more diverse learners, toward more diverse vocations. At the same time, institutional rewards for time invested in course design are fewer than ever. Understanding Bible by Design introduces the reader to Understanding by Design: an approach to course design that is proven time-efficient and grounded in the instructor’s most closely-held convictions about her subject matter’s “big ideas and essential questions.” This book’s contributors (one in Old Testament, one in New Testament, and one in Jewish Studies) demonstrate the value of Understanding Bible by Design for the Biblical Studies instructor, whether at seminary or university, face-to-face or online, from the intimate seminar to the massive MOOC.

Lester’s synopsis of course design and suggested action is followed by a collaborative dialogue with Jane S. Webster and Christopher M. Jones. Webster and Jones provide practical commentary regarding the successful implementation of Lester’s proposed approaches. As a group, Lester, Webster, and Jones create a text that extends pedagogical innovation in inspiring but practical ways. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Setting the Problem (G. Brooke Lester)
ch. 2 Understanding by Design (G. Brooke Lester)
ch. 3 Understanding by Design: Old Testament in Seminary (G. Brooke Lester)
ch. 4 Understanding by Design: Putting Your Course Online(G. Brooke Lester)
ch. 5 Understanding by Design: New Testament at University(Jane S. Webster)
Exhibit 3: Annotated Sample Template for Essay in "New Testament" (Jane S. Webster)
ch. 6 Understanding by Design: Judaism Studies at University (Christopher M. Jones)

Appendix
Exhibit 1: Rubric for Presentations (G. Brooke Lester)
Exhibit 2: All-Purpose Rubric for "Introduction to the Old Testament" (G. Brooke Lester)
Exhibit 4: Interdisciplinary Institutional Rubric for Writing at Barton College (Jane S. Webster)
Exhibit 5: Rubric for Essays in "New Testament"(Jane S. Webster)
Exhibit 6: Rubric for Ritual Analysis Papers in "Ritual and Ritualization" (Christopher M. Jones)
Exhibit 7: Rubric for Drafts in "Space and Place in Early Jewish Literature" (Christopher M. Jones)