Religious History

by Ben

Hey all. My days are all kinds of weird this week, due to an overnight retreat at Wakonda that may or may not happen this Friday. So, my apologies about the sporadic posts this week. Anywho, I am posting today not about Scripture that I've read, but about two different religious learning experiences that I've had recently. The College of Wooster has something called the Lay Academy of Religion, which hosts 6-week seminars every fall. Every Wednesday night, they have a different speaker in to talk about a particular subject. This year, the academy is focused on Genesis. The first two weeks talked about the creation story. Last week, they had a rabbi in to address Genesis from a Jewish perspective. This week, a professor of Islamic Studies from John Carroll University came in to talk about Islam's connection to the Abrahamic tradition. I knew next to nothing about Islam or Muhammad prior to the evening. Wow...what an interesting experience. I found out that the people of Islam view Christians similarly to the way that Christians view Jews. There was so much here, you'll have to ask me about it to find out more.

The other recent religious learning experience that I had was taking a trip to the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage near Cleveland. They have an exhibit in titled "The Cradle of Christianity." This exhibit shows artifacts from the time of Christ and other times described in the Bible. Both Old Testament and New Testament locations are shown in relation to each other. There are stone water jugs (sorry, no wine), tiled floor maps, and artifacts from Jewish and Christian worship from the 1st to 5th centuries. Also within this exhibit is a piece of the dead sea scrolls (I believe from Deuteronomy). Our guide was very helpful in explaining the connections between Judaism and Christianity.

Between these two experiences, (in two days) I have learned more about the two faiths that are closest to my own than I had in the rest of my life.