Kind-of-serious Question

My Hebrew Bible class has brought up some interesting questions this semester. As I knew already, there are seemingly irreconcilable contradictions in there, which I have found to actually be reconcilable, when you take into account the beliefs of the authors. However, there are some passages which the Christians interpret one way, and apparently the Jews interpret other ways, which we have been studying. It is completely true that when you read something, you're going to interpret it in a biased way, depending on your personal beliefs and preconceptions about the material. For instance, I read many of the passages in the Bible to look forward to Jesus. But when they were written, Jesus had not come yet, and therefore many other people interpret them to be talking about Israel as a nation, or a future messiah king. My TA, who is a Christian, does not read these passages to be talking about Christ. So my question is, does salvation require you to believe in the Bible? I understand in the NT, Paul (?) said all Scripture is God-breathed, or inspired, and therefore is the word of God, and obviously we should believe it. But we are saved by grace, not anything we do. How do we reconcile that? I believe that believing in Jesus and what he did brings us salvation, and everything else stems from that. But if those other things don't follow, what does that mean? Are you really not saved and only fooling yourself? Or does it matter to your salvation? I'm pretty sure that's something I'll never know.

Cool quote of the day:
**Live life like it's going out of style**

The Predicament of the Youngsters

The youth in America today are between a rock and a hard place. With the election coming up, most of us have already voted because early voting seems to be the trend here. But who to vote for? On the campus of UNC, you would be led to believe that the entire world is in support of Obama. Is that really the case? I don't know. But the problem with this first election that many of us are able to vote in is not exactly who to vote for, it's why we're voting for them. If we grew up conservative and end up voting for McCain, people say, "Oh, you're just voting for him because that's what your parents are doing." On the other hand, if we vote for Obama, people say, "You don't really believe in what Obama is doing, you're just rebelling from your parents because that's all you've known." The same goes for people who grew up with Democrats for parents. If they vote for Obama, it's because they're just following in their parents footsteps, and no one wants to do that. But if they vote for McCain, they're rebelling from what they've grown up with. [this typically seems to be the case, though, for those of us who have grown up with Republican parents]. What to do? I honestly don't know. I do know, though, that our choices should be made by ourselves with our own judgment and not influenced by any outside source. Whatsoever. If we make the same choice as our parents, it will be because we are educated about the issues and the candidates and have chosen for ourselves to vote for that particular candidate. If we decide to vote for his opponent, it is because we have educated ourselves and chosen the other person all on our own. We should not consider ourselves, or be considered by anyone else, to be "educated" if we now differ from our parents, nor should we be considered "uneducatede" if we make the same choice as that of our parents. We live in an individualistic society, and that's how it needs to be. "Such blind obedience to a single candidate or ideology is dangerous and inimical to healthy democracy. This attitude transforms individual and free-thinking voters into a group of mindless automatons. It is not too late to reverse these trends, however, and it is up to our generation to do it. Please, when you vote, do so because you support the policies and issues that a candidate stands for. An uneducated vote is worse than no vote at all." (Brock Baker, DTH)

Revelation.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is he
Sing a new song to him who sits on
Heaven's mercy seat

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything and I will adore you

Clothed in rainbows of living color
Flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder
Blessing and honor, strength and glory and power be
To you the only wise King

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything and I will adore you

Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder
At the mention of your name
Jesus, your name is power, breath, and living water
Such a marvelous mystery

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
With all creation I sing praise to the King of kings
You are my everything and I will adore you.

what? you can't find it? that DEFINITELY means it never existed...

First of all, I just want to say that people who use the inability of archaeologists to find ruins and evidence of biblical happenings to say that those events never happened, therefore the Bible is wrong, are stupid. How can you base your beliefs about basically everything on the ability of a human being? Humans are not infallible and sometimes DO make mistakes. There's no way to prove that something didn't happen just because you can't find it. You can only say something definitely happened because you found evidence of it. Innocent until proven guilty, that sort of thing.

