Weekly Response

We read some interesting things this week. One of the readings was about Marxism and its application to Christianity. I would never ever think something like Marxism and Christianity would be compatible in any way, shape, or form, and to be honest, even after reading the article that was assigned I am still not quite sure how they are compatible. This article went over my head for a lot of it, and I had a lot of trouble grasping what the author was talking about.

                Another article that was assigned this week dealt with post colonialism. This was a very interesting article to me. Before reading this, I had never really thought about how colonization may have affected our post reformation translations of the bible into common language and how we even still interpret it to this day. One thing that stands out in my memory from this reading was something they said about the King James Bible. The author said the King James Bible was almost as synonymous with colonization as the Union Jack, and that this translation is the closest thing to an epic that the British have. This statement made me think about how much a biblical translation can affect the meaning of the word. This author felt so strongly that colonization was so deeply rooted in the King James Bible that it had altered the word in its translations so much that it was no longer just the bible, but rather an English epic used for colonization.

                One thing that stood out as really interesting to me that we learned this week was how Ethiopia was never colonized by a European power. I found this interesting because when I personally think of Ethiopia, I think of a very poor nation with starving people or how someone may jokingly tell someone who is very skinny that they look Ethiopian. It was really interesting to me that in the 19^th century they were a powerful enough nation to resist colonization from Europe, which contradicts my modern views of Ethiopia. The more I thought about this though it led to deeper thoughts about how maybe their lack of colonization has potentially led to them being in the current state that they are in. I am not trying to sound extremely Eurocentric here, but it is just interesting to me to think about how maybe if they were colonized they could potentially be better off like a nation such as South Africa. I know South Africa has a vast amount of natural resources which leads to the wealth of it as a nation, but it is still just a thought that I found interesting to ponder.