NOTE: Almost all tutorial descriptions are taken from the University of Oxford website and are copyright University of Oxford.  Only the selection and matter for tutorials which reflect the research interests of SCIO staff members are copyright SCIO.

Israel to the end of the Exile
The assigned tutorial essay questions of this course will include historical, literary, and theological questions, and students will examine passages from among the following texts in English: (a) Exodus 1–3, 6, 12–15, 19, 20, 24; (b) Isaiah 1–12, 28–32; (c) Psalms 2, 18, 45–48, 72, 74, 77, 89, 93, 110, 132, 137; (d) 2 Kings 18–25; (e) Ezekiel 1–18.

Israel from the beginning of the Exile to 4 BC
The assigned tutorial essay questions of this course will include historical, literary, and theological questions, and students will examine passages from among the following texts in English: (a) Job 1–14, 38–42; (b) Nehemiah 1:1–11: 2, 13; (c) Jonah, Ruth; (d) Daniel; (e) Isaiah 40–55.

Selected Topics (Old Testament)
This course aims to enable students to acquire a detailed knowledge of one particular genre of Old Testament literature, to gain insight into the ways in which books of this type can be interpreted, and to develop a critical understanding of the historical and literary context of such books.  Students will focus on one of the following: (i) prophecy; (ii) apocalyptic; (iii) wisdom; (iv) worship and liturgy.

The Hebrew of the Old Testament
This course will enable students to read Biblical Hebrew prose (and optionally also verse), and to study selections from several biblical books in Hebrew.  Special study of the following prose texts can be expected: Genesis 6–9; Exodus 20; 24; 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 2; Nehemiah 4–6.  Study of Hebrew verse may include Joel; Psalms 1, 23, 24, 45–48, 96; Isaiah 40–45.

Archaeology in relation to the Old Testament
This course aims to enable students to gain some understanding of a number of archaeological discoveries in Palestine and neighbouring countries (both artefactual and textual) from the Old Testament period and to show how our understanding of the Old Testament may be illuminated by them.  The subject includes the geography of Palestine and of the neighbouring lands; the history of the development of Canaanite, Hebrew, and Jewish social life and culture; the history of places of worship and their furniture; and the general results of recent archaeological research in the ancient Near East, insofar as they throw light on these subjects.

Religions and Mythology of the Ancient Near East
This course aims to enable students to acquire a knowledge of certain specified ancient Near Eastern mythological and religious texts as well as more general knowledge of the religions and mythology of the ancient Near East.  The assigned essays will include a wide range of questions. The following texts are prescribed for special study: (a) Akkadian Myths and Epics: The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Creation Epic; (b) Hittite Myths: The Disappearance of Telepinu and The Song of Kumarbi; (c) Egyptian Myths, Hymns and Prayers; (d) Ugaritic Myths: Baal and Yam, The Palace of Baal, and Baal and Mot; (e) The Sefire Inscriptions; (f) Philo of Byblos' Phoenician History.

The Gospels and Jesus
Students will look at the four Gospels, with special attention to the Gospels of Matthew and John.  Students will explore the Gospels’ theology and ethics, and will study literary and historical problems associated with the Gospels, the historical Jesus, and different approaches to the Gospels. 

Luke-Acts
Students will study theological, ethical, literary, and historical issued raised by texts within Luke’s Gospel and the book of Acts.  This course is designed to give students a detailed knowledge of the text of Luke-Acts, and to help students develop an ability to comment in depth on selected passages in translation and in the original Greek. 

Pauline Literature

This course enables students to obtain a detailed knowledge of Pauline theology, particularly as reflected in 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, and to develop a broader understanding of the theological, ethical, literary, and historical problems raised by the study of the Pauline corpus in the New Testament.  This course emphasizes the distinctive features of selected Pauline epistles, and students will have the opportunity to comment on selected passages in translation and, if possible, in the original languages. 

Varieties of Judaism 100 BC–AD 100
This course aims to enable students to have a basic knowledge of the main trends in Judaism in the period 100BC–AD100.  A number of prescribed texts will be set, drawing from such sources as Josephus, Philo, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Apocrypha. 

