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Talk:World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T17:31:09Z

DeniseM: /* Thoughts and comments */

Just thought I would point out that the slave trade is not considered part of the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian exchange, also known as the great biological exchange, dealt with plants, animals, and pathogens. See for example, Alfred Crosby, ''The Columbian Exchange'' (1972)

== Hume ==

There are a number of errors in the "Enlightenment" section, but I'd like to focus on the errors relating to Hume. First of all, presenting Hume as a sceptic towards religion, while absolutely true, is an understatement. Hume was sceptical of ''everything'' beyond experience, even those things (such as continuity and causation) which previous philosophers had taken for granted. Secondly, it is entirely untrue to claim that there were so few great English philosophers, whether that means English speaking or born in England (hopefully it doesn't mean the latter, because Hume was of course Scottish). Hume is considered one of the greatest not because he has so few peers, but because, surprisingly enough, he was a brilliant philosopher. Thirdly the claim that Hume's chief claim to fame is that he influenced Darwin is utterly absurd. His claim to fame is that he gave the finest statement of empiricism and made important criticisms of philosophy's attempts to understand metaphysics. The fact that he influenced Darwin may be important, but is not even well known. [[User:JHanson|JHanson]] 17:16, 21 February 2009 (EST)

== Corrections ==

The caravel wasn't notable so much for its cargo ability (in the spice trade it was replaced by other, heavier ships) but its speed and manueverability in shallow water.

"Known as the 'reconquista', this was accomplished first through the reconquest of Granada" - the Reconquista had been going on for hundreds of years, it didn't begin with the capture of Granada.

Magellan's voyage didn't lead to ownership of Mexico and Peru. Cortes claimed Mexico for Spain in March 1519. Magellan sailed from Spain in August 1519.

"Giving them a bunch of blankets exposed to the deadly germ" almost certainly is not true for the time period discussed - it implies a knowledge of disease far beyond the 16th century. The few semi-documented cases come from the mid-late 18th century. Disease was the major killer of natives, but not through conscious infection through smallpox.

Philip II reigned from 1556-1598, not 1638-1715. The Dutch Revolt began in 1568. 1579 was the creation of the Union of Utrecht.

--[[User:CWaddell|CWaddell]] 21:51, 23 February 2009 (EST)

:Andy, on the role of the caravel, read CP's [[Caravel]], also [[Nao]] and [[Carrack]] as the vessels used by the Iberian nations in the early Age of Exploration. The caravel did much of the early work, especially down Africa, but its role diminished rapidly as soon as things really got under way.
* Magellan did not round the Horn...he went through the Strait of Magellan. As did Drake later. The Horn (which is actually an island) was to be rounded in early 1616 by an expedition co-led by [[Willem Cornelisz Schouten]] and named after his home town of Hoorn in Holland.
*Ivan the Terrible was tsar, or czar, of Russia (the first to be so) from 1547 until his death in 1584. Until 1547 he was Prince of Muscovy (Moscow) [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 23:21, 23 February 2009 (EST)

==Thoughts and comments==

Already I have mentioned [[Magellan]]’s non-rounding of the Horn, and intimated that the [[caravel]] was not as you described, suggesting you check Conservapedia entries for other vessels of the time. I also changed your date of [[Henry the Navigator]]’s founding of his school of navigation. – he was born in that year.
:Also....
*(1) Of the 321 words in “Portuguese Exploration”, 127 are actually on that subject. The other 184 are on Columbus.
*(2) [[Bartholomew Dias|Dias]] didn’t “fail”. His purpose was to find the way to India. That he did. He chose to return. His expedition was not set up to actually “go” to India.
*(3) There’s a complete lack of anything about discovery/trade/colonisation anywhere in the world except the Americas; apart from one mention of the Philippines, and Dias and Da Gama’s first voyage. Where are the Dutch? – for most of the 17th century they were the most successful traders on earth and controlled most of the spice trade – which, remember, was the main reason for the voyages of discovery to start off with. What mention of the discovery of Australia? The founding of Cape Colony? Those two great examples of capitalism, the Dutch and English East India Companies?
*(4) Where’s the English Civil War? Cromwell et al.
*(5) ''”Commercial competition between European nations in North America culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)”'' is just a tad parochial. Actually the Seven Years War was a teeny bit bigger than that. In Europe, it was fought over possession of Silesia by Prussia and Austria. France, Russia, Sweden, Poland sided with Austria; Britain with Prussia. The conflict in Europe contained about 20 major battles in each of which at least 40,000 troops took part with total battle losses of well over 200,000 men. That does not include smaller engagements, sieges, the sacking of towns and villages and pillaging of the countryside, major sea battles ( Lagos, Quiberon Bay) and so on. (It is estimated over a million people died as a result of the conflict in Europe). Because Britain and France were already at each others’ throats unofficially in various parts of the world (including the aptly named French and Indian Wars) there were also major engagements between Britain and France in India, and the West Indies. Late in the war Spain and Portugal set to it in South America. It reached every inhabited continent except Australia (the discovery of which in the early 1600s doesn’t seem to matter, I notice.)
:I am not at all minimising the importance of the F and I War – it had an enormous impact – it gave Canada to Britain and in a way opened the door for the American Revolution a few years later. But the Seven Years War also gave Britain control of India, which is not exactly trifling; and the [[Battle of Quiberon Bay]] off Brittany in 1759 equals [[Trafalgar]] in importance.
:To say that the Seven Years’ War was about “commercial competition between European nations in North America” is a bit like saying World War II started with Pearl Harbor. (And I have met Americans who thought it did.) [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 00:39, 12 March 2009 (EDT)00:38, 12 March 2009 (EDT)
::One other thing....English. Phonetic? How does that gell with the infamous "''ough''" words. You know, "cough", "through" "burough", 'rough", etc? Not to mention "veer"' "mere", "pier" "ear" and so on. I love English. I wallow in it. I carry volumes of Shakespeare around in my back pocket. But I would never call it phonetically easy. [[User:AlanE|AlanE]] 01:14, 12 March 2009 (EDT)
::: Yes, I'd agree on that. There are some languages (such as Italian) where you can teach someone the pronunciation rules and then they can correctly read aloud anything written in that language without understanding it. In English, if you see the word "moped", you don't even know how many syllables it has until you know (by understanding and by context) if it's a noun or a verb. [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 05:04, 17 March 2009 (EDT)

:::: English has some bothersome exceptions to phonetic pronunciation, but there's no denying that the language is largely phonetic. Indeed, phonics is proven to be the best way to learn it.

:::: I'll review the other comments above and incorporate in to the lecture as appropriate. Thanks.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 09:48, 17 March 2009 (EDT)

::::: You're welcome. English (as I think I said in my revised version) does have a large phonetic element, but less so than many (most?) other languages that use sound-based written elements. Italian or Hebrew or Arabic or Russian is pretty close to perfectly phonetic, which I think is what is meant by describing a language as phonetic. Personally I'm a great lover of puns and wordplay, so I'm quite happy by all the irregularity. [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 13:31, 17 March 2009 (EDT)

World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T09:16:45Z

DeniseM: /* Introduction */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Our midterm exam will be next week. It will be multiple-choice, perhaps 30 minutes in length, and will cover lectures one through eight (including this one). Items and topic mentioned on the homework will be given greater priority in designing the questions.

Remember these test-taking tips for multiple-choice exams. You can improve your scores enormously by following and mastering these tips.

== Test-taking tips ==

'''Understand''': Understand the question before you try to answer it. Read the question twice if you have doubts. You want an answer that fits the question best, like a key fitting a lock.

'''Eliminate''': Eliminate the wrong answers before picking the right one. This can bump your score up another point or two.

'''First Impression''': Go with your first impression unless you have a good reason to change it. More often than not, your first impression is right.

'''Stay on Track''': Stay on track during the test. Expect to miss a few, and do not waste too much time on a difficult question.

'''Try Different Approaches''': Try different approaches to a difficult question until you figure out the right answer. There are many ways to find the correct answer for a question. Don't give up too easily on figuring out a question.

'''Avoid Broad Language in Answers''': Words like "only", "never" and "solely" are signs of '''wrong''' answers because they are rarely true.

Test-taking on multiple-choice exams is a skill that can be mastered with practice, determination and cleverness.

== Introduction ==

This lecture will be briefer than usual, with no homework questions, in order to give you time to prepare.

On September 11, 1683, Muslims made a second major attempt to conquer Europe (recall that Charles the Hammer turned back their first attempt). A massive Islamic army arrived at the Gates of Vienna. An alliance of Christian armies, led by the Polish King Jan III Sobieski, defeated the Muslim force.<ref>http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-september-11th.html</ref> Some have observed that "9/11" was an anniversary of this day.

Two other momentous events happened in the 1600s which would also affect the world forever. In 1607, Englishmen established a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1611, the King James Bible was published with this introduction:<ref name="KJV">http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html</ref>

:THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.

Some might say that the publication of the King James Bible was more significant than the settlement at Jamestown. This version of the Bible, which became known as the "Authorized Version," was a spectacular work that transformed and elevated the entire English language to new heights. Even a Catholic scholar expressed the highest praise for this work, which was shared by all:<ref name="KJV"/>

:The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.

To this day many feel that the King James Bible is the finest English translation available, despite the antiquity of some of its terminology. It is free from modern translations that hide the existence and wrath of Hell, for example. But for the purposes of course, we are interested in how this was a defining moment in the development of the English language, and how the language has grown since then.

The King James Bible established a framework of knowledge of the English language, and it began to develop rapidly afterward. English is unique in its ability to develop new words, at a rate of about 1000 new words per year.<ref>See [[Essay:Best New Conservative Words]].</ref> English easily incorporates and adapts words from other languages, such as "detente" (French for a lessening in tensions between nations) and "tsunami" (Japanese for a massive tidal wave).

English has one of the smallest alphabet of major languages using the Roman alphabet, including its lack of accented (letters bearing a diacritic mark such as the "e" in "noël"), hybrid (such as the digraph ligature æ often used in British English in words such as encyclopædia or the ampersand character - a contraction of "et"), and pictograph characters. Hebrew has 22 characters, so is an example of a smaller alphabet. [[Elder Futhark]] runic writing has an alphabet of 24.

It helps that English uses a writing system that has some relation between sounds and symbols as opposed to a purely ideographic system. This also applies to all other languages using alphabets, abjads, syllabaries, and so on - such as ancient Greek and Latin (though English developed from German, not from Greek or Latin).

English features easy interchangeability of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, without much variance in form for pronouns and verbs. That promotes easy communication through brief, cryptic messages, the style preferred by electronic media. English enjoys a powerful pipe-like quality, such that one phrase can be cut and pasted to another phrase with ease. Computer-based cutting and pasting text works more efficiently in English than in many other languages, such as those using pictorial characters. This gives English an advantage in the internet medium, and about 80% of the internet uses English. English is now the second most widely spoken language in the world, with only Chinese dialects spoken by more people. English is overwhelmingly the second language of choice for non-English-speaking people.<ref>See Barbara Wallraff, “What Global Language?” 286 Atlantic Monthly No. 5, at 52 (Nov. 2000) (noting, inter alia, that “English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN” and is also “the official language of the European Central Bank”).</ref>

== Test-Taking Tips ==

fill in

==The Age of Exploration==

The “Age of Exploration” consisted of Christians from Europe searching the rest of our globe to spread the faith and seek wealth, particularly between 1450 and 1650. This began the “Global Age” in world history, which continues to this day.

As Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages and experiencing the Renaissance, people had the curiosity and the courage to look beyond their own continent to others. Scientific discoveries and technological improvements made it easier to travel across the vast oceans. Christians sought to spread their faith far and wide, and merchants sought new goods and business opportunities in both the East and West. North and South America awaited visits by the Europeans.

The Portuguese were the first great explorers. They developed the “caravel”, a small, lightweight ship with three lateen-sailed masts that could hold much more cargo than previous ships. The more cargo that a ship could hold, the greater its profits would be, as cargo consisted of goods that could be picked up in a faraway land and sold upon the ship’s return to its homeland. European demand was strong for exotic Indian goods, especially spices, and this drove explorers to discover new routes to India different from the Eastern Mediterranean trade controlled by the Ottomans. The discovery of new western routes accidentally led to the discovery of lands in the New World (Western Hemisphere). Portugal and Spain then emerged as the two major players in what was to become an intense European competition for exploration, conversion and colonization.

===Portuguese Exploration===

The Portuguese initiated the age of exploration in Europe as early as about 1419, when Prince Henry the Navigator established his School of Navigation and made it his life’s work to explore the West African coast and reach the Indian Ocean. His ships reached as far as Sierra Leone, but he failed to reach India. Another explorer named Bartholomew Diaz failed to reach India also, but he did manage to sail around the tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) in 1487.

It was during this time that a young Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus approached the Portuguese King John II to ask him for financial support. Columbus, like many from the Italian city of Genoa, was an expert mariner, having started as early as the age of 14. He had studied the works of Ptolemy on his own; Columbus did not attend formal school, just as homeschoolers do not today. Columbus at all times was a devout Christian, writing frequently about his faith in his diary. His desire to sail to India was motivated in large part by his attempt to spread the Christian faith. He repeatedly cited a desire to convert pagans to Christianity when he sought support for his voyage. Late in life, even when treated as a prisoner, he sought to devote all his money and efforts towards winning back Jesus Christ’s Holy Sepulchre (burial cave) from Muslims in the Holy Land.

King John II denied Columbus’s request to fund his voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, Columbus was ridiculed for seeking to reach India by sailing west rather than east.

Vasco da Gama finally reached India by sailing eastward around Africa and up the East African coast between 1497 and 1499, with the help of the powerful monsoon winds. Shortly thereafter, regular trade was established with India under the Portuguese King Manuel, and conflict began with the Muslims over dominance of Indian Ocean trade.

===Spanish Exploration===

The Spanish entered the scene in the year 1492—during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who were working hard to defeat Islam and establish Christianity as the only religion in Spain. Known as the “Reconquista” (or Reconquest) of Spain, this was accomplished first through the reconquest of Granada, the last Muslim city in Spain. As explained in the prior Lecture, Queen Isabella ordered all Muslims and Jewish residents to convert or leave Spain. Initially, this caused Spain an economic and academic setback, as Jewish residents had comprised a large number of scholars and merchants.

However, economic stability was soon reached as the strain of fighting the Muslims was now gone, and taxes for the sole purpose of funding explorations were soon imposed. Isabella and Ferdinand felt secure in granting the Genoese upstart Christopher Columbus his long-awaited funds. Beginning on August 3, 1492, Columbus embarked on four voyages, perhaps becoming the first European to discover the New World, although at first he believed he had reached India (hence his name for the inhabitants of the New World: “Indians”). The discoveries by Columbus included the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, San Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Honduras. Columbus’ astounding success presented an increasing challenge to Spain’s Portuguese rivals.

The pope finally resolved this rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which established an 1100-mile long “Line of Demarcation.” This division of world territories gave Portugal trading rights in India, China, the East Indies, East Brazil and Spanish Americas. Spain was given control of the remaining, vast majority of the Americas. Ferdinand Magellan then led the first successful voyage to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. Although Magellan was killed by Philippine natives before completing the last leg of the journey, he was the first to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America to enter the Pacific Ocean. Only 18 of approximately 250 sailors made it back to Spain three years later, in 1522.

As a result of Magellan’s journey, Spain gained control of many South American territories, including Mexico and Peru. Spain also obtained control over the Philippines in the Far East. Spanish warrior Hernando Cortes led the conquest of Mexico, with the initial help of the Aztecs, many of whom believed Cortes was their god Quetzalcoatl (who, conveniently for the Spanish, was expected to appear that very year). Cortes captured the Aztec ruler Moctezuma (popularly known as “Montezuma”) and conquered their empire. Cortes was also aided by an Aztec woman named Malinche, who served as a guide and translator. Cortes burned the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City in its place.

Francisco Pizzaro led the conquest of Peru, betraying and eventually killing their emperor, Atahualpa. The ancient Peru city of Cuzco was completely destroyed and replaced with the city of Lima. While in Peru, Pizzaro also discovered the greatest silver mine in the Americas, the vast majority of which was traded with China, whose economy was based on silver. Both Cortes’ and Pizzaro’s conquests were facilitated by the use of horses, superior weapons, and devastating European diseases like smallpox. The native population had no immunity to such disease, and simply giving them a bunch of blankets exposed to the deadly germ could end up killing many natives.

Using the Spanish system of “encomiendas”, many of the South American natives became slaves to their Spanish conquerors. A Dominican monk and missionary, [[Bartholomew de Las Casas]], sent sensational descriptions to the Spanish government of the supposed atrocities committed against the “patient, meek and peaceful” natives by the Spanish conquistadors, whom he described as “cruel tigers, wolves and lions.” Although some of what Las Casas said was true, historical research has proved most of it to be false and exaggerated. However dishonest his methods may have been, Las Casas’ reports eventually led to the king of Spain issuing “New Laws,” by which exploitation of the natives was ended by the replacement of the old “encomiendas” with the new “repartimientos”. Both systems are criticized as unfair today. The system of “encomiendas” was based on royal grants of land, while the system of “repartimientos” was based on gifts of Indian labor. Either way, the Indians ended up working for the Spanish.

===Exploration by Other Nations===

Other European nations participated in exploration as well. King Henry VII of England sent John Cabot, a resident of London born in Genoa (like Columbus), to explore across the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Cabot discovered Newfoundland and the New England coast in 1497 and 1498, respectively, and the land became the property of England. From France, Jacques Cartier discovered Canada and the Mississippi Basin, including Louisiana in 1534 and 1541. These colonies were initially less significant than those in South America, and there was a lack of initial interest in North America because it did not have the gold and silver of South America. Whereas intermarriage and cultural blending occurred heavily among the Spanish and the Indians in South America, it barely existed between the English or French and the Indians in North America.

Of course, eventually the interest and development in North America increased and surpassed that of South America. Commercial competition between European nations in North America culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)—a conflict brought to America in the form of the French and Indian War. This War marked the end of French (and Spanish) influence in North America, and signaled the rise of Britain as the primary world superpower for the next 150 years.

===The Slave Trade===

In what is known as the “Columbian Exchange,” plants and animals were brought from America to Europe and vice-versa. Columbus brought from Europe to America wheat, melons, onions, grapes, sugar cane and horses. Horses proved to be influential not only in the European conquest of native peoples but also in the natives’ abilities to avoid white settlers, particularly among the Plains Indians in North America.

America had new fruits and vegetables that were then exported to Europe and Africa. America introduced the white potato to Europe and the manioc or cassava to Africa. Chili peppers, pumpkins, squash and peanuts were also brought back from America and became popular in countries such as India. These new foods helped increase population, and in Africa the population growth almost cancelled out population losses caused by the slave trade.

Slaves became a major part of the Columbian Exchange. In 1455, a “papal bull” (formal letter by the pope) justified a “right” of Christian nations to enslave any non-Christian in the name of exploration. The Spanish had already been enslaving South American natives on a limited basis, but with the rise of sugar plantations the need for a larger slave force arose. Millions of African slaves were brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean and especially Brazil. The growth of sugar—which had first been introduced to Europe when the Muslims ruled Spain—was exploding in popularity throughout the entire western world. Soon France, the Netherlands and Great Britain were also establishing profitable sugar plantations in the new world. The plantation system began in Brazil, where rich white plantation owners were the highest rung in the social hierarchy and black slaves were at the bottom. Obviously life on a sugar plantation was very hard work for a slave.

[[Slavery]] was widespread within Africa itself, and the richest in Africa were not those owning the most land, but those who owned the most slaves. In the Sahara Desert, slaves worked in caravans and were used in gold and salt mining. Slaves were usually prisoners of war from other areas of Africa, or debtors, or enemies or the king, but many women outside of those three categories were also enslaved in African societies. Polygamy—the practice of having more than one wife—was common in Africa, as was the existence of harems, from which African women were often sold to join Arabian or Middle Eastern harems.

The trading of slaves with other countries was encouraged in Africa, and was considered an important component of the African economy. Slave trade across the Atlantic (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade) became a booming business for Europeans and Africans alike, by which African rulers sold their people to Europeans for goods such as iron, alcohol, tobacco and most importantly, guns. Trans-Atlantic trade led to the degrading use of “chattel” slaves, whereby the slaves were treated purely as property of the owner. The slaves served as sailors, skilled craftsmen or farmers. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, led to the death of 10-20% of the African slaves. But an even higher percentage lost their lives in the journey from their homes in Africa to the African coast, where they were to board the slave ships.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one component in a system of routes known as the “Triangular Trade” between South America, New England, and the West Coast of Africa. The three main items that were exchanged were sugar, rum and slaves. European goods, mainly guns, were used to buy slaves from Africa. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas. Then, from America, sugar, rum and tobacco were brought back to Europe, completing the “triangle” of trade.

The end of slavery in Europe was not to come until the beginning of the 1800s, when Christian reformers such as William Wilberforce and John Wesley began speaking out against the evils of the system. Although the United States banned slave trade in the early 1800s, slavery itself was not abolished until decades later in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed, and in South America it was finally ended in Brazil in 1888.

===China’s Role in the Age of Exploration===

In the East, under the Ming dynasty, Emperor Yongle sent a band of explorers led by “Zheng He” throughout parts of southern Asia, Persia, Arabia and Africa. The crew of over 28,000 men embarked on seven naval expeditions in the Indian Ocean from 1405 to 1423 and as a result, trade with East Africa began. However, by the 1430s, Mongol raids caused the Chinese to withdraw from exploration for the time being, and instead spend their time and money on defenses such as repairing the Great Wall.

The Ming dynasty thereby retreated from the world stage, mostly in order to strengthen Chinese defenses against Mongol threats. Beijing became the capital of China, and eventually the Ming rulers began to retreat even more completely from the outside world, living in an elaborate Beijing palace known as the “Forbidden City.” When a devastating famine occurred in China, the rulers were living extravagantly in their secluded palace and cared little for the plight of the peasants. The people of China revolted, and in 1644, the Ming Dynasty was replaced with the Qing, made up of the Manchu peoples.

Under the Qing dynasty, marriage between members of the Chinese and Manchurians was forbidden, and the official spoken language remained Chinese. Female infanticide occurred, as well as the practice of binding the feet of rich girls and, increasingly, middle class girls also. The primary philosophy was Neo-Confucianism, a mixture of Buddhism and traditional Confucianism. Jesuits attempted to evangelize China, but were not very successful. Nevertheless, a Jesuit presence in China contributed to the exchange of ideas and technology between the East and the West.

China did not withdraw completely from world trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties. China continued to trade with the Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Dutch, mainly for silver, which had become the Chinese currency, and with the Russians for furs. Under the Ming dynasty, beautiful blue and white porcelain was produced and exported. The influence of the Ming vase spread throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds, as seen in Holland through the production of Delft pottery and in England, Wedgwood China. Other Chinese exports included silk and tea, and imports consisted of spices, textiles and animal skins from Europe. Maize, sweet potatoes and peanuts were brought over from the Americas and became popular crops in China.

==Growth of Nation-States and Monarchs==

The development of European nation-states continued throughout the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. In the 1400s and 1500s, the most powerful nation-states were England, France and Spain. The Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of parts of Italy and Germany, was a powerful but declining force. Enemies that weakened the Holy Roman Empire included the Ottomans and French enemies, who resisted its expansion. The fact that the cultures of Germany and Italy were very different also contributed to the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire, as did the Reformation.

The European nation-states grew in power by strengthening their central authority. They increased bureaucracy, the size of their armies and the amounts of their taxation. The rise of absolutist rulers contributed to the centralization of France, Spain, Austria, Russia and Prussia. The nature of an absolute monarch was expressed well in this famous quote attributed to Louis XIV (1527-1598), “L’etat c’est moi!” (I am the state). Absolute monarchs controlled all aspects of government and society including the church, the bureaucracy and the military. Absolute monarchs claimed “divine right” to rule, stating that they had been appointed by God himself and were therefore responsible to God alone. They enjoyed “sovereign immunity” under the view that “the king can do no wrong,” a principle that continues to exist in English and American law today (unless government “waives” its immunity with a law granting certain rights to sue it).

Religious conflict in England between Catholics and Anglicans caused absolutism to fail there. The “Glorious Revolution” (so named by supporters of the Church of England) brought down the Catholic King James II and the idea of divine right along with him, placing William and Mary on the throne in 1688. In France, however, absolutism triumphed until the French Revolution, especially with the reign of Louis XIV, the leading absolute monarch in Europe. The French court at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, who called himself the “Sun King,” was considered rich in culture and an example to other societies. Truth be told, it was also extravagant and immoral.

