Christianity Through Its Scriptures: A Free Course from Harvard University

From Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and pro­fes­sor Karen L. King comes a free online course called Chris­tian­i­ty Through Its Scrip­tures.

Here’s the descrip­tion for the course which you can find online here:

Chris­tian­i­ty is a glob­al reli­gion. From mod­est begin­nings 2,000 years ago, it has grown to encom­pass near­ly a third of the human pop­u­la­tion. Diverse in lan­guages, cul­tures, his­to­ries and creeds, Chris­tians nonethe­less share a com­mon col­lec­tion of sacred scrip­ture called the Bible.

This reli­gion course intro­duces you to the Bible and its scrip­ture and asks the ques­tions:

• What are the con­tents, lan­guages, and forms of Bibles in var­i­ous times and places?
• How have Chris­tians lived out their sto­ries and teach­ings?
• How does Chris­t­ian his­to­ry reflect the con­test­ed and var­ied uses of scripture—in the ancient Roman world where Chris­tian­i­ty began, in its spread through Euro­pean and Amer­i­can colo­nial­ism, in the diverse forms it takes in var­ied loca­tions around the globe?
• You will begin to explore these ques­tions and oth­ers while learn­ing about the con­tent and inter­pre­ta­tions of these sacred texts.

No pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of Chris­tian­i­ty or the Bible required.

This course is part of edX’s World Reli­gions Through Their Scrip­tures series. Oth­er cours­es in the series cov­er Islam, Judaism, Hin­duism  and Bud­dhism.

Chris­tian­i­ty Through Its Scrip­tures will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Reli­gion Cours­es, a sub­set of our larg­er col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.