[Sarah Merly]

While I was taught that the Bible is one cohesive story growing up, no one stressed to me the importance of the Jews in the present. I never thought of myself as an anti-semist, but when I read the New Testament, the Jews and the state of Israel felt irrelevant now compared to their status in the Old Testament. Our duty to help the Jews lied more in recognizing history than anything else. I knew something wasn’t quite right with that belief since it would be against God’s character to just abandon His chosen people, but I didn’t know what to replace that old belief with. Now that I’ve taken this course, however, that perspective has changed. Dr. McDermott showed that Christians and Jews are far more connected and agree with a lot more than either side thinks. In addition, his treatment of John and Paul allowed me to have a solid Scripture to point to when explaining God’s love for the Jewish people instead of an undefined, mythical feeling.