chekmate

I am a Biology/Pre-med Major. Nearly all my classes thus far have been science related. I am taking my first religion class in my 5th and final year at university. It's a 400 level class, and I think I might be in slightly over my head. We have to do a big-ish research paper (10-12 pages) over the course of the semester. The actual paper isn't do until December, but I have to have a topic and short bibliography by the end of next week.

Here's the paper's criteria. I am trying to think of some ideas for what to do, and so far I have come up with:

Other Religions (Judaism, Islam, others) Thoughts on Jesus
Atheists images of Jesus
Images of Jesus in Nazi Germany
"Radical" Sects of Christianity and their images of Jesus.

I'm looking for other idea suggestions and resouces. Help!

motorhead

How about a paper on the historical Jesus?

Toto

These are ideas but do not complete the required sentence In this essay I argue that..."

It might help to know more about the content of the course.

A controversial but meaty topic might be

In this essay, I argue that the Jesus of History cannot be recovered through historical research, and many groups have redefined or reinvented Jesus for their own purposes. I will contrast the Jesus of modern religious conservatives, who is pro-war and pro-business, with the Jesus of the Catholic Worker movement, who is a pacifist and a socialist.

I would stay away from Nazi Germany unless you want to do a lot of reading.

freigeister

You could write about the view that Jesus was not God, but was a man. This is an ancient view, going back at least to the Ebionites. Various Christian sects throughout history have put forward versions of this: the Gnostics, the Arians, the Monophysites, the Nestorians, and the Muslims. In modern times, there have been the Socinians, the Collegiants, the Unitarians. And of course, all along, were the Jews.

rob117

A good topic might be how Jesus's teachings were shaped by the world he lived in- important stuff would be poverty among Roman subjects, how the Jews and Romans viewed each other, the pan-Mediterranean Hellenistic culture, political sects in Judea, and the apocalyptic hopes that were widespread among contemporary Jews, early Christians, and probably Jesus himelf.

S.C.Carlson

Take two Jesus films, e.g. The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ, watch them, compare & contrast, perhaps explaining why they had totally different public reactions.

Zeichman

If you take up Mr. Carlson's idea, I would STRONGLY reccomend reading this book: Film, Faith, and Cultural Conflict: The Case of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ

chekmate

OK, so I have decided that I think I am going to do a comparision of images of Jesus in the films Last Temptation of Christ, Passion of the Christ, and Godspel. The last one was suggested by the teacher. I have never seen any of these movies, and so I'm a little in the dark about it, but I think I may be OK.

How do you think I could expand upon these ideas?