Praise Jesus it all over! This is the last and final blog of the semester. For this final blog, we were asked to seriously evaluate some of this course’s goals.

Goal one: does it give students a level of expertise in the discipline of biblical studies? My answer to this question is Yes it does. I feel that this course goal has been fully met. I know a lot more about the bible than I did before this class. We learn every thing from the first page of the bible to the last. The stories we reviewed in class were a little familiar to me from hearing them in church and Sunday school but now I can say I have a deeper understanding of what went on in these stories. The Bible for Dummies really came in handy for this class, without it I do not think that I would have understood half of the things going on.

Goal two: did this course provide the tools to read the bible in an academic and critical manner. The answer to this would be Yes again. The bible was documented by man not god and it is full of contradictions. We learned al lot of ways to analyze and read the bible like textual criticism, source criticism, literary Criticism, form criticism, historical criticism and redaction criticism. They taught me the meaning of analyzing things and understanding how to actually decide what text would be more realistic. Criticism gives you a away of reading in between the lines.

Goal 3: asked did this course improve the student’s ability to effectively communicate and write clearly in matters involving critical thinking. Yes again.
this one was a killer having to write these 1000 word blogs every week. I did not think I could do it every week but I did. I write a little save it on my computer go back one day write a little more until I final hit 1000. I not going lie if I could have paid some one to write these blog ever week I would have in a heart beat. But now looking back I am glad I did not because know one else can say what I want to say or know what I want to say but me!
This one hard real hard but I can honestly say this course goal was met.

Goal four: last and final thing we were asked was did this course help to improve the world. This course goal was implemented through our individual projects but personally for me I can say yes one more time. Although no ones project has made a huge impact on the world; over all we tried. No ones project was really that great to change the world but we each changing something in our communities. Every one knows that you can not change the world in one semester it takes time, but as long as every one keeps trying to make a difference one day it may happen.

I agree with Paul in the faith versus conflict. Paul wrote that, “ a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” James feels that in order to be saved one must show faith in God and do good works. I believe what Paul said, that faith is the only criteria for salvation. One must believe in God and his son Jesus in order to have eternal life. Good deeds do not justify righteous people before God. Paul said that works had no role in salvation. One who has faith in God will do good works if the faith is true, but works or not required to attain salvation.

The best part of this class was the discussions we had. Once class began, we talked about anything under the sun we talked about the world today, Oprah, people from Texas, and some how still fit the bible in. Dr. Homan keep me wanting to go back just to see what he would say next. Dr. Homan was surprisingly knowledgeable on most celebrity gossip and the latest dances.
The worst part of this class was, of course, the blogs. These blogs took so much time away from me do real work. Each week I was stressed trying to figure out what can I say to hit these 1000 words? There was no way around them and procrastinators just found them stacking up. If you fall behind you have to be really really good to catch back up.
Having courses like these be part of the core curriculum is not a bad idea. At first I thought this class wouldn’t be beneficial to me at all but it has actually helped me grow as a person and student. I don’t think more than one semester of theology should be required though. It takes away from the good experience of having one class and replaces it with the burden of doing something dreadful all over again.

I found out through 14 weeks of class and 15 blogs that had to be a minimum of 1000 words that this course does in deal with my field of study. I started this class as a biology major but I am leaving a chemistry major. Chemistry involves the understanding and analyzing chemical reactions. Some of these reactions are very tedious like writing all these blogs. I learned to think more critically a tool that will be very useful in the study of complex chemistry courses.

It has come to the end of the road and I am finish writing blogs for ever as we know it. (Praise Jesus!!) and I can say it had been a journey. A journey I never hope to take again but it is done. So in the word of the bible Ashes to ashes Dust to dust Goodbye blog for ever!!!
-Valencia Johnson

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Week 15: Reflection. 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.