The Beginnings of the church and its Institutions to AD 170
This course aims to enable students to acquire knowledge of the history, worship and institutions of the church up to AD 170 through study of specified texts from early Christianity.  Students will have the opportunity to study such issues as: baptism, Eucharist, forms of ministry, models of the church, house-churches, heresy and orthodoxy, apostolic tradition, appeals to scripture, relations with the synagogue, marriage, communications, and diet.

The Bible: Its Use and Influence
This course will explore the authority and role of the Bible in theological and ethical discussion and in Christian practice and liturgy.  There will also be an opportunity to consider theories of interpretation, the use of the Bible in non-academic as well as academic contexts, and visual, dramatic and musical, as well as literary explorations of the Bible.  The course aims to enable students to acquire knowledge of the ways in which the Bible has been used and has exercised an influence as an authoritative text, and to develop critical understanding by introducing them to the basic principles of biblical hermeneutics.

English Church and Mission 597–754
This course aims to help students achieve a rounded understanding of the creation of a Christian society in a culture which had different religious assumptions, and to see how particular political and social structures interacted with this newly unifying ideological force.  Students will be expected to study the main lines of the history of the English Church in this period, and some aspects of its theology.  There will also be an opportunity to study works of art.

The Development of Doctrine in the Early Church to 451
Students will explore how early Christian thinkers undertook to clarify the teachings of the primitive Church and formulate a coherent system of thought in their cultural context.  The tutorials will not only concern themselves with formal pronouncements on the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation, but also with other controversies and the contributions of particular theologians.  Questions relevant to the Gnostic, Arian, Nestorian, and Pelagian controversies will always be set in tutorials; other questions may relate, wholly or partly, to such topics as anthropology, soteriology, hermeneutics, ecclesiology, political theology, and the doctrine of creation and the fall.

Augustine: Life and Thought
Students will study Augustine's major works in the context of his life and Late Antique culture. Augustine was a leading bishop in a seminal period, and his dogmatic works, commentaries, and sermons played an important role in shaping the Latin west. A prolific writer known best for his works, The Confessions and The City of God, he provides significant and far-ranging discussions. Attention will be paid to the relationship between the church and the world, the nature of the person, the problem of evil, the nature of culture, the relationship between church and state, implications for political philosophy, and the debates with Manichaeans, Donatists, and Pelagians.

History and Theology of the Church in the Byzantine Empire from 1000 to 1453
This course aims to enable students to acquire a basic yet detailed knowledge of the history, institutions, and religious thought of Greek Christianity during the later Byzantine period.  Students will study the constitution and worship of the Church, monasticism, the development of mystical theology, and the relations of Church with the state and with the Western Church.

The History and Theology of Western Christianity 1050–1350
The assigned tutorial essays will consist of questions on the thought of the leading theologians of the period (especially Anselm, Peter Abelard, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham), and of questions on the main developments in the western church. Tutorials will be arranged so that any agreed-upon period of 150 years, with its theological writers, will be covered.

History and Theology in Western Christianity, 1500–1619
The course includes the work and thought of the leading reformers, especially Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, together with the radicals, and the development of the Reformation in European society.  Attention will also be given to renewal in the Roman Catholic church, and to religious change in England from the Henrician reforms to the reign of James VI and I.

Christian Life and Thought in Europe 1789–1914
Students will study the life and thought of the Christian church—with special reference to Britain—and the development of Christian theology in its historical context.  Writers of particular emphasis from this period will include Newman, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Ritschl.   Students will consider the impact of modern philosophy and of cultural and historical criticism on Christology, as reflected in some of the following writers: Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Strauss, Baur, Kierkegaard, and Schleiermacher.

Christian Spirituality
Students will study Christian prayer in its theological, psychological and historical aspects, paying particular attention to contemplation and mystical prayer.  Tutorials will cover at least two of the following four special subjects: (a) Patristics; (b) English fourteenth-century mysticism; (c) Spanish mysticism; (d) the Wesleys and William Law. When this tutorial is selected for application, students should state which two special subjects they wish to take.

Philosophy of Religion (theology emphasis)
The subject will include an examination of claims about the existence of God, and God's relation to the world: their meaning, the possibility of their truth, and the kind of justification which can or needs to be provided for them, and the philosophical problems raised by the existence of different religions.  One or two essay questions may also be set on specifically Christian issues such as the Trinity or the Incarnation.

Students should state at the time of choosing this tutorial whether they want a philosophy or a theology emphasis.