In Spain, Philip II (1638-1715), who was the great-grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, worked to cleanse Spanish territories of all religions but Catholicism, and viewed Elizabeth I of England as his main rival. But his mighty Spanish Armada was defeated by a quicker English fleet in 1588. In 1579, William of Orange led the Netherlands in a revolt against their Spanish masters. These two losses contributed to the weakening of Spanish power.

Meanwhile, artistic pursuits flourished during this period in Spain. El Greco (1541-1614), a painter, architect and sculptor best known for his paintings of saints and martyrs, and drew a stunning of a storm over a Spanish town (“A View of Toledo”). Diego Velázquez painted portraits of the royal family and scenes from daily life at court. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, probably the most influential piece of Spanish literature, and Lope de Vega wrote an estimated 2,000 plays.

In Russia, absolute emperors known as “czars” arose. The first czar of Russia was Ivan IV “the Terrible,” who executed many innocent people during his fearful reign from 1533 to 1547. Ivan was succeeded by his son Feodor, whose repeated failures led Russia into a “Time of Troubles.” In 1613, the first of a long line of Romanov czars, Mikhail Romanov, took the throne. Under Romanov rule, serfs lost almost all of their freedoms. Peter the Great, another Romanov who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1696, instituted sweeping reforms in Russian government and society. He built St. Petersburg and tried to make European traditions a part of Russia. In the Great Northern War against Sweden, new territories were gained. Other absolutist rulers arose, such as the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and the Hohenzollern Frederick the Great from Prussia. These two rulers clashed in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Frederick won the territory Silesia.

Europeans during this era desired a “balance of power” that would prevent any single nation from becoming most powerful. The expression of this idea was seen in the intense competition and warfare between the various European nations for control in Europe, especially with the Thirty Years’ War. The war initially began as a religious conflict in Germany between Bohemian Protestants and Hapsburg Catholics in 1618. However, it soon became a political conflict for power that involved Spain, Holland, Denmark, France, Switzerland and The Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of Westphalia finally marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. The war significantly weakened Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Austria and Spain. Although France was largely a Catholic country, it had chosen the side of the winning Protestants in order to oppose the Holy Roman Empire, and France emerged strengthened and more unified as a result.

==The Scientific Revolution==

A remarkable Polish scientist named [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] (1473-1543) made a stunning claim that rocked the religious and scientific world: he asserted that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, ‘with both eyes open.’” With that bold declaration, this respected scientist in the Catholic Church began the “Scientific Revolution,” which rejected geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe dating back over a thousand years to Ptolemy.

Copernicus worked for years on his book describing his theory, and did not publish it until near the very end of his life. He entitled it, “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), and published it in 1543. The work was far from perfect: Copernicus assumed that the planets moved in circular revolutions (they actually revolve in ellipses, though the orbit of the earth is nearly circular), and Copernicus also thought that the sun stood motionless as some kind of stationery temple in the universe.

The reception to his work was initially positive within the Catholic Church, but negative among Protestants who felt it conflicted with some literal interpretations of the Bible, such as the account of how Joshua benefited from the sun standing still as it passed over the earth. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Joshua 10:13. But there were few Protestants in Poland then (or now), and Copernicus died without much controversy.

[[Johannes Kepler]] (1571-1630), a Protestant in Germany, built on Copernicus’s work and discovered that planets orbited the sun in ellipses rather than circular orbits. Kepler was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and devout Christian who cited God many times in all of his writings. He felt it was his Christian duty to understand the creation of God, the universe. He also felt that man, being in the image of God, was fully capable of understanding the universe. Like Plato and Pythagoras, Kepler felt that God must have created the universe according to a mathematical plan.

[[Galileo]] (1564-1642) was a contemporary of Kepler who lived in Catholic Italy. Galileo was not as bright as Kepler or Copernicus, and was a bit of an entertaining showman who made a lively party guest. He taught geometry to medical students so that they could use astronomy and astrology in the practice of medicine. Galileo’s primary scientific contribution was his improvement on the telescope in order to view celestial bodies.

But the Catholic Church was then in a struggle with Protestantism, which was critical of Copernicus’s theory of the earth revolving around the sun. In 1616, the Catholic Church officially prohibited teaching Copernicus’s theory as fact, although there was no objection to learning it as a mathematical theory. Galileo, however, felt Copernicus was correct and wanted to teach his theory. He had met with Pope Urban VIII on numerous occasions and felt that the Church would not object to Galileo’s publishing the Copernican theory about the universe.

There was no right of free speech in Italy at that time, and in 1632 Galileo published a work called “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican” with the apparent approval of the Catholic Church. Buyers and readers of the book were led to believe that Galileo’s reflected the official views of the Church, when they did not. Galileo had received permission from a local cleric in Florence, but not from Church authorities in Rome, and they felt that Galileo knew that he was prohibited from claiming that the Church supported the Copernican view.

Galileo also angered Church officials in the way that he mocked opponents of the Copernican system. His “dialogue” was between a fictional Salviati, who supported the Copernican system, and an Aristotelian philosopher given the unflattering name “Simplicio”. The simpled-minded “Simplicio” was made to look like the pope himself, and was mocked in the book for his skepticism about the Copernican system.

In the book’s climax, Salviati supposedly proves the Copernican system by citing the movement of the tides. This was completely false and already disproved by Kepler.

Catholic Church officials were furious about this book and the Inquisition banned its sale. Galileo was summoned to Rome. Unlike Luther, Galileo remained a Catholic and fully accepted whatever judgment the Church would render against him. His “trial” was a bit of a farce, probably put on for show more than anything, with Galileo living in plush quarters at all times. At the end of the trial Galileo was required to live in a house where the Church could keep an eye on him, and was not imprisoned. Galileo then continued his scientific work but was kept from embarrassing the Church further. Galileo never split from the Church and completely accepted his punishment.

There were other noteworthy scientists during this era. [[Vesalius]] advanced the understanding of anatomy for medical doctors. [[John Harvey]] explained the circulatory system in human anatomy. [[Rene Descartes]] was a French mathematician and philosopher who discovered [[analytical geometry]] and famously declared, “I think, therefore I am.” [[Francis Bacon]] promoted research based on experimentation.

Then there was Sir [[Isaac Newton]], who after Jesus Christ was perhaps the most influential man who ever lived. If Newton were alive today, then he would be described as a Christian fundamentalist. Everything Newton did was inspired and motivated by his powerful faith in the Word of God in the Bible. Abandoned by his own mother, Newton had an [[inferiority complex]] that drove him to achieve more and more. In one summer he discovered the laws of [[gravity]] and also [[calculus]], and the world has never been the same since.

Like most other men who made great advances in knowledge in world history, Newton discovered and explained something that was unseen: the invisible force of gravity. Newton proposed action-at-a-distance, whereby one object attracts another through an invisible force of gravity. Newton was ridiculed for proposing that something unseen could act at a distance and influence something else millions of miles away from it. Yet Newton was right. Speaking of the world in which live, Newton once said, “Why not try to understand it?” Newton understood it and explained it to the rest of us, and we are forever grateful.

A German contemporary of Newton, Gottfried [[Leibniz]], deserves mention. Like Newton, Leibniz was a devout Christian. In fact, Leibniz was a Lutheran who dreamed of reuniting that denomination with the Catholic Church. Leibniz was also a brilliant mathematician who developed calculus independent of Newton. It was Leibniz, not Newton, who first published the notation for the integral: f(x) dx. An ugly dispute developed between Newton and Leibniz over who discovered calculus first. Most English-speaking historians give the credit to Newton but bias may play a role in that. The world certainly benefited immensely from Leibniz as well as Newton.

==The Enlightenment==

The “Enlightenment” was a philosophical movement in the 1700s that emphasized an intellectual approach rejecting traditional social, political and (sometimes) religious views. Philosophers in the Enlightenment felt that breakthroughs in science, such as Isaac Newton’s discoveries, could be duplicated in other fields through a systematic and logical approach. However, Newton’s breakthroughs were inspired by his Christian faith, while some of the Enlightenment thinkers rejected and even criticized Christianity. There were Enlightenment philosophers in England, France and even the American colonies. There were stunning new works in classical music, and the arts flourished in what is known as the neo-classical period.

Frenchman Voltaire (1694-1778) was a leading philosopher in the Enlightenment, advocating freedom everywhere and emphasizing his form of reason. He wrote “The Candide,” in which Voltaire described many bad things that happen to Candide in order to make the point that the world could be a better place. Increased freedom was Voltaire’s way of improving things.

Englishman John Locke (1632-1704) was the leading political philosopher, whose ideas helped the American colonists form a new government. Locke described society as a contract between an individual and society. This was a radical concept at a time when monarchs and the divine right of kings was the controlling theory. Locke’s view helped lay the foundation for the constitutional government that we use in the United States. Locke had built on the prior work of Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the leading legal authority on English law, upon which much American law is based. Law students in America hear about him frequently in law school. In “The Rights of Englishmen,” Blackstone described the source of the rights of the people.

Frenchman Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) proposed the concept of separation of powers, and checks and balances, in government. This inspired the United States Constitution. His book, “The Spirit of the Laws,” explained essential aspects of good government that became enormously influential.

Another Frenchman, Denis Diderot (1713-1784), contributed to literature, speculated on free will and attachment to material things, and edited an encyclopedia of scientific and social knowledge known as “Encyclopedia”.

Swiss-born political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote several controversial works. He felt that politics and morality could not be separated, and that the will of the majority was not always correct. Many Americans today would agree with that view. However, Rousseau also attacked private property, and laid the groundwork for future communist writers such as Karl Marx. Rousseau declared that government’s goal should be to provide freedom, equality and justice. But note that freedom often results in inequality.
Irishman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was in the British parliament when the conflict with the American colonies occurred, and he sided with the colonies, making him a hero to many in America. He is also considered to the world’s first political conservative, and many conservatives today praise him for that reason. His works included “Inquiries into the Sublime and Beautiful” (defending the American colonies and examining how people interpret what they see) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (warning how bad the French Revolution was because a few would gain control and abuse their power, even while everyone else praised that Revolution). What was striking about Burke was that he was almost always right in his political assessments and predictions.

The Scotsman David Hume (1711-1776) was a philosopher and historian who promoted materialism and naturalism rather than spirituality. He was a “skeptic” towards religion, and he penned “A Treatise on Human Nature.” He quipped, “You can tell what is inside a person’s soul by what comes out if it.” Hume is considered the greatest philosopher to write in English, but that is only because there were so few good English philosophers. Hume has been criticized for his atheistic approach and his chief claim to fame is that Charles Darwin declared Hume to have been his central influence, as did “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Henry Huxley. We will discuss them later in this course.

The German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most famous philosophers ever. In his “A Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant criticizes pure reason as a guide to life. Though Kant may not have been a Christian himself, he considered Christian values to be the best values in the world. Kant also established a systematic basis for critical philosophy and suggested a material origin for the solar system. Kant’s own suggestion for a moral daily life was this: don’t do something which, if everyone did it, then the outcome would be bad. Expressed another way, an act is moral only if it works as a rule for everyone. For example, littering would be wrong because if everyone did it, then there would be an ugly mess. Kant is taught in all college philosophy departments to this day, though not for praising Christianity!

Finally, let’s recognize American contributions during the Enlightenment. The great works were created by a group of people, affectionately known as the Founding Fathers. These works include the Declaration of Independence (1776) with its statement of inalienable rights and a right to break the social contract with a ruler when he (the king) violates natural rights. The United States Constitution (1787) gave the world a masterful design for government. The Federalist Papers (1788), and particularly articles by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (most notably No. 10) were also significant.

==Capitalism==

Just as Isaac Newton’s discovery and explanation of the unseen force of gravity was a brilliant insight in science, Adam Smith of Scotland discovered a powerful unseen force in economics known as the “invisible hand.” If government allows free enterprise to flourish on its own, an “invisible hand” will harness the power of self-interest for the overall good of society. Men and women will be guided by this “invisible hand” to work in a way that is beneficial to others, and the overall wealth and progress of society will increase. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence in America: 1776. Adam Smith’s book is still considered the world’s greatest economics masterpiece. He explained how the basis of wealth is found in a free economy with an unregulated exchange of goods, whereby supply of goods and services responds in an efficient way to demand without government intervention. Smith advocated the concept of laissez faire, which means “allow to do” or, more simply, “hands off” by government. Ironically, homeschooling in New Jersey (and a few other states) is an activity that most resembles Adam Smith’s ideal of an unregulated market. Let’s defend this lack of regulation of homeschooling while we can!

“Capitalism” became the prevailing economic theory in Britain as a result of the contributions of Adam Smith and others. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines capitalism as follows: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” Britain quickly became the greatest empire in the modern world as a result of its adherence to this superior economic system.

Another economic theory known as “mercantilism” was also popular. Mercantilism was not based entirely on “competition in a free market,” but rather was a policy for a nation (such as Britain) to increase its own national wealth based on trade with other nations and territories. Under mercantilism, a nation should accumulate gold by exporting more goods than it imported, and by using colonies (such as the English colonies in America) to ship raw materials to the mother country that could be manufactured and exported to other peoples. Another key component of mercantilism was establishing foreign trading monopolies that would have unfair advantages over competitors in other countries. One such British monopoly was the East Indian Tea Company, and its unfair business advantage caused the colonists in Boston to revolt in the form of the Boston Tea Party.

While Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was positive in almost every way, mercantilism did have a dark side of exploitation of colonies for the benefit of the mother country.

Adam Smith did not invent capitalism, but gave it a powerful intellectual justification. In 1607 capitalism had already played a prominent role in the first settlement of North America at Jamestown, which was funded by a joint-stock company (a privately owned company having a structure similar to the corporations of today). In joint-stock companies or corporations, decisions are made privately by those acting on behalf of the owners, without any direct control by government.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 08}}

World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T09:12:04Z

DeniseM: /* Introduction */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Our midterm exam will be next week. It will be multiple-choice, perhaps 30 minutes in length, and will cover lectures one through eight (including this one). Items and topic mentioned on the homework will be given greater priority in designing the questions.

Remember these test-taking tips for multiple-choice exams. You can improve your scores enormously by following and mastering these tips.

== Test-taking tips ==

'''Understand''': Understand the question before you try to answer it. Read the question twice if you have doubts. You want an answer that fits the question best, like a key fitting a lock.

'''Eliminate''': Eliminate the wrong answers before picking the right one. This can bump your score up another point or two.

'''First Impression''': Go with your first impression unless you have a good reason to change it. More often than not, your first impression is right.

'''Stay on Track''': Stay on track during the test. Expect to miss a few, and do not waste too much time on a difficult question.

'''Try Different Approaches''': Try different approaches to a difficult question until you figure out the right answer. There are many ways to find the correct answer for a question. Don't give up too easily on figuring out a question.

'''Avoid Broad Language in Answers''': Words like "only", "never" and "solely" are signs of '''wrong''' answers because they are rarely true.

Test-taking on multiple-choice exams is a skill that can be mastered with practice, determination and cleverness.

== Introduction ==

This lecture will be briefer than usual, with no homework questions, in order to give you time to prepare.

On September 11, 1683, Muslims made a second major attempt to conquer Europe (recall that Charles the Hammer turned back their first attempt). A massive Islamic army arrived at the Gates of Vienna. An alliance of Christian armies, led by the Polish King Jan III Sobieski, defeated the Muslim force.<ref>http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-september-11th.html</ref> Some have observed that "9/11" was an anniversary of this day.

Two other momentous events happened in the 1600s which would also affect the world forever. In 1607, Englishmen established a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1611, the King James Bible was published with this introduction:<ref name="KJV">http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html</ref>

:THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.

Some might say that the publication of the King James Bible was more significant than the settlement at Jamestown. This version of the Bible, which became known as the "Authorized Version," was a spectacular work that transformed and elevated the entire English language to new heights. Even a Catholic scholar expressed the highest praise for this work, which was shared by all:<ref name="KJV"/>

:The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.

To this day many feel that the King James Bible is the finest English translation available, despite the antiquity of some of its terminology. It is free from modern translations that hide the existence and wrath of Hell, for example. But for the purposes of course, we are interested in how this was a defining moment in the development of the English language, and how the language has grown since then.

The King James Bible established a framework of knowledge of the English language, and it began to develop rapidly afterward. English is unique in its ability to develop new words, at a rate of about 1000 new words per year.<ref>See [[Essay:Best New Conservative Words]].</ref> English easily incorporates and adapts words from other languages, such as "detente" (French for a lessening in tensions between nations) and "tsunami" (Japanese for a massive tidal wave).

English has one of the smallest alphabet of major languages using the Roman alphabet, including its lack of accented (letters bearing a diacritic mark such as the "e" in "noël"), hybrid (such as the digraph ligature æ often used in British English in words such as encyclopædia or the ampersand character - a contraction of "et"), and pictograph characters. Hebrew has 22 characters, so is an example of a smaller alphabet. [[Futhark]] runic writing has an alphabet of 24.

It helps that English uses a writing system that has some relation between sounds and symbols as opposed to a purely ideographic system. This also applies to all other languages using alphabets, abjads, syllabaries, and so on - such as ancient Greek and Latin (though English developed from German, not from Greek or Latin).

English features easy interchangeability of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, without much variance in form for pronouns and verbs. That promotes easy communication through brief, cryptic messages, the style preferred by electronic media. English enjoys a powerful pipe-like quality, such that one phrase can be cut and pasted to another phrase with ease. Computer-based cutting and pasting text works more efficiently in English than in many other languages, such as those using pictorial characters. This gives English an advantage in the internet medium, and about 80% of the internet uses English. English is now the second most widely spoken language in the world, with only Chinese dialects spoken by more people. English is overwhelmingly the second language of choice for non-English-speaking people.<ref>See Barbara Wallraff, “What Global Language?” 286 Atlantic Monthly No. 5, at 52 (Nov. 2000) (noting, inter alia, that “English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN” and is also “the official language of the European Central Bank”).</ref>

== Test-Taking Tips ==

fill in

==The Age of Exploration==

The “Age of Exploration” consisted of Christians from Europe searching the rest of our globe to spread the faith and seek wealth, particularly between 1450 and 1650. This began the “Global Age” in world history, which continues to this day.

As Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages and experiencing the Renaissance, people had the curiosity and the courage to look beyond their own continent to others. Scientific discoveries and technological improvements made it easier to travel across the vast oceans. Christians sought to spread their faith far and wide, and merchants sought new goods and business opportunities in both the East and West. North and South America awaited visits by the Europeans.

The Portuguese were the first great explorers. They developed the “caravel”, a small, lightweight ship with three lateen-sailed masts that could hold much more cargo than previous ships. The more cargo that a ship could hold, the greater its profits would be, as cargo consisted of goods that could be picked up in a faraway land and sold upon the ship’s return to its homeland. European demand was strong for exotic Indian goods, especially spices, and this drove explorers to discover new routes to India different from the Eastern Mediterranean trade controlled by the Ottomans. The discovery of new western routes accidentally led to the discovery of lands in the New World (Western Hemisphere). Portugal and Spain then emerged as the two major players in what was to become an intense European competition for exploration, conversion and colonization.

===Portuguese Exploration===

The Portuguese initiated the age of exploration in Europe as early as about 1419, when Prince Henry the Navigator established his School of Navigation and made it his life’s work to explore the West African coast and reach the Indian Ocean. His ships reached as far as Sierra Leone, but he failed to reach India. Another explorer named Bartholomew Diaz failed to reach India also, but he did manage to sail around the tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) in 1487.

It was during this time that a young Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus approached the Portuguese King John II to ask him for financial support. Columbus, like many from the Italian city of Genoa, was an expert mariner, having started as early as the age of 14. He had studied the works of Ptolemy on his own; Columbus did not attend formal school, just as homeschoolers do not today. Columbus at all times was a devout Christian, writing frequently about his faith in his diary. His desire to sail to India was motivated in large part by his attempt to spread the Christian faith. He repeatedly cited a desire to convert pagans to Christianity when he sought support for his voyage. Late in life, even when treated as a prisoner, he sought to devote all his money and efforts towards winning back Jesus Christ’s Holy Sepulchre (burial cave) from Muslims in the Holy Land.

King John II denied Columbus’s request to fund his voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, Columbus was ridiculed for seeking to reach India by sailing west rather than east.

Vasco da Gama finally reached India by sailing eastward around Africa and up the East African coast between 1497 and 1499, with the help of the powerful monsoon winds. Shortly thereafter, regular trade was established with India under the Portuguese King Manuel, and conflict began with the Muslims over dominance of Indian Ocean trade.

===Spanish Exploration===

The Spanish entered the scene in the year 1492—during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who were working hard to defeat Islam and establish Christianity as the only religion in Spain. Known as the “Reconquista” (or Reconquest) of Spain, this was accomplished first through the reconquest of Granada, the last Muslim city in Spain. As explained in the prior Lecture, Queen Isabella ordered all Muslims and Jewish residents to convert or leave Spain. Initially, this caused Spain an economic and academic setback, as Jewish residents had comprised a large number of scholars and merchants.

However, economic stability was soon reached as the strain of fighting the Muslims was now gone, and taxes for the sole purpose of funding explorations were soon imposed. Isabella and Ferdinand felt secure in granting the Genoese upstart Christopher Columbus his long-awaited funds. Beginning on August 3, 1492, Columbus embarked on four voyages, perhaps becoming the first European to discover the New World, although at first he believed he had reached India (hence his name for the inhabitants of the New World: “Indians”). The discoveries by Columbus included the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, San Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Honduras. Columbus’ astounding success presented an increasing challenge to Spain’s Portuguese rivals.

The pope finally resolved this rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which established an 1100-mile long “Line of Demarcation.” This division of world territories gave Portugal trading rights in India, China, the East Indies, East Brazil and Spanish Americas. Spain was given control of the remaining, vast majority of the Americas. Ferdinand Magellan then led the first successful voyage to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. Although Magellan was killed by Philippine natives before completing the last leg of the journey, he was the first to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America to enter the Pacific Ocean. Only 18 of approximately 250 sailors made it back to Spain three years later, in 1522.

As a result of Magellan’s journey, Spain gained control of many South American territories, including Mexico and Peru. Spain also obtained control over the Philippines in the Far East. Spanish warrior Hernando Cortes led the conquest of Mexico, with the initial help of the Aztecs, many of whom believed Cortes was their god Quetzalcoatl (who, conveniently for the Spanish, was expected to appear that very year). Cortes captured the Aztec ruler Moctezuma (popularly known as “Montezuma”) and conquered their empire. Cortes was also aided by an Aztec woman named Malinche, who served as a guide and translator. Cortes burned the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City in its place.

Francisco Pizzaro led the conquest of Peru, betraying and eventually killing their emperor, Atahualpa. The ancient Peru city of Cuzco was completely destroyed and replaced with the city of Lima. While in Peru, Pizzaro also discovered the greatest silver mine in the Americas, the vast majority of which was traded with China, whose economy was based on silver. Both Cortes’ and Pizzaro’s conquests were facilitated by the use of horses, superior weapons, and devastating European diseases like smallpox. The native population had no immunity to such disease, and simply giving them a bunch of blankets exposed to the deadly germ could end up killing many natives.

Using the Spanish system of “encomiendas”, many of the South American natives became slaves to their Spanish conquerors. A Dominican monk and missionary, [[Bartholomew de Las Casas]], sent sensational descriptions to the Spanish government of the supposed atrocities committed against the “patient, meek and peaceful” natives by the Spanish conquistadors, whom he described as “cruel tigers, wolves and lions.” Although some of what Las Casas said was true, historical research has proved most of it to be false and exaggerated. However dishonest his methods may have been, Las Casas’ reports eventually led to the king of Spain issuing “New Laws,” by which exploitation of the natives was ended by the replacement of the old “encomiendas” with the new “repartimientos”. Both systems are criticized as unfair today. The system of “encomiendas” was based on royal grants of land, while the system of “repartimientos” was based on gifts of Indian labor. Either way, the Indians ended up working for the Spanish.

===Exploration by Other Nations===

Other European nations participated in exploration as well. King Henry VII of England sent John Cabot, a resident of London born in Genoa (like Columbus), to explore across the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Cabot discovered Newfoundland and the New England coast in 1497 and 1498, respectively, and the land became the property of England. From France, Jacques Cartier discovered Canada and the Mississippi Basin, including Louisiana in 1534 and 1541. These colonies were initially less significant than those in South America, and there was a lack of initial interest in North America because it did not have the gold and silver of South America. Whereas intermarriage and cultural blending occurred heavily among the Spanish and the Indians in South America, it barely existed between the English or French and the Indians in North America.

Of course, eventually the interest and development in North America increased and surpassed that of South America. Commercial competition between European nations in North America culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)—a conflict brought to America in the form of the French and Indian War. This War marked the end of French (and Spanish) influence in North America, and signaled the rise of Britain as the primary world superpower for the next 150 years.

