Professor Spittler is so nice and great at teaching! I loved this class, and with my previous knowledge of Christianity, I didn't have to do much reading other than the texts that weren't apart of the Bible that I had never read before. You only have one writing assignment per week, and they are very easy. The only thing I didn't like was that the TAs grade your assignment, and they sometimes don't explain very well why you lost points. I had to go to office hours a couple of times to discuss. But this class is an easy A.

Loved this class! Prof. Spittler is super nice and the class is very easy. You'll read through much of the canonical New Testament (but not all), lots of non-canonical texts, and get some background on early Christianity during those times. There are weekly written assignments that are pretty easy and that's it – no exams, quizzes or papers. Kerwin Holmes is a nice and helpful TA, although he'd often take off small amounts of points on the assignments and not say why, which I found annoying. But the grades were still good, so it's chill. Prof. Spittler obviously knows a lot about this material and is enthusiastic about it. I kind of wish I had trouble with the material so I could justify going to office hours! Definitely recommend this if you're at all interested in Christian history or the Bible or are just looking for an easy class.

As someone who is Christian, I thought this class was going to be very interesting because it would explain the backgrounds of non-canonical and canonical texts and allow analysis through a literary lens, which is a unique perspective. While this is essentially what we did in class, it seemed like there wasn't a lot of applicability or conclusion from reading and analyzing texs. For example, we would read apocryphal and canonical texts, and Prof. Spittler essentially lectures on her & scholarly interpretations of what the writings mean, or what styles might indicate. However, there isn't a next step- we learn what they mean, but we don't really learn how these texts practically contribute to greater Christian belief either in early Christianity or contemporary Christianity; it feels like we just learn snippets of what early Christians might have believed. For me, it felt incomplete because I wanted to know the "why", but if you're content with just learning the "what" behind these texts, then this class is for you. That being said, the class is structured in a very student-friendly way: you attend lectures, read (or can sometimes skim) the readings before lectures (usually 3-25 pages, 2x per week but oftentimes not that much at all), and then there are weekly assignments due Friday at midnight that include outside activities to prompt deeper thinking & comprehension of the material covered in lectures. There are no exams, and no final exam. Prof. Spittler is nice and down-to-earth.

This class was taken online during Covid, and it was entirely asynchronous. Video lectures were posted twice a week, and a weekly assignment (all of them pretty easy to complete and very short) was due each Friday. I would've preferred this class in person as Spittler is very knowledgeable about the topic and an engaging lecturer, but it did feel a bit boring at times because it was asynchronous.

She is an absolute must when she teaches it. Simple, Detailed, Intriguing. Weekly assignments and a grade booster. #tCFspring21

I took this class during COVID so it was online asynchronous. This was a very straightforward and easy class but I learned a lot and had fun with it. The format was weekly lectures, readings, and a weekly assignment (no exams!). I really enjoyed Dr. Spittler's lectures. She did a great job highlighting broad themes but also giving fun specifics. She is very understanding and even with 300 students, she seemed to really care that we were doing well and enjoying the class. I would recommend this class to anyone looking for a more laid-back class with an overview of canonical and noncanonical New Testament texts! #tCFspring21

Such a cool class to take for intro or non-religious studies majors. Although I took this class asynchronously, I really enjoyed Professor Spitler's lecture style. She made several adaptations to allow her students to succeed during the pandemic, and clearly enjoys hearing from and interacting with her students during office hours. The weekly assignments were largely creative, low maintenance, and enjoyable. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a fun, interesting and easy class!

This course is excellent. I could not recommend Professor Spittler and TA Jon enough. She just wants you to learn! I took this class in a COVID semester so we had a weekly writing assignment. These were super manageable. It's looking like I'll finish the class with an A. I would 100% recommend as a gen ed.

Take this class if you are looking to fulfill a gen-ed requirement. I can count on one hand how many of the readings I actually did and still was able to do well on all of the assignments. This class doesn't have any exams, just seven writing assignments, and of those seven you only need to do six since one is dropped. Spittler is a great professor and really listens to her students. As long as you show up for lecture (which is how you earn participation points) and attend your discussion, you should be more than fine.

This class is great if you want to pad your GPA without putting in any effort. In all fairness to Professor Spittler, she is incredibly knowledgeable about the New Testament and really nice/approachable, but her lectures were really, really dull (some people found them really interesting, but I thought they couldn't last longer). 10 percent of your grade is section participation, so just talk in class and develop a good connection with your TA and this should be 100; 20 percent of your grade is attendance, which is done on Socrative so you could totally be in your bed and still be counted as present (this should be 100, as well); and 70 percent of your grade is your average score on 5/6 writing assignments. For the writing assignments, she assigns 6 and drops the lowest score, so you really only have to do 5 (this semester she assigned 5, so I only did 4). The writing assignments themselves are super easy (approximately 250 words) and, depending on your TA, not even an issue in getting an A+. I have heard stories of really harsh TAs, but my TA (Andrew Taylor) graded really fairly and met with me outside of section to discuss my paper before I actually submitted it. I read probably 1 hour TOTAL, went to 5 lectures MAX, and wrote probably 1000 words for this class and ended up with an A (could've gotten an A+ if I had written the fifth paper b/c my first paper grade was a B). Again, TAKE THIS CLASS if you want an easy GPA boost.