Week 15

Our final assignment in this class was to write a video essay. To me this was a daunting project that I didn't want to have to do. The first part of the assignment was to write a 250 word essay starting with "This course has changed the way I think about..". When it became time for me to start this it brought about a problem for me. I was not sure what I really wanted to write about. I mean there were so many different things in class that had changed my view on something or other. Narrowing my topic down was a challenge for this assignment. I finally decided on writing about how everyone interprets or sees things differently. This was one of the main parts of the course that I really felt impacted me. Borg discusses how many people see things in the Bible differently and I agreed with him. So many people have different opinions and understandings its no wonder many don't get along. This course not only changed the way I think about things, but with Borgs book it showed me why exactly so many people have different views. Once I decided that this was going to be my topic I had a hard time cutting it down to make the word limit. It seemed for me that I couldn't quite make my point with out being very wordy. As I began to gather pictures for this video, I started observing my surrounding area much more. I ended up taking so many pictures of my surrounding area that I had too many for my video. It was interesting to walk around campus and take these pictures because it did show me how many people can see things differently. I mean I went and took a new picture of the same tree every time I passed it. By doing this I saw it in so many different lights, it was amazing. This proves my point about different views. I mean this was one tree and I alone saw it several different ways. One tree, seen in many different ways is a lot different then the Bible seen in its many different ways.

Even by doing this assignment I felt that I learned even more. The experience of taking the pictures further helped show how many people can see things differently. Hopefully I will be able to show others in my class what I have learned and how many things are different to many people.

Week 14

Chapter Seven, "Life Together in Christ" begins by saying how Paul didn't just convert individuals. I found this very interesting. He did more than just convert individuals, he created communities. The reason I found this interesting is because he believes that life with Christ was always something that was communal and not just all on your own. I also found it very interesting to hear what was known about the early communal Christian communities. I never really thought about how this might of actually happened. I also never thought about the fact that life with Christ was communal. I mean I know it is never just you, because Christ is always with you, but I never thought about other people being there as well. I also liked; "The social form of love for Paul was distributive justice and non-violence, bread and peace.” This to me was a good way to look at the social aspect of love.

The next aspect of the chapter that I found interesting was how the earlier authors contrasted retributive justice (punishment) with ‘distributive justice’ or divinely mandated economic justice and more. It seems that the authors feel that for Paul the theme of "love and justice"go together. Justice without love can be brutal, and love without justice can be banal. Love is the heart of justice, and justice is the social form of love.” I find this very interesting that they think like this. I never would have really put these two together or thought about them in this way. But then again it makes sense. Justice with out love, would be brutal and like they say love with out justice would be dull.

As I moved on into the Epilogue (The Death of an Apostle) it seemed to be very brief, or short to me. One thing I found interesting, however, is the beginning. It began with almost a disclaimer, saying “In this Epilogue we move into the higher echelons of scholarship known as conjecture. We ask about Paul’s death. How, where, and when did he die? All we can offer in reply is educated guesswork.” I thought it was interesting and different how this epilogue was started. The authors never really state how Paul died, they only offer possibilities. I would have thought that this would have been something more people would of wanted to discover. The main thing they seemed interested about was which letter they thought was Paul's very last one. I guess the ending of Paul's letter and how he died are not really known, however it seems that they have some fairly good ideas. Overall I thought the last finally bit of "The First Paul" was interesting. The main point that I liked the most was how Paul didn't just convert individuals, instead he created communities. This is something I never would have really thought about.