A rich man was once asked how to become wealthy. He responded wryly, "Find out what the poor people are doing," quipped he, "and do the opposite." Though overly simplistic and downright funny -- but not as funny as the "axis of evil" comedy tour on Comedy Central -- there is on occasion, some help in this advice. Remember I had mentioned that informal logic textbooks take this approach, teaching how NOT to reason as their didactic approach of choice.
I am persuaded that this informs the proper way to teach ancient history in certain regards. But first, a brief introduction to the landscape of ancient history.
One of the striking and prominent features of ancient history stems from the fact that all written records "spring up" across the Mediterranean, nay the whole ancient world, at almost exactly the same time -- as if on cue -- like so many actors taking the stage simultaneously to play their part in a vast drama. This needs explaining, and the most notable detail of the ancient history texts I have read is this -- they offer either no explanation or else really goofy ones (involving cave men, and hunting-gathering societies, which from the standpoint of historical investigation are no better than "Professor Plumb, in the library, with the candlestick").
So here is the approach I have adopted after many years of pondering what I did and did not like about the teaching of ancient history by pagans at the University I attended.
1. As mentioned, they need a satisfying and unifying explanation for the written records appearing ex nihilo at the year 3,000 B.C. This happens in Egypt, Sumeria, and anywhere else you find written records early (as with India and China).
2. The chronology used to set the pace for all ancient history in these texts is that of one "Manetho." His very late chronology structures the whole of the history of ancient Egypt, which many use to set the pace for the whole of ancient history. Gary North has already written one article showing basic flaws in Manetho's account. This is the only article on the topic I know of written by a Christian author. Clearly, we need a different way to structure the ancient chronology of Empires, but understandably, this cannot be the undertaking of any one person, since it requires significant expertise in several areas of ancient history.
But this is worth noting. The Bible, of course, has the answer. Christians need to restructure ancient chronology using the Biblical record. This would comprise a solution to the second problem with ancient accounts.
3. Ancient history was never easy, though I tended to score well since I was highly motivated. Part of the problem many students had -- I ended up tutoring some of my peers since the guy who asks alot of questions in class almost volunteers himself for the job -- like it or not. But I listened to their complaints (and they had many) with the difficulties of courses like Ancient Egypt, or Ancient Greece.
A. First, the teachers seemed unsure what to include and what to leave out (you can never in a single quarter or even semester hope to do much more than scratch the surface of the history of any single empire). So they overloaded us with burdensome details for which we did not have an adequate framework to "plug the details" into.
The Bible has the answer for this problem too. It teaches by principle and then by example. You can see this with Exodus, where first the principle is introduced "Do not light fires on the Sabbath," and then the text provides and example of a man violating this command and Moses handing out the penalty for the infraction -- which is called a precept. Precepts are principles stated and examples provided to SHOW how to apply the point.
For didactic methods (how you are supposed to teach) this means that you always reason from the more general -- or "bigger picture" -- to the more specific (the particular details). This has the effect that one has a framework -- an understanding of the larger picture FIRST so that when he learns the details, he has a way to catalogue them by placing within the larger picture in this or that location, so that they not only make sense -- since they fit the larger context -- but the student can judge the relative importance or significance of this or that detail.
This means he knows what to focus on and what to treat more lightly. This gives students a sense of control over their learning experience, whereas the reverse method leads to frustration and even exasperation on the part of some. Endless details with no set relationship to other details seem like only so much flotsam and jetsam in an endless sea of more interesting things.
The solution to this -- I have based on the decalogue of the Holy Bible. Consider this: God had an extraordinary number of ethical lessons to teach both Israel and the Church of the Newer Covenant. Try reading Leviticus if you don't believe me. But He first SUMMARIZED these in ten commandments, so that each person reading the Bible could have the overall ethical "big picture" and could -- as it were -- file any one knew ethical detail under one or more of the commandments. This is exactly the approach taken by the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms. Even their didactic methods are biblical (not just the content).
So I do this with ancient -- and not-so-ancient history -- whatever the lecture, you select exactly ten important timeline features and require the students simply to memorize these. Have the students write them down on 3 x 5 index cards to make flash cards out of these ten bits of raw data. They can this way be easily and quickly memorized and the students have fun quizzing each other (with supervision of course). You can even have a reward for the one who memorizes them the fastest or some such fun thing. Whatever you do, make it fun, and praise any effort of the students at all times.
The proverb says that "pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." Here, pleasant words means "compliments" or "praise." Another of the proverbs indicates that this is exactly what motivates students and pleasant words increase learning. Make it happen. Your little ones -- and perhaps not so little -- thrive in an environment of praise for real effort. Solomon knows.
