I have a 2500 word essay due next Tuesday, so I shall be unvoiced until then. And, I already have been turned upside down.
Even though there are set topics for the main essay, it is possible to negotiate for an essay on a subject of personal interest. I'd been thinking about the development of leadership in the early Christian congregation, so I asked my lecturer, if I could write on that.
He asked me for a brief outline of what I was thinking, so I reviewed my early thoughts - that Jesus primarily had left no clear instructions (because he was expecting divine intervention and the restoration of the Kingdom), but he had trained his disciples in missionary work - which I interpreted to mean that Jesus expected his own ministry to continue, to provide the Judean people with continued guidance, modelled on what he (Jesus) had done.
But as Christianity developed (and the expectations of Jesus remained unfulfilled) a different model developed and I wanted to explore the model we see developing in the NT (think Pauline) and where that model came from and then transformed into the monarchial model with Bishops.
"Hmmm," was his reply - "that's OK, but I've got to be able to mark this, so it has to be based on existing scholarship, so I'll provide some readings for you to consider."
Which he did, and I've been reading (I'll post that separately for those who may be interested) and found what I'm calling 'his boobytrap.' Consensus scholarship essentially sees Jesus as a wandering, charismatic, (And, I've no problem with that. The Buddha ( Siddhārtha Gautama) is described in a similar way as a 'shramanic' - look it up!) and that his training for his disciples was based on that.
And the earliest form of Christianity is firmly based on that model. So what happened? I've got to say that the evidence is right there in the NT, as if we read carefully, we see the developing tensions between resident based Christians and the itinerants, who continued in the Jesus tradition. I've found that the rules for overseers (Timothy and Titus) were based on existing Roman traditions called 'household codes.'
So when I was asking him for permission, he (of course) knew all the argument in existing scholarship, and set a IED for my mind. I am impressed.