This weekend was a good one. We saw Nights in Rodanthe on Friday and everybody cried. It was great. Then I spent a lot of the day shopping (and spent way too much money :\) and then ordered pokey sticks (AMAZING) and watched a movie last night. We finished the first season of Gossip Girl last night, too, and i must say that I am addicted. I'm finishing what there is of this season so far in the next couple days. I'm excited. Tonight I have dance practice which I'm excited about. Usually I don't know how much I miss having dance until I go back to it. This week is cancer awareness week and I'm excited about that. It makes me happy when people are made more aware of the problems of the world. Kudos to mom :)

I'm going home this weekend because Cam is, too! I'll be happy to see him and spend time with all 4 of us. We're going to talk about going to Disney World over Christmas break! I got excited for Christmas about last week. I can NOT wait! I think this Christmas break is going to be one of the best ones EVER because I might get to go to Disney World, I'm throwing an engagement party for my BEST friends and it's freakin' Christmas!!!!!!! [also, the semester will be over.] :)

"One step at a time, there's no need to rush
It's like learning to fly or falling in love
It's gonna happen and it's supposed to happen
That we find the reasons why, one step at a time"
Jordin Sparks

That's the meat of my really bad exam sandwich.

Title attributed to Cameron Teague.

Last week was a really good week. I got a big for APO and went to initiation, got my big, etc. EXCEPT i had my cell bio exam and that wasn't too happy. And we lost to Va Tech. And the Panthers lost, too.

Nothing too big this week. Last night I had my first APO pledge meeting, which was just informational about what we have to do as pledges. We have to work an hour in the Lost and Found each week (mine's Tuesdays 1-2), wear our pledge pins, decorate our notebooks, and do conditionals. There are 2 conditionals and a final review, at which we'll say what all we have done so far, answer questions about the chapter, and one silly question. Then the brotherhood votes on our progress. That might be stressful, but not too bad. I had dance practice for Fall For You last night and I'm falling in loooooove with that dance slash song. It's amazing. Also I applied to be on a Relay for Life committe and I find out very soon which one i'm on. I'm excited. I hope that I get on the survivor one, because thats the one I'm most invested in.

I feel like there's a lot that's been going on but I don't think I have anything else to write about, which is odd. Anyway, keep this and cherish it:

World's spinning round,
There's no sign of slowing down,
So won't you take a breath?
Just take a breath.
People change and promises are broken.
Clouds can move and skies will be wide open.
Don't forget to take a breath.

hello beautiful, it's been a long time

OKay so it's been a really long time, but I MADE IT THROUGH RUSH WEEK!! And Elizabeth and I tied for the most points, aka we're getting bids. Which is really exciting. But it also means I don't have much to tell you. I didn't have any free time from last Sunday until Friday afternoon (at which time we watched Gossip Girl, went to dinner, watched V for Vendetta, and watched more Gossip Girl. Then I did more APO Saturday morning, and then watched Gossip Girl again Saturday afternoon. Then we had shopping therapy in the afternoon and ate at the Cheesecake Factory! Saturday night APO had an end-of-rush party and our small group leader from last year had a dance party, so we were busy. Then guess what we did! We watched more Gossip Girl. We're already on the 3rd disc out of 5 for the first season. :) Good news. I met a lot of awesome people over the last week and I'm super excited about hanging out with them from now on because we'll be brothers (haha).

Over the past week in Old Testament we've studied the Flood and now we're on the Exodus. Bart is finally getting around to saying why this part of the story could NOT have happened and trying to argue that the Bible is simply meant to be read as good religious literature. While he's doing that, I'm able to come up with arguments in my mind to refute what he is saying, so it's been an interesting week, but good for me, I think.

Dance started back last week, too, and it's been fun so far. I always miss dance so much so I'm pumped to be dancing again. And it's keeping me in shape. And last week One Tree Hill came back on, and it was a horrible episode (horrible as in I didn't like what happened). The high schooler that we've all come to love was shot and killed! So first of all I hated that that happened, but it also made me think that it could happen to anyone, so it was kind of a traumatic night! But I'm ready for it to come back on tonight! <3

Life.

"Life is about interruptions and spontaneity. You have to learn to just go with it." --Hollister Dibble.
Quote for the day.

