I realized that I never even wrote about all of my classes and now here we are at finals week. I can't believe that two months has already flown by! And I can't believe how many amazing, wonderful things I have learned! It has definitely been information overload. Sister Allred described it like drinking from a fire hose and that's quite accurate. I love to learn though so it's been a blast. I knew that coming here it would be the perfect combination because of my love for history and religion and cultures but I didn't know how much I would come to enjoy the archaeology and the integrated methods of learning about other religions in depth and having hands on experiences and on site majority of the time to really grasp these concepts. It has been indescribable. The motto, the world is our campus, definitely rings true here. We are adventurers and pilgrims and students, and most importantly children of a loving Heavenly Father. I've not only learned the names and functions of the 5 pillars of Islam and the story of Gideon in the Bible, but also about tolerance, about love, and about dedication to the Lord.
Palestine
This class is about the start of Islam and the Muslim culture. We learned all about Muhammad and about which religions influenced Islam and how they practice their religion and about gender and art and architecture. Towards the end of the semester we focused on Palestine as a nation and their history since Israel became a nation and the wars and contention and peace treaties and intifadas and leaders associated with that. It's a bit complicated. Our professor, Bashir Bashir was passionate to say the least. It was always a roller coaster ride sitting in his class, but he liked to call it a party. We also had what he called "the blue bible" and we did so much reading that we started making groups and reading it together and discussing because there were so many pages.
Israel
This class focused on Judaism and the state of Israel. We started by defining Judaism as a people, a culture, a religion, a nation. Clearly this side is a bit complicated too. We talked about the Torah and the synagogue and the promises made to the children of Israel by God. We learned about Zionism and the establishment of the state of Israel and the wars that came along with that as well. Our professor Ophir Yarden is more calm than Bashir in his teaching but is still very opinionated. That was the most interesting thing about these two classes is that we were getting two completely different sides of the story as then we had to kind of decide what we believe and support based on what we were learning and we actually encouraged to remain more neutral while we're here.
Old Testament
A class that is supposed to be covered in 8 months, we covered in 2. I think that might be called insanity. It was fascinating though! It was nice to get a refresher because the last time I really studied the Old Testament was in 9th grade seminary and then briefly on my mission. It's probably the book of scripture I'm the least familiar with but also really enjoy learning about! And now, I feel very confident in my knowledge of it and can't wait to teach it in some way when I come home. There is some good stuff in there. Our emphasis was on what our teacher liked to call the plot. Our Heavenly Father's plan for his children to return to Him which is centered on the family. Take a look. You'll find examples of it EVERYWHERE in the Old Testament. As we learned about the scattering of the tribes of Israel which I had a basic idea of, we also learned about pretty much every single king that existed in both Israel and Judah after the kingdoms split. Holy cow, talk about a lot to keep straight! Dr. Allred is the head of the religion department at BYU-I and he is phenomenal! He would give us the history and the details that we needed but he always took the time to apply it to us and invited the spirit into every class. We love him!
Hebrew
This was the chill class of the semester. We learned the very basics of Hebrew and it definitely sparked my interest. We learned the whole alphabet in both block (what you see in books and street signs) and script (how you write) letters and the vowels and how to read. This was done by practicing English words in Hebrew. It was quite hilarious to listen in class because we sounded like 1st graders sounding out words haha! Our teacher also taught us Hebrew expressions so we can carry out short conversations in the city and she also taught us a lot about the culture through related items like the shofar or menorah. There have been quite a few Jewish holidays since we've been here so we got to learn a lot about them from Mrs. Goldman. She also taught us songs!
Near Eastern Studies
Dr. Chadwick's class is basically a culmination of everything we are learning. He gives us cultural context for things we are doing, he prepares us for field trips and most of all he teaches us the archaeological, historical, and spiritual significance of the places we are going and learning about in our other classes. He gives us his midterm in 5 question increments each week #blessings. He informed us that he is always working in our behalf. He has been teaching for 23 semesters here and has been involved over here for longer than that so he's really familiar with the program and has figured out exactly what works. That man is so smart! He makes everything sound intriguing and really does make learning fun because of his enthusiasm for it. He loves what he does and he's good at it. Did I mention he's a real archaeologist? That has been the most amazing thing about this educational experience is that each one of our professors is world-renowned. They know their stuff and they truly are scholars of this holy land.
Field Trips
Mostly every Monday we go on field trips. They are always a blast! We make sure we have our headsets and our 2 liter water bottles and off we go out in the wilderness, usually to look at rocks. It is fabulous! We go out with our religion class so we get taught by our religion teacher and then Dr. Whitchurch and Dr. Chadwick switch off being with our class as well. We also have a field trip manual which gives you lots of information about each place we visit and a few questions to answer which check comprehension.
Are you exhausted from reading all about it yet? It's a lot to take in. Trust me, I know. Above is the stack of books we've read in just the past two months. We truly are feasting after this knowledge. Since it's been finals week, I have never studied so much in my entire life. The one I spent the most amount of time on was Old Testament. A grand total of 10 hours. Wow. It sounds kind of crazy to spend so much time with your nose stuck in the scriptures (I mean it's not the most popular activity among young adults I'm sure) but it's also quite remarkable that we are gaining this knowledge and do enjoy becoming so well educated in such an important subject. Being unique is definitely a good thing in this case. We just kind of took our tests day by day and spent a fair amount of time reviewing and quizzing each other. I think we did an awful lot to prepare for this week and that we all have taken our education very seriously. It makes for a fun environment where we're all studying the same things and are willing to help each other and have the same dedication to being successful. It's been quite the whirlwind, but it's been so worth it!
Starting next week we just have Chadwick's class and then we start New Testament. And of course we'll still be going on plenty of field trips :)
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