Theology Quest and Questions

This course of study opens up questions concerning the very essence of Christianity and its beginnings.

Those questions take us on a journey back to the carpenter of Nazareth, prophet and wise man, who lived a controversial life, suffered a shameful death, but left an indelible mark on the history of the world. To gain access to firm information about him requires the gaining of skills and sensitivity in the reading and interpretation of the four gospels. And sooner or later a judgement about his long-term and world-wide significance means doing something else – listening to, and then taking a position on, the views of perhaps the greatest theologian of the first century of the Christian era, Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the Christian.

All of these studies have implications for Christianity in the 21st century. The Christian Church is nourished by the gospels but needs ever and again to listen to specialist insights and to learn fresh ways of reading and hearing them. It lives in part by recovering a sense of what Jesus’ life, death and resurrection may mean. It also lives in part by recognizing how the authors of the gospels set about making Jesus a contemporary figure in the lives of their Christian communities. And finally it is probably no exaggeration to say that the Christian community as we know it would not be what it is but for the influence of the vision of the world that Paul braved his critics to maintain. So our quest and questions take us back in history but also bring us forward to where we ourselves are now.

Prices: £5 per session / £45 per term / £60 per term with essay

The TQQ experience
How TQQ is strucutred
The teaching team
Writing essays for TQQ course

What former and current TQQ students have said:

“TQQ opened my eyes to theology.”

“You don’t have to be a life-long Christian or egghead to enjoy the course!

“The course has been very informative and motivating…It is the best course I’ve done in years.”

TQQ Sessions

Theology Quest and Questions, Term 1: Opening up the Gospels

This course of study opens up questions concerning the very essence of Christianity and its beginnings. Those questions take us on a journey back to the carpenter of Nazareth, prophet and wise man, who lived a controversial life, suffered a … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 27 Sep 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutors: David Catchpole, Philip Seddon.

Beginning with Mark

How the politically risky term ‘gospel’ takes us to the heart of Mark’s concerns in a narrative that is pervaded by mystery, shadowed by suffering, and combines what seems prima facie to be a very high view of Jesus and … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 4 Oct 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Beginning with Mark (part 2) Term 1 Session 3

Date & Time: Tuesday, 11 Oct 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Matthew and his Religion: Christianity or Christian Judaism (part 2)

It has been said that ‘Matthew and Paul, if they had known one another would not have been best friends’! We certainly note in Matthew an instinctively conservative position on everything that determines the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Sometimes … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 18 Oct 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Matthew and his Religion: Christianity or Christian Judaism (part 2)

Date & Time: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Luke, the Gospel for ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ (part 1)

Much water, chronologically and theologically, had flowed under the Christian bridge before Luke, not entirely content with the work of his predecessors, decided to tell his own version of the story of Jesus. George Bernard Shaw said, “It is the … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 1 Nov 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Luke, the Gospel for ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ (part 2)

Date & Time: Tuesday, 8 Nov 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

What’s so special about the Gospel of John? (part 1)

Here is another ‘story of Jesus’ but one that seems to belong to a different world – for example, almost nothing of Jesus’ own great theme of God’s kingdom, and almost nothing but the theme of Jesus’ unique relationship with … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 15 Nov 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

What’s so special about the Gospel of John? (part 2)

Date & Time: Tuesday, 22 Nov 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

What’s so special about the Gospel of John? (part 3)

Date & Time: Tuesday, 29 Nov 2011, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Jesus in context: the Jewish people in his time

To understand Jesus we must make every effort to understand Judaism, that is to say, the history, the pattern of religion, the hopes for the future of the Jewish people. And since John the Baptist is firmly embedded in that … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 10 Jan 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

God as King: the central message of Jesus

With a series of vivid parables and pithy sayings Jesus announced that God’s kingdom had come near. The famous beatitudes and the much used Lord’s Prayer also contributed to the presentation of this theme. We shall try to recover what … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 17 Jan 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Where can wisdom be found?’

