5 hours later

Sat trying to get my brain back into neutral after today's day of lectures. Not that the five hours of biblical studies weren't good. They were amazing. Just really need to detune my brainwaves so I can relax and get to sleep okay (didn't sleep too well last night - my brain was moving too fast).

Maybe writing about my day will help debrief my mind.

Continued looking at biblical interpretation today - mainly criticism: historical criticism, form criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism, textual criticism and hermeneutics. It all sounds pretty complicated but when you actually understand what the different forms of criticism mean you realise it's just a load of posh words for some pretty simple processes.

Then Chris, our theology lecturer, gave us an outline of the bible in about forty minutes to an hour - outlining the main themes, background and giving us a basic biblical timeline to build on with the rest of the module which is basically a detailed look through biblical history - grouped by historical significance rather than book-by-book, which makes it easier to get to grips with the culture and background of the bible.

Then in the hour or so we made it through pre-history, the patriarchs, the exodus and the judges in more detail, drawing out important themes and tracing the story of the people of God. Looking forward to starting with Saul, David and then Soloman next time.

Phew, feeling less hyper-brainilated now... obviously the writing thing worked.

Looking forward to the same again tomorrow but with Youth Work Principles.

Oh, said I didn't sleep very well last night - well I'm pretty much there with the whole Luke 9 thing from Saturday, but left my notebook at the college so will have a go at organising my notes for the blog sometime when I get back from Bristol. That passage really caught my inspiration...