So last week in my recitation we discussed the Creation stories. Did you know there are actually two different creation accounts in Genesis 1-2? The first story depicts the six days of creation and the seventh day of rest. The second one focuses more on the creation of man. In the two stories, the order in which things are created is different. How does this affect the truthfulness of the story? Not much, in my opinion. I mean, who says we are to take every single word of the Bible literally? How do we know that God actually created everything in exactly 6 days? That is, 144 hours. Then rested for one? God is outside of space and time, and when we try to restrain him by adding specific human times to his doings, it's not going to work out. There are things that even we don't understand, no matter how scientifically advanced we think we are.

My professor has said that it is now believed that Moses did not write the Pentateuch (aka Torah, first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible). Specifically, because it is not written in the 1st person (which is not a good enough reason...) and because the end of Deuteronomy talks about Moses' death and burial. Those don't give enough evidence to say that the entire Torah was not written by Moses. Nevertheless, it doesn't quite matter exactly who wrote what - it's what's written that matters. They have attributed some of the contradictions in the Bible (i.e. the order of creation, the flood narratives, etc) to different sources. They name these the J, E, P, and D sources. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this statement, but it certainly makes sense of the differing creation stories, the different number of animals Noah took on the ark, and many other small inconsistencies.

Tonight starts Rush Week for APO. For the next week I will have NO TIME. Which is okay, because I'm going to have fun. I'm going to meet people, I'm going to do service, I'm going to be happy. I enrolled in the Public Service Scholars program last night. They require that I have 300 hours of service, a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0, one service learning course, and 4 skills trainings. I figure with APO, I'll have plenty of opportunity to get those hours. My only concern is the service learning course, because that has to be next semester. But it should be fine. If I get in APO, I'ma be a brother! woot!

Questions

First of all, let me just say that Wednesdays suck. I haven't had a good Wednesday of class yet! It was pouring down rain when I got out of Spanish and I could have waited it out because it's gone now but I didn't. So I had an umbrella but even with that, somehow my books always want to get wet and then soak up the water and expand. And be nasty. Not fun. And I still have 4 more classes to go to.

Anyway, over the weekend we had to read a whole bunch of chapters in the Bible, all the way through the OT. When I was reading Joshua 6, something struck me about Jericho. I understand that this was the Promised Land for the Israelites, and God had given them the land. But was it necessary to kill all that were in the city? In verse 21, the NRSV says "Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys." Why did they have to kill everyone? I don't recall anyone saying that the people of Jericho were inherently bad and deserved to be punished? Or were they just in the wrong place at the wrong time? I just can't understand the need for those people to be slaughtered.

Last night I went to a co-ed small group in Kenan. It was pretty much amazing! I love the dynamic of having both guys and girls there, the different perspectives, and even the different atmosphere of both. And the people in the group seem really cool. We played acting games for the first hour or so, and I hadn't laughed that hard in a really long time. I think I'm going to like that one, but I'm also maybe going to try out the Cobb co-ed, just to see (but I'll most likely end up sticking with Kenan).

I must brave the ocean once again. We'll see if I actually make it out this time. :)

*An Addendum*

I love big words. Anyway, it did not end up being an ocean when I left - in fact, it stopped raining about 10 minutes after I got to my room so I totally could have waited it out. And then I thought my troubles were over. But alas, 'twas not so. I put on some shorts, thinking I was smart so my pants legs won't get wet. That did not actually happen, but I didn't account for the fact that there were people who did NOT get to change, and therefore make the cloth seats soaking wet - cloth seats that I then sat in. So I, somehow, got completely soaking wet. And my books have still not recovered. I was still soaking on my butt after lunch at 1:00, when I left a puddle in my chair.

Good news! My biology recitation is NOT REQUIRED! Although I am still going to go because I can bet I'm going to need all the help I can get, it's very nice to know that I'm doing it of my own accord. Then I got a phone call telling me that I got a parking space with the town of Chapel Hill. Yay!.....No! I've already paid my hefty sum to mafia boss Joseph and so if I took that one, it would be like paying double and only parking in one, because I need to take the other spot NOW. Not fun. A verdict has not yet been reached on that issue. AND we had a pop quiz in OT, of which I got 1 maybe 2 right (there were only 3 questions - so not so bad...).

