Religions 10: Preparation for writing papers

1. Religions 10: Preparationforwriting papers

2. Program • Friday’s class • Preparation for papers • mid-term test

3. Preparation for papers • Look at document: ‘Religion Paper Rules’ on the web

4. Further points • - italicise foreign words that do not occur in an English dictionary: Latin terms like procurator, cursushonorum, colonia, decemvirisacrisfaciundis; Greek terms like agora, polis. • Avoid too personal statements: ‘I feel…’, ‘I believe…’ • empire, Roman, Latin, Greek, Hellenistic, archaic/classical, imperial period, early Christianity • - note: it is ‘the Emperor Augustus’, but ‘emperors and slaves’ • beware of the correct periodisation: Republic and then Empire (Augustus and later emperors) • - note: you are not a member of a religion: wrong is therefore ‘there were many members of paganism’; by the way: avoid the term paganism, or use ‘paganism’, because it is a derogatory, Christian term of the fourth century and later (so after the period we are interested in); Roman religion also did not know ‘churches’ • - note: it is ‘the Roman elite’, not the elites of Rome

5. Avoid ‘very’ and too many superlatives • AD 50 (fifth century AD) and 50 BC, but 50 CE/BCE • Avoid abbreviations: use ‘for example’ instead of ‘e.g.’; ‘and so on’ for ‘etc.’

6. Some more examples • ‘One could easily say that they were wrong in refusing to worship the Emperor in the sense that that is the law of the Roman Empire’ • ‘It is better for a Christian to stay true to their beliefs, knowing that if they are strong and do not stray from the path of God…’ • ‘As you can imagine, such a beautiful idea would sound quite appealing to anyone living in less than happy circumstances.’ • ‘Therefore, if the population does not share a common religion, how can a ruler win them all over to his favor?’

7. ‘We seem to be perceived internationally as a country that accepts all nations, and are often perceived as well as a refugee camp (no prejudice intended, please notice), when we are simply a multi-cultural nation.’ • ‘Secondly, this letter could be seen as an appeal because they were more than he knew what to do with because if there was such a small number of Christians and only a handful had been brought to his attention; he would have tried them and would have been done with them’. • ‘As part of Judaism they were not as big a threat as they were as an individual group’ • ‘In this letter Dionysus thinks that the ‘Roman religion’ is a local superstition and nothing more’

8. ‘Firstly, one must begin to understand the reasons for Christians having been persecuted by the Romans in order to understand the problems it posed to communities’ • ‘Romans were very much like modern people – sheep following the flock’

9. Wed. after reading week: • Hand in a bibliography (on paper) with what you have found thus far! • Start writing paper as soon as you think you have enough information to cover it! • Rives, Ch. 2