I feel this course, Theology 1120 this fall is going to be very challenging. I have never in life taken a course with 1500 word blogs due every week, but on the other hand, the readings of the textbooks shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I do have a history in Biblical Studies because at home, ( St. Louis, Missouri) I attend Church faithfully and review and listen to the preacher’s sermons every Sunday. I also go to vacation bible school at my church where we study the Bible (King James Version) critically. By the way, my religion is Christianity and I am Baptist.
I hope that my experience in Biblical Studies will help me do well in this Theology course. If not, I anticipate on using other resources such as: asking students, who have taken the course in the past for help, thoroughly using the textbook, “The Bible for Dummies” for interpretation, and asking Theology professors for help. To also help me in this course, I must try to perfect the mistakes of previous students who have taken this course. I expect to complete the challenging work, as well as the readings of the chapters in the required textbooks. I also expect to follow the rules of attendance, punctuality, class preparation, class participation, cell phones and beepers, positive attitude and respect, and academic honesty and zero tolerance for plagiarism.
In the future, I plan to become a family/divorce lawyer and later, with years of experience I want to become a divorce court judge. Studying Theology will help me to understand when, why, where, and how lawmaking first got established. I will also be educated on whom and what first established lawmaking. For example, Moses made the ten commandments that included laws that most countries around the world used to govern their citizens today. From my understanding, the ten commandments were the first laws made from God and most of those laws helped form the United States of America’s first government system.
586 BCE is a key event in the Bible because it describes how the land of Judah got imprisoned and the people had to relocate to Babylon. Lamentations is a book of the Bible that is in the old testament. The book, Lamentations only deals with five chapters or poems. In the first chapter, there are two speakers: the first poet, who observes the falling of the holy city of Jerusalem, speaks in verses 1-11. The second poet, who is Jerusalem itself, speaks in verses 12-22. The first through eleven chapters deal with the suffering of the people of Jerusalem. They were being forced to desert their city by the Babylons. The people who were Israelites of Judah, (powerful tribe of Israel) even suffered from losing belongings such as the temple’s treasures and food to the Babylons. I vision the “promise land” with slaughtered dead bodies on top of torn down temples and armies of Babylon destroying everything in their path. The people being conquered were even willing to trade in their children for food. This was God’s punishment to the Israelites who were not living a holy life. From the verses 12-22, the chapter expresses how the fate of the people lies within the hands of God. God feels that he gave his people a chance to live their lives abundantly, but they have taken him for granted. It is too late for his people to repent for God feels that no one has suffered as he did. While the Israelites of Jerusalem suffered, they hoped for revenge against the Babylons.
In the second chapter of Lamentations, God expresses his anger that was developed by the people of Jerusalem because of their actions (sins). While the Israelites suffered, God showed no pity. God is described as the enemy to the Israelite’s because he destroyed everything that was given to them. God sent prophets like Jeremiah to minister to the people, and they still disobeyed God by breaking all of the Ten Commandments. The people fornicated, acted vain and foolish, worshiped false prophets, and also acted greedy. Because of the sins committed by the people, they got punished by God. “The Lord kept his promise of fulfilling his word that he commanded in the days of the old which is punishing and no pitying.(2:17).”
In the third chapter of Lamentations, the poet is now speaking to describe his experiences in Jerusalem as an individual. In many verses the poet expresses how God forsook him. An example verse would be, “he hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light (3:2).” The poet later begins to gain self-confidence that prepares him/her to repent for forgiveness in a way that God would deliver. Then he or she began to show others how to repent before God for deliverance.
The fourth chapter of Lamentations deal with the outcomes of the fall of Jerusalem. Everyone, both citizens of Jerusalem and it’s enemies had something precious taken from them. The punishments: The people of Jerusalem suffered from hard work and lack of food, The priest and prophets shed blood, The King was brought in the pits to get ate by wild animals, and the enemies (Edom) should be looking forward to getting punished in revenge.
In the fifth chapter of Lamentations, the poet (the people of Jerusalem) regrets the sins of the land. So they ask the Lord to renew their privileges and they will serve the him, but God refused and rejected them. From my understanding of the story, God sends a message out to the readers and prophets to let everyone know that if God puts something or someone in your life, it can be easily taken away if you take God for granted.
From reading the chapters of Lamentations and researching, it seemed that each group of people, no matter what city they came from, wanted to be God’s chosen people because of the blessings. So the people from each city fought to become the chosen people of Jerusalem because God promised Abraham, Issac, and Jacob that it would be the promised land (a land full of blessings).
If the Bible was set in an environment like New Orleans, Louisiana, the cultures mentioned in the Bible would be changed, the locations of the Bible geographically would be changed, and also the materialistic privileges that God awards us with, would also change.
The Meneptah Stele is the name of a stone slab. The Merneptah Stele is important because it is the oldest biblical artifact of the name, Israelites.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 27th, 2005 at 6:49 am and is filed under Class Comments, Week 01: Background. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.