By structuring, let us say, the course entitled, The History of Early Christianity, you should pick as your chronology reference points the dates for Caesar Augustus (mentioned by Luke) -- or you could back up a little earlier and begin with Julius Caesar (your choice), then move forward to choose 9 more Emperors or note (you must include Titus who as commander Under Vespasian attacked and destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70 -- and finally you should conclude around the 5th or 6th centuries, perhaps with the Death of Justinian (A.D. 565). Others to include in your timeline would be the Emperors Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, the Christian author Quintus Septimius Florens Tertuallianus (a.k.a. Tertullian), Constantine (the battle of the Milvian Bridge -- 312 -- and the Edict of Toleration (313) figure prominently here, The council of Nicea (325) Theodosius (399-ish) and a few others. Your timeline might look a bit different than mine. Some might include Julian the Apostate -- others not.
That's fine. Just make sure you get 10 reference points of real signficance (any good text will have such a timeline in the back waiting for you to plunder it); you don't have to do all the research yourself first hand. Don't reinvent the wheel just because you are teaching ancient history. After the students memorize your chronological framework, you will find that the rest of the details come much faster and more easily for your students to grasp. When they ask "When this or that happened," you can simply mention the date and then tell them that it comes between two of the memorized dates -- say "this event happened before Odovacar slapped Rome, but after Theodosius outlawed all non-Christian religions in empire."
You will find your students "get it" on time every time. This is the biblical didactic approach and it works.
B. The history of the world is largely the history of the rise and fall -- or sometimes long, boring slump -- of empires. This is true not only of the ancient world, but even of the more recent history of nations. Only the most recent history has little to do with empires, but even here one could argue that the Soviets and Chinese have not just nations. As late as 1996, one nation gained its formal independence from Britiain and the nation of Australia still officially resides as a member of the British commonwealth.
God has been pleased in His Providence to govern history this way. This includes the older empires we all know and love -- Egypt, Sumeria, Akkadia, Assyria (no one really loved the Assyrians), Persia, Greece, Blah Blah Blah. More recently, we have the Byzantine Empire (which fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453), the Spanish and Dutch Empires, and most recently the British Empire which at its apex covered some 1/4 of the land mass of planet earth in square miles.
My suggestion: Go with the flow. Teach the history of empires, using my ten-point chronology approach. This way you can even learn history along with your students -- no one knows everything about even any one empire (the evidence pool grows with each new discovery). The history channel rules. You might use that as a great resource to help too.
4. The proper explanation for the written record's sudden appearance on the scene is of course the Noahic Flood. But you won't find this explanantion in any history text written by those commited to the denial that God acts in history to judge the wicked. Think about it just a little and you won't miss the motivation. Joe pagan writes a history text and forgets to leave out the part where God judges pagans. Oops. A simple oversight. Won't happen again (not!).
I have -- surprise! -- much more to say on the topic of ancient (and medieval, and modern) history in order to help homeschoolers raise up the sharpest tacks in the package. But this will suffice for today. So here are a few questions to contemplate.
1. Why do all the ancient written records show up magically all at the same time across the whole known world in ancient times?
Answer: Genesis 6-9 could not be more plain. God wiped out the wicked world of sinners in Noah's Day because they grieved him exceedingly by their many sins. This left no written record except those which Noah (who was a prophet) took with him on the ark. These were later incorporated (probably by Moses) into the current Genesis record. Writing existed very early on in Genesis, as did metallurgy and music (The clan of Tubal-Cain led the musicians, but we don't know if it was country or western).
Written records show up around 3000 - 3200 B.C. uniformly because this is when men or different areas had had time to scatter from the Tower of Babel and develop into communities around the world. Shortly after these "hunter-gatherer" -- and they were this actually (for Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord) -- societies had developed sufficient capital from business transactions to have enough leisure time for some to begin what we would today call "academic pursuits." The earliest written records we have are all business records. This is not a coincidence. Capitalism -- being biblical -- gives rise to education and writing is the foundation of formal learning. Writing, of course, makes doing (and remembering who paid what when they want a refund) business much more efficient and profitable. They key word is profit.
2. What is the historical evidence -- remember historical evidence is limited to written records -- is there for what happened before (roughly) 3000 B.C. ?
Answer: The Bible alone has credible sources for describing what happened prior to the universal development of post-Flood writing. Since no other writings of anything but mythology predate this time-frame, the Bible is the only historical game in town. It has no real competitors, and I strongly suspect God did this on purpose.
3. Why should one use a 10-point chronology to teach students (and why should students use them to learn) the history of any particular empire?
