PhD in Theology and Religious Studies

The Divinity Faculty at Cambridge has a distinguished international reputation for research, teaching and for the formation of postgraduate students in Theology and Religious Studies. Consistently ranked as one of the top research units in the country in our subjects, it offers postgraduate training at an acknowledged world-class standard.
Specialisms
The teaching officers of the Faculty include leading experts in a wide range of fields:

• Biblical Studies
• Ancient, Medieval and Modern Judaism
• Patristics
• History of Christianity
• Christian Theology
• Philosophy of Religion and Ethics
• Religion and Natural Sciences
• Religion and the Social Sciences
• Study of World Religions (with special reference to Judaism and Rabbinics, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism)
• World Christianities (with special reference to African Christianity)

Each major research area is centred on a senior seminar meeting fortnightly during a term. In practice these seminars are often interdisciplinary in character (such as the D Society in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics and the Hebrew, Jewish and Early Christian Studies Seminar); and a variety of other informal postgraduate seminars and reading groups also help to expand the repertoire of exchange. A number of named lectureships (the Stantons, the Hulseans etc.) regularly bring international figures from outside Cambridge to contribute to the research culture.
First-year PhD students are not registered for any degree and must undergo an examination at the end of their first year. If they successfully pass this then they will be registered for the PhD degree. Candidates submit a thesis of not more than 80,000 words. The thesis title must be approved by the Degree Committee. There is an oral examination on the thesis and the general field of knowledge in which it falls.