finale of sorts

I should have been blogging like mad to make it look like I was...decent at this but life got in the way. I've been working my tail off for the pass two weeks doing the writing, drafting, editing of over 30 pages worth of papers, several presentations, quizzes and so on and my printer seeing this incoming anthology of my scholastic work up and died...yay >.>
It's been a hard year and has really made me wonder if a Literature/philosophy double major is a good plan.
Well I forget this blog often, i just don't think my thoughts are that important and don't really feel they warrant the bandwidth, memory, or anything that make up this post, still I would like to make up for that and tell all my feelings about this course, so sit back and enjoy.

I'll start back to front with today's discussion. A point which stuck out for me was that doubt isn't the opposite of faith, but goes along with it. I haven't hidden my beliefs here so I've found that a bit odd. I know that personally doubt is what caused me to leave the church, and after investigating some other denominations and even religions it didn't falter at all. The thing that sprang to my mind was an odd quote on a t-shirt "Philosophy gives you questions without answers. Religion gives answers without questions" and there are those in class that have admitted asking if the bible is real was just not done. It just doesn't seem to make sense since doubt leads to questioning one's faith.
Then i realized the answer came from the class all along. Mostly in terms of the bible. Jacob in the slave doubted God, and questioned his faith and he came out better for it I believe. I think many of the characters that did question at some point were by far the more faithful or at least the most literary compelling. Job comes to mind, even Jesus was uncertain about the crucifixion for a bit.

It's incredible to have spent so much time in class pushing through hte work and reading in order to come out the other end and...have an answer. Okay maybe not an answer. Dr. Sexson has mentioned how answers aren't great, but at least the knowledge to continue the thought process yourself beyond the question. It's a great feeling.

In terms of the group projects, I'm surprised. surprised in a good way. All the groups did really well and had a new way of looking at things. In terms of my group I'm just amazed at the level of work we did in a short amount of time. Not only that but we fit a huuuuuuge amount of text into a 15 minute presentation.
Some of the interesting parts of samuel, well the transition between judges and Kings for one.
Another interesting part is some of the possible redactionist history. It seems that Saul goes from being fantastic to some loser and it's possible that this was done with anti monoarchism in mind, Saul to be made out later to be less great than he was and Samuel was made out to be better cause he was the real chosen one of God. This may or may not be true, take it with a grain of salt.
I did like being able to spot some redaction activity in my section, particularly the scene part which happened twice.
There's also being able to see some of the works of David, though I must say there was a part where I felt the characterzation of God, or at least how to follow would be disjointed.
Some might think (especially after reading earlier violent parts of the bible) that safely entering the tent of a man that has been out to kill you for no reason would be a sign that God thinks you're cool and you should take advantage of the opportunity. makes sense right, but the literary reason that this is missed by David make sense. BY sparring Saul David shows he is far more devote, a humble man, all around awesome, and is just characterized in a few short passages as all around better than Saul.
I think the best part of our presentation was having B bathing. Sock puppets are dirty >.>;

I think i learned a lot from this course. I learned all about the writers after all, and some hilarious parts of the bible which are fantastic out of context. I am incredibly glad I took this course even if it was intimidating from the beginning. I'm not sure I really have time to go over everything I've learned...So let us assume everything I'm a new person now and that is what I like out of a class. To have my knowledge base built up so much that I am a new person with new insights and thoughts.

Good luck to the rest of you at the final, and after class. Now we can all go home for the holidays and make silly comments about passages in the bible. :P