Why I believe that I should major in history. by Jackson

Why I believe that I should major in history. by Jackson - April 2025 Scholarship Essay

I want to major in history because I am passionate about the history of the World. I enjoy learning about cultures from different places and different times. I try my best to be an individual who understands other people. One way to get a better understanding of people of different cultures is to learn about the history of their people and see how different it is from the history of the American people. Learning about the history of several different cultures helps me to view the world from the perspective of other cultures, which helps me to appreciate the beauty of the human race’s ability to form opinions.
I also love history because I believe that humans can learn a lot from history. There are many problems in the world today, and history helps us to learn where those problems originated from, which can help us to better understand the issues that society faces. Learning about history also helps people to learn about the mistakes of the past. History can help individuals and society as a whole to avoid these mistakes in the future.
The history that I enjoy the most is the history of the Middle-East. I am a Christian who follows Jesus. I study the Bible daily. Middle-Eastern history is heavily connected to the story of the Bible. When I was younger, my Bible teachers and my History teachers would teach about the different nations that interacted with Israel during the Old Testament times, as well as the culture of the Roman Empire that reigned during the New testament times. When I got older, I started going to my church’s youth group. In the eighth grade, I heard a sermon about the importance of reading the Bible every day. I started reading the Bible every day. At first, I just opened the Bible and read whatever story I came across. Eventually, my Mom introduced me to the Bible Recap, a podcast that would help me to read the entire Bible over the course of one year. I would read a certain number of chapters every day, and then I would listen to a ten minute podcast where a woman named Tara-Lee Cobble explained what I had just read. She helped to explain what message each passage of Scripture was trying to convey, showed how God’s character was on display in each chapter, and she explained how each book fit into history. There are a lot of cool details about the Bible that you won’t know about if you aren’t familiar with the culture of the ancient Middle-East. For example, when God was talking to Abraham in Genesis, God told him to sacrifice five animals and to cut them in half. Then, Abraham laid the two halves of the bird on the ground, and God walked between them. This was right after God’s promise to Abraham that He would make Abraham’s descendants into a mighty nation that would own the land of Canaan. I was confused about why God walked between the dead animal carasses. Apparently, there was a royal tradition in Abraham’s time where when people made a covenant agreement, the people would sacrifice two animals, cut them in half, and walk between them. It was basically a way of saying “May I be cut in half if I don’t fulfill my part of the covenant.” The fact that God walked between the animals was His way of saying that He was going to keep His covenant to Abraham no matter what happened. This was called a blood covenant. When people made a blood covenant, they both would pass between the animals, but only God passed between the animals. This shows that God wasn’t asking for anything from Abraham, because He knew that there was nothing Abraham could give Him, since He is the King of the universe and He already owns everything. You won’t know this if you only read the Bible. Middle-Eastern history aligns with the Bible. This is why I love Middle-Eastern history.
I like history because I like learning about foreign cultures, but I primarily love it because it helps me have a better understanding of the Bible. I am also in apologetics, the art of defending the faith. History affirms the Bible, and many prominent historical figures are in the Bible. There are a lot of prophecies, mainly in Ezekial and Daniel, that were never fulfilled in the Bible; instead, they were fulfilled between the Old and New testaments, and you can read about it in history. These prophecies have helped many people to believe in the Bible and convert to Christ. When I study history in college, I plan to learn about Middle-Eastern history so that I can show people that the Bible is true. That way I will be fulfilling Jesus’ command to spread His Word.