First year: Winter semester

Programme

Hebrew (Biblical) Language 1

ECTS credits: 4
Weekly class hours:
3

Course Content
1. Introduction to the course
2. Hebrew alphabet: consonants
3. Dagesh lene and dagesh forte
4. Hebrew alphabet: vowels
5. Shewa quiescens, mobile and compositum
6. Nouns (singular and plural)
7. Article
8. Declination of nouns, construct state
9. Prepositions
10. Adjectives
11. Pronouns
12. Pronoun suffixes
13. Nominal sentences
14. Conjunction waw, interrogative and directional he, the accusative
15. Verbs: introduction to tenses and conjugations
16. Participle (active and passive)
17. Perfect (qal)
18. Imperfect (qal)
19. Vajjiqtol and veqatal
20. Infinitive (construct and absolute)
21. Cohortative, imperative, iussive
22. Other conjugations (niphal, hiphil, hophal, piel, pual, hithpael) and numbers
23. Review and final discussion

Course syllabus (PDF)

Introduction to the New Testament 1

ECTS credits: 5
Weekly class hours: 3

Course Content
1. The tasks of New Testament research; exegesis as a method of biblical theology;
2. The historical context of Jesus' work; from the Babylonian captivity to Rome
3. Life in Palestine at the time of Jesus
4. Second Temple Judaism
5. Judaism and other religions of the Mediterranean
6. Jewish sects and their significance for the New Testament
7. Approaching the gospels
8. The gospel as a literary genre
9. Why only these gospels?
10. The synoptic problem and the quest for the historical Jesus
11. Demythologization and miracles
12. Historical methods derived from the synoptic problem, and their continuous relevancy for understanding the texts of the Gospels
13. Contemporary approaches to the text of the New Testament
14. Steps in exegesis
15. From text to sermon
16. Through the gospels
17. Gospel of Mark; the gospel as kerygma
18. Gospel of Matthew; the gospel as teaching
19. Historical questions of the Gospel of Matthew; Matthew for today; the Christmas story
20. The particularity of John
21. Luke's good news in two volumes; Luke as a historian
22. The Gospel and Acts

Course syllabus (PDF)

Patrology

ECTS credits: 4
Weekly class hours: 3

Course Content
1. Introductory remarks: patrology and patristics
2. Church Fathers and early Christian writers
3. The languages of early Christian literature
4. The classification of early Christian literature
5. The relationship between Christianity and Jewish and pagan culture
6. Transmission of early Christian writings and collections of texts
7. The Apostolic Fathers
8. Early Christian writers of the 2nd century – the apologists
9. The great Christian writers of the 3rd century
10. The golden period of early Christian literature (4th and 5th century)
11. The great Councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon)
12. Augustine and Jerome
13. The period of decadence and the end of early Christian literature
14. Final review

Course syllabus (PDF)

Historical Context of the Bible

ECTS credits: 2
Weekly class hours: 1

Course Content
1. Introduction to the contents, objectives, and requirements of the course; short introduction to the Neolithic period in the Levant (Catalhoyuk and Jericho)
2. Sumerian and Akkadian civilization; Abraham's journey
3. Hittites (Hattusa); cities of the Bronze Age (Megiddo; Hazor, Ugarit, Ebla, Mari)
4. Phoenicians (Tyre and Sidon); the Sea Peoples; the arrival of the Israelis
5. The period of Judges, David and Salomon; the Philistines
6. The Neo-Assyrian (Nineveh and Lachish) and Neo-Babylonian (Babylon and Jerusalem) Empires
7. Amon, Moab, and Edom; the Persian Empire and the return from exile; Israel in the Hellenistic
and Roman periods (Masada)
8. Final discussion

Course syllabus (PDF)

English Language I

ECTS Credits: 2
Weekly class hours: 2

Course Content
1. Skimming and scanning; Finding meaning from context
2. Collocations, metaphors and idioms
3. Differentiating between weak and strong evidence. Articles
4. Argument essay and discussion essay
5. Cohesion through discourse markers: contrast, deduction, example, addition and summation
6. Cause and effect: discourse markers or signals; ellipsis and substitution
7. Debate: presenting an argument, expressing agreement and disagreement
8. Theological vocabulary – definitions
9. Exemplification, classification, comparison and contrast
10. Academic style: formal and informal
11. Grammar Revision: tenses contrasted
12. Listening and reading: distinguishing between facts and opinion
13. Reporting people’s words and thoughts; reporting verbs
14. Debate: presenting an argument, expressing agreement and disagreement
15. Review

Course syllabus (PDF)

Latin Language 1

ECTS credits: 3
Weekly class hours: 2

Course content
1. Introduction to the course: mandatory and additional language tools, course requirements, grading structure
2. Brief history of Latin; basic prepositions, functions of nouns, 1st declension
3. Nouns: 2nd declension; introduction to verbs, Present Indicative Active (1st and 2nd conjugations)
4. Present Indicative Active (3rd and 4th conjugations, sum, esse and possum, posse; adjectives of the 1st and 2nd declensions
5. Imperfect Indicative Active, Imperative, Present Indicative Active of eo, ire; personal pronouns
6. Repetition and translation exercises
7. Future Indicative Active of all conjugations, Imperfect and Future Indicative Active of eo, ire
8. Imperfect and Future Indicative Active of sum, esse; relative pronouns
9. Nouns: 3rd declension
10. Present Indicative Passive of all conjugations
11. Repetition and translation exercises
12. Demonstrative pronouns; Imperfect and Future Indicative Passive of all conjugations
13. Adjectives: 3rd declension; adverbs
14. Perfect Indicative Active of all conjugations
15. Repetition and translation exercises

Course syllabus (PDF)

Research Methodology

ECTS credits: 2
Weekly class hours: 1

Course Content
The course content is divided into five main units and their related topics:

Unit 1 – Research as the crucial paradigm of academic work and types of scientific papers

Unit 2 – Reading skills and the four types of reading

Unit 3 – Note-taking skills
A. Citing
B. Paraphrasing
C. Summarizing
D. System of note-taking
E. Instructions for note-taking

Unit 4 – Preparation for research and writing
A. Selecting a topic
B. Research questions; hypothesis and thesis; finding resources; scanning and using resources; draft bibliography
C. Synopsis
D. Project workflow

Unit 5 – Writing
A. Draft version
B. Components of a paper
C. Arguments and 11 types of argumentation
D. Model: The practical argument of Stephen Toulmin
E. Sections
F. Connectors and modifiers
G. Grammar and style

Course syllabus (PDF)

Ethics

ECTS credits: 4
Weekly class hours: 2

Course Content
1. Introduction to the course and its objectives
2. Basic concepts of ethics
3. Basic directions and schools of ethics
4. Historical overview of the development of theological ethics I
5. Historical overview of the development of theological ethics II
6. Biblical ethics
7. Ecclesial ethics
8. Universal philosophical ethics
9. The ethics of Immanuel Kant
10. Utilitarianism and consequentialism
11. Subversive ethics I: feminist ethics
12. Subversive ethics II: sexual ethics
13. Specific ethical issues: abortion and euthanasia
14. Final discussion and review

Course syllabus (PDF)

Physical Education

ECTS credits: /
Weekly class hours: 1

Elective Course 1

ECTS Credits: 2
Weekly class hours: 1

A list of elective courses can be found here.

Elective course 2

ECTS Credits: 2
Weekly class hours: 1

A list of elective courses can be found here.


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