BA World Religions & TheologyAdd to shortlist

Programme profile

This aprogramme offers you the opportunity to study Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and world religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.

You begin with their origins: asking how and why these religions came into being and continue to examine their development up until the modern period, where we examine how these religions have shaped European, Middle Eastern and Western civilisation.

The relevance of the course to an ever changing Europe is self-evident. How many times a week is Islam discussed in the media? How often are events in the Middle East reported? What lessons can the Holocaust teach us about integration and tolerance for a multi-cultural society? How will new generations of European Muslims integrate society?

Other issues which demand our attention include the ethical challenges of scientific advancements, such as, how can the ethical stances of religions affect the discoveries and opportunities of genetic engineering

Joint Honours options are available

Programme content

In your First Year you will study a range of introductory modules: Introduction to Jewish civilisation; Introduction to world religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, African Christianities); Introduction to Islamic civilisation; The world of the Bible; How Christianity came to Europe; Introduction to the problems of recovering the historical Jesus; Introduction to Christian thinking about God, the world and human life

From the Second Year on, you may choose from a wide range of modules, such as:The early history of Israel and Judaism; The challenge of world religions; Issues in modern Islam; Arguments for and against the existence of God; Judaism since the Holocaust; The relation between modern science and religious belief; Medical ethics, including issues such as human cloning. In addition you may choose to study Hebrew, Greek or Arabic.

Students have a wide variety of subject choices in the Third and Fourth Years, including Jews under empire: from the Babylonians to the Romans; Early Christianity and its literature (the Gospels); Judaism and Islam in the medieval world; Jewish and Christian identity and interaction in the Roman world; The Reformation and the Enlightenment in Europe and Ireland; Jewish identity in the modern world; Christologies (ways of understanding Jesus); Christianity and world religions: the challenge of the claims of Buddhism, Hinduism and other world faiths to Christianity; Ethics: philosophical and theological; Religious identities in modern film and literature

Entry Requirements