===The Slave Trade===

In what is known as the “Columbian Exchange,” plants and animals were brought from America to Europe and vice-versa. Columbus brought from Europe to America wheat, melons, onions, grapes, sugar cane and horses. Horses proved to be influential not only in the European conquest of native peoples but also in the natives’ abilities to avoid white settlers, particularly among the Plains Indians in North America.

America had new fruits and vegetables that were then exported to Europe and Africa. America introduced the white potato to Europe and the manioc or cassava to Africa. Chili peppers, pumpkins, squash and peanuts were also brought back from America and became popular in countries such as India. These new foods helped increase population, and in Africa the population growth almost cancelled out population losses caused by the slave trade.

Slaves became a major part of the Columbian Exchange. In 1455, a “papal bull” (formal letter by the pope) justified a “right” of Christian nations to enslave any non-Christian in the name of exploration. The Spanish had already been enslaving South American natives on a limited basis, but with the rise of sugar plantations the need for a larger slave force arose. Millions of African slaves were brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean and especially Brazil. The growth of sugar—which had first been introduced to Europe when the Muslims ruled Spain—was exploding in popularity throughout the entire western world. Soon France, the Netherlands and Great Britain were also establishing profitable sugar plantations in the new world. The plantation system began in Brazil, where rich white plantation owners were the highest rung in the social hierarchy and black slaves were at the bottom. Obviously life on a sugar plantation was very hard work for a slave.

[[Slavery]] was widespread within Africa itself, and the richest in Africa were not those owning the most land, but those who owned the most slaves. In the Sahara Desert, slaves worked in caravans and were used in gold and salt mining. Slaves were usually prisoners of war from other areas of Africa, or debtors, or enemies or the king, but many women outside of those three categories were also enslaved in African societies. Polygamy—the practice of having more than one wife—was common in Africa, as was the existence of harems, from which African women were often sold to join Arabian or Middle Eastern harems.

The trading of slaves with other countries was encouraged in Africa, and was considered an important component of the African economy. Slave trade across the Atlantic (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade) became a booming business for Europeans and Africans alike, by which African rulers sold their people to Europeans for goods such as iron, alcohol, tobacco and most importantly, guns. Trans-Atlantic trade led to the degrading use of “chattel” slaves, whereby the slaves were treated purely as property of the owner. The slaves served as sailors, skilled craftsmen or farmers. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, led to the death of 10-20% of the African slaves. But an even higher percentage lost their lives in the journey from their homes in Africa to the African coast, where they were to board the slave ships.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one component in a system of routes known as the “Triangular Trade” between South America, New England, and the West Coast of Africa. The three main items that were exchanged were sugar, rum and slaves. European goods, mainly guns, were used to buy slaves from Africa. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas. Then, from America, sugar, rum and tobacco were brought back to Europe, completing the “triangle” of trade.

The end of slavery in Europe was not to come until the beginning of the 1800s, when Christian reformers such as William Wilberforce and John Wesley began speaking out against the evils of the system. Although the United States banned slave trade in the early 1800s, slavery itself was not abolished until decades later in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed, and in South America it was finally ended in Brazil in 1888.

===China’s Role in the Age of Exploration===

In the East, under the Ming dynasty, Emperor Yongle sent a band of explorers led by “Zheng He” throughout parts of southern Asia, Persia, Arabia and Africa. The crew of over 28,000 men embarked on seven naval expeditions in the Indian Ocean from 1405 to 1423 and as a result, trade with East Africa began. However, by the 1430s, Mongol raids caused the Chinese to withdraw from exploration for the time being, and instead spend their time and money on defenses such as repairing the Great Wall.

The Ming dynasty thereby retreated from the world stage, mostly in order to strengthen Chinese defenses against Mongol threats. Beijing became the capital of China, and eventually the Ming rulers began to retreat even more completely from the outside world, living in an elaborate Beijing palace known as the “Forbidden City.” When a devastating famine occurred in China, the rulers were living extravagantly in their secluded palace and cared little for the plight of the peasants. The people of China revolted, and in 1644, the Ming Dynasty was replaced with the Qing, made up of the Manchu peoples.

Under the Qing dynasty, marriage between members of the Chinese and Manchurians was forbidden, and the official spoken language remained Chinese. Female infanticide occurred, as well as the practice of binding the feet of rich girls and, increasingly, middle class girls also. The primary philosophy was Neo-Confucianism, a mixture of Buddhism and traditional Confucianism. Jesuits attempted to evangelize China, but were not very successful. Nevertheless, a Jesuit presence in China contributed to the exchange of ideas and technology between the East and the West.

China did not withdraw completely from world trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties. China continued to trade with the Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Dutch, mainly for silver, which had become the Chinese currency, and with the Russians for furs. Under the Ming dynasty, beautiful blue and white porcelain was produced and exported. The influence of the Ming vase spread throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds, as seen in Holland through the production of Delft pottery and in England, Wedgwood China. Other Chinese exports included silk and tea, and imports consisted of spices, textiles and animal skins from Europe. Maize, sweet potatoes and peanuts were brought over from the Americas and became popular crops in China.

==Growth of Nation-States and Monarchs==

The development of European nation-states continued throughout the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. In the 1400s and 1500s, the most powerful nation-states were England, France and Spain. The Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of parts of Italy and Germany, was a powerful but declining force. Enemies that weakened the Holy Roman Empire included the Ottomans and French enemies, who resisted its expansion. The fact that the cultures of Germany and Italy were very different also contributed to the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire, as did the Reformation.

The European nation-states grew in power by strengthening their central authority. They increased bureaucracy, the size of their armies and the amounts of their taxation. The rise of absolutist rulers contributed to the centralization of France, Spain, Austria, Russia and Prussia. The nature of an absolute monarch was expressed well in this famous quote attributed to Louis XIV (1527-1598), “L’etat c’est moi!” (I am the state). Absolute monarchs controlled all aspects of government and society including the church, the bureaucracy and the military. Absolute monarchs claimed “divine right” to rule, stating that they had been appointed by God himself and were therefore responsible to God alone. They enjoyed “sovereign immunity” under the view that “the king can do no wrong,” a principle that continues to exist in English and American law today (unless government “waives” its immunity with a law granting certain rights to sue it).

Religious conflict in England between Catholics and Anglicans caused absolutism to fail there. The “Glorious Revolution” (so named by supporters of the Church of England) brought down the Catholic King James II and the idea of divine right along with him, placing William and Mary on the throne in 1688. In France, however, absolutism triumphed until the French Revolution, especially with the reign of Louis XIV, the leading absolute monarch in Europe. The French court at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, who called himself the “Sun King,” was considered rich in culture and an example to other societies. Truth be told, it was also extravagant and immoral.

In Spain, Philip II (1638-1715), who was the great-grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, worked to cleanse Spanish territories of all religions but Catholicism, and viewed Elizabeth I of England as his main rival. But his mighty Spanish Armada was defeated by a quicker English fleet in 1588. In 1579, William of Orange led the Netherlands in a revolt against their Spanish masters. These two losses contributed to the weakening of Spanish power.

Meanwhile, artistic pursuits flourished during this period in Spain. El Greco (1541-1614), a painter, architect and sculptor best known for his paintings of saints and martyrs, and drew a stunning of a storm over a Spanish town (“A View of Toledo”). Diego Velázquez painted portraits of the royal family and scenes from daily life at court. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, probably the most influential piece of Spanish literature, and Lope de Vega wrote an estimated 2,000 plays.

In Russia, absolute emperors known as “czars” arose. The first czar of Russia was Ivan IV “the Terrible,” who executed many innocent people during his fearful reign from 1533 to 1547. Ivan was succeeded by his son Feodor, whose repeated failures led Russia into a “Time of Troubles.” In 1613, the first of a long line of Romanov czars, Mikhail Romanov, took the throne. Under Romanov rule, serfs lost almost all of their freedoms. Peter the Great, another Romanov who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1696, instituted sweeping reforms in Russian government and society. He built St. Petersburg and tried to make European traditions a part of Russia. In the Great Northern War against Sweden, new territories were gained. Other absolutist rulers arose, such as the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and the Hohenzollern Frederick the Great from Prussia. These two rulers clashed in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Frederick won the territory Silesia.

Europeans during this era desired a “balance of power” that would prevent any single nation from becoming most powerful. The expression of this idea was seen in the intense competition and warfare between the various European nations for control in Europe, especially with the Thirty Years’ War. The war initially began as a religious conflict in Germany between Bohemian Protestants and Hapsburg Catholics in 1618. However, it soon became a political conflict for power that involved Spain, Holland, Denmark, France, Switzerland and The Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of Westphalia finally marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. The war significantly weakened Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Austria and Spain. Although France was largely a Catholic country, it had chosen the side of the winning Protestants in order to oppose the Holy Roman Empire, and France emerged strengthened and more unified as a result.

==The Scientific Revolution==

A remarkable Polish scientist named [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] (1473-1543) made a stunning claim that rocked the religious and scientific world: he asserted that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, ‘with both eyes open.’” With that bold declaration, this respected scientist in the Catholic Church began the “Scientific Revolution,” which rejected geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe dating back over a thousand years to Ptolemy.

Copernicus worked for years on his book describing his theory, and did not publish it until near the very end of his life. He entitled it, “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), and published it in 1543. The work was far from perfect: Copernicus assumed that the planets moved in circular revolutions (they actually revolve in ellipses, though the orbit of the earth is nearly circular), and Copernicus also thought that the sun stood motionless as some kind of stationery temple in the universe.

The reception to his work was initially positive within the Catholic Church, but negative among Protestants who felt it conflicted with some literal interpretations of the Bible, such as the account of how Joshua benefited from the sun standing still as it passed over the earth. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Joshua 10:13. But there were few Protestants in Poland then (or now), and Copernicus died without much controversy.

[[Johannes Kepler]] (1571-1630), a Protestant in Germany, built on Copernicus’s work and discovered that planets orbited the sun in ellipses rather than circular orbits. Kepler was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and devout Christian who cited God many times in all of his writings. He felt it was his Christian duty to understand the creation of God, the universe. He also felt that man, being in the image of God, was fully capable of understanding the universe. Like Plato and Pythagoras, Kepler felt that God must have created the universe according to a mathematical plan.

[[Galileo]] (1564-1642) was a contemporary of Kepler who lived in Catholic Italy. Galileo was not as bright as Kepler or Copernicus, and was a bit of an entertaining showman who made a lively party guest. He taught geometry to medical students so that they could use astronomy and astrology in the practice of medicine. Galileo’s primary scientific contribution was his improvement on the telescope in order to view celestial bodies.

But the Catholic Church was then in a struggle with Protestantism, which was critical of Copernicus’s theory of the earth revolving around the sun. In 1616, the Catholic Church officially prohibited teaching Copernicus’s theory as fact, although there was no objection to learning it as a mathematical theory. Galileo, however, felt Copernicus was correct and wanted to teach his theory. He had met with Pope Urban VIII on numerous occasions and felt that the Church would not object to Galileo’s publishing the Copernican theory about the universe.

There was no right of free speech in Italy at that time, and in 1632 Galileo published a work called “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican” with the apparent approval of the Catholic Church. Buyers and readers of the book were led to believe that Galileo’s reflected the official views of the Church, when they did not. Galileo had received permission from a local cleric in Florence, but not from Church authorities in Rome, and they felt that Galileo knew that he was prohibited from claiming that the Church supported the Copernican view.

Galileo also angered Church officials in the way that he mocked opponents of the Copernican system. His “dialogue” was between a fictional Salviati, who supported the Copernican system, and an Aristotelian philosopher given the unflattering name “Simplicio”. The simpled-minded “Simplicio” was made to look like the pope himself, and was mocked in the book for his skepticism about the Copernican system.

In the book’s climax, Salviati supposedly proves the Copernican system by citing the movement of the tides. This was completely false and already disproved by Kepler.

Catholic Church officials were furious about this book and the Inquisition banned its sale. Galileo was summoned to Rome. Unlike Luther, Galileo remained a Catholic and fully accepted whatever judgment the Church would render against him. His “trial” was a bit of a farce, probably put on for show more than anything, with Galileo living in plush quarters at all times. At the end of the trial Galileo was required to live in a house where the Church could keep an eye on him, and was not imprisoned. Galileo then continued his scientific work but was kept from embarrassing the Church further. Galileo never split from the Church and completely accepted his punishment.

There were other noteworthy scientists during this era. [[Vesalius]] advanced the understanding of anatomy for medical doctors. [[John Harvey]] explained the circulatory system in human anatomy. [[Rene Descartes]] was a French mathematician and philosopher who discovered [[analytical geometry]] and famously declared, “I think, therefore I am.” [[Francis Bacon]] promoted research based on experimentation.

Then there was Sir [[Isaac Newton]], who after Jesus Christ was perhaps the most influential man who ever lived. If Newton were alive today, then he would be described as a Christian fundamentalist. Everything Newton did was inspired and motivated by his powerful faith in the Word of God in the Bible. Abandoned by his own mother, Newton had an [[inferiority complex]] that drove him to achieve more and more. In one summer he discovered the laws of [[gravity]] and also [[calculus]], and the world has never been the same since.

Like most other men who made great advances in knowledge in world history, Newton discovered and explained something that was unseen: the invisible force of gravity. Newton proposed action-at-a-distance, whereby one object attracts another through an invisible force of gravity. Newton was ridiculed for proposing that something unseen could act at a distance and influence something else millions of miles away from it. Yet Newton was right. Speaking of the world in which live, Newton once said, “Why not try to understand it?” Newton understood it and explained it to the rest of us, and we are forever grateful.

A German contemporary of Newton, Gottfried [[Leibniz]], deserves mention. Like Newton, Leibniz was a devout Christian. In fact, Leibniz was a Lutheran who dreamed of reuniting that denomination with the Catholic Church. Leibniz was also a brilliant mathematician who developed calculus independent of Newton. It was Leibniz, not Newton, who first published the notation for the integral: f(x) dx. An ugly dispute developed between Newton and Leibniz over who discovered calculus first. Most English-speaking historians give the credit to Newton but bias may play a role in that. The world certainly benefited immensely from Leibniz as well as Newton.

==The Enlightenment==

The “Enlightenment” was a philosophical movement in the 1700s that emphasized an intellectual approach rejecting traditional social, political and (sometimes) religious views. Philosophers in the Enlightenment felt that breakthroughs in science, such as Isaac Newton’s discoveries, could be duplicated in other fields through a systematic and logical approach. However, Newton’s breakthroughs were inspired by his Christian faith, while some of the Enlightenment thinkers rejected and even criticized Christianity. There were Enlightenment philosophers in England, France and even the American colonies. There were stunning new works in classical music, and the arts flourished in what is known as the neo-classical period.

Frenchman Voltaire (1694-1778) was a leading philosopher in the Enlightenment, advocating freedom everywhere and emphasizing his form of reason. He wrote “The Candide,” in which Voltaire described many bad things that happen to Candide in order to make the point that the world could be a better place. Increased freedom was Voltaire’s way of improving things.

Englishman John Locke (1632-1704) was the leading political philosopher, whose ideas helped the American colonists form a new government. Locke described society as a contract between an individual and society. This was a radical concept at a time when monarchs and the divine right of kings was the controlling theory. Locke’s view helped lay the foundation for the constitutional government that we use in the United States. Locke had built on the prior work of Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the leading legal authority on English law, upon which much American law is based. Law students in America hear about him frequently in law school. In “The Rights of Englishmen,” Blackstone described the source of the rights of the people.

Frenchman Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) proposed the concept of separation of powers, and checks and balances, in government. This inspired the United States Constitution. His book, “The Spirit of the Laws,” explained essential aspects of good government that became enormously influential.

Another Frenchman, Denis Diderot (1713-1784), contributed to literature, speculated on free will and attachment to material things, and edited an encyclopedia of scientific and social knowledge known as “Encyclopedia”.

Swiss-born political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote several controversial works. He felt that politics and morality could not be separated, and that the will of the majority was not always correct. Many Americans today would agree with that view. However, Rousseau also attacked private property, and laid the groundwork for future communist writers such as Karl Marx. Rousseau declared that government’s goal should be to provide freedom, equality and justice. But note that freedom often results in inequality.
Irishman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was in the British parliament when the conflict with the American colonies occurred, and he sided with the colonies, making him a hero to many in America. He is also considered to the world’s first political conservative, and many conservatives today praise him for that reason. His works included “Inquiries into the Sublime and Beautiful” (defending the American colonies and examining how people interpret what they see) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (warning how bad the French Revolution was because a few would gain control and abuse their power, even while everyone else praised that Revolution). What was striking about Burke was that he was almost always right in his political assessments and predictions.

The Scotsman David Hume (1711-1776) was a philosopher and historian who promoted materialism and naturalism rather than spirituality. He was a “skeptic” towards religion, and he penned “A Treatise on Human Nature.” He quipped, “You can tell what is inside a person’s soul by what comes out if it.” Hume is considered the greatest philosopher to write in English, but that is only because there were so few good English philosophers. Hume has been criticized for his atheistic approach and his chief claim to fame is that Charles Darwin declared Hume to have been his central influence, as did “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Henry Huxley. We will discuss them later in this course.

The German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most famous philosophers ever. In his “A Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant criticizes pure reason as a guide to life. Though Kant may not have been a Christian himself, he considered Christian values to be the best values in the world. Kant also established a systematic basis for critical philosophy and suggested a material origin for the solar system. Kant’s own suggestion for a moral daily life was this: don’t do something which, if everyone did it, then the outcome would be bad. Expressed another way, an act is moral only if it works as a rule for everyone. For example, littering would be wrong because if everyone did it, then there would be an ugly mess. Kant is taught in all college philosophy departments to this day, though not for praising Christianity!

Finally, let’s recognize American contributions during the Enlightenment. The great works were created by a group of people, affectionately known as the Founding Fathers. These works include the Declaration of Independence (1776) with its statement of inalienable rights and a right to break the social contract with a ruler when he (the king) violates natural rights. The United States Constitution (1787) gave the world a masterful design for government. The Federalist Papers (1788), and particularly articles by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (most notably No. 10) were also significant.

==Capitalism==

Just as Isaac Newton’s discovery and explanation of the unseen force of gravity was a brilliant insight in science, Adam Smith of Scotland discovered a powerful unseen force in economics known as the “invisible hand.” If government allows free enterprise to flourish on its own, an “invisible hand” will harness the power of self-interest for the overall good of society. Men and women will be guided by this “invisible hand” to work in a way that is beneficial to others, and the overall wealth and progress of society will increase. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence in America: 1776. Adam Smith’s book is still considered the world’s greatest economics masterpiece. He explained how the basis of wealth is found in a free economy with an unregulated exchange of goods, whereby supply of goods and services responds in an efficient way to demand without government intervention. Smith advocated the concept of laissez faire, which means “allow to do” or, more simply, “hands off” by government. Ironically, homeschooling in New Jersey (and a few other states) is an activity that most resembles Adam Smith’s ideal of an unregulated market. Let’s defend this lack of regulation of homeschooling while we can!

“Capitalism” became the prevailing economic theory in Britain as a result of the contributions of Adam Smith and others. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines capitalism as follows: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” Britain quickly became the greatest empire in the modern world as a result of its adherence to this superior economic system.

Another economic theory known as “mercantilism” was also popular. Mercantilism was not based entirely on “competition in a free market,” but rather was a policy for a nation (such as Britain) to increase its own national wealth based on trade with other nations and territories. Under mercantilism, a nation should accumulate gold by exporting more goods than it imported, and by using colonies (such as the English colonies in America) to ship raw materials to the mother country that could be manufactured and exported to other peoples. Another key component of mercantilism was establishing foreign trading monopolies that would have unfair advantages over competitors in other countries. One such British monopoly was the East Indian Tea Company, and its unfair business advantage caused the colonists in Boston to revolt in the form of the Boston Tea Party.

While Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was positive in almost every way, mercantilism did have a dark side of exploitation of colonies for the benefit of the mother country.

Adam Smith did not invent capitalism, but gave it a powerful intellectual justification. In 1607 capitalism had already played a prominent role in the first settlement of North America at Jamestown, which was funded by a joint-stock company (a privately owned company having a structure similar to the corporations of today). In joint-stock companies or corporations, decisions are made privately by those acting on behalf of the owners, without any direct control by government.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 08}}

World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T09:08:14Z

DeniseM: /* Introduction */ clear up the phonetic thing

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Our midterm exam will be next week. It will be multiple-choice, perhaps 30 minutes in length, and will cover lectures one through eight (including this one). Items and topic mentioned on the homework will be given greater priority in designing the questions.

Remember these test-taking tips for multiple-choice exams. You can improve your scores enormously by following and mastering these tips.

== Test-taking tips ==

'''Understand''': Understand the question before you try to answer it. Read the question twice if you have doubts. You want an answer that fits the question best, like a key fitting a lock.

'''Eliminate''': Eliminate the wrong answers before picking the right one. This can bump your score up another point or two.

'''First Impression''': Go with your first impression unless you have a good reason to change it. More often than not, your first impression is right.

'''Stay on Track''': Stay on track during the test. Expect to miss a few, and do not waste too much time on a difficult question.

'''Try Different Approaches''': Try different approaches to a difficult question until you figure out the right answer. There are many ways to find the correct answer for a question. Don't give up too easily on figuring out a question.

'''Avoid Broad Language in Answers''': Words like "only", "never" and "solely" are signs of '''wrong''' answers because they are rarely true.

Test-taking on multiple-choice exams is a skill that can be mastered with practice, determination and cleverness.

== Introduction ==

This lecture will be briefer than usual, with no homework questions, in order to give you time to prepare.

On September 11, 1683, Muslims made a second major attempt to conquer Europe (recall that Charles the Hammer turned back their first attempt). A massive Islamic army arrived at the Gates of Vienna. An alliance of Christian armies, led by the Polish King Jan III Sobieski, defeated the Muslim force.<ref>http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-september-11th.html</ref> Some have observed that "9/11" was an anniversary of this day.

Two other momentous events happened in the 1600s which would also affect the world forever. In 1607, Englishmen established a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1611, the King James Bible was published with this introduction:<ref name="KJV">http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html</ref>

:THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.

Some might say that the publication of the King James Bible was more significant than the settlement at Jamestown. This version of the Bible, which became known as the "Authorized Version," was a spectacular work that transformed and elevated the entire English language to new heights. Even a Catholic scholar expressed the highest praise for this work, which was shared by all:<ref name="KJV"/>

:The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.

To this day many feel that the King James Bible is the finest English translation available, despite the antiquity of some of its terminology. It is free from modern translations that hide the existence and wrath of Hell, for example. But for the purposes of course, we are interested in how this was a defining moment in the development of the English language, and how the language has grown since then.

The King James Bible established a framework of knowledge of the English language, and it began to develop rapidly afterward. English is unique in its ability to develop new words, at a rate of about 1000 new words per year.<ref>See [[Essay:Best New Conservative Words]].</ref> English easily incorporates and adapts words from other languages, such as "detente" (French for a lessening in tensions between nations) and "tsunami" (Japanese for a massive tidal wave).

English has one of the smallest alphabet of major languages using the Roman alphabet, including its lack of accented (letters bearing a diacritic mark such as the "e" in "noël"), hybrid (such as the digraph ligature æ), and pictograph characters. Hebrew has 22 characters, so is an example of a smaller alphabet. [[Futhark]] runic writing has an alphabet of 24.

It helps that English uses a writing system that has some relation between sounds and symbols as opposed to a purely ideographic system. This also applies to all other languages using alphabets, abjads, syllabaries, and so on - such as ancient Greek and Latin (though English developed from German, not from Greek or Latin).

English features easy interchangeability of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, without much variance in form for pronouns and verbs. That promotes easy communication through brief, cryptic messages, the style preferred by electronic media. English enjoys a powerful pipe-like quality, such that one phrase can be cut and pasted to another phrase with ease. Computer-based cutting and pasting text works more efficiently in English than in many other languages, such as those using pictorial characters. This gives English an advantage in the internet medium, and about 80% of the internet uses English. English is now the second most widely spoken language in the world, with only Chinese dialects spoken by more people. English is overwhelmingly the second language of choice for non-English-speaking people.<ref>See Barbara Wallraff, “What Global Language?” 286 Atlantic Monthly No. 5, at 52 (Nov. 2000) (noting, inter alia, that “English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN” and is also “the official language of the European Central Bank”).</ref>

== Test-Taking Tips ==

fill in

==The Age of Exploration==

The “Age of Exploration” consisted of Christians from Europe searching the rest of our globe to spread the faith and seek wealth, particularly between 1450 and 1650. This began the “Global Age” in world history, which continues to this day.

As Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages and experiencing the Renaissance, people had the curiosity and the courage to look beyond their own continent to others. Scientific discoveries and technological improvements made it easier to travel across the vast oceans. Christians sought to spread their faith far and wide, and merchants sought new goods and business opportunities in both the East and West. North and South America awaited visits by the Europeans.

The Portuguese were the first great explorers. They developed the “caravel”, a small, lightweight ship with three lateen-sailed masts that could hold much more cargo than previous ships. The more cargo that a ship could hold, the greater its profits would be, as cargo consisted of goods that could be picked up in a faraway land and sold upon the ship’s return to its homeland. European demand was strong for exotic Indian goods, especially spices, and this drove explorers to discover new routes to India different from the Eastern Mediterranean trade controlled by the Ottomans. The discovery of new western routes accidentally led to the discovery of lands in the New World (Western Hemisphere). Portugal and Spain then emerged as the two major players in what was to become an intense European competition for exploration, conversion and colonization.

===Portuguese Exploration===

The Portuguese initiated the age of exploration in Europe as early as about 1419, when Prince Henry the Navigator established his School of Navigation and made it his life’s work to explore the West African coast and reach the Indian Ocean. His ships reached as far as Sierra Leone, but he failed to reach India. Another explorer named Bartholomew Diaz failed to reach India also, but he did manage to sail around the tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) in 1487.

It was during this time that a young Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus approached the Portuguese King John II to ask him for financial support. Columbus, like many from the Italian city of Genoa, was an expert mariner, having started as early as the age of 14. He had studied the works of Ptolemy on his own; Columbus did not attend formal school, just as homeschoolers do not today. Columbus at all times was a devout Christian, writing frequently about his faith in his diary. His desire to sail to India was motivated in large part by his attempt to spread the Christian faith. He repeatedly cited a desire to convert pagans to Christianity when he sought support for his voyage. Late in life, even when treated as a prisoner, he sought to devote all his money and efforts towards winning back Jesus Christ’s Holy Sepulchre (burial cave) from Muslims in the Holy Land.

King John II denied Columbus’s request to fund his voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, Columbus was ridiculed for seeking to reach India by sailing west rather than east.

Vasco da Gama finally reached India by sailing eastward around Africa and up the East African coast between 1497 and 1499, with the help of the powerful monsoon winds. Shortly thereafter, regular trade was established with India under the Portuguese King Manuel, and conflict began with the Muslims over dominance of Indian Ocean trade.

===Spanish Exploration===

The Spanish entered the scene in the year 1492—during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who were working hard to defeat Islam and establish Christianity as the only religion in Spain. Known as the “Reconquista” (or Reconquest) of Spain, this was accomplished first through the reconquest of Granada, the last Muslim city in Spain. As explained in the prior Lecture, Queen Isabella ordered all Muslims and Jewish residents to convert or leave Spain. Initially, this caused Spain an economic and academic setback, as Jewish residents had comprised a large number of scholars and merchants.

However, economic stability was soon reached as the strain of fighting the Muslims was now gone, and taxes for the sole purpose of funding explorations were soon imposed. Isabella and Ferdinand felt secure in granting the Genoese upstart Christopher Columbus his long-awaited funds. Beginning on August 3, 1492, Columbus embarked on four voyages, perhaps becoming the first European to discover the New World, although at first he believed he had reached India (hence his name for the inhabitants of the New World: “Indians”). The discoveries by Columbus included the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, San Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Honduras. Columbus’ astounding success presented an increasing challenge to Spain’s Portuguese rivals.

The pope finally resolved this rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which established an 1100-mile long “Line of Demarcation.” This division of world territories gave Portugal trading rights in India, China, the East Indies, East Brazil and Spanish Americas. Spain was given control of the remaining, vast majority of the Americas. Ferdinand Magellan then led the first successful voyage to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. Although Magellan was killed by Philippine natives before completing the last leg of the journey, he was the first to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America to enter the Pacific Ocean. Only 18 of approximately 250 sailors made it back to Spain three years later, in 1522.

As a result of Magellan’s journey, Spain gained control of many South American territories, including Mexico and Peru. Spain also obtained control over the Philippines in the Far East. Spanish warrior Hernando Cortes led the conquest of Mexico, with the initial help of the Aztecs, many of whom believed Cortes was their god Quetzalcoatl (who, conveniently for the Spanish, was expected to appear that very year). Cortes captured the Aztec ruler Moctezuma (popularly known as “Montezuma”) and conquered their empire. Cortes was also aided by an Aztec woman named Malinche, who served as a guide and translator. Cortes burned the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City in its place.

Francisco Pizzaro led the conquest of Peru, betraying and eventually killing their emperor, Atahualpa. The ancient Peru city of Cuzco was completely destroyed and replaced with the city of Lima. While in Peru, Pizzaro also discovered the greatest silver mine in the Americas, the vast majority of which was traded with China, whose economy was based on silver. Both Cortes’ and Pizzaro’s conquests were facilitated by the use of horses, superior weapons, and devastating European diseases like smallpox. The native population had no immunity to such disease, and simply giving them a bunch of blankets exposed to the deadly germ could end up killing many natives.

Using the Spanish system of “encomiendas”, many of the South American natives became slaves to their Spanish conquerors. A Dominican monk and missionary, [[Bartholomew de Las Casas]], sent sensational descriptions to the Spanish government of the supposed atrocities committed against the “patient, meek and peaceful” natives by the Spanish conquistadors, whom he described as “cruel tigers, wolves and lions.” Although some of what Las Casas said was true, historical research has proved most of it to be false and exaggerated. However dishonest his methods may have been, Las Casas’ reports eventually led to the king of Spain issuing “New Laws,” by which exploitation of the natives was ended by the replacement of the old “encomiendas” with the new “repartimientos”. Both systems are criticized as unfair today. The system of “encomiendas” was based on royal grants of land, while the system of “repartimientos” was based on gifts of Indian labor. Either way, the Indians ended up working for the Spanish.

===Exploration by Other Nations===

Other European nations participated in exploration as well. King Henry VII of England sent John Cabot, a resident of London born in Genoa (like Columbus), to explore across the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Cabot discovered Newfoundland and the New England coast in 1497 and 1498, respectively, and the land became the property of England. From France, Jacques Cartier discovered Canada and the Mississippi Basin, including Louisiana in 1534 and 1541. These colonies were initially less significant than those in South America, and there was a lack of initial interest in North America because it did not have the gold and silver of South America. Whereas intermarriage and cultural blending occurred heavily among the Spanish and the Indians in South America, it barely existed between the English or French and the Indians in North America.

Of course, eventually the interest and development in North America increased and surpassed that of South America. Commercial competition between European nations in North America culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)—a conflict brought to America in the form of the French and Indian War. This War marked the end of French (and Spanish) influence in North America, and signaled the rise of Britain as the primary world superpower for the next 150 years.

===The Slave Trade===

In what is known as the “Columbian Exchange,” plants and animals were brought from America to Europe and vice-versa. Columbus brought from Europe to America wheat, melons, onions, grapes, sugar cane and horses. Horses proved to be influential not only in the European conquest of native peoples but also in the natives’ abilities to avoid white settlers, particularly among the Plains Indians in North America.

America had new fruits and vegetables that were then exported to Europe and Africa. America introduced the white potato to Europe and the manioc or cassava to Africa. Chili peppers, pumpkins, squash and peanuts were also brought back from America and became popular in countries such as India. These new foods helped increase population, and in Africa the population growth almost cancelled out population losses caused by the slave trade.

Slaves became a major part of the Columbian Exchange. In 1455, a “papal bull” (formal letter by the pope) justified a “right” of Christian nations to enslave any non-Christian in the name of exploration. The Spanish had already been enslaving South American natives on a limited basis, but with the rise of sugar plantations the need for a larger slave force arose. Millions of African slaves were brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean and especially Brazil. The growth of sugar—which had first been introduced to Europe when the Muslims ruled Spain—was exploding in popularity throughout the entire western world. Soon France, the Netherlands and Great Britain were also establishing profitable sugar plantations in the new world. The plantation system began in Brazil, where rich white plantation owners were the highest rung in the social hierarchy and black slaves were at the bottom. Obviously life on a sugar plantation was very hard work for a slave.

[[Slavery]] was widespread within Africa itself, and the richest in Africa were not those owning the most land, but those who owned the most slaves. In the Sahara Desert, slaves worked in caravans and were used in gold and salt mining. Slaves were usually prisoners of war from other areas of Africa, or debtors, or enemies or the king, but many women outside of those three categories were also enslaved in African societies. Polygamy—the practice of having more than one wife—was common in Africa, as was the existence of harems, from which African women were often sold to join Arabian or Middle Eastern harems.

The trading of slaves with other countries was encouraged in Africa, and was considered an important component of the African economy. Slave trade across the Atlantic (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade) became a booming business for Europeans and Africans alike, by which African rulers sold their people to Europeans for goods such as iron, alcohol, tobacco and most importantly, guns. Trans-Atlantic trade led to the degrading use of “chattel” slaves, whereby the slaves were treated purely as property of the owner. The slaves served as sailors, skilled craftsmen or farmers. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, led to the death of 10-20% of the African slaves. But an even higher percentage lost their lives in the journey from their homes in Africa to the African coast, where they were to board the slave ships.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one component in a system of routes known as the “Triangular Trade” between South America, New England, and the West Coast of Africa. The three main items that were exchanged were sugar, rum and slaves. European goods, mainly guns, were used to buy slaves from Africa. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas. Then, from America, sugar, rum and tobacco were brought back to Europe, completing the “triangle” of trade.

The end of slavery in Europe was not to come until the beginning of the 1800s, when Christian reformers such as William Wilberforce and John Wesley began speaking out against the evils of the system. Although the United States banned slave trade in the early 1800s, slavery itself was not abolished until decades later in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed, and in South America it was finally ended in Brazil in 1888.

===China’s Role in the Age of Exploration===

In the East, under the Ming dynasty, Emperor Yongle sent a band of explorers led by “Zheng He” throughout parts of southern Asia, Persia, Arabia and Africa. The crew of over 28,000 men embarked on seven naval expeditions in the Indian Ocean from 1405 to 1423 and as a result, trade with East Africa began. However, by the 1430s, Mongol raids caused the Chinese to withdraw from exploration for the time being, and instead spend their time and money on defenses such as repairing the Great Wall.

The Ming dynasty thereby retreated from the world stage, mostly in order to strengthen Chinese defenses against Mongol threats. Beijing became the capital of China, and eventually the Ming rulers began to retreat even more completely from the outside world, living in an elaborate Beijing palace known as the “Forbidden City.” When a devastating famine occurred in China, the rulers were living extravagantly in their secluded palace and cared little for the plight of the peasants. The people of China revolted, and in 1644, the Ming Dynasty was replaced with the Qing, made up of the Manchu peoples.

Under the Qing dynasty, marriage between members of the Chinese and Manchurians was forbidden, and the official spoken language remained Chinese. Female infanticide occurred, as well as the practice of binding the feet of rich girls and, increasingly, middle class girls also. The primary philosophy was Neo-Confucianism, a mixture of Buddhism and traditional Confucianism. Jesuits attempted to evangelize China, but were not very successful. Nevertheless, a Jesuit presence in China contributed to the exchange of ideas and technology between the East and the West.

China did not withdraw completely from world trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties. China continued to trade with the Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Dutch, mainly for silver, which had become the Chinese currency, and with the Russians for furs. Under the Ming dynasty, beautiful blue and white porcelain was produced and exported. The influence of the Ming vase spread throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds, as seen in Holland through the production of Delft pottery and in England, Wedgwood China. Other Chinese exports included silk and tea, and imports consisted of spices, textiles and animal skins from Europe. Maize, sweet potatoes and peanuts were brought over from the Americas and became popular crops in China.

==Growth of Nation-States and Monarchs==

The development of European nation-states continued throughout the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. In the 1400s and 1500s, the most powerful nation-states were England, France and Spain. The Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of parts of Italy and Germany, was a powerful but declining force. Enemies that weakened the Holy Roman Empire included the Ottomans and French enemies, who resisted its expansion. The fact that the cultures of Germany and Italy were very different also contributed to the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire, as did the Reformation.

The European nation-states grew in power by strengthening their central authority. They increased bureaucracy, the size of their armies and the amounts of their taxation. The rise of absolutist rulers contributed to the centralization of France, Spain, Austria, Russia and Prussia. The nature of an absolute monarch was expressed well in this famous quote attributed to Louis XIV (1527-1598), “L’etat c’est moi!” (I am the state). Absolute monarchs controlled all aspects of government and society including the church, the bureaucracy and the military. Absolute monarchs claimed “divine right” to rule, stating that they had been appointed by God himself and were therefore responsible to God alone. They enjoyed “sovereign immunity” under the view that “the king can do no wrong,” a principle that continues to exist in English and American law today (unless government “waives” its immunity with a law granting certain rights to sue it).

Religious conflict in England between Catholics and Anglicans caused absolutism to fail there. The “Glorious Revolution” (so named by supporters of the Church of England) brought down the Catholic King James II and the idea of divine right along with him, placing William and Mary on the throne in 1688. In France, however, absolutism triumphed until the French Revolution, especially with the reign of Louis XIV, the leading absolute monarch in Europe. The French court at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, who called himself the “Sun King,” was considered rich in culture and an example to other societies. Truth be told, it was also extravagant and immoral.

In Spain, Philip II (1638-1715), who was the great-grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, worked to cleanse Spanish territories of all religions but Catholicism, and viewed Elizabeth I of England as his main rival. But his mighty Spanish Armada was defeated by a quicker English fleet in 1588. In 1579, William of Orange led the Netherlands in a revolt against their Spanish masters. These two losses contributed to the weakening of Spanish power.

Meanwhile, artistic pursuits flourished during this period in Spain. El Greco (1541-1614), a painter, architect and sculptor best known for his paintings of saints and martyrs, and drew a stunning of a storm over a Spanish town (“A View of Toledo”). Diego Velázquez painted portraits of the royal family and scenes from daily life at court. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, probably the most influential piece of Spanish literature, and Lope de Vega wrote an estimated 2,000 plays.

In Russia, absolute emperors known as “czars” arose. The first czar of Russia was Ivan IV “the Terrible,” who executed many innocent people during his fearful reign from 1533 to 1547. Ivan was succeeded by his son Feodor, whose repeated failures led Russia into a “Time of Troubles.” In 1613, the first of a long line of Romanov czars, Mikhail Romanov, took the throne. Under Romanov rule, serfs lost almost all of their freedoms. Peter the Great, another Romanov who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1696, instituted sweeping reforms in Russian government and society. He built St. Petersburg and tried to make European traditions a part of Russia. In the Great Northern War against Sweden, new territories were gained. Other absolutist rulers arose, such as the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and the Hohenzollern Frederick the Great from Prussia. These two rulers clashed in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Frederick won the territory Silesia.

Europeans during this era desired a “balance of power” that would prevent any single nation from becoming most powerful. The expression of this idea was seen in the intense competition and warfare between the various European nations for control in Europe, especially with the Thirty Years’ War. The war initially began as a religious conflict in Germany between Bohemian Protestants and Hapsburg Catholics in 1618. However, it soon became a political conflict for power that involved Spain, Holland, Denmark, France, Switzerland and The Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of Westphalia finally marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. The war significantly weakened Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Austria and Spain. Although France was largely a Catholic country, it had chosen the side of the winning Protestants in order to oppose the Holy Roman Empire, and France emerged strengthened and more unified as a result.

==The Scientific Revolution==

A remarkable Polish scientist named [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] (1473-1543) made a stunning claim that rocked the religious and scientific world: he asserted that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, ‘with both eyes open.’” With that bold declaration, this respected scientist in the Catholic Church began the “Scientific Revolution,” which rejected geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe dating back over a thousand years to Ptolemy.

Copernicus worked for years on his book describing his theory, and did not publish it until near the very end of his life. He entitled it, “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), and published it in 1543. The work was far from perfect: Copernicus assumed that the planets moved in circular revolutions (they actually revolve in ellipses, though the orbit of the earth is nearly circular), and Copernicus also thought that the sun stood motionless as some kind of stationery temple in the universe.

The reception to his work was initially positive within the Catholic Church, but negative among Protestants who felt it conflicted with some literal interpretations of the Bible, such as the account of how Joshua benefited from the sun standing still as it passed over the earth. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Joshua 10:13. But there were few Protestants in Poland then (or now), and Copernicus died without much controversy.

[[Johannes Kepler]] (1571-1630), a Protestant in Germany, built on Copernicus’s work and discovered that planets orbited the sun in ellipses rather than circular orbits. Kepler was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and devout Christian who cited God many times in all of his writings. He felt it was his Christian duty to understand the creation of God, the universe. He also felt that man, being in the image of God, was fully capable of understanding the universe. Like Plato and Pythagoras, Kepler felt that God must have created the universe according to a mathematical plan.

[[Galileo]] (1564-1642) was a contemporary of Kepler who lived in Catholic Italy. Galileo was not as bright as Kepler or Copernicus, and was a bit of an entertaining showman who made a lively party guest. He taught geometry to medical students so that they could use astronomy and astrology in the practice of medicine. Galileo’s primary scientific contribution was his improvement on the telescope in order to view celestial bodies.

But the Catholic Church was then in a struggle with Protestantism, which was critical of Copernicus’s theory of the earth revolving around the sun. In 1616, the Catholic Church officially prohibited teaching Copernicus’s theory as fact, although there was no objection to learning it as a mathematical theory. Galileo, however, felt Copernicus was correct and wanted to teach his theory. He had met with Pope Urban VIII on numerous occasions and felt that the Church would not object to Galileo’s publishing the Copernican theory about the universe.

There was no right of free speech in Italy at that time, and in 1632 Galileo published a work called “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican” with the apparent approval of the Catholic Church. Buyers and readers of the book were led to believe that Galileo’s reflected the official views of the Church, when they did not. Galileo had received permission from a local cleric in Florence, but not from Church authorities in Rome, and they felt that Galileo knew that he was prohibited from claiming that the Church supported the Copernican view.

Galileo also angered Church officials in the way that he mocked opponents of the Copernican system. His “dialogue” was between a fictional Salviati, who supported the Copernican system, and an Aristotelian philosopher given the unflattering name “Simplicio”. The simpled-minded “Simplicio” was made to look like the pope himself, and was mocked in the book for his skepticism about the Copernican system.

In the book’s climax, Salviati supposedly proves the Copernican system by citing the movement of the tides. This was completely false and already disproved by Kepler.

Catholic Church officials were furious about this book and the Inquisition banned its sale. Galileo was summoned to Rome. Unlike Luther, Galileo remained a Catholic and fully accepted whatever judgment the Church would render against him. His “trial” was a bit of a farce, probably put on for show more than anything, with Galileo living in plush quarters at all times. At the end of the trial Galileo was required to live in a house where the Church could keep an eye on him, and was not imprisoned. Galileo then continued his scientific work but was kept from embarrassing the Church further. Galileo never split from the Church and completely accepted his punishment.

There were other noteworthy scientists during this era. [[Vesalius]] advanced the understanding of anatomy for medical doctors. [[John Harvey]] explained the circulatory system in human anatomy. [[Rene Descartes]] was a French mathematician and philosopher who discovered [[analytical geometry]] and famously declared, “I think, therefore I am.” [[Francis Bacon]] promoted research based on experimentation.

Then there was Sir [[Isaac Newton]], who after Jesus Christ was perhaps the most influential man who ever lived. If Newton were alive today, then he would be described as a Christian fundamentalist. Everything Newton did was inspired and motivated by his powerful faith in the Word of God in the Bible. Abandoned by his own mother, Newton had an [[inferiority complex]] that drove him to achieve more and more. In one summer he discovered the laws of [[gravity]] and also [[calculus]], and the world has never been the same since.

Like most other men who made great advances in knowledge in world history, Newton discovered and explained something that was unseen: the invisible force of gravity. Newton proposed action-at-a-distance, whereby one object attracts another through an invisible force of gravity. Newton was ridiculed for proposing that something unseen could act at a distance and influence something else millions of miles away from it. Yet Newton was right. Speaking of the world in which live, Newton once said, “Why not try to understand it?” Newton understood it and explained it to the rest of us, and we are forever grateful.

A German contemporary of Newton, Gottfried [[Leibniz]], deserves mention. Like Newton, Leibniz was a devout Christian. In fact, Leibniz was a Lutheran who dreamed of reuniting that denomination with the Catholic Church. Leibniz was also a brilliant mathematician who developed calculus independent of Newton. It was Leibniz, not Newton, who first published the notation for the integral: f(x) dx. An ugly dispute developed between Newton and Leibniz over who discovered calculus first. Most English-speaking historians give the credit to Newton but bias may play a role in that. The world certainly benefited immensely from Leibniz as well as Newton.

==The Enlightenment==

The “Enlightenment” was a philosophical movement in the 1700s that emphasized an intellectual approach rejecting traditional social, political and (sometimes) religious views. Philosophers in the Enlightenment felt that breakthroughs in science, such as Isaac Newton’s discoveries, could be duplicated in other fields through a systematic and logical approach. However, Newton’s breakthroughs were inspired by his Christian faith, while some of the Enlightenment thinkers rejected and even criticized Christianity. There were Enlightenment philosophers in England, France and even the American colonies. There were stunning new works in classical music, and the arts flourished in what is known as the neo-classical period.

Frenchman Voltaire (1694-1778) was a leading philosopher in the Enlightenment, advocating freedom everywhere and emphasizing his form of reason. He wrote “The Candide,” in which Voltaire described many bad things that happen to Candide in order to make the point that the world could be a better place. Increased freedom was Voltaire’s way of improving things.

Englishman John Locke (1632-1704) was the leading political philosopher, whose ideas helped the American colonists form a new government. Locke described society as a contract between an individual and society. This was a radical concept at a time when monarchs and the divine right of kings was the controlling theory. Locke’s view helped lay the foundation for the constitutional government that we use in the United States. Locke had built on the prior work of Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the leading legal authority on English law, upon which much American law is based. Law students in America hear about him frequently in law school. In “The Rights of Englishmen,” Blackstone described the source of the rights of the people.

Frenchman Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) proposed the concept of separation of powers, and checks and balances, in government. This inspired the United States Constitution. His book, “The Spirit of the Laws,” explained essential aspects of good government that became enormously influential.

Another Frenchman, Denis Diderot (1713-1784), contributed to literature, speculated on free will and attachment to material things, and edited an encyclopedia of scientific and social knowledge known as “Encyclopedia”.

Swiss-born political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote several controversial works. He felt that politics and morality could not be separated, and that the will of the majority was not always correct. Many Americans today would agree with that view. However, Rousseau also attacked private property, and laid the groundwork for future communist writers such as Karl Marx. Rousseau declared that government’s goal should be to provide freedom, equality and justice. But note that freedom often results in inequality.
Irishman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was in the British parliament when the conflict with the American colonies occurred, and he sided with the colonies, making him a hero to many in America. He is also considered to the world’s first political conservative, and many conservatives today praise him for that reason. His works included “Inquiries into the Sublime and Beautiful” (defending the American colonies and examining how people interpret what they see) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (warning how bad the French Revolution was because a few would gain control and abuse their power, even while everyone else praised that Revolution). What was striking about Burke was that he was almost always right in his political assessments and predictions.

The Scotsman David Hume (1711-1776) was a philosopher and historian who promoted materialism and naturalism rather than spirituality. He was a “skeptic” towards religion, and he penned “A Treatise on Human Nature.” He quipped, “You can tell what is inside a person’s soul by what comes out if it.” Hume is considered the greatest philosopher to write in English, but that is only because there were so few good English philosophers. Hume has been criticized for his atheistic approach and his chief claim to fame is that Charles Darwin declared Hume to have been his central influence, as did “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Henry Huxley. We will discuss them later in this course.

The German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most famous philosophers ever. In his “A Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant criticizes pure reason as a guide to life. Though Kant may not have been a Christian himself, he considered Christian values to be the best values in the world. Kant also established a systematic basis for critical philosophy and suggested a material origin for the solar system. Kant’s own suggestion for a moral daily life was this: don’t do something which, if everyone did it, then the outcome would be bad. Expressed another way, an act is moral only if it works as a rule for everyone. For example, littering would be wrong because if everyone did it, then there would be an ugly mess. Kant is taught in all college philosophy departments to this day, though not for praising Christianity!

Finally, let’s recognize American contributions during the Enlightenment. The great works were created by a group of people, affectionately known as the Founding Fathers. These works include the Declaration of Independence (1776) with its statement of inalienable rights and a right to break the social contract with a ruler when he (the king) violates natural rights. The United States Constitution (1787) gave the world a masterful design for government. The Federalist Papers (1788), and particularly articles by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (most notably No. 10) were also significant.

