Hello everyone, my name is Kayla. I am a junior Biology major from the Philadelphia area. I grew up in a Catholic family and attended Catholic school my entire life before Bucknell. My first memory of the bible was listening to the gospel in church on Sunday’s when I was younger. Throughout my elementary education, we mostly focused on religion textbooks that were pretty much the same information every year, and we honestly never opened the bible itself. It wasn’t until high school when I first experienced reading the raw text of the bible. Therefore, I would say that I was exposed to the bible at a very young age, but never truly spent a lot of time with the text itself.
I believe that faith has always been a significant part of my life since a very young age. I have learned to depend and seek comfort in my faith during difficult experiences of my life because my parents and relatives had taught me early on that faith is sometimes the only thing we have to get us through hard times. I wanted to take this class to strengthen my knowledge about scripture and specifically understand the patterns and timelines of different events in the bible. Since I have little experience working with the bible, my hope is to gain a broader, yet deeper understanding of the bible’s history, evolution, and impact on society.
The book of Genesis describes God’s creation of the world in a very artistic, grandiose, and poetic way using language such as “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis, page 2, line 7). In contrast, the book of Luke describes the birth of Jesus using language in a more humble and simple way stating “you will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger” (Book of Luke, line 12). Therefore, the difference in the language between the two creation stories is interesting, as one would expect the story of the birth of Jesus to be the most meaningful and poetic part of the bible. The book In the Beginning by Alister McGrath discusses the history and development of the printing press and spread of the bible during an era when literacy represented sophistication (McGrath, page 7). An interesting topic introduced in this book was the concern at the time for the bible to be translated into English as it was not considered an “angelic language”, and that the “pearls of the gospel would scatter and spread before swine” (McGrath, page 20). This language represents exclusive and hierarchical access to scripture, which is contrasted in the the birth of Jesus in the gospel of Luke. As previously stated, Jesus was born in a manger with animals and shepherd parents. This story demonstrates great humility and shows that all individuals, regardless of social class or reputation, can experience Jesus.
The book When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible written by Timothy Michael Law describes the victory of Alexander the Great and the shift of power generated afterwards (Law, page 13). This idea of an event or a person shifting the power and culture of the world is also described in Jesus’s birth story in Luke when the angel told the shepherds: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (Lines 10-11).
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