I am going to attempt to go to Zumba again today, and I am getting there at 5:30! [taking homework to do, because I honestly will get more done there!] So that's exciting.

These lines of lightning mean we're never alone

So the title is from "Accidentally in Love" by the Counting Crows, and it just happened to come on my iPod just now. Rach and I are in our room doing homework. Joy! I have a stack of books about 10 inches high on my desk, ones that I have to read out of by Monday/Tuesday. I've got 2 sections to read in Physics, and homework due on Wednesday in there. I also have about 15-20 more chapters in the Bible to read (from all over), a few in pages in Drama, a few pages in Biology, and a problem set due on Monday. It's a lot but doable, since it's the weekend.

It's my first weekend back. And I hope it's better than the week I've had. Ever since Wednesday my stomach has been queasy! And that's not cool. I hope it's about over. Tonight we're going to the first home sporting event - the women's soccer match against UNCC! Then we're getting YoPo/Pokey Sticks and watching a movie. Tomorrow I'm volunteering at Million Meals. It's a one day project tomorrow at colleges trying to package one million meals to distribute at schools across North Carolina - trying to stop hunger. Yay!

I had my first Religion recitation today. I really think I'm going to like it. I already know 2 people in it, and I recognize another girl but I don't know where I know her from. Anyway, my TA's name is Ben and he's pretty great. He went to Campbell University and then got masters degrees from a lot of places. [akahe'ssmart] I haven't been able to tell if he's like my professor, Ehrman, in that he completely disagrees with the message of the Bible, but teaches it anyway, or if he actually believes it. In any case, at least he's not been oppositional so far, so that's happy. We talked about our "brushes with fame" today and all I could think about was that N'Sync was on the same ride as me in Universal Studios when I was in 5th grade. Then I finally thought about Leatherheads being shot in Salisbury, and I could have mentioned being in the 15th row of the Jonas Brothers concert, but that doesn't really count. We had to bring in 3 questions that we had, and there were some really good ones. One of the girls I know said she's taking the class because she's never read the Bible, and figured it would be a good way to do it. She had some really good questions, like if there was a New Testament slash new religion/covenant, why was the Old Testament included in the new version of the Bible? And other things like that. One of mine was what is the purpose of the extremely restrictive laws in the Hebrew Bible, such as those in Leviticus? I can understand some of them, but does it really matter what kind of bread you eat on certain days?? Anyway, my TA seemed very easy to talk to, and he has informal office hours on Franklin Street on Fridays for extra discussion or just to hang out, so I think i'm going to make a regular appearance at those, because that's what I'm in the class for! I think the recitation will be a good addition to the class.

First Day

So I don't mean to make my first post on here dismal in any way, but to tell the truth my day wasn't the great first day of school everyone is supposed to have. Yesterday was good, and it was the actual first day so I suppose that makes it okay. Today I woke up with a stomach ache and it hasn't quite gone away yet. My day also went from 8-3. I only had 4 classes, but usually I'll have 5! And I've never had an 8:00 class before, either. But, surprisingly, it went well. I've been having trouble adjusting back to doing work again, though. Since I took a class over the summer, it doesn't seem like it's time to get back to work, yet, but alas, it is. Maybe since I only have 1 class tomorrow, I can get caught up on the subjects I didn't do today.

I had my first Intro to Old Testament class this afternoon. I think I'm really going to enjoy it. We had a pop quiz and the professor said he'd buy dinner for anyone who got 10/12 right. Well, I got 10! The clencher was that Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament. I totally randomly guessed, but I got it right! I have that class with one of my really good friends, Kim. I've heard terrifying things about this professor - that he is defiantly against believing the Bible and uses his class to prove that the Bible is wrong. So I'm glad to have someone in there with me. I truly think that I'm going to enjoy the class, though. It isn't often that you get to study the Bible in a purely academic way. I'm very interested to learn what this guy has to teach me, though!

I also went to a part-time job fair this afternoon. I went to the Carrboro Recreation and Parks Department table, and it turns out that there are dance classes offered there, and positions available helping teach those classes. So actually at the moment I'm filling out an application for that job. I think it would be really fun and very chill. And a good fit for me. We'll see!