Some very rightly recognize Jesus as standing in the tradition of the prophets of Israel, but at the same time many things he said remind us of the teaching of the wise men of Israel. What are the concerns of … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 24 Jan 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Jesus and Healing

Here is a topic that impresses many modern readers of the Gospels and makes others uncomfortable. Stories of healings abound not only in the text but also in the surrounding culture. What can we put together as an overall picture … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 31 Jan 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Following in the footsteps of Moses? Jesus and the Law

There is scarcely any topic that has divided commentators on the historical Jesus than this one: did he accept the whole Mosaic law as truth for the people of God, or did he exercise radical freedom in accepting some parts … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 7 Feb 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Holy people and holy place: Jesus and the Jerusalem Temple

Quite a lot of New Testament specialists think Jesus saw the Jerusalem temple as fundamentally flawed and about to be replaced by himself and his community! Strangely, his followers didn’t seem to see it that way. Again, great care is … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 14 Feb 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

The Son of God? – It all depends what you mean …

Every Jewish person saw him/herself as a child of God, but the Gospels claim that there was rather more to Jesus than that. Stories of a supernatural conception, and then pointers to resurrection-based claims about him fuel the discussion. Oh … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 28 Feb 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Why did Jesus die?

This question can be addressed on the historical level: who crucified Jesus, and why? It can also be considered on the theological level in respect to Jesus’ own view (if he had one) of the meaning of his death. Some … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 6 Mar 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Jesus lives!

It would be arguable that the resurrection of Jesus belongs outside the sphere of history. But the claims of the early Christians to have ‘seen’ Jesus a few days after his death or to have discovered an open and empty … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 13 Mar 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: David Catchpole

Before and beyond the Damascus road

To begin the study of Paul is to be faced with a battery of questions: Who is this Paul, and what were his roots in the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman worlds? What produced the complete volte-face in his life and … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 17 Apr 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

The question of God

Following his ‘conversion’ Paul had to rethink everything, even the question of God, so we consider how his new thinking related to other people’s thoughts about God at the time and earlier. Notably Judaism itself was not uniform, but the … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 24 Apr 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

The Crux of the Cross

The crux of Paul’s thought is Jesus’ death on a cross, which calls for careful interpretation. And that in turn requires a study of Paul’s christology, to which so many steams of thought contribute – but apparently Jesus’ human life … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 8 May 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

Resurrection and the new creation

Recognition of the central position of the cross in Paul’s ‘gospel’ should not become unbalanced by any failure to highlight the resurrection, for which the term ‘Lord’ acts as a signpost. The remarkable language of participation (being ‘in Christ’) as … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 15 May 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

Christian gospel and/or Mosaic Law

This is the topic that Paul wrestled with in nearly every letter, and is perhaps the most difficult area of Pauline studies to enter. He seems to move from solution (which must mean the achievement of Christ) to problem rather … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

The neglected spirit

Discussion of the Holy Spirit of God has been overshadowed by a preoccupation with other key Pauline themes, but Paul has some important things to say which the discussion needs to consider carefully. Concerns with prayer, worship and Christian character … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 29 May 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

What in the world is the Church?

What is the church, and what is it for? What did Paul mean by using the term itself for the members of those early Christian congregations. We will consider the community of believers in Jesus in the Roman colony of … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 12 Jun 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

On being Christian in the world

Looking now at both the Corinthian and Roman churches, we examine how Paul thinks of the ‘world’. What are those who are ‘in Christ’ or baptized and ‘filled with the Spirit’ to do in their everyday lives? We will consider … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 19 Jun 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

From the ‘now’ to the ‘not yet’

By way of conclusion, we shall try to correlate apocalyptic and eschatology in terms of the past, present and future of Jesus Christ. Paul often says ‘but now’, and is clearly convinced that the revelation of Jesus Christ changes the … Read more

Date & Time: Tuesday, 26 Jun 2012, 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Tutor: Philip Seddon

True Paul, late Paul, or not Paul at all?

Many scholars believe that some of the letters attributed to Paul are in fact attempts by Paul’s followers to extend the Pauline tradition in the period after his death. Different scholars come to different judgements about what is and is … Read more