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).

Introduction
1: A Cognitive Turn
1.1: Opening the black box
1.2: The human mind: Basic questions
1.3: Cognitive Science of Religion
1.4: Cognitive science and the study of the New Testament
2: Evolution
2.1: A very short introduction to evolutionary theory
2.2: Genetic inheritance and religion
2.2.1: Hypersensitive agent-detection
2.2.2: Theory of Mind
2.2.3: Teleological reasoning
2.2.4: Expectations about ontological categories
2.2.5: Recursion
2.2.6: Emotions
2.2.7: Adaptations for cooperation
2.2.8: Traits favored by sexual selection
2.2.9: Group selection
2.3: Epigenetic inheritance in religion
2.4: Behavioral inheritance and religion
2.5: Symbolic inheritance and religion
2.6: Excursus: Epidemiology and memetics
2.7: Conclusion
3: The Human Brain: A Guided Tour
3.1: Brain and mind: same or different?
3.2: The anatomy of the human brain
3.3: Are all brains alike?
4: Memory and transmission
4.1: Memory in the brain
4.2: Chunks of information
4.3: Mental schemata
4.4: Narrative schemata: Scripts
4.5: Serial recall
4.6: Memory and emotions
4.7: Selective processes in transmission
4.8: Memory and literacy in antiquity
4.9: Memory and the New Testament: Some reflections
5: Ritual
5.1: What is ritual?
5.2: Acting without practical purpose
5.3: Ritual as the foundation of society
5.4: Ritual as a tool of cultural transmission
5.5: Ritual as a means of changing the state of affairs
5.6: Encountering the Holy
5.7: Conclusion
6: Magic and Miracle
6.1: Magic as an academic concept
6.2: Magic and superstitious conditioning
6.3: How people think about magic
6.4: The appeal of miracle stories
6.5: Miracle and culture
6.6: Example: Paul in Ephesus
6.7: Conclusion
7: Religious experience
7.1: Subjective religious experience
7.2: Religious experience in context
7.3: The Lobes Theory of religious experience
7.4: The Lobes Theory and the Corinthian church
7.5: Tours of heaven
7.6: Neuroscientific explanations of extreme religious experience
7.7: Toward a neuroscientific model of the narrative structure of the tours
7.8: Example: The tour of heaven in the Ascension of Isaiah
7.9: Conclusion
8: Morality
8.1: Empathy and morality
8.2: Religion from evolved morality
8.3: Morality from religion
8.4: Morality and exploitation
8.5: Imitating moral examples
8.6: Conclusion
9: Social networks and computer models
9.1: Computer models of religion
9.2: Weak social ties in emerging Christianity
9.3: Modeling the spread of Christianity
9.4: Learning from the Mission model
9.5: Patterns of conversion
9.6: Conclusions
10: Hermeneutical reflections
10.1: The text as window
10.2: Text as mirror
10.3: Text as image
Bibliography