Philosophical Theology (theology emphasis)
Students will study the philosophical assumptions and implications of Christian doctrines such as those involving the Trinity, the Incarnation, revelation, the nature of faith, and the power of prayer.  Students may address questions such as: Does it make sense to say that the life and death of Jesus atoned for the sins of the world, and could one know this?  How can one know that a purportedly divine revelation is indeed genuine?  In what sense is God both three and one?  Can the beliefs required for religious faith be rationally chosen?  Can we change God’s mind by petitioning him through prayer?
Students should state at the time of choosing this tutorial whether they want a philosophy or a theology emphasis.

Christian Moral Reasoning
Students will be expected to elucidate and assess themes in the Christian tradition of ethical teaching and their contribution to contemporary moral and social debates.  The assigned essays will cover topics in: (a) Christian moral concepts; (b) government and its tasks; (c) medical ethics; (d) sexual ethics.

The Nature of Religion
Assigned essay questions will consist of questions on the main classical and contemporary approaches to the study of religions; the main attempts to define religion; differing approaches to the study of religion in anthropology, sociology, philosophy and theology; and the major explanations that have been offered for religious belief. Essays will cover issues involved in claims for religious truth and rationality, and of twentieth-century discussions of religious conflict and diversity.
 
Judaism I: The Formation of Rabbinic Judaism
The course aims to give students some insight into the formation of rabbinic Judaism from the first to the sixteenth century CE. It also aims to demonstrate how rabbinic Jews related to the Hebrew scriptures and to the surrounding cultures of their own day. 

Judaism II: Judaism in History and Society
This course examines the nature of modern Judaism against the background of recent history, including such topics as: the impact on Jewish thought and society of the Enlightenment and the Emancipation; the growth of Hasidism in the eighteenth and Reform in the nineteenth century; responses to the Holocaust, to the establishment of the State of Israel, and to the women’s movement.

Islam I: The Classical Period of Islam
This course examines the historical development of theological thought in Islam, from the Prophet Muhammad to the end of the classical period (seventh to the fifteenth century). Particular attention is paid to (i) the interaction between the theology of Kalâm and the other major religious disciplines - exegesis (tafsîr), Tradition (hadîth), Law (fiqh), sects (firaq)-, mysticism (tasawwuf), and philosophy (falsafa); (ii) the structuring of the doctrinal debate in respect of theodicy, prophetology, and humanism.

Islam II: Islam in the Modern World
This course examines the development of Islam as a world religion since 1500, paying special attention to Islamic religious thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics include: the historical, political, and ideological contexts; new interpretations of traditional sources; Islamic movements; Islamic modernism.

The Sociology of Religion
This course aims to enable students to acquire an understanding of the major figures in the development of the sociology of religion together with a detailed knowledge of texts, and to develop a critical understanding of some of the major debates in contemporary sociology of religion and how these are related to the study of theology.  Students will study the following issues in their relation to religious formations: class, gender, race, legitimation, power structures, violence, sects, and cults.  Familiarity with contemporary sociological discussion will be assumed.

Psychology of Religion
This course will cover theories about aspects of behaviour or experiences relevant to religion and the empirical evidence for these theories.  Psychological research methods and their applicability to different aspects of religion such as conversion, prayer, and worship will be studied.  Essay topics will include such subjects as cognitive and non-cognitive (i.e. psychoanalytic and affective) accounts of religion; normal and abnormal religious behaviour; origin and development of religious concepts; moral development; and constructs of theological psychology (e.g. soul, conscience, sin and guilt, repentance, forgiveness, mercy) and their status in contemporary psychology.  Psychology will also be explored in relation to pastoral concerns such as religious education, marriage, health, death and bereavement, and substance abuse.

Science and Religion
Students will explore the richness and diversity of relations between science and religion as they have been constructed in Western cultures.  Simplistic models of conflict and harmony will be critiqued; the role of ideological belief in the rise of modern science will be examined; and the challenge to religious orthodoxies from new forms of science will be explored.  Students will have an opportunity to study the religious beliefs of major scientists, such as Newton and Darwin, as well as the responses of theologians to major paradigm shifts within the sciences.  Questions will also be raised concerning the most appropriate response theologians might make to contemporary neuroscience and genetic reductionism.