Cognitive Science and the New Testament

István Czachesz is based at the University of Tromsø. His publications include The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse: Hell, Scatology and Metamorphosis (Routledge, 2012) and Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (with Risto Uro; Routledge, 2013).

• Introduction1: A Cognitive Turn1.1: Opening the black box1.2: The human mind: Basic questions1.3: Cognitive Science of Religion1.4: Cognitive science and the study of the New Testament2: Evolution2.1: A very short introduction to evolutionary theory2.2: Genetic inheritance and religion2.2.1: Hypersensitive agent-detection2.2.2: Theory of Mind2.2.3: Teleological reasoning2.2.4: Expectations about ontological categories2.2.5: Recursion2.2.6: Emotions2.2.7: Adaptations for cooperation2.2.8: Traits favored by sexual selection2.2.9: Group selection2.3: Epigenetic inheritance in religion2.4: Behavioral inheritance and religion2.5: Symbolic inheritance and religion2.6: Excursus: Epidemiology and memetics2.7: Conclusion3: The Human Brain: A Guided Tour3.1: Brain and mind: same or different?3.2: The anatomy of the human brain3.3: Are all brains alike?4: Memory and transmission4.1: Memory in the brain4.2: Chunks of information4.3: Mental schemata4.4: Narrative schemata: Scripts4.5: Serial recall4.6: Memory and emotions4.7: Selective processes in transmission4.8: Memory and literacy in antiquity4.9: Memory and the New Testament: Some reflections5: Ritual5.1: What is ritual?5.2: Acting without practical purpose5.3: Ritual as the foundation of society5.4: Ritual as a tool of cultural transmission5.5: Ritual as a means of changing the state of affairs5.6: Encountering the Holy5.7: Conclusion6: Magic and Miracle6.1: Magic as an academic concept6.2: Magic and superstitious conditioning6.3: How people think about magic6.4: The appeal of miracle stories6.5: Miracle and culture6.6: Example: Paul in Ephesus6.7: Conclusion7: Religious experience7.1: Subjective religious experience7.2: Religious experience in context7.3: The Lobes Theory of religious experience7.4: The Lobes Theory and the Corinthian church7.5: Tours of heaven7.6: Neuroscientific explanations of extreme religious experience7.7: Toward a neuroscientific model of the narrative structure of the tours7.8: Example: The tour of heaven in the Ascension of Isaiah7.9: Conclusion8: Morality8.1: Empathy and morality8.2: Religion from evolved morality8.3: Morality from religion8.4: Morality and exploitation8.5: Imitating moral examples8.6: Conclusion9: Social networks and computer models9.1: Computer models of religion9.2: Weak social ties in emerging Christianity9.3: Modeling the spread of Christianity9.4: Learning from the Mission model9.5: Patterns of conversion9.6: Conclusions10: Hermeneutical reflections10.1: The text as window10.2: Text as mirror10.3: Text as imageBibliography

This is a landmark study in the field of NT and one I highly recommend.