Answer: The Bible teaches that one should always reason and learn from the more general concept to the more particular details. It does this in several ways, one of which is by showing us how God teaches his people -- by teaching first a general rule and then by showing an example of the rule properly applied in a particular instance. This is also how Jesus taught his disciples (i.e. Do not worry [rule] -- consider the lilies of the field [concrete example]). God is utterly consistent, and is the Great Teacher.
Further, the Bible teaches ethics from cover to cover and yet God summarized all these details in ten basic points for us. When a man is fully trained, he is like his teacher. So if you want your students to be fully trained, you must do as the Master does. He does nothing arbitrarily and has excellent reasons for choosing the number ten for memorization purposes. We are to trust in God's wisdom found in the Bible, and thus should model our teaching and learning after His approach.
4. What are some great learning resources to help your students learn history?
Answer: make the greatest use of those methods which require children to learn by DOING -- not passively just sitting. This means by creating flashcards to memorize your chronologies, by taking notes on lectures (this is very important and I shall -- if the Lord wills -- come back to this point to help on HOW to do this most efficiently), by asking questions and by being required to answer questions accurately from last weeks (or better from yesterday's lessons).
You should always summarize your ten -- yes TEN -- main points at the end of each day to reinforce the lessons learned for that day. Biblical teaching rules.
5. Who was Manetho, and why should I care?
Answer: Manetho was a third-century (B.C.) Egyptian educator who put together a chronology of the dynasties of Egypt, which later Egyptologists (yes, this is an actual word) generally followed, and which set the pace for determining the dates of the dynasties of other empires. Although this is stil the best chronology going, Manetho's contains some real errors and Christians need to reform his chronology in order to get a more accurate timeline for ancient history. Put this on your "things to do" list next to the grocery list on your fridge.
Here is the wikipedia take on Manetho with a links for further study:
Manetho, also known as Manethon of Sebennytos, was an Egyptian historian and priest from Sebennytos (ancient Egyptian: Tjebnutjer) who lived during the Ptolemaic era, ca. 3rd century BC. Manetho recorded Aegyptiaca (History of Egypt). His work is of great interest to Egyptologists, and is often used as evidence for the chronology of the reigns of pharaohs.
6. How should we choose the timeline borders for what we ought to teach in any one course?
Answer: You should teach the history of empires, because this is the way God is pleased (so far) to rule the world. You should pay special attention to the interaction of these empires with, and their effects upon, the history of Israel, God's chosen people until A.D. 70 --and also their effects upon that which is thereafter simply called "the Church of Jesus Christ the Lord."
For instance, 1 Kings 4 tells us that all the nations of the world sent ambassadors to go up to Israel to hear Solomon's lectures -- called simply "the wisdom of Solomon" -- on everything from biology to ethics (these were either lectures or sermons of a sort and centered around the 3 thousand proverbs he wrote. Solomon also taught by principle and example, for he was wiser than all men).
This means records of such interactions surely existed in the ancient world, and you should keep your eyes open for developments in the evidence of historians that will confirm this. We konw this because nations kept careful records of their wealth and much wealth was exchanged between Solomon and the other kings (and queens, remember Candace of Ethiopia, a.k.a. the Queen of the South, visited Solomon to hear his wisdom also)
Remember also that very little of the evidence ever created in the ancient past makes it to the public eye thousands of years later. They didn't have the internet (or even typewriters, remember those ancient artifacts?). Preserving records was not an easy task even when they sought to do so on purpose. Anything written on ancient paper (i.e. papyrus) was not long for the world in the moist-aired Mediterranean. Airborn bacteria called "papyrus" by the name "breakfast" back then. This is why the New Testament exists today only in the form of copies (you had to copy important texts maybe every 20-40 years if it was to survive as a manuscript).
Moreover, if and when a conflict arises between the biblical chronology and secular sources, you are duty-bound to Jesus Christ the Lord of history to favor the biblical account. Don't worry, the pagans will catch up to you in about 50 years or so on this point, at which point we will learn that they knew it all along and were just testing us.
I suppose this is enough for today. More later (ITLW) on this topic -- FYI, this is Christian texting for "If the Lord Wills." But there will be no ROTFL-ing here.
P.S. For those teaching the history of the intertestamental period (roughly 445 B.C. to 4 B.C. or so), you should use F.F. Bruce's "The World of the New Testament" (if I recall the title correctly). He was not only a Christian author, but an excellent historian, such that the pagans even admit this while biting hard on their tongues. I said "or so" because the historical consensus among scholars favors 4 B.C. as the birth year of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, well, I think they're mistaken. It was 1 B.C. on my reading and they will, of course, snicker at this [shrug]. Yet, there is nothing great in this debate and the Bible can easily tolerate either view.
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