Joel

   Joel was a passage that I had to read very slowly and often read many parts more than once. When it first starts off talking about the locusts and it doesn’t just mention locusts as a whole, there is the gnawing, swarming, creeping, and stripping locust. I never knew there could be so many different kinds. But I though, ok, is this really referring to actual locust or is it a metaphor to something else. Later on in the chapter is leads me to believe that it is actually locust that came and destroyed everything. So did God send them? Because of what? I feel that after reading this maybe there is some history to what was happening or what was going on before this that if I knew it, it would help me understand better this passage of Joel.

   Knowing the history or the background of a text that you are reading really help shape how well you understand what you are reading. I remember back when I read that poem out of the Literary Experience text and how confused I was at who the talk of a bonsi tree was really about the oppression of women. But I remember Professor Corrigan coming up and explain one line to me about “bound feet”. I had the picture of the tree so heavily on my mind that thinking of a tree having bound feet didn’t make any sense to me. But he said so matter-of-factly… Well in the Chinese culture they bound the feet of women so as to keep them from growing. I had learned that so long ago that when he said that it made sense! I feel the same goes for the Bible. There are things that I learned a long time ago but have kind of forgot them but knowledge of what the context is or what their culture was like changes so much of how I understand the Bible. I guess that is why it is important to learn history or read older books because they bring to life what is to follow them.