==Capitalism==

Just as Isaac Newton’s discovery and explanation of the unseen force of gravity was a brilliant insight in science, Adam Smith of Scotland discovered a powerful unseen force in economics known as the “invisible hand.” If government allows free enterprise to flourish on its own, an “invisible hand” will harness the power of self-interest for the overall good of society. Men and women will be guided by this “invisible hand” to work in a way that is beneficial to others, and the overall wealth and progress of society will increase. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence in America: 1776. Adam Smith’s book is still considered the world’s greatest economics masterpiece. He explained how the basis of wealth is found in a free economy with an unregulated exchange of goods, whereby supply of goods and services responds in an efficient way to demand without government intervention. Smith advocated the concept of laissez faire, which means “allow to do” or, more simply, “hands off” by government. Ironically, homeschooling in New Jersey (and a few other states) is an activity that most resembles Adam Smith’s ideal of an unregulated market. Let’s defend this lack of regulation of homeschooling while we can!

“Capitalism” became the prevailing economic theory in Britain as a result of the contributions of Adam Smith and others. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines capitalism as follows: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” Britain quickly became the greatest empire in the modern world as a result of its adherence to this superior economic system.

Another economic theory known as “mercantilism” was also popular. Mercantilism was not based entirely on “competition in a free market,” but rather was a policy for a nation (such as Britain) to increase its own national wealth based on trade with other nations and territories. Under mercantilism, a nation should accumulate gold by exporting more goods than it imported, and by using colonies (such as the English colonies in America) to ship raw materials to the mother country that could be manufactured and exported to other peoples. Another key component of mercantilism was establishing foreign trading monopolies that would have unfair advantages over competitors in other countries. One such British monopoly was the East Indian Tea Company, and its unfair business advantage caused the colonists in Boston to revolt in the form of the Boston Tea Party.

While Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was positive in almost every way, mercantilism did have a dark side of exploitation of colonies for the benefit of the mother country.

Adam Smith did not invent capitalism, but gave it a powerful intellectual justification. In 1607 capitalism had already played a prominent role in the first settlement of North America at Jamestown, which was funded by a joint-stock company (a privately owned company having a structure similar to the corporations of today). In joint-stock companies or corporations, decisions are made privately by those acting on behalf of the owners, without any direct control by government.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 08}}

Talk:World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T09:04:03Z

DeniseM: /* Thoughts and comments */

World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T08:58:25Z

DeniseM: /* Introduction */ Another example.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Our midterm exam will be next week. It will be multiple-choice, perhaps 30 minutes in length, and will cover lectures one through eight (including this one). Items and topic mentioned on the homework will be given greater priority in designing the questions.

Remember these test-taking tips for multiple-choice exams. You can improve your scores enormously by following and mastering these tips.

== Test-taking tips ==

'''Understand''': Understand the question before you try to answer it. Read the question twice if you have doubts. You want an answer that fits the question best, like a key fitting a lock.

'''Eliminate''': Eliminate the wrong answers before picking the right one. This can bump your score up another point or two.

'''First Impression''': Go with your first impression unless you have a good reason to change it. More often than not, your first impression is right.

'''Stay on Track''': Stay on track during the test. Expect to miss a few, and do not waste too much time on a difficult question.

'''Try Different Approaches''': Try different approaches to a difficult question until you figure out the right answer. There are many ways to find the correct answer for a question. Don't give up too easily on figuring out a question.

'''Avoid Broad Language in Answers''': Words like "only", "never" and "solely" are signs of '''wrong''' answers because they are rarely true.

Test-taking on multiple-choice exams is a skill that can be mastered with practice, determination and cleverness.

== Introduction ==

This lecture will be briefer than usual, with no homework questions, in order to give you time to prepare.

On September 11, 1683, Muslims made a second major attempt to conquer Europe (recall that Charles the Hammer turned back their first attempt). A massive Islamic army arrived at the Gates of Vienna. An alliance of Christian armies, led by the Polish King Jan III Sobieski, defeated the Muslim force.<ref>http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-september-11th.html</ref> Some have observed that "9/11" was an anniversary of this day.

Two other momentous events happened in the 1600s which would also affect the world forever. In 1607, Englishmen established a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1611, the King James Bible was published with this introduction:<ref name="KJV">http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html</ref>

:THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.

Some might say that the publication of the King James Bible was more significant than the settlement at Jamestown. This version of the Bible, which became known as the "Authorized Version," was a spectacular work that transformed and elevated the entire English language to new heights. Even a Catholic scholar expressed the highest praise for this work, which was shared by all:<ref name="KJV"/>

:The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.

To this day many feel that the King James Bible is the finest English translation available, despite the antiquity of some of its terminology. It is free from modern translations that hide the existence and wrath of Hell, for example. But for the purposes of course, we are interested in how this was a defining moment in the development of the English language, and how the language has grown since then.

The King James Bible established a framework of knowledge of the English language, and it began to develop rapidly afterward. English is unique in its ability to develop new words, at a rate of about 1000 new words per year.<ref>See [[Essay:Best New Conservative Words]].</ref> English easily incorporates and adapts words from other languages, such as "detente" (French for a lessening in tensions between nations) and "tsunami" (Japanese for a massive tidal wave).

English has one of the smallest alphabet of major languages using the Roman alphabet, including its lack of accented (letters bearing a diacritic mark such as the "e" in "noël"), hybrid (such as the digraph ligature æ), and pictograph characters. Hebrew has 22 characters, so is an example of a smaller alphabet. [[Futhark]] runic writing has an alphabet of 24.

It helps that English is somewhat phonetic, as ancient Greek and Latin were (though English developed from German, not from Greek or Latin).

English features easy interchangeability of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, without much variance in form for pronouns and verbs. That promotes easy communication through brief, cryptic messages, the style preferred by electronic media. English enjoys a powerful pipe-like quality, such that one phrase can be cut and pasted to another phrase with ease. Computer-based cutting and pasting text works more efficiently in English than in many other languages, such as those using pictorial characters. This gives English an advantage in the internet medium, and about 80% of the internet uses English. English is now the second most widely spoken language in the world, with only Chinese dialects spoken by more people. English is overwhelmingly the second language of choice for non-English-speaking people.<ref>See Barbara Wallraff, “What Global Language?” 286 Atlantic Monthly No. 5, at 52 (Nov. 2000) (noting, inter alia, that “English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN” and is also “the official language of the European Central Bank”).</ref>

== Test-Taking Tips ==

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==The Age of Exploration==

The “Age of Exploration” consisted of Christians from Europe searching the rest of our globe to spread the faith and seek wealth, particularly between 1450 and 1650. This began the “Global Age” in world history, which continues to this day.

As Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages and experiencing the Renaissance, people had the curiosity and the courage to look beyond their own continent to others. Scientific discoveries and technological improvements made it easier to travel across the vast oceans. Christians sought to spread their faith far and wide, and merchants sought new goods and business opportunities in both the East and West. North and South America awaited visits by the Europeans.

The Portuguese were the first great explorers. They developed the “caravel”, a small, lightweight ship with three lateen-sailed masts that could hold much more cargo than previous ships. The more cargo that a ship could hold, the greater its profits would be, as cargo consisted of goods that could be picked up in a faraway land and sold upon the ship’s return to its homeland. European demand was strong for exotic Indian goods, especially spices, and this drove explorers to discover new routes to India different from the Eastern Mediterranean trade controlled by the Ottomans. The discovery of new western routes accidentally led to the discovery of lands in the New World (Western Hemisphere). Portugal and Spain then emerged as the two major players in what was to become an intense European competition for exploration, conversion and colonization.

===Portuguese Exploration===

The Portuguese initiated the age of exploration in Europe as early as about 1419, when Prince Henry the Navigator established his School of Navigation and made it his life’s work to explore the West African coast and reach the Indian Ocean. His ships reached as far as Sierra Leone, but he failed to reach India. Another explorer named Bartholomew Diaz failed to reach India also, but he did manage to sail around the tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) in 1487.

It was during this time that a young Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus approached the Portuguese King John II to ask him for financial support. Columbus, like many from the Italian city of Genoa, was an expert mariner, having started as early as the age of 14. He had studied the works of Ptolemy on his own; Columbus did not attend formal school, just as homeschoolers do not today. Columbus at all times was a devout Christian, writing frequently about his faith in his diary. His desire to sail to India was motivated in large part by his attempt to spread the Christian faith. He repeatedly cited a desire to convert pagans to Christianity when he sought support for his voyage. Late in life, even when treated as a prisoner, he sought to devote all his money and efforts towards winning back Jesus Christ’s Holy Sepulchre (burial cave) from Muslims in the Holy Land.

King John II denied Columbus’s request to fund his voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, Columbus was ridiculed for seeking to reach India by sailing west rather than east.

Vasco da Gama finally reached India by sailing eastward around Africa and up the East African coast between 1497 and 1499, with the help of the powerful monsoon winds. Shortly thereafter, regular trade was established with India under the Portuguese King Manuel, and conflict began with the Muslims over dominance of Indian Ocean trade.

===Spanish Exploration===

The Spanish entered the scene in the year 1492—during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who were working hard to defeat Islam and establish Christianity as the only religion in Spain. Known as the “Reconquista” (or Reconquest) of Spain, this was accomplished first through the reconquest of Granada, the last Muslim city in Spain. As explained in the prior Lecture, Queen Isabella ordered all Muslims and Jewish residents to convert or leave Spain. Initially, this caused Spain an economic and academic setback, as Jewish residents had comprised a large number of scholars and merchants.

However, economic stability was soon reached as the strain of fighting the Muslims was now gone, and taxes for the sole purpose of funding explorations were soon imposed. Isabella and Ferdinand felt secure in granting the Genoese upstart Christopher Columbus his long-awaited funds. Beginning on August 3, 1492, Columbus embarked on four voyages, perhaps becoming the first European to discover the New World, although at first he believed he had reached India (hence his name for the inhabitants of the New World: “Indians”). The discoveries by Columbus included the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, San Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Honduras. Columbus’ astounding success presented an increasing challenge to Spain’s Portuguese rivals.

The pope finally resolved this rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which established an 1100-mile long “Line of Demarcation.” This division of world territories gave Portugal trading rights in India, China, the East Indies, East Brazil and Spanish Americas. Spain was given control of the remaining, vast majority of the Americas. Ferdinand Magellan then led the first successful voyage to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. Although Magellan was killed by Philippine natives before completing the last leg of the journey, he was the first to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America to enter the Pacific Ocean. Only 18 of approximately 250 sailors made it back to Spain three years later, in 1522.

As a result of Magellan’s journey, Spain gained control of many South American territories, including Mexico and Peru. Spain also obtained control over the Philippines in the Far East. Spanish warrior Hernando Cortes led the conquest of Mexico, with the initial help of the Aztecs, many of whom believed Cortes was their god Quetzalcoatl (who, conveniently for the Spanish, was expected to appear that very year). Cortes captured the Aztec ruler Moctezuma (popularly known as “Montezuma”) and conquered their empire. Cortes was also aided by an Aztec woman named Malinche, who served as a guide and translator. Cortes burned the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City in its place.

Francisco Pizzaro led the conquest of Peru, betraying and eventually killing their emperor, Atahualpa. The ancient Peru city of Cuzco was completely destroyed and replaced with the city of Lima. While in Peru, Pizzaro also discovered the greatest silver mine in the Americas, the vast majority of which was traded with China, whose economy was based on silver. Both Cortes’ and Pizzaro’s conquests were facilitated by the use of horses, superior weapons, and devastating European diseases like smallpox. The native population had no immunity to such disease, and simply giving them a bunch of blankets exposed to the deadly germ could end up killing many natives.

Using the Spanish system of “encomiendas”, many of the South American natives became slaves to their Spanish conquerors. A Dominican monk and missionary, [[Bartholomew de Las Casas]], sent sensational descriptions to the Spanish government of the supposed atrocities committed against the “patient, meek and peaceful” natives by the Spanish conquistadors, whom he described as “cruel tigers, wolves and lions.” Although some of what Las Casas said was true, historical research has proved most of it to be false and exaggerated. However dishonest his methods may have been, Las Casas’ reports eventually led to the king of Spain issuing “New Laws,” by which exploitation of the natives was ended by the replacement of the old “encomiendas” with the new “repartimientos”. Both systems are criticized as unfair today. The system of “encomiendas” was based on royal grants of land, while the system of “repartimientos” was based on gifts of Indian labor. Either way, the Indians ended up working for the Spanish.

===Exploration by Other Nations===

Other European nations participated in exploration as well. King Henry VII of England sent John Cabot, a resident of London born in Genoa (like Columbus), to explore across the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Cabot discovered Newfoundland and the New England coast in 1497 and 1498, respectively, and the land became the property of England. From France, Jacques Cartier discovered Canada and the Mississippi Basin, including Louisiana in 1534 and 1541. These colonies were initially less significant than those in South America, and there was a lack of initial interest in North America because it did not have the gold and silver of South America. Whereas intermarriage and cultural blending occurred heavily among the Spanish and the Indians in South America, it barely existed between the English or French and the Indians in North America.

Of course, eventually the interest and development in North America increased and surpassed that of South America. Commercial competition between European nations in North America culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)—a conflict brought to America in the form of the French and Indian War. This War marked the end of French (and Spanish) influence in North America, and signaled the rise of Britain as the primary world superpower for the next 150 years.

===The Slave Trade===

In what is known as the “Columbian Exchange,” plants and animals were brought from America to Europe and vice-versa. Columbus brought from Europe to America wheat, melons, onions, grapes, sugar cane and horses. Horses proved to be influential not only in the European conquest of native peoples but also in the natives’ abilities to avoid white settlers, particularly among the Plains Indians in North America.

America had new fruits and vegetables that were then exported to Europe and Africa. America introduced the white potato to Europe and the manioc or cassava to Africa. Chili peppers, pumpkins, squash and peanuts were also brought back from America and became popular in countries such as India. These new foods helped increase population, and in Africa the population growth almost cancelled out population losses caused by the slave trade.

Slaves became a major part of the Columbian Exchange. In 1455, a “papal bull” (formal letter by the pope) justified a “right” of Christian nations to enslave any non-Christian in the name of exploration. The Spanish had already been enslaving South American natives on a limited basis, but with the rise of sugar plantations the need for a larger slave force arose. Millions of African slaves were brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean and especially Brazil. The growth of sugar—which had first been introduced to Europe when the Muslims ruled Spain—was exploding in popularity throughout the entire western world. Soon France, the Netherlands and Great Britain were also establishing profitable sugar plantations in the new world. The plantation system began in Brazil, where rich white plantation owners were the highest rung in the social hierarchy and black slaves were at the bottom. Obviously life on a sugar plantation was very hard work for a slave.

[[Slavery]] was widespread within Africa itself, and the richest in Africa were not those owning the most land, but those who owned the most slaves. In the Sahara Desert, slaves worked in caravans and were used in gold and salt mining. Slaves were usually prisoners of war from other areas of Africa, or debtors, or enemies or the king, but many women outside of those three categories were also enslaved in African societies. Polygamy—the practice of having more than one wife—was common in Africa, as was the existence of harems, from which African women were often sold to join Arabian or Middle Eastern harems.

The trading of slaves with other countries was encouraged in Africa, and was considered an important component of the African economy. Slave trade across the Atlantic (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade) became a booming business for Europeans and Africans alike, by which African rulers sold their people to Europeans for goods such as iron, alcohol, tobacco and most importantly, guns. Trans-Atlantic trade led to the degrading use of “chattel” slaves, whereby the slaves were treated purely as property of the owner. The slaves served as sailors, skilled craftsmen or farmers. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, led to the death of 10-20% of the African slaves. But an even higher percentage lost their lives in the journey from their homes in Africa to the African coast, where they were to board the slave ships.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one component in a system of routes known as the “Triangular Trade” between South America, New England, and the West Coast of Africa. The three main items that were exchanged were sugar, rum and slaves. European goods, mainly guns, were used to buy slaves from Africa. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas. Then, from America, sugar, rum and tobacco were brought back to Europe, completing the “triangle” of trade.

The end of slavery in Europe was not to come until the beginning of the 1800s, when Christian reformers such as William Wilberforce and John Wesley began speaking out against the evils of the system. Although the United States banned slave trade in the early 1800s, slavery itself was not abolished until decades later in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed, and in South America it was finally ended in Brazil in 1888.

===China’s Role in the Age of Exploration===

In the East, under the Ming dynasty, Emperor Yongle sent a band of explorers led by “Zheng He” throughout parts of southern Asia, Persia, Arabia and Africa. The crew of over 28,000 men embarked on seven naval expeditions in the Indian Ocean from 1405 to 1423 and as a result, trade with East Africa began. However, by the 1430s, Mongol raids caused the Chinese to withdraw from exploration for the time being, and instead spend their time and money on defenses such as repairing the Great Wall.

The Ming dynasty thereby retreated from the world stage, mostly in order to strengthen Chinese defenses against Mongol threats. Beijing became the capital of China, and eventually the Ming rulers began to retreat even more completely from the outside world, living in an elaborate Beijing palace known as the “Forbidden City.” When a devastating famine occurred in China, the rulers were living extravagantly in their secluded palace and cared little for the plight of the peasants. The people of China revolted, and in 1644, the Ming Dynasty was replaced with the Qing, made up of the Manchu peoples.

Under the Qing dynasty, marriage between members of the Chinese and Manchurians was forbidden, and the official spoken language remained Chinese. Female infanticide occurred, as well as the practice of binding the feet of rich girls and, increasingly, middle class girls also. The primary philosophy was Neo-Confucianism, a mixture of Buddhism and traditional Confucianism. Jesuits attempted to evangelize China, but were not very successful. Nevertheless, a Jesuit presence in China contributed to the exchange of ideas and technology between the East and the West.

China did not withdraw completely from world trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties. China continued to trade with the Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Dutch, mainly for silver, which had become the Chinese currency, and with the Russians for furs. Under the Ming dynasty, beautiful blue and white porcelain was produced and exported. The influence of the Ming vase spread throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds, as seen in Holland through the production of Delft pottery and in England, Wedgwood China. Other Chinese exports included silk and tea, and imports consisted of spices, textiles and animal skins from Europe. Maize, sweet potatoes and peanuts were brought over from the Americas and became popular crops in China.

==Growth of Nation-States and Monarchs==

The development of European nation-states continued throughout the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. In the 1400s and 1500s, the most powerful nation-states were England, France and Spain. The Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of parts of Italy and Germany, was a powerful but declining force. Enemies that weakened the Holy Roman Empire included the Ottomans and French enemies, who resisted its expansion. The fact that the cultures of Germany and Italy were very different also contributed to the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire, as did the Reformation.

The European nation-states grew in power by strengthening their central authority. They increased bureaucracy, the size of their armies and the amounts of their taxation. The rise of absolutist rulers contributed to the centralization of France, Spain, Austria, Russia and Prussia. The nature of an absolute monarch was expressed well in this famous quote attributed to Louis XIV (1527-1598), “L’etat c’est moi!” (I am the state). Absolute monarchs controlled all aspects of government and society including the church, the bureaucracy and the military. Absolute monarchs claimed “divine right” to rule, stating that they had been appointed by God himself and were therefore responsible to God alone. They enjoyed “sovereign immunity” under the view that “the king can do no wrong,” a principle that continues to exist in English and American law today (unless government “waives” its immunity with a law granting certain rights to sue it).

Religious conflict in England between Catholics and Anglicans caused absolutism to fail there. The “Glorious Revolution” (so named by supporters of the Church of England) brought down the Catholic King James II and the idea of divine right along with him, placing William and Mary on the throne in 1688. In France, however, absolutism triumphed until the French Revolution, especially with the reign of Louis XIV, the leading absolute monarch in Europe. The French court at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, who called himself the “Sun King,” was considered rich in culture and an example to other societies. Truth be told, it was also extravagant and immoral.

In Spain, Philip II (1638-1715), who was the great-grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, worked to cleanse Spanish territories of all religions but Catholicism, and viewed Elizabeth I of England as his main rival. But his mighty Spanish Armada was defeated by a quicker English fleet in 1588. In 1579, William of Orange led the Netherlands in a revolt against their Spanish masters. These two losses contributed to the weakening of Spanish power.

Meanwhile, artistic pursuits flourished during this period in Spain. El Greco (1541-1614), a painter, architect and sculptor best known for his paintings of saints and martyrs, and drew a stunning of a storm over a Spanish town (“A View of Toledo”). Diego Velázquez painted portraits of the royal family and scenes from daily life at court. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, probably the most influential piece of Spanish literature, and Lope de Vega wrote an estimated 2,000 plays.

In Russia, absolute emperors known as “czars” arose. The first czar of Russia was Ivan IV “the Terrible,” who executed many innocent people during his fearful reign from 1533 to 1547. Ivan was succeeded by his son Feodor, whose repeated failures led Russia into a “Time of Troubles.” In 1613, the first of a long line of Romanov czars, Mikhail Romanov, took the throne. Under Romanov rule, serfs lost almost all of their freedoms. Peter the Great, another Romanov who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1696, instituted sweeping reforms in Russian government and society. He built St. Petersburg and tried to make European traditions a part of Russia. In the Great Northern War against Sweden, new territories were gained. Other absolutist rulers arose, such as the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and the Hohenzollern Frederick the Great from Prussia. These two rulers clashed in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Frederick won the territory Silesia.

Europeans during this era desired a “balance of power” that would prevent any single nation from becoming most powerful. The expression of this idea was seen in the intense competition and warfare between the various European nations for control in Europe, especially with the Thirty Years’ War. The war initially began as a religious conflict in Germany between Bohemian Protestants and Hapsburg Catholics in 1618. However, it soon became a political conflict for power that involved Spain, Holland, Denmark, France, Switzerland and The Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of Westphalia finally marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. The war significantly weakened Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Austria and Spain. Although France was largely a Catholic country, it had chosen the side of the winning Protestants in order to oppose the Holy Roman Empire, and France emerged strengthened and more unified as a result.

==The Scientific Revolution==

A remarkable Polish scientist named [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] (1473-1543) made a stunning claim that rocked the religious and scientific world: he asserted that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, ‘with both eyes open.’” With that bold declaration, this respected scientist in the Catholic Church began the “Scientific Revolution,” which rejected geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe dating back over a thousand years to Ptolemy.

Copernicus worked for years on his book describing his theory, and did not publish it until near the very end of his life. He entitled it, “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), and published it in 1543. The work was far from perfect: Copernicus assumed that the planets moved in circular revolutions (they actually revolve in ellipses, though the orbit of the earth is nearly circular), and Copernicus also thought that the sun stood motionless as some kind of stationery temple in the universe.

The reception to his work was initially positive within the Catholic Church, but negative among Protestants who felt it conflicted with some literal interpretations of the Bible, such as the account of how Joshua benefited from the sun standing still as it passed over the earth. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Joshua 10:13. But there were few Protestants in Poland then (or now), and Copernicus died without much controversy.

[[Johannes Kepler]] (1571-1630), a Protestant in Germany, built on Copernicus’s work and discovered that planets orbited the sun in ellipses rather than circular orbits. Kepler was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and devout Christian who cited God many times in all of his writings. He felt it was his Christian duty to understand the creation of God, the universe. He also felt that man, being in the image of God, was fully capable of understanding the universe. Like Plato and Pythagoras, Kepler felt that God must have created the universe according to a mathematical plan.

[[Galileo]] (1564-1642) was a contemporary of Kepler who lived in Catholic Italy. Galileo was not as bright as Kepler or Copernicus, and was a bit of an entertaining showman who made a lively party guest. He taught geometry to medical students so that they could use astronomy and astrology in the practice of medicine. Galileo’s primary scientific contribution was his improvement on the telescope in order to view celestial bodies.

But the Catholic Church was then in a struggle with Protestantism, which was critical of Copernicus’s theory of the earth revolving around the sun. In 1616, the Catholic Church officially prohibited teaching Copernicus’s theory as fact, although there was no objection to learning it as a mathematical theory. Galileo, however, felt Copernicus was correct and wanted to teach his theory. He had met with Pope Urban VIII on numerous occasions and felt that the Church would not object to Galileo’s publishing the Copernican theory about the universe.

There was no right of free speech in Italy at that time, and in 1632 Galileo published a work called “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican” with the apparent approval of the Catholic Church. Buyers and readers of the book were led to believe that Galileo’s reflected the official views of the Church, when they did not. Galileo had received permission from a local cleric in Florence, but not from Church authorities in Rome, and they felt that Galileo knew that he was prohibited from claiming that the Church supported the Copernican view.

Galileo also angered Church officials in the way that he mocked opponents of the Copernican system. His “dialogue” was between a fictional Salviati, who supported the Copernican system, and an Aristotelian philosopher given the unflattering name “Simplicio”. The simpled-minded “Simplicio” was made to look like the pope himself, and was mocked in the book for his skepticism about the Copernican system.

In the book’s climax, Salviati supposedly proves the Copernican system by citing the movement of the tides. This was completely false and already disproved by Kepler.

Catholic Church officials were furious about this book and the Inquisition banned its sale. Galileo was summoned to Rome. Unlike Luther, Galileo remained a Catholic and fully accepted whatever judgment the Church would render against him. His “trial” was a bit of a farce, probably put on for show more than anything, with Galileo living in plush quarters at all times. At the end of the trial Galileo was required to live in a house where the Church could keep an eye on him, and was not imprisoned. Galileo then continued his scientific work but was kept from embarrassing the Church further. Galileo never split from the Church and completely accepted his punishment.

There were other noteworthy scientists during this era. [[Vesalius]] advanced the understanding of anatomy for medical doctors. [[John Harvey]] explained the circulatory system in human anatomy. [[Rene Descartes]] was a French mathematician and philosopher who discovered [[analytical geometry]] and famously declared, “I think, therefore I am.” [[Francis Bacon]] promoted research based on experimentation.

Then there was Sir [[Isaac Newton]], who after Jesus Christ was perhaps the most influential man who ever lived. If Newton were alive today, then he would be described as a Christian fundamentalist. Everything Newton did was inspired and motivated by his powerful faith in the Word of God in the Bible. Abandoned by his own mother, Newton had an [[inferiority complex]] that drove him to achieve more and more. In one summer he discovered the laws of [[gravity]] and also [[calculus]], and the world has never been the same since.

Like most other men who made great advances in knowledge in world history, Newton discovered and explained something that was unseen: the invisible force of gravity. Newton proposed action-at-a-distance, whereby one object attracts another through an invisible force of gravity. Newton was ridiculed for proposing that something unseen could act at a distance and influence something else millions of miles away from it. Yet Newton was right. Speaking of the world in which live, Newton once said, “Why not try to understand it?” Newton understood it and explained it to the rest of us, and we are forever grateful.

A German contemporary of Newton, Gottfried [[Leibniz]], deserves mention. Like Newton, Leibniz was a devout Christian. In fact, Leibniz was a Lutheran who dreamed of reuniting that denomination with the Catholic Church. Leibniz was also a brilliant mathematician who developed calculus independent of Newton. It was Leibniz, not Newton, who first published the notation for the integral: f(x) dx. An ugly dispute developed between Newton and Leibniz over who discovered calculus first. Most English-speaking historians give the credit to Newton but bias may play a role in that. The world certainly benefited immensely from Leibniz as well as Newton.

==The Enlightenment==

The “Enlightenment” was a philosophical movement in the 1700s that emphasized an intellectual approach rejecting traditional social, political and (sometimes) religious views. Philosophers in the Enlightenment felt that breakthroughs in science, such as Isaac Newton’s discoveries, could be duplicated in other fields through a systematic and logical approach. However, Newton’s breakthroughs were inspired by his Christian faith, while some of the Enlightenment thinkers rejected and even criticized Christianity. There were Enlightenment philosophers in England, France and even the American colonies. There were stunning new works in classical music, and the arts flourished in what is known as the neo-classical period.

Frenchman Voltaire (1694-1778) was a leading philosopher in the Enlightenment, advocating freedom everywhere and emphasizing his form of reason. He wrote “The Candide,” in which Voltaire described many bad things that happen to Candide in order to make the point that the world could be a better place. Increased freedom was Voltaire’s way of improving things.

Englishman John Locke (1632-1704) was the leading political philosopher, whose ideas helped the American colonists form a new government. Locke described society as a contract between an individual and society. This was a radical concept at a time when monarchs and the divine right of kings was the controlling theory. Locke’s view helped lay the foundation for the constitutional government that we use in the United States. Locke had built on the prior work of Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the leading legal authority on English law, upon which much American law is based. Law students in America hear about him frequently in law school. In “The Rights of Englishmen,” Blackstone described the source of the rights of the people.

Frenchman Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) proposed the concept of separation of powers, and checks and balances, in government. This inspired the United States Constitution. His book, “The Spirit of the Laws,” explained essential aspects of good government that became enormously influential.

Another Frenchman, Denis Diderot (1713-1784), contributed to literature, speculated on free will and attachment to material things, and edited an encyclopedia of scientific and social knowledge known as “Encyclopedia”.

Swiss-born political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote several controversial works. He felt that politics and morality could not be separated, and that the will of the majority was not always correct. Many Americans today would agree with that view. However, Rousseau also attacked private property, and laid the groundwork for future communist writers such as Karl Marx. Rousseau declared that government’s goal should be to provide freedom, equality and justice. But note that freedom often results in inequality.
Irishman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was in the British parliament when the conflict with the American colonies occurred, and he sided with the colonies, making him a hero to many in America. He is also considered to the world’s first political conservative, and many conservatives today praise him for that reason. His works included “Inquiries into the Sublime and Beautiful” (defending the American colonies and examining how people interpret what they see) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (warning how bad the French Revolution was because a few would gain control and abuse their power, even while everyone else praised that Revolution). What was striking about Burke was that he was almost always right in his political assessments and predictions.

The Scotsman David Hume (1711-1776) was a philosopher and historian who promoted materialism and naturalism rather than spirituality. He was a “skeptic” towards religion, and he penned “A Treatise on Human Nature.” He quipped, “You can tell what is inside a person’s soul by what comes out if it.” Hume is considered the greatest philosopher to write in English, but that is only because there were so few good English philosophers. Hume has been criticized for his atheistic approach and his chief claim to fame is that Charles Darwin declared Hume to have been his central influence, as did “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Henry Huxley. We will discuss them later in this course.

The German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most famous philosophers ever. In his “A Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant criticizes pure reason as a guide to life. Though Kant may not have been a Christian himself, he considered Christian values to be the best values in the world. Kant also established a systematic basis for critical philosophy and suggested a material origin for the solar system. Kant’s own suggestion for a moral daily life was this: don’t do something which, if everyone did it, then the outcome would be bad. Expressed another way, an act is moral only if it works as a rule for everyone. For example, littering would be wrong because if everyone did it, then there would be an ugly mess. Kant is taught in all college philosophy departments to this day, though not for praising Christianity!

Finally, let’s recognize American contributions during the Enlightenment. The great works were created by a group of people, affectionately known as the Founding Fathers. These works include the Declaration of Independence (1776) with its statement of inalienable rights and a right to break the social contract with a ruler when he (the king) violates natural rights. The United States Constitution (1787) gave the world a masterful design for government. The Federalist Papers (1788), and particularly articles by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (most notably No. 10) were also significant.

==Capitalism==

Just as Isaac Newton’s discovery and explanation of the unseen force of gravity was a brilliant insight in science, Adam Smith of Scotland discovered a powerful unseen force in economics known as the “invisible hand.” If government allows free enterprise to flourish on its own, an “invisible hand” will harness the power of self-interest for the overall good of society. Men and women will be guided by this “invisible hand” to work in a way that is beneficial to others, and the overall wealth and progress of society will increase. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence in America: 1776. Adam Smith’s book is still considered the world’s greatest economics masterpiece. He explained how the basis of wealth is found in a free economy with an unregulated exchange of goods, whereby supply of goods and services responds in an efficient way to demand without government intervention. Smith advocated the concept of laissez faire, which means “allow to do” or, more simply, “hands off” by government. Ironically, homeschooling in New Jersey (and a few other states) is an activity that most resembles Adam Smith’s ideal of an unregulated market. Let’s defend this lack of regulation of homeschooling while we can!

“Capitalism” became the prevailing economic theory in Britain as a result of the contributions of Adam Smith and others. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines capitalism as follows: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” Britain quickly became the greatest empire in the modern world as a result of its adherence to this superior economic system.

Another economic theory known as “mercantilism” was also popular. Mercantilism was not based entirely on “competition in a free market,” but rather was a policy for a nation (such as Britain) to increase its own national wealth based on trade with other nations and territories. Under mercantilism, a nation should accumulate gold by exporting more goods than it imported, and by using colonies (such as the English colonies in America) to ship raw materials to the mother country that could be manufactured and exported to other peoples. Another key component of mercantilism was establishing foreign trading monopolies that would have unfair advantages over competitors in other countries. One such British monopoly was the East Indian Tea Company, and its unfair business advantage caused the colonists in Boston to revolt in the form of the Boston Tea Party.

While Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was positive in almost every way, mercantilism did have a dark side of exploitation of colonies for the benefit of the mother country.

Adam Smith did not invent capitalism, but gave it a powerful intellectual justification. In 1607 capitalism had already played a prominent role in the first settlement of North America at Jamestown, which was funded by a joint-stock company (a privately owned company having a structure similar to the corporations of today). In joint-stock companies or corporations, decisions are made privately by those acting on behalf of the owners, without any direct control by government.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 08}}

World History Lecture Eight

2009-03-17T08:52:14Z

DeniseM: /* Introduction */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Our midterm exam will be next week. It will be multiple-choice, perhaps 30 minutes in length, and will cover lectures one through eight (including this one). Items and topic mentioned on the homework will be given greater priority in designing the questions.

Remember these test-taking tips for multiple-choice exams. You can improve your scores enormously by following and mastering these tips.

== Test-taking tips ==

'''Understand''': Understand the question before you try to answer it. Read the question twice if you have doubts. You want an answer that fits the question best, like a key fitting a lock.

'''Eliminate''': Eliminate the wrong answers before picking the right one. This can bump your score up another point or two.

'''First Impression''': Go with your first impression unless you have a good reason to change it. More often than not, your first impression is right.

'''Stay on Track''': Stay on track during the test. Expect to miss a few, and do not waste too much time on a difficult question.

'''Try Different Approaches''': Try different approaches to a difficult question until you figure out the right answer. There are many ways to find the correct answer for a question. Don't give up too easily on figuring out a question.

'''Avoid Broad Language in Answers''': Words like "only", "never" and "solely" are signs of '''wrong''' answers because they are rarely true.

Test-taking on multiple-choice exams is a skill that can be mastered with practice, determination and cleverness.

== Introduction ==

This lecture will be briefer than usual, with no homework questions, in order to give you time to prepare.

On September 11, 1683, Muslims made a second major attempt to conquer Europe (recall that Charles the Hammer turned back their first attempt). A massive Islamic army arrived at the Gates of Vienna. An alliance of Christian armies, led by the Polish King Jan III Sobieski, defeated the Muslim force.<ref>http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-september-11th.html</ref> Some have observed that "9/11" was an anniversary of this day.

Two other momentous events happened in the 1600s which would also affect the world forever. In 1607, Englishmen established a permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1611, the King James Bible was published with this introduction:<ref name="KJV">http://www.av1611.org/kjv/kjvhist.html</ref>

:THE HOLY BIBLE, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Translations diligently compared and revised, by his Majesties Special Commandment. Appointed to be read in Churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. ANNO DOM. 1611.

Some might say that the publication of the King James Bible was more significant than the settlement at Jamestown. This version of the Bible, which became known as the "Authorized Version," was a spectacular work that transformed and elevated the entire English language to new heights. Even a Catholic scholar expressed the highest praise for this work, which was shared by all:<ref name="KJV"/>

:The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every work, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision.

To this day many feel that the King James Bible is the finest English translation available, despite the antiquity of some of its terminology. It is free from modern translations that hide the existence and wrath of Hell, for example. But for the purposes of course, we are interested in how this was a defining moment in the development of the English language, and how the language has grown since then.

The King James Bible established a framework of knowledge of the English language, and it began to develop rapidly afterward. English is unique in its ability to develop new words, at a rate of about 1000 new words per year.<ref>See [[Essay:Best New Conservative Words]].</ref> English easily incorporates and adapts words from other languages, such as "detente" (French for a lessening in tensions between nations) and "tsunami" (Japanese for a massive tidal wave).

English has one of the smallest alphabet of major languages using the Roman alphabet, including its lack of accented (letters bearing a diacritic mark such as the "e" in "noël"), hybrid (such as the digraph ligature æ), and pictograph characters. Hebrew has 22 characters, so is an example of a smaller alphabet.

It helps that English is somewhat phonetic, as ancient Greek and Latin were (though English developed from German, not from Greek or Latin).

English features easy interchangeability of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, without much variance in form for pronouns and verbs. That promotes easy communication through brief, cryptic messages, the style preferred by electronic media. English enjoys a powerful pipe-like quality, such that one phrase can be cut and pasted to another phrase with ease. Computer-based cutting and pasting text works more efficiently in English than in many other languages, such as those using pictorial characters. This gives English an advantage in the internet medium, and about 80% of the internet uses English. English is now the second most widely spoken language in the world, with only Chinese dialects spoken by more people. English is overwhelmingly the second language of choice for non-English-speaking people.<ref>See Barbara Wallraff, “What Global Language?” 286 Atlantic Monthly No. 5, at 52 (Nov. 2000) (noting, inter alia, that “English is the working language of the Asian trade group ASEAN” and is also “the official language of the European Central Bank”).</ref>

== Test-Taking Tips ==

fill in

==The Age of Exploration==

The “Age of Exploration” consisted of Christians from Europe searching the rest of our globe to spread the faith and seek wealth, particularly between 1450 and 1650. This began the “Global Age” in world history, which continues to this day.

As Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages and experiencing the Renaissance, people had the curiosity and the courage to look beyond their own continent to others. Scientific discoveries and technological improvements made it easier to travel across the vast oceans. Christians sought to spread their faith far and wide, and merchants sought new goods and business opportunities in both the East and West. North and South America awaited visits by the Europeans.

The Portuguese were the first great explorers. They developed the “caravel”, a small, lightweight ship with three lateen-sailed masts that could hold much more cargo than previous ships. The more cargo that a ship could hold, the greater its profits would be, as cargo consisted of goods that could be picked up in a faraway land and sold upon the ship’s return to its homeland. European demand was strong for exotic Indian goods, especially spices, and this drove explorers to discover new routes to India different from the Eastern Mediterranean trade controlled by the Ottomans. The discovery of new western routes accidentally led to the discovery of lands in the New World (Western Hemisphere). Portugal and Spain then emerged as the two major players in what was to become an intense European competition for exploration, conversion and colonization.

===Portuguese Exploration===

The Portuguese initiated the age of exploration in Europe as early as about 1419, when Prince Henry the Navigator established his School of Navigation and made it his life’s work to explore the West African coast and reach the Indian Ocean. His ships reached as far as Sierra Leone, but he failed to reach India. Another explorer named Bartholomew Diaz failed to reach India also, but he did manage to sail around the tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope) in 1487.

It was during this time that a young Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus approached the Portuguese King John II to ask him for financial support. Columbus, like many from the Italian city of Genoa, was an expert mariner, having started as early as the age of 14. He had studied the works of Ptolemy on his own; Columbus did not attend formal school, just as homeschoolers do not today. Columbus at all times was a devout Christian, writing frequently about his faith in his diary. His desire to sail to India was motivated in large part by his attempt to spread the Christian faith. He repeatedly cited a desire to convert pagans to Christianity when he sought support for his voyage. Late in life, even when treated as a prisoner, he sought to devote all his money and efforts towards winning back Jesus Christ’s Holy Sepulchre (burial cave) from Muslims in the Holy Land.

King John II denied Columbus’s request to fund his voyage across the Atlantic. Indeed, Columbus was ridiculed for seeking to reach India by sailing west rather than east.

Vasco da Gama finally reached India by sailing eastward around Africa and up the East African coast between 1497 and 1499, with the help of the powerful monsoon winds. Shortly thereafter, regular trade was established with India under the Portuguese King Manuel, and conflict began with the Muslims over dominance of Indian Ocean trade.

===Spanish Exploration===

The Spanish entered the scene in the year 1492—during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who were working hard to defeat Islam and establish Christianity as the only religion in Spain. Known as the “Reconquista” (or Reconquest) of Spain, this was accomplished first through the reconquest of Granada, the last Muslim city in Spain. As explained in the prior Lecture, Queen Isabella ordered all Muslims and Jewish residents to convert or leave Spain. Initially, this caused Spain an economic and academic setback, as Jewish residents had comprised a large number of scholars and merchants.

However, economic stability was soon reached as the strain of fighting the Muslims was now gone, and taxes for the sole purpose of funding explorations were soon imposed. Isabella and Ferdinand felt secure in granting the Genoese upstart Christopher Columbus his long-awaited funds. Beginning on August 3, 1492, Columbus embarked on four voyages, perhaps becoming the first European to discover the New World, although at first he believed he had reached India (hence his name for the inhabitants of the New World: “Indians”). The discoveries by Columbus included the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, San Salvador, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Honduras. Columbus’ astounding success presented an increasing challenge to Spain’s Portuguese rivals.

The pope finally resolved this rivalry between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which established an 1100-mile long “Line of Demarcation.” This division of world territories gave Portugal trading rights in India, China, the East Indies, East Brazil and Spanish Americas. Spain was given control of the remaining, vast majority of the Americas. Ferdinand Magellan then led the first successful voyage to circumnavigate the globe in 1519. Although Magellan was killed by Philippine natives before completing the last leg of the journey, he was the first to sail around Cape Horn at the tip of South America to enter the Pacific Ocean. Only 18 of approximately 250 sailors made it back to Spain three years later, in 1522.

As a result of Magellan’s journey, Spain gained control of many South American territories, including Mexico and Peru. Spain also obtained control over the Philippines in the Far East. Spanish warrior Hernando Cortes led the conquest of Mexico, with the initial help of the Aztecs, many of whom believed Cortes was their god Quetzalcoatl (who, conveniently for the Spanish, was expected to appear that very year). Cortes captured the Aztec ruler Moctezuma (popularly known as “Montezuma”) and conquered their empire. Cortes was also aided by an Aztec woman named Malinche, who served as a guide and translator. Cortes burned the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City in its place.

Francisco Pizzaro led the conquest of Peru, betraying and eventually killing their emperor, Atahualpa. The ancient Peru city of Cuzco was completely destroyed and replaced with the city of Lima. While in Peru, Pizzaro also discovered the greatest silver mine in the Americas, the vast majority of which was traded with China, whose economy was based on silver. Both Cortes’ and Pizzaro’s conquests were facilitated by the use of horses, superior weapons, and devastating European diseases like smallpox. The native population had no immunity to such disease, and simply giving them a bunch of blankets exposed to the deadly germ could end up killing many natives.

Using the Spanish system of “encomiendas”, many of the South American natives became slaves to their Spanish conquerors. A Dominican monk and missionary, [[Bartholomew de Las Casas]], sent sensational descriptions to the Spanish government of the supposed atrocities committed against the “patient, meek and peaceful” natives by the Spanish conquistadors, whom he described as “cruel tigers, wolves and lions.” Although some of what Las Casas said was true, historical research has proved most of it to be false and exaggerated. However dishonest his methods may have been, Las Casas’ reports eventually led to the king of Spain issuing “New Laws,” by which exploitation of the natives was ended by the replacement of the old “encomiendas” with the new “repartimientos”. Both systems are criticized as unfair today. The system of “encomiendas” was based on royal grants of land, while the system of “repartimientos” was based on gifts of Indian labor. Either way, the Indians ended up working for the Spanish.

===Exploration by Other Nations===

Other European nations participated in exploration as well. King Henry VII of England sent John Cabot, a resident of London born in Genoa (like Columbus), to explore across the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Cabot discovered Newfoundland and the New England coast in 1497 and 1498, respectively, and the land became the property of England. From France, Jacques Cartier discovered Canada and the Mississippi Basin, including Louisiana in 1534 and 1541. These colonies were initially less significant than those in South America, and there was a lack of initial interest in North America because it did not have the gold and silver of South America. Whereas intermarriage and cultural blending occurred heavily among the Spanish and the Indians in South America, it barely existed between the English or French and the Indians in North America.

Of course, eventually the interest and development in North America increased and surpassed that of South America. Commercial competition between European nations in North America culminated in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763)—a conflict brought to America in the form of the French and Indian War. This War marked the end of French (and Spanish) influence in North America, and signaled the rise of Britain as the primary world superpower for the next 150 years.

===The Slave Trade===

In what is known as the “Columbian Exchange,” plants and animals were brought from America to Europe and vice-versa. Columbus brought from Europe to America wheat, melons, onions, grapes, sugar cane and horses. Horses proved to be influential not only in the European conquest of native peoples but also in the natives’ abilities to avoid white settlers, particularly among the Plains Indians in North America.

America had new fruits and vegetables that were then exported to Europe and Africa. America introduced the white potato to Europe and the manioc or cassava to Africa. Chili peppers, pumpkins, squash and peanuts were also brought back from America and became popular in countries such as India. These new foods helped increase population, and in Africa the population growth almost cancelled out population losses caused by the slave trade.

Slaves became a major part of the Columbian Exchange. In 1455, a “papal bull” (formal letter by the pope) justified a “right” of Christian nations to enslave any non-Christian in the name of exploration. The Spanish had already been enslaving South American natives on a limited basis, but with the rise of sugar plantations the need for a larger slave force arose. Millions of African slaves were brought by the Spanish and Portuguese to Mexico, Peru, the Caribbean and especially Brazil. The growth of sugar—which had first been introduced to Europe when the Muslims ruled Spain—was exploding in popularity throughout the entire western world. Soon France, the Netherlands and Great Britain were also establishing profitable sugar plantations in the new world. The plantation system began in Brazil, where rich white plantation owners were the highest rung in the social hierarchy and black slaves were at the bottom. Obviously life on a sugar plantation was very hard work for a slave.

[[Slavery]] was widespread within Africa itself, and the richest in Africa were not those owning the most land, but those who owned the most slaves. In the Sahara Desert, slaves worked in caravans and were used in gold and salt mining. Slaves were usually prisoners of war from other areas of Africa, or debtors, or enemies or the king, but many women outside of those three categories were also enslaved in African societies. Polygamy—the practice of having more than one wife—was common in Africa, as was the existence of harems, from which African women were often sold to join Arabian or Middle Eastern harems.

The trading of slaves with other countries was encouraged in Africa, and was considered an important component of the African economy. Slave trade across the Atlantic (the Trans-Atlantic slave trade) became a booming business for Europeans and Africans alike, by which African rulers sold their people to Europeans for goods such as iron, alcohol, tobacco and most importantly, guns. Trans-Atlantic trade led to the degrading use of “chattel” slaves, whereby the slaves were treated purely as property of the owner. The slaves served as sailors, skilled craftsmen or farmers. The journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, led to the death of 10-20% of the African slaves. But an even higher percentage lost their lives in the journey from their homes in Africa to the African coast, where they were to board the slave ships.

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade was one component in a system of routes known as the “Triangular Trade” between South America, New England, and the West Coast of Africa. The three main items that were exchanged were sugar, rum and slaves. European goods, mainly guns, were used to buy slaves from Africa. The slaves were then shipped to the Americas. Then, from America, sugar, rum and tobacco were brought back to Europe, completing the “triangle” of trade.

The end of slavery in Europe was not to come until the beginning of the 1800s, when Christian reformers such as William Wilberforce and John Wesley began speaking out against the evils of the system. Although the United States banned slave trade in the early 1800s, slavery itself was not abolished until decades later in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was passed, and in South America it was finally ended in Brazil in 1888.

===China’s Role in the Age of Exploration===

In the East, under the Ming dynasty, Emperor Yongle sent a band of explorers led by “Zheng He” throughout parts of southern Asia, Persia, Arabia and Africa. The crew of over 28,000 men embarked on seven naval expeditions in the Indian Ocean from 1405 to 1423 and as a result, trade with East Africa began. However, by the 1430s, Mongol raids caused the Chinese to withdraw from exploration for the time being, and instead spend their time and money on defenses such as repairing the Great Wall.

The Ming dynasty thereby retreated from the world stage, mostly in order to strengthen Chinese defenses against Mongol threats. Beijing became the capital of China, and eventually the Ming rulers began to retreat even more completely from the outside world, living in an elaborate Beijing palace known as the “Forbidden City.” When a devastating famine occurred in China, the rulers were living extravagantly in their secluded palace and cared little for the plight of the peasants. The people of China revolted, and in 1644, the Ming Dynasty was replaced with the Qing, made up of the Manchu peoples.

Under the Qing dynasty, marriage between members of the Chinese and Manchurians was forbidden, and the official spoken language remained Chinese. Female infanticide occurred, as well as the practice of binding the feet of rich girls and, increasingly, middle class girls also. The primary philosophy was Neo-Confucianism, a mixture of Buddhism and traditional Confucianism. Jesuits attempted to evangelize China, but were not very successful. Nevertheless, a Jesuit presence in China contributed to the exchange of ideas and technology between the East and the West.

China did not withdraw completely from world trade during the Ming and Qing dynasties. China continued to trade with the Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Dutch, mainly for silver, which had become the Chinese currency, and with the Russians for furs. Under the Ming dynasty, beautiful blue and white porcelain was produced and exported. The influence of the Ming vase spread throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds, as seen in Holland through the production of Delft pottery and in England, Wedgwood China. Other Chinese exports included silk and tea, and imports consisted of spices, textiles and animal skins from Europe. Maize, sweet potatoes and peanuts were brought over from the Americas and became popular crops in China.

==Growth of Nation-States and Monarchs==

The development of European nation-states continued throughout the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. In the 1400s and 1500s, the most powerful nation-states were England, France and Spain. The Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of parts of Italy and Germany, was a powerful but declining force. Enemies that weakened the Holy Roman Empire included the Ottomans and French enemies, who resisted its expansion. The fact that the cultures of Germany and Italy were very different also contributed to the downfall of the Holy Roman Empire, as did the Reformation.

The European nation-states grew in power by strengthening their central authority. They increased bureaucracy, the size of their armies and the amounts of their taxation. The rise of absolutist rulers contributed to the centralization of France, Spain, Austria, Russia and Prussia. The nature of an absolute monarch was expressed well in this famous quote attributed to Louis XIV (1527-1598), “L’etat c’est moi!” (I am the state). Absolute monarchs controlled all aspects of government and society including the church, the bureaucracy and the military. Absolute monarchs claimed “divine right” to rule, stating that they had been appointed by God himself and were therefore responsible to God alone. They enjoyed “sovereign immunity” under the view that “the king can do no wrong,” a principle that continues to exist in English and American law today (unless government “waives” its immunity with a law granting certain rights to sue it).

Religious conflict in England between Catholics and Anglicans caused absolutism to fail there. The “Glorious Revolution” (so named by supporters of the Church of England) brought down the Catholic King James II and the idea of divine right along with him, placing William and Mary on the throne in 1688. In France, however, absolutism triumphed until the French Revolution, especially with the reign of Louis XIV, the leading absolute monarch in Europe. The French court at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV, who called himself the “Sun King,” was considered rich in culture and an example to other societies. Truth be told, it was also extravagant and immoral.

In Spain, Philip II (1638-1715), who was the great-grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, worked to cleanse Spanish territories of all religions but Catholicism, and viewed Elizabeth I of England as his main rival. But his mighty Spanish Armada was defeated by a quicker English fleet in 1588. In 1579, William of Orange led the Netherlands in a revolt against their Spanish masters. These two losses contributed to the weakening of Spanish power.

Meanwhile, artistic pursuits flourished during this period in Spain. El Greco (1541-1614), a painter, architect and sculptor best known for his paintings of saints and martyrs, and drew a stunning of a storm over a Spanish town (“A View of Toledo”). Diego Velázquez painted portraits of the royal family and scenes from daily life at court. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, probably the most influential piece of Spanish literature, and Lope de Vega wrote an estimated 2,000 plays.

In Russia, absolute emperors known as “czars” arose. The first czar of Russia was Ivan IV “the Terrible,” who executed many innocent people during his fearful reign from 1533 to 1547. Ivan was succeeded by his son Feodor, whose repeated failures led Russia into a “Time of Troubles.” In 1613, the first of a long line of Romanov czars, Mikhail Romanov, took the throne. Under Romanov rule, serfs lost almost all of their freedoms. Peter the Great, another Romanov who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1696, instituted sweeping reforms in Russian government and society. He built St. Petersburg and tried to make European traditions a part of Russia. In the Great Northern War against Sweden, new territories were gained. Other absolutist rulers arose, such as the Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa in Austria, and the Hohenzollern Frederick the Great from Prussia. These two rulers clashed in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Frederick won the territory Silesia.

Europeans during this era desired a “balance of power” that would prevent any single nation from becoming most powerful. The expression of this idea was seen in the intense competition and warfare between the various European nations for control in Europe, especially with the Thirty Years’ War. The war initially began as a religious conflict in Germany between Bohemian Protestants and Hapsburg Catholics in 1618. However, it soon became a political conflict for power that involved Spain, Holland, Denmark, France, Switzerland and The Holy Roman Empire. The Treaty of Westphalia finally marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. The war significantly weakened Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Austria and Spain. Although France was largely a Catholic country, it had chosen the side of the winning Protestants in order to oppose the Holy Roman Empire, and France emerged strengthened and more unified as a result.

==The Scientific Revolution==

A remarkable Polish scientist named [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] (1473-1543) made a stunning claim that rocked the religious and scientific world: he asserted that the earth revolved around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, ‘with both eyes open.’” With that bold declaration, this respected scientist in the Catholic Church began the “Scientific Revolution,” which rejected geocentric (earth-centered) theory of the universe dating back over a thousand years to Ptolemy.

Copernicus worked for years on his book describing his theory, and did not publish it until near the very end of his life. He entitled it, “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”), and published it in 1543. The work was far from perfect: Copernicus assumed that the planets moved in circular revolutions (they actually revolve in ellipses, though the orbit of the earth is nearly circular), and Copernicus also thought that the sun stood motionless as some kind of stationery temple in the universe.

The reception to his work was initially positive within the Catholic Church, but negative among Protestants who felt it conflicted with some literal interpretations of the Bible, such as the account of how Joshua benefited from the sun standing still as it passed over the earth. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Joshua 10:13. But there were few Protestants in Poland then (or now), and Copernicus died without much controversy.

[[Johannes Kepler]] (1571-1630), a Protestant in Germany, built on Copernicus’s work and discovered that planets orbited the sun in ellipses rather than circular orbits. Kepler was a brilliant mathematician, astronomer and devout Christian who cited God many times in all of his writings. He felt it was his Christian duty to understand the creation of God, the universe. He also felt that man, being in the image of God, was fully capable of understanding the universe. Like Plato and Pythagoras, Kepler felt that God must have created the universe according to a mathematical plan.

[[Galileo]] (1564-1642) was a contemporary of Kepler who lived in Catholic Italy. Galileo was not as bright as Kepler or Copernicus, and was a bit of an entertaining showman who made a lively party guest. He taught geometry to medical students so that they could use astronomy and astrology in the practice of medicine. Galileo’s primary scientific contribution was his improvement on the telescope in order to view celestial bodies.

But the Catholic Church was then in a struggle with Protestantism, which was critical of Copernicus’s theory of the earth revolving around the sun. In 1616, the Catholic Church officially prohibited teaching Copernicus’s theory as fact, although there was no objection to learning it as a mathematical theory. Galileo, however, felt Copernicus was correct and wanted to teach his theory. He had met with Pope Urban VIII on numerous occasions and felt that the Church would not object to Galileo’s publishing the Copernican theory about the universe.

There was no right of free speech in Italy at that time, and in 1632 Galileo published a work called “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican” with the apparent approval of the Catholic Church. Buyers and readers of the book were led to believe that Galileo’s reflected the official views of the Church, when they did not. Galileo had received permission from a local cleric in Florence, but not from Church authorities in Rome, and they felt that Galileo knew that he was prohibited from claiming that the Church supported the Copernican view.

Galileo also angered Church officials in the way that he mocked opponents of the Copernican system. His “dialogue” was between a fictional Salviati, who supported the Copernican system, and an Aristotelian philosopher given the unflattering name “Simplicio”. The simpled-minded “Simplicio” was made to look like the pope himself, and was mocked in the book for his skepticism about the Copernican system.

In the book’s climax, Salviati supposedly proves the Copernican system by citing the movement of the tides. This was completely false and already disproved by Kepler.

Catholic Church officials were furious about this book and the Inquisition banned its sale. Galileo was summoned to Rome. Unlike Luther, Galileo remained a Catholic and fully accepted whatever judgment the Church would render against him. His “trial” was a bit of a farce, probably put on for show more than anything, with Galileo living in plush quarters at all times. At the end of the trial Galileo was required to live in a house where the Church could keep an eye on him, and was not imprisoned. Galileo then continued his scientific work but was kept from embarrassing the Church further. Galileo never split from the Church and completely accepted his punishment.

There were other noteworthy scientists during this era. [[Vesalius]] advanced the understanding of anatomy for medical doctors. [[John Harvey]] explained the circulatory system in human anatomy. [[Rene Descartes]] was a French mathematician and philosopher who discovered [[analytical geometry]] and famously declared, “I think, therefore I am.” [[Francis Bacon]] promoted research based on experimentation.

Then there was Sir [[Isaac Newton]], who after Jesus Christ was perhaps the most influential man who ever lived. If Newton were alive today, then he would be described as a Christian fundamentalist. Everything Newton did was inspired and motivated by his powerful faith in the Word of God in the Bible. Abandoned by his own mother, Newton had an [[inferiority complex]] that drove him to achieve more and more. In one summer he discovered the laws of [[gravity]] and also [[calculus]], and the world has never been the same since.

Like most other men who made great advances in knowledge in world history, Newton discovered and explained something that was unseen: the invisible force of gravity. Newton proposed action-at-a-distance, whereby one object attracts another through an invisible force of gravity. Newton was ridiculed for proposing that something unseen could act at a distance and influence something else millions of miles away from it. Yet Newton was right. Speaking of the world in which live, Newton once said, “Why not try to understand it?” Newton understood it and explained it to the rest of us, and we are forever grateful.

A German contemporary of Newton, Gottfried [[Leibniz]], deserves mention. Like Newton, Leibniz was a devout Christian. In fact, Leibniz was a Lutheran who dreamed of reuniting that denomination with the Catholic Church. Leibniz was also a brilliant mathematician who developed calculus independent of Newton. It was Leibniz, not Newton, who first published the notation for the integral: f(x) dx. An ugly dispute developed between Newton and Leibniz over who discovered calculus first. Most English-speaking historians give the credit to Newton but bias may play a role in that. The world certainly benefited immensely from Leibniz as well as Newton.

==The Enlightenment==

The “Enlightenment” was a philosophical movement in the 1700s that emphasized an intellectual approach rejecting traditional social, political and (sometimes) religious views. Philosophers in the Enlightenment felt that breakthroughs in science, such as Isaac Newton’s discoveries, could be duplicated in other fields through a systematic and logical approach. However, Newton’s breakthroughs were inspired by his Christian faith, while some of the Enlightenment thinkers rejected and even criticized Christianity. There were Enlightenment philosophers in England, France and even the American colonies. There were stunning new works in classical music, and the arts flourished in what is known as the neo-classical period.

Frenchman Voltaire (1694-1778) was a leading philosopher in the Enlightenment, advocating freedom everywhere and emphasizing his form of reason. He wrote “The Candide,” in which Voltaire described many bad things that happen to Candide in order to make the point that the world could be a better place. Increased freedom was Voltaire’s way of improving things.

Englishman John Locke (1632-1704) was the leading political philosopher, whose ideas helped the American colonists form a new government. Locke described society as a contract between an individual and society. This was a radical concept at a time when monarchs and the divine right of kings was the controlling theory. Locke’s view helped lay the foundation for the constitutional government that we use in the United States. Locke had built on the prior work of Englishmen Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes.

Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) was the leading legal authority on English law, upon which much American law is based. Law students in America hear about him frequently in law school. In “The Rights of Englishmen,” Blackstone described the source of the rights of the people.

Frenchman Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) proposed the concept of separation of powers, and checks and balances, in government. This inspired the United States Constitution. His book, “The Spirit of the Laws,” explained essential aspects of good government that became enormously influential.

Another Frenchman, Denis Diderot (1713-1784), contributed to literature, speculated on free will and attachment to material things, and edited an encyclopedia of scientific and social knowledge known as “Encyclopedia”.

Swiss-born political philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote several controversial works. He felt that politics and morality could not be separated, and that the will of the majority was not always correct. Many Americans today would agree with that view. However, Rousseau also attacked private property, and laid the groundwork for future communist writers such as Karl Marx. Rousseau declared that government’s goal should be to provide freedom, equality and justice. But note that freedom often results in inequality.
Irishman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was in the British parliament when the conflict with the American colonies occurred, and he sided with the colonies, making him a hero to many in America. He is also considered to the world’s first political conservative, and many conservatives today praise him for that reason. His works included “Inquiries into the Sublime and Beautiful” (defending the American colonies and examining how people interpret what they see) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (warning how bad the French Revolution was because a few would gain control and abuse their power, even while everyone else praised that Revolution). What was striking about Burke was that he was almost always right in his political assessments and predictions.

The Scotsman David Hume (1711-1776) was a philosopher and historian who promoted materialism and naturalism rather than spirituality. He was a “skeptic” towards religion, and he penned “A Treatise on Human Nature.” He quipped, “You can tell what is inside a person’s soul by what comes out if it.” Hume is considered the greatest philosopher to write in English, but that is only because there were so few good English philosophers. Hume has been criticized for his atheistic approach and his chief claim to fame is that Charles Darwin declared Hume to have been his central influence, as did “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Henry Huxley. We will discuss them later in this course.

The German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most famous philosophers ever. In his “A Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant criticizes pure reason as a guide to life. Though Kant may not have been a Christian himself, he considered Christian values to be the best values in the world. Kant also established a systematic basis for critical philosophy and suggested a material origin for the solar system. Kant’s own suggestion for a moral daily life was this: don’t do something which, if everyone did it, then the outcome would be bad. Expressed another way, an act is moral only if it works as a rule for everyone. For example, littering would be wrong because if everyone did it, then there would be an ugly mess. Kant is taught in all college philosophy departments to this day, though not for praising Christianity!

Finally, let’s recognize American contributions during the Enlightenment. The great works were created by a group of people, affectionately known as the Founding Fathers. These works include the Declaration of Independence (1776) with its statement of inalienable rights and a right to break the social contract with a ruler when he (the king) violates natural rights. The United States Constitution (1787) gave the world a masterful design for government. The Federalist Papers (1788), and particularly articles by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (most notably No. 10) were also significant.

==Capitalism==

Just as Isaac Newton’s discovery and explanation of the unseen force of gravity was a brilliant insight in science, Adam Smith of Scotland discovered a powerful unseen force in economics known as the “invisible hand.” If government allows free enterprise to flourish on its own, an “invisible hand” will harness the power of self-interest for the overall good of society. Men and women will be guided by this “invisible hand” to work in a way that is beneficial to others, and the overall wealth and progress of society will increase. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence in America: 1776. Adam Smith’s book is still considered the world’s greatest economics masterpiece. He explained how the basis of wealth is found in a free economy with an unregulated exchange of goods, whereby supply of goods and services responds in an efficient way to demand without government intervention. Smith advocated the concept of laissez faire, which means “allow to do” or, more simply, “hands off” by government. Ironically, homeschooling in New Jersey (and a few other states) is an activity that most resembles Adam Smith’s ideal of an unregulated market. Let’s defend this lack of regulation of homeschooling while we can!

“Capitalism” became the prevailing economic theory in Britain as a result of the contributions of Adam Smith and others. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines capitalism as follows: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.” Britain quickly became the greatest empire in the modern world as a result of its adherence to this superior economic system.

Another economic theory known as “mercantilism” was also popular. Mercantilism was not based entirely on “competition in a free market,” but rather was a policy for a nation (such as Britain) to increase its own national wealth based on trade with other nations and territories. Under mercantilism, a nation should accumulate gold by exporting more goods than it imported, and by using colonies (such as the English colonies in America) to ship raw materials to the mother country that could be manufactured and exported to other peoples. Another key component of mercantilism was establishing foreign trading monopolies that would have unfair advantages over competitors in other countries. One such British monopoly was the East Indian Tea Company, and its unfair business advantage caused the colonists in Boston to revolt in the form of the Boston Tea Party.

While Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was positive in almost every way, mercantilism did have a dark side of exploitation of colonies for the benefit of the mother country.

Adam Smith did not invent capitalism, but gave it a powerful intellectual justification. In 1607 capitalism had already played a prominent role in the first settlement of North America at Jamestown, which was funded by a joint-stock company (a privately owned company having a structure similar to the corporations of today). In joint-stock companies or corporations, decisions are made privately by those acting on behalf of the owners, without any direct control by government.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 08}}

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T19:37:58Z

DeniseM: /* Genocide */

== Old English ==

I like what you have to say about it, but I don't agree that it's as unrecognizable as (I think) you're trying to say.
:''Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi :sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."''

:''Some simple pronouns like "he" are recognizable, as are the Old English equivalents of verbs like "were".''

This is just my take on it, but if you even hazard a guess at OE pronunciation, and read the line aloud, there are several words (even nouns) that are recognizable! And there are the obvious ones, as you pointed out, like "him", "that", "for", "and".
*''Eft'': after
*''axode'': asked (the x>ks is called metathesis, and people still do it (improperly) in English today when they say "aksed")
*''engla'': angel
*''heofonum'': heaven (alright, there's a case ending, but it still looks like heaven!)

:: Great work! Go ahead and add a paragraph in the lecture with your observations, if you like. Thanks and Godspeed.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:34, 8 March 2009 (EDT)
:::Oh my gosh, thanks for that fast response! I hardly had time to finish reading about feudalism, which I found developed in France a couple of centuries before England. Since Middle English borrowed the word "tyranny" from French "tyrannie", is it possible that the concept may have existed in France/French before we grabbed the word in the 14th century? The same could be said I guess for numbers. I might not understand what you're trying to say, but Latin had plenty of numbers, so did German and others (Hebrew, Arabic?), and they were all around before English was even on the horizon! (My girlfriend is a linguistics major and talks about etymology ALL the time. It's a good thing I'm equally interested in it :)

:::: I don't see any contradictions with the lecture in what you say above.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:59, 8 March 2009 (EDT)
:::: ''There would have been no concept of "tyranny" under feudalism before that time.'' My only point was just that maybe the concept of tyranny existed before the English word, in the French word "tyrannie", or Latin, or Greek (where it ultimately came from). But anymore I'm not trying to point out that anything's wrong, per se, just expanding.
::::I've never gotten a response from you before, it's nice to finally "meet" you! [[User:JParker|JParker]] 18:10, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

:::::Hi JParker! [http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/new_to_old_english_t.htm This dictionary has "nýdgeweald" for "tyranny"]. Obviously the concept is older than that. On numbers, you may be interested by [http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml Numbers in over 5000 languages]. [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 06:37, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Andrew, how are you defining ''somewhat primitive'' with regard to Old English? The sentence looks a bit like you're saying it's primitive because we can't understand it today; I'm sure this isn't what you mean. [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 06:55, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

: Denise, in response to your comment and in explanation of alteration of some of your edits, we don't subscribe to the fallacious view that all languages are equal. See [[Essay:Best_New_Conservative_Words]] for how English lacked terms for concepts and then developed them anew. Old English lacked those and many other terms, and had a vocabulary that was only a tiny fraction of the vocabulary of English today. That makes it primitive, despite how much liberals may pretend that is politically incorrect.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 09:37, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Don't worry, I was only asking what your definition was as a matter of interest, I wasn't pushing any fallcious views :). I just think that you might usefully rewrite the sentence to uncouple the first half (that we can't understand it today) from the second half (it is primitive).
:: To check - are you saying that bigger lexicons (more lexemes?) are a sufficient or merely a necessary property of a language to make it less primitive than another language? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 10:16, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

::: Denise, discussion is not productive if you insist that all languages are equal. That point of view is a dead end and makes further inquiry pointless.

::: Big vocabularies are advantageous. Words that express powerful, important concepts (as in [[Essay:Best_New_Conservative_Words]]) are advantageous. I realize that doesn't fit the politically correct dogma that all languages are somehow equivalent, but we're going to teach the truth here.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 10:21, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::: Did I ''say'' all languages were equal? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 10:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

::::: Denise, regardless of whether you admit it or not, your view that most or all languages are somehow equal is not conducive to productive inquiry. I teach the truth and do not waste time trying to cater to linguistic political correctness.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 12:28, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::::: Andrew, you are ascribing to me a view that I don't hold. I find it ''entirely plausible'' that one language may be more efficient or more expressive or easier to acquire (for instance, I'm told that Chinese is very difficult to learn as a non-native) or less ambiguous or whatever than another - and furthermore that these properties may be measured empirically! I just don't think (in the absence of evidence) that the number of lexemes (or inflected words) is likely to be good measure of most of these properties.
:::::: If you want to point me at a paper or book that describes what you mean, I'm happy to read it - there are, after all, a good number of conservative Christian universities in the US and elsewhere, many of these will have linguistics departments whose ideological credentials you presumably do not find objectionable - why not let me read up on what you mean? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 14:13, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

==Genocide==

Sorry, are you actually teaching children that there were no genocides before the 20th Century? Really? The original inhabitants of Tasmania would be surprised to hear that. Or at least they would be if they had not all been killed in a Genocide. --[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 11:53, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:Kim, you have to be more substantive than that if you want to persuade anyone.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 12:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Every single member of the population of Tasmania was killed. How would you describe that if not as a genocide?--[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 13:07, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::Unsourced is how I would describe it. [[User:ETrundel|ETrundel]] 13:11, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::: Kim, you haven't even convinced me you understand what "genocide" means, and you provide no dates, details, links, etc. As I said, you're not going to persuade anyone that way.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 13:12, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Very well, a few dates for you.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Victims
! Killers
! Dates
|-
| Aleuts
| Russians
| 1745-70
|-
| Beothuk Indians
| French, Micmaws
| 1497-1829
|-
| Caribbean Indians
| Spaniards
| 1492-1600
|-
| Bushmen, Hottentots
| Boers
| 1652-1795
|-
| Aboriginees
| Australians
| 1788-1928
|-
| Tasmanians
| Australians
| 1800-1876
|-
| Morioris
| Maoris
| 1835
|}

Also, an interesting quote, guess who said it.. "The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devestation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more"

One more: "This unfortunate race.. have justified extermination".

Sorry, but the idea that "[t]he systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group" is a 20th century phenomenom is frankly laughable. Sorry, but just because the word is new does not mean the practice is new. Just as the emergence of the word "six" into English does not mean that people could only count to five before that, so the fact that the word genocide did not exist says nothing about wether it happened. In fact, I am not even certain why someone would think that was the case. Would you agree that homeschooling did not occur before 1980?--[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 14:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

: I think that the phrase "war of extermination" or "extirpation" was used prior to the emergence of "genocide". [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 14:33, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

: Kim, I don't think you even understand what "genocide" is. It's not one side defeating the other in war. Also, please do yourself a favor and learn how to spell basic words like "phenomenon" and "whether".

: Give us your very best example of what you think was genocide before the 20th century, with details and your very best link describing it. I doubt you'll find a single one that fits the traditional meaning of the word.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 15:06, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

::: I quoted what the word genocide means. It means "[t]he systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group" Each of the items in the list above meets that description. It is rather obvious though that you do not have an open mind on this issue. I will leave this discussion for others.--[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 15:31, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Just to prevent this turning into a longer argument than necessary, shall we agree in advance to go by the Merriam-Webster definition "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group" as the traditional meaning? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 15:29, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

::: I did a web-search for ''the black war''. The first link returned was http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/tasmania.html . An excerpt:
::::''"The Black War of Van Diemen's Land" was the name of the official campaign of terror directed against the Black people of Tasmania. Between 1803 and 1830 the Black aborigines of Tasmania were reduced from an estimated five-thousand people to less than seventy-five. An article published December 1, 1826 in the Tasmanian Colonial Times declared that:''
:::::'''''"We make no pompous display of Philanthropy. The Government must remove the natives--if not, they will be hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed!"'''''
::::''With the declaration of martial law in November 1828, Whites were authorized to kill Blacks on sight. Although the Blacks offered a heroic resistance, the wooden clubs and sharpened sticks of the Aborigines were no match against the firepower, ruthlessness, and savagery exercised by the Europeans against them. In time, a bounty was declared on Blacks, and "Black catching," as it was called, soon became a big business; five pounds for each adult Aborigine, two pounds for each child. After considering proposals to capture them for sale as slaves, poison or trap them, or hunt them with dogs, the government settled on continued bounties and the use of mounted police.
::::''On May 7, 1876, Truganini, the last full-blood Black person in Tasmania, died at seventy-three years of age. Her mother had been stabbed to death by a European. Her sister was kidnapped by Europeans. Her intended husband was drowned by two Europeans in her presence, while his murderers raped her.''
::::''It might be accurately said that Truganini's numerous personal sufferings typify the tragedy of the Black people of Tasmania as a whole. She was the very last. "Don't let them cut me up," she begged the doctor as she lay dying. After her burial, Truganini's body was exhumed, and her skeleton, strung upon wires and placed upright in a box, became for many years the most popular exhibit in the Tasmanian Museum and remained on display until 1947. Finally, in 1976--the centenary years of Truganini's death--despite the museum's objections, her skeleton was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea.''

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T19:29:31Z

DeniseM: /* Genocide */

== Old English ==

I like what you have to say about it, but I don't agree that it's as unrecognizable as (I think) you're trying to say.
:''Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi :sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."''

:''Some simple pronouns like "he" are recognizable, as are the Old English equivalents of verbs like "were".''

This is just my take on it, but if you even hazard a guess at OE pronunciation, and read the line aloud, there are several words (even nouns) that are recognizable! And there are the obvious ones, as you pointed out, like "him", "that", "for", "and".
*''Eft'': after
*''axode'': asked (the x>ks is called metathesis, and people still do it (improperly) in English today when they say "aksed")
*''engla'': angel
*''heofonum'': heaven (alright, there's a case ending, but it still looks like heaven!)

:: Great work! Go ahead and add a paragraph in the lecture with your observations, if you like. Thanks and Godspeed.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:34, 8 March 2009 (EDT)
:::Oh my gosh, thanks for that fast response! I hardly had time to finish reading about feudalism, which I found developed in France a couple of centuries before England. Since Middle English borrowed the word "tyranny" from French "tyrannie", is it possible that the concept may have existed in France/French before we grabbed the word in the 14th century? The same could be said I guess for numbers. I might not understand what you're trying to say, but Latin had plenty of numbers, so did German and others (Hebrew, Arabic?), and they were all around before English was even on the horizon! (My girlfriend is a linguistics major and talks about etymology ALL the time. It's a good thing I'm equally interested in it :)

:::: I don't see any contradictions with the lecture in what you say above.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:59, 8 March 2009 (EDT)
:::: ''There would have been no concept of "tyranny" under feudalism before that time.'' My only point was just that maybe the concept of tyranny existed before the English word, in the French word "tyrannie", or Latin, or Greek (where it ultimately came from). But anymore I'm not trying to point out that anything's wrong, per se, just expanding.
::::I've never gotten a response from you before, it's nice to finally "meet" you! [[User:JParker|JParker]] 18:10, 8 March 2009 (EDT)

:::::Hi JParker! [http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/new_to_old_english_t.htm This dictionary has "nýdgeweald" for "tyranny"]. Obviously the concept is older than that. On numbers, you may be interested by [http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml Numbers in over 5000 languages]. [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 06:37, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Andrew, how are you defining ''somewhat primitive'' with regard to Old English? The sentence looks a bit like you're saying it's primitive because we can't understand it today; I'm sure this isn't what you mean. [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 06:55, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

: Denise, in response to your comment and in explanation of alteration of some of your edits, we don't subscribe to the fallacious view that all languages are equal. See [[Essay:Best_New_Conservative_Words]] for how English lacked terms for concepts and then developed them anew. Old English lacked those and many other terms, and had a vocabulary that was only a tiny fraction of the vocabulary of English today. That makes it primitive, despite how much liberals may pretend that is politically incorrect.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 09:37, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Don't worry, I was only asking what your definition was as a matter of interest, I wasn't pushing any fallcious views :). I just think that you might usefully rewrite the sentence to uncouple the first half (that we can't understand it today) from the second half (it is primitive).
:: To check - are you saying that bigger lexicons (more lexemes?) are a sufficient or merely a necessary property of a language to make it less primitive than another language? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 10:16, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

::: Denise, discussion is not productive if you insist that all languages are equal. That point of view is a dead end and makes further inquiry pointless.

::: Big vocabularies are advantageous. Words that express powerful, important concepts (as in [[Essay:Best_New_Conservative_Words]]) are advantageous. I realize that doesn't fit the politically correct dogma that all languages are somehow equivalent, but we're going to teach the truth here.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 10:21, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::: Did I ''say'' all languages were equal? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 10:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

::::: Denise, regardless of whether you admit it or not, your view that most or all languages are somehow equal is not conducive to productive inquiry. I teach the truth and do not waste time trying to cater to linguistic political correctness.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 12:28, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::::: Andrew, you are ascribing to me a view that I don't hold. I find it ''entirely plausible'' that one language may be more efficient or more expressive or easier to acquire (for instance, I'm told that Chinese is very difficult to learn as a non-native) or less ambiguous or whatever than another - and furthermore that these properties may be measured empirically! I just don't think (in the absence of evidence) that the number of lexemes (or inflected words) is likely to be good measure of most of these properties.
:::::: If you want to point me at a paper or book that describes what you mean, I'm happy to read it - there are, after all, a good number of conservative Christian universities in the US and elsewhere, many of these will have linguistics departments whose ideological credentials you presumably do not find objectionable - why not let me read up on what you mean? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 14:13, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

==Genocide==

Sorry, are you actually teaching children that there were no genocides before the 20th Century? Really? The original inhabitants of Tasmania would be surprised to hear that. Or at least they would be if they had not all been killed in a Genocide. --[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 11:53, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:Kim, you have to be more substantive than that if you want to persuade anyone.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 12:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Every single member of the population of Tasmania was killed. How would you describe that if not as a genocide?--[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 13:07, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::Unsourced is how I would describe it. [[User:ETrundel|ETrundel]] 13:11, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:::: Kim, you haven't even convinced me you understand what "genocide" means, and you provide no dates, details, links, etc. As I said, you're not going to persuade anyone that way.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 13:12, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Very well, a few dates for you.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Victims
! Killers
! Dates
|-
| Aleuts
| Russians
| 1745-70
|-
| Beothuk Indians
| French, Micmaws
| 1497-1829
|-
| Caribbean Indians
| Spaniards
| 1492-1600
|-
| Bushmen, Hottentots
| Boers
| 1652-1795
|-
| Aboriginees
| Australians
| 1788-1928
|-
| Tasmanians
| Australians
| 1800-1876
|-
| Morioris
| Maoris
| 1835
|}

Also, an interesting quote, guess who said it.. "The immediate objectives are the total destruction and devestation of their settlements. It will be essential to ruin their crops in the ground and prevent their planting more"

One more: "This unfortunate race.. have justified extermination".

Sorry, but the idea that "[t]he systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group" is a 20th century phenomenom is frankly laughable. Sorry, but just because the word is new does not mean the practice is new. Just as the emergence of the word "six" into English does not mean that people could only count to five before that, so the fact that the word genocide did not exist says nothing about wether it happened. In fact, I am not even certain why someone would think that was the case. Would you agree that homeschooling did not occur before 1980?--[[User:KimSell|KimSell]] 14:24, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

: I think that the phrase "war of extermination" or "extirpation" was used prior to the emergence of "genocide". [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 14:33, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

: Kim, I don't think you even understand what "genocide" is. It's not one side defeating the other in war. Also, please do yourself a favor and learn how to spell basic words like "phenomenon" and "whether".

: Give us your very best example of what you think was genocide before the 20th century, with details and your very best link describing it. I doubt you'll find a single one that fits the traditional meaning of the word.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 15:06, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

:: Just to prevent this turning into a longer argument than necessary, shall we agree in advance to go by the Merriam-Webster definition "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group" as the traditional meaning? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 15:29, 9 March 2009 (EDT)

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T18:33:27Z

DeniseM: /* Genocide */

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T18:13:25Z

DeniseM: /* Old English */

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T14:24:35Z

DeniseM: /* Old English */

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T14:16:14Z

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World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T11:02:59Z

DeniseM:

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

In this lecture we recount how the Middle Ages ended: with the Renaissance and the Reformation. The Renaissance lasted from the 1300s to the 1600s, and it brought the Middle Ages to a close.

“Renaissance” is a French word for “rebirth”, and the rebirth was in renewed respect for artistic and intellectual progress not seen since classical Greece and Rome. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary<ref>http://www.m-w.com</ref> describes “Renaissance” as follows: “the transitional movement in Europe between medieval and modern times beginning in the 14th century in Italy, lasting into the 17th century,” which included “a flowering of the arts and literature” and “the beginnings of modern science.”

The “Middle Ages” represent the “middle” between the great achievements of the ancient world and the Renaissance. A poet named Petrach (1304-1374), discussed below, described the early Middle Ages as “Dark Ages” of social decay. The “rebirth” or “revival” in the Renaissance was the rediscovery of the Roman and Greek cultures, as enhanced by Christianity. The “new learning” was a new recognition of the ideas discovered and developed in the past in art, science and other fields of inquiry.

The earliest beginning of the Renaissance was the poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), discussed below, who is famous for writing “Dante’s Inferno” about Hell. Another beginning date for the Renaissance is the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, when gunpowder and the cannon became essential parts of warfare. This military defeat caused Greek (Byzantine) scholars to flee to Rome, bringing their scholarship with them. They also brought their hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, causing changes to the religious order in Europe.
By the 1400s there were numerous great artists, and also advances in the existing Gothic Art. By the year 1500 the High Renaissance was in full bloom.
But a schism in Christianity in Europe was just around the corner. In 1505, a law student named Martin Luther was caught outside in the middle of a thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning struck the ground near him. Terrified, he cried out for protection and promised to become a monk if he survived the storm. He did survive, and then left law school to join an Augustinian monastery.

Martin Luther founded Protestantism in Europe on October 31, 1517, when he nailed 95 “Theses” or issues to the door of his Wittenberg Church in what is now Germany. A decade later, in 1529, King Henry VIII founded a different Protestant religion for an entirely different reason: he wanted the pope to approve his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and when the pope refused, the king founded the Church of England and seized all property of the Catholic Church in England. Other Protestant faiths also began in the 1500s, and the Catholic Church responded with an internal reformation of its own.
We end this lecture with a discussion of Asia in the Middle Ages, which was unaffected by both the Renaissance and the Reformation. Asia had issues of its own.

But before we discuss the Renaissance and the weighty issues of the Reformation, this is the perfect time to pause for a moment and review the origin and development of the English language. English is a relatively young language. It does not come from Sanskrit or Hebrew or Greek or Latin, but from the West Germanic family of languages via Old English. Recall that the Roman empire could never conquer the region of present-day Germany, and English is a Germanic Language within the Indo-European category of languages. Let's learn about its history.

== The History of the English Language ==

The development of the English language is divided into three periods: Old English (also called "Anglo-Saxon"), Middle English, and Modern English (which we speak today). Germanic tribes settled in England as long ago as about the time when the Roman empire fell, around A.D. 450. Old English developed and was used until shortly after the Norman conquest of 1066, when Latin began to cause improvements in Old English and it upgraded to medieval Middle English. Modern English is considered to have begun shortly after the end of the Middle Ages in 1500.

A good dictionary will provide a date of origin for a word, and old dates are "13c" or A.D. 1200. For example, the date of first use of the word "chase", meaning "the hunting of wild animals," is listed by Merriam-Webster dictionary as "13c". More modern words, such as "homeschool", have more recent dates of first use, such as 1980 in the case of "homeschool".

One can spend hours enjoyably learning about the history of human thought simply by looking at when words were first created for important concepts. For example, by looking up the word "tyranny" in the dictionary we see that it was developed in the 14th century (1300s), which was about the time that feudalism was being replaced by nation-states in England and France. Before that time, a word from a Germanic root would have been used instead. One can piece together much of English history simply by reading a dictionary!

The date of origin of a word can even resolve historical debates. Some (including your instructor) feel that "genocide", which is the mass killing by government of a particularly ethnic group, arose only after the development of the evolutionary theory of "survival of the fittest," and the use of gun control first to remove the ability of citizens to defend themselves. Because the "survival of the fittest" theory was not taught until the late 1800s, genocide did not occur prior to the 20th century. Others, particularly promoters of the evolutionary theory, claim that genocide occurred earlier also. But look in the dictionary at the date of origin of the word "genocide": 1944. If it had occurred in prior centuries, then a word would have developed to describe it.

The number "six", for example, is listed as having an origin of "bef. 12c," which means before A.D. 1100. That places the date of first use of simple numbers as before Middle English - indeed numbers can be traced back to proto-indo-european roots, predating all languages still extant today. Many other words behave likewise.

More generally, the study of the origin of a word is known as "etymology". Some even specialize in the field of "linguistics", which includes all aspects of languages. Beware, however, distortions in the field by those who insist that all languages are equal. They also claim that all religions are equal in truth or value, and that is no more true for religion than it is for languages. Every language has advantages or disadvantages, and the path of world history is in some ways the triumph of superior languages over inferior ones.

===Old and Middle English===

We cannot even understand Old English today, and it was somewhat primitive even when it was spoken. Here is an example that concerns an early attempt by Pope Gregory to convert the Norman-Saxons to Christianity:<ref name="M-W">http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/history.htm</ref>

:Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."

Some simple pronouns like "he" are recognizable, as are the Old English equivalents of verbs like "were". Here is what that passage means, according to Merriam-Webster:<ref name="M-W"/>

:Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of the people from which they came. It was answered to him that they were named Angles. Then he said, "Rightly are they called Angles because they have the beauty of angels, and it is fitting that such as they should be angels' companions in heaven."

Middle English was an improvement due to the importation of Latin from Europe into England, at least among scholars. John Wycliffe used Middle English when he did the first new translation of the Bible in nearly 1000 years.

John Wycliffe was nearly 200 years ahead of "his time," meaning he was that far ahead of the Reformation that came later. For that reason he is called the "Morning star of the Reformation."<ref name="Wycliffe">http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/john-wycliffe.html</ref> A brilliant scholar, Wycliffe developed his own views of Christianity and attracted a following of itinerant preachers known as the "Lollards". Wycliffe simplified aspects of Christianity for peasants who otherwise had difficulties understanding it, such as developing a doctrine of the Lord's Supper in only twelve short sentences, and having his itinerant preachers teach that everywhere. The chancellor of the University of Oxford pronounced some of Wycliffe's theories as heretical. Wycliffe eventually criticized scholasticism, monasteries, and papacy, and became increasingly disliked by the English royal hierarchy.

At the time the Church prohibited new translations of the Bible, in order to maintain control and combat heresies. Wycliffe died peacefully in 1384, without having been excommunicated by the Church or executed by the King. He was blamed in England, however, for supposedly causing revolt by the peasants (such as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381). After his death a Council of the Church reviewed Wycliffe's theories and declared most of them to be false or heretical, and as a result ordered that his buried bones be dug up and burned, and they eventually were.

Here is the Parable of the Prodigal Son from Wycliffe's English translation of the Bible in 1389 (compare it to your own at Luke 15:11-21):<ref>http://pages.towson.edu/duncan/LukeMEPDE.htm</ref>

:11 Forsothe he seith, Sum man hadde tweye sones;
:12 And the 3ongere seide to the fadir, Fadir, 3yue to me the porcioun of substaunce, that byfallith to me. And the fadir departide to him the substaunce.
:13 And not aftir manye dayes, alle thingis gederid to gidre, the 3ongere sone wente in pilgrymage in to a fer cuntree; and there he wastide his substaunce in lyuynge leccherously.
:14 And aftir that he hadde endid alle thingis, a strong hungir was maad in that cuntree, and he bigan to haue nede.
:15 And he wente, and cleuyde to oon of the citeseyns of that cuntree. And he sente him in to his toun, that he schulde feede hoggis.
:16 And he coueitide to fille his wombe of the coddis whiche the hoggis eeten, and no man 3af to him.
:17 Sothli he turned a3en in to him silf, seyde, Hou many hirid men in my fadir hous, han plente of looues; forsothe I perische here thur3 hungir.
:18 I schal ryse, and I schal go to my fadir, and I schal seie to him, Fadir, I haue synned a3ens heuene, and bifore thee;
:19 Now I am not worthi to be clepid thi sone, make me as oon of thi hyrid men.�
:20 And he rysinge cam to his fadir. Sothli whanne he was 3it fer, his fadir sy3 him, and he was stirid by mercy. And he rennynge to, felde on his necke, and kiste him.
:21 And the sone seyde to him, Fadir, I haue synned a3ens heuene, and bifore thee ; and now I am not worthi to be clepid thi sone.

Shakespeare, the greatest playwright in world history, wrote in English around 1600. He used modern English, but the language has changed much in 400 years since then. His language was easily understood then, but some parts are difficult to understand today. The term "copyright" did not exist yet, and Shakespeare never published any of his plays in writing because he had no legal protection against someone copying his work; all his works were written and preserved after he died. Here is the beginning of Mark Antony's famous speech in Shakespeare's famous play, ''Julius Caesar'':<ref>http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act3-script-text-julius-caesar.htm</ref>

:Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
:I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
:The evil that men do lives after them;
:The good is oft interred with their bones;
:So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
:Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
:If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
:And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
:Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
:For Brutus is an honourable man;
:So are they all, all honourable men--
:Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
:He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
:But Brutus says he was ambitious;
:And Brutus is an honourable man.
:He hath brought many captives home to Rome
:Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
:Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
:When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
:Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
:Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
:And Brutus is an honourable man.
:You all did see that on the Lupercal
:I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
:Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
:Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
:And, sure, he is an honourable man.
:I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
:But here I am to speak what I do know.
:You all did love him once, not without cause:
:What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
:O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
:And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
:My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
:And I must pause till it come back to me.

By the end of this famous speech Marc Antony had turned the crowd in favor of Caesar and against his murderer, Brutus.

==Renaissance==

The Renaissance was a cultural “rebirth” that began in Florence, Italy, but spread to all of Europe from about 1300 to 1600 (and including 1700 in northern Europe).

During this time period, Europeans experienced a renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman civilization and in learning science, mathematics, literature, the arts, and philosophy. The term “Renaissance man” has come to mean a man who is remarkably well-rounded and learned in every subject, as this is what was expected of men during the Renaissance.

The Renaissance sparked tremendous achievements in science by Copernicus, Kepler and, to a lesser extent, Galileo, all of whom we will discuss more in the next lecture. Exploration of the world also began in the Renaissance, including the voyages of Columbus (1492), Magellan and Da Gama, whom we will also address in the next class.

The northern city-states of Italy were a perfect location for the Renaissance to occur, as Italian culture was built off of classical Greek and Roman civilization. Recall that Italy and Germany did not form nation-states like France and England, and without a centralized government the Italian city-states were conducive to culture and intellectual renewal. The Italian cities had become important and wealthy locations by selling and trading during the Crusades, and Muslim and Byzantine learning had also been brought to Italy during the Crusades. The Italian city of Florence was home to wealthy families, such as the prominent Medici family, who were willing to finance artists. Friendly competition developed between the different city-states brought out the best in people and created an environment in which initiative and creativity flourished.

The Medici family was the most prominent family in Italy, and all of Europe, in the 1400s. They acquired great wealth and prominence through banking, and used their wealth both to become powerful politicians and serve as patrons of great artists like Michelangelo, making him the first wealthy artist in history. Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) became ruler of Florence, and Lorenzo de Medici (“Lorenzo the Magnificent”) (1449-92) and his brother later ruled Florence. Lorenzo’s second son became Pope Leo X, who was pope when the Reformation began.

Renaissance man Leon Battista Alberti declared, “Men can do all things if they will.” This "can-do" spirit was typical of the Renaissance, which was one of the most special times in world history. Alberti, himself a poet, scientist, painter, architect, and mathematician, was the one who first coined the idea of “rebirth” or “Renaissance”.

There were many fabulous artists, writers, sculptors and philosophers during the Renaissance. Let's begin reviewing their work.

===Artists===
[[Image:Pieta.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Pieta|The Pieta]]]]
Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Renaissance was the outstanding artwork it produced. Especially in the Italian cities of Florence and Rome, master artists emerged who produced astonishing works of art in sculpture, painting and architecture. The devout Christian atmosphere in Italy combined with the competitive spirit of the Italian city-states created a perfect environment for the flourishing of art.

One of the first artists to incorporate new ideas into his artwork was Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), who brought unprecedented elements of realism in his paintings. Giotto, a typical Renaissance jack-of-all-trades, also designed the innovative campanile (bell tower) for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence.

Flemish (Dutch) artists introduced oil paints, and the technique of perspective was introduced by artists like Tommaso Masaccio and Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi also designed the Duomo (dome) for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence, a breakthrough in engineering and architecture that revealed Brunelleschi’s deep understanding of mathematics.

Donatello (1386-1466) was an influential painter and sculpture of the early Renaissance from Florence. He sculpted a bronze “David,” the first free-standing nude statue since the days of the Greeks and Romans, and sculpted another famous statue of St. George. Titian (Tiziano Vicelli) (1477-1576) was a painter with an unprecedented use of color and loose brushwork, evident in his stunning masterpiece ''The Assumption of the Virgin''. Raphael (1482-1520) also mastered the use of color and painted beautiful frescoes in churches and for private patrons, the most famous of which may be ''The School of Athens'', an interesting painting depicting Plato and Aristotle surrounded by their pupils. He inspired the two greatest artists in the history of the Renaissance, and indeed of all of world history: Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Michelangelo (1475-1564) is best known for his sculpture of a full-sized statue of David and for painting the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel]], an astounding fresco that included over 300 Biblical figures (including the famous image of God creating Adam with an outstretched arm and hand that touches Adam's outstretched arm and hand). The Sistine Chapel that took more than four years to complete, and an impatient Church official who wanted it completed sooner ended up being featured in the depiction of Hell! Michelangelo also sculpted amazing renditions of Moses and “the Pieta,” a sculpture of Jesus in Mary’s arms after the Crucifixion (see above right). The Pieta has an overpowering sense of love and tragedy to it unmatched by any other work of art in history. Following Brunelleschi’s model Duomo in Florence, Michelangelo designed the dome for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) embodied the “Renaissance man.” He was an architect, anatomist, sculptor, scientist, mathematician, musician, and painter. He created masterpieces such as the ''Mona Lisa'', the famous portrait of a plain-looking woman with an enigmatic smile, and ''The Last Supper'', a fabulous wall painting of Christ and the Twelve Apostles which has not been well preserved. He kept notebooks full of anatomical drawings such as the Vitruvian Man. It is said that Leonardo could draw with one hand while at the same time painting with the other, and he wrote backwards in his notebooks, so they would have to be held up to a mirror to be read. He was way ahead of his time and created conceptual designs for many devices such as a flying machine and an armored tank. He was the first to come up with the ideas of the calculator and the use of solar power for energy.

Characteristics of the Renaissance paintings include use of realism, perspective, individual persons (portraits) and frescoes. Nature was not the subject of many Renaissance paintings; most of the paintings were of humans, and hence the name "humanism" is used to describe this period. But do not be confused by that term, because the Renaissance artists were devout Christians, unlike the "humanists" of today. Paintings of nature rather than humans did not happen until later.

[[Image:Annibale Carracci 1585.jpg|right]]
After the Reformation in Germany (discussed below), painters began to adopt the Baroque style as part of the Counter-Reformation by the Catholic Church to appeal spiritually to the audience, and to make inroads into Protestant regions. The primary Baroque artists were Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Peter Paul Rubens. This style used the “revolutionary technique of dramatic, selective illumination of figures out of deep shadow - a hallmark of Baroque painting. Contrary to the traditional idealized interpretation of religious subjects, Baroque realistically presents models from the streets.”<ref>http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c17th-mid19th/baroque.htm</ref> An artist who specialized in the Baroque style was Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), from the northern Italian city of Bologna. Carracci used the technique of shadows and emotion to display the surprise reaction of the holy women who visited the empty tomb of Jesus on Resurrection Sunday, as reproduced here (see right).

===Writers===

Dante (1265-1321) was an early Renaissance poet, born to a prominent family in Florence. (The Italian town of Florence was considered the cradle of the Renaissance by 1425, but Venice and Rome became just as successful by the early 1500s.) Dante wrote in the Italian language of the time (the local language, like Italian, is known as "the vernacular,") rather than in ancient Latin. Dante described the path of a soul to salvation in “The Divine Comedy,” in which Dante travels through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso). In this journey, Dante is first guided by the Roman epic poet Virgil, and then he is later guided by girl he loved as a youth, named Beatrice, who had tragically died in real life. The account of Hell is known as “Dante’s Inferno,” and it is frightful. Throughout history Hell was emphasized far more than it is today, when almost no one mentions Hell in Church.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote ''The Prince'', which is an account of government by which the "end justifies the means" (in other words, a ruler can use any means to gain power and rule his state). Even today the term "Machiavellian" is used to criticize a politician who spends all his time and effort on getting ahead and manipulating other people for his own gain. A "Machiavellian" politician is a cunning person who will say or do anything if he thinks it brings him political benefit. For centuries the reputation of Machiavelli was that he had been inspired by the devil. Like other Renaissance artists and thinkers, Machiavelli lived in Florence.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) was another poet of Florence, who is described by historians as a humanist. In fact, he was a devout Christian who saw no conflict between religious faith and fully developing man’s potential. He wrote in Latin rather than the Italian vernacular and, