My project seems to be going ok. The children that I’m tutoring seem to not have nay motivation in wanting to learn. They get quite distracted during our sessions, and it’s hard to try to make it fun for them. Most of the time I’m usually just helping them with their homework. Also, there’s pressure from the parents because if the kids have a tutor they should be doing well in school. And sometimes, their grades don’t convey the fact that they have a tutor.
Ecclesiastes is the reflections of an author’s quest for discovering the meaning of life. The author of this writing was a qoheleth, which means preacher. In Greek Ecclesiastes mean a “member of an assembly”. He refers to himself as “the son of David, king of Jerusalem”, which is Solomon. Being unlikely that Solomon is the author, it is understood that this qoheleth takes on the characteristics of King Solomon. He considers himself to have great knowledge, wealth, and experience. Through his quest, he states that following traditional ways to happiness doesn’t work. He does this by trying to find happiness through wisdom, gluttony, riches, carpentry, and love. After taking these paths, he came to the conclusion that each of them was considered hevel, which means vanity. Also, he comments on all the injustices in the world, and how there are no solutions for them. Some of these injustices are: how the rich flourishes and the poor becomes poorer, how the bad outweighs the good, and how people are oppressed. Then he says that a part of the meaning of life comes from life’s cycles. To live one’s life, one should do good deeds that are fulfilling. Therefore, he says that to live life, one should simply enjoy life. He came to this conclusion through the fact that everyone will die eventually. So a person would live life before it runs out. Alcohol was a major staple in ancient religion. Several deities, such as Ceres, Dionysus, and Isis, were linked to the production of beer. Beer was given as offerings to quench the gods’ thirst, and also it was given during sacrificial offerings of animals. The Israelites gave beer as an offering to Yahweh. It has been known that the prophets in Mari drank beer to induce ecstatic states. Textual Criticism is known as Lower Criticism to distinguish it from Higher Criticism, which is Literary Criticism. Higher Criticism examines the various authors and the words that they used in writing biblical text. Lower Criticism examines the actual texts that are recorded in the Bible. The Bible is a collection of biblical manuscripts known as textual witnesses. These witnesses are written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Ones that are written in Hebrew are: the MT (Masoretic Text), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Samaritan Pentateuch. Ones written in Aramaic are: the Peshitta and various Targumim. There are others that are written in Greek, such as the Septuagint, and others written in Latin, which is the Vulgate. For the Old Testament, textual criticism is studied by comparing the Masoretic text with other Hebrew writings. For the New Testament, it’s more difficult to compare writings because there are over five thousand ancient translations for the New Testament. Then the job of the Textual Critic is to try to recreate the biblical Urtext. Urtext is a German word for proto-text, which means an original writing composed that a person composed. To help these critics determine which writing is accurate, two basic rules are used to help them make these decisions. The first rule is called lectio brevior lectio potior, which means the shorter reading is the more plausible reading. This is because scribes were more likely to add more words to make it clearer. The second rule is like lectio difficilior lectio potior, which means that the more difficult reading is the more plausible reading. Some common mistakes scribes make are: parablepsis, haplography, dittography, homoioteleuton, and homoioarcton. Parablepsis is when a scribe’s eyes jumps to wrong place in a writing and leaves out or adds parts. Haplography is when a scribe jumps to the wrong place with similar words and leaves parts out. Dittography is when a scribe jumps to previous parts with similar wording and repeats the same text. Homoioteleleuton is when a scribe skips to a word with similar endings. Homoioarcton is when a scribe skips to a word with similar beginnings. Source Criticism is also in the Higher Criticism category. Source Criticism attempts to discover the original sources of the Bible. To find this, first, a biblical scholar begins with a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that the biblical writings are a combination of one distinct written document. These source critics try to decipher as much as they can about these original documents, which are sources and the authors who wrote them. Some people thought that Moses wrote the Torah. This assumption begun during the time of Second Temple Judaism because of the misunderstanding f the word “Torah”, which means law. There’s a passage in Deut 31:9 that says that Moses wrote the Torah. Since the Hebrew word “Torah” means “law”, and it is used frequently throughout the Bible to refer to specific laws in the Bible. In addition, the idea of Moses being the author of the Torah was strengthen by the first century CE. In the New Testament Jesus spoke of the “law of Moses” when referring to Lev 12:3 (John 7:23), and he also cited “the book of Moses” when he quoted Exod 3:6 (Mark 12:26). This assumption was proven wrong through the language used. The language used in Deuteronomy 12-28 and the historical and theological context were after Moses’ days. The “Torah” that Moses wrote according to Deut 31:9 was only 16 chapters. By applying Source Criticism, these16 chapters of laws were not completed until centuries after Moses. The letters J, E, P, D, R, Q stood for sources of the Bible. J stands for Jahweh. He was the only source who was not a priest, and he lived in Judah. He wrote stories about women and women issues. The stories were also full of talking animals, dreams, and sex. E portrayed Moses and Joshua as heroes, and condemns Aaron and his descendants. P was a priest under the rule of King Hezekiah. He’s the easiest source to identify. The main theme in this writing is that if one does wrong, then one can make a sacrifice to God. P portrays God as omniscient and omnipotent. D stands for Deuteronomistic, and he was a Mushite priest. He wrote much of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. Q is the material shared in Luke and Matthew. Q comes from the German word Quelle, which means source. In 586 BCE, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem. Then when Persia conquered Babylonia, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issues a decree allowing all those in exile lands to return back to their ancestral land. Also, the Jews changed their government from a monarchy to a theocracy. One thing that Tobit has to do with my project is its theme. The message of the story was that no matter how bad things get, there’s always a solution or it can always get better. Although it was difficult tutoring the kids at times, it got a little better.
My project seems to be going ok. The children that I’m tutoring seem to not have any motivation in wanting to learn. They get quite distracted during our sessions, and it’s hard to try to make it fun for them. Most of the time I’m usually just helping them with their homework. Also, there’s pressure from the parents because if the kids have a tutor they should be doing well in school. And sometimes, their grades don’t convey the fact that they have a tutor. Also, some kids have after school activities which makes it harder to find an available time. To fix this problem, I talked to their parents about changing the tutoring time to Saturdays and Sundays. This gives more time to help them with their school materials.
I”ve noticed a great deficiency in one of the children I tutor. He reads on a second grade level but is in fourth grade. One of my goals is to improve his reading skills. Reading skills are important because they improve vocabulary and help with articulation. Also, Leap testing is almost near and I hope helping them with achieve a good score, or at least get them to pass at a basic level. I’ve also noticed that one of the male kids has given me more respect as of lately. Ususally he would not pay attention to anything I say. But , now he seems more focused. Maybe, I am having an impact of these kids, but hopefully I am able to be a good role model for them.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 16th, 2006 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Class Comments, Project Progress, Week 09: Implementation. 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.