As far as today's presentations went, I like how Marlowe and Emily looked at the same subject. I thought that learning about why something happened and well as how is vitally important. From all the presentations that I saw, I thought that Marlowe's stuck in my mind the most because of the startling facts that he had on Nero. Very graphic but very effective.

Also, I thought that both presentations on women in the Bible were interesting, and I particularly found Tara's to be educational. I thought that she had interesting points about the nature of society in Ancient Israel as being quite heavily patriarchical, though we find that in many of the stories attributed to the J writer, the narratives are far more complex than simply portraying women as evil or stupid. As Tara said, there were a number of very capable, intellegent and ultimately effective female characters in the Old Testament - women such as Sarah and Rachael. This is interesting to note, because in ancient Hebrew society, and nearly all ancient societies for that matter, women played a very marginal role. Yet we find that the Old Testament is full of interesting and crafty women, a number of tricksters.

I also liked the presentation on the J writer portraying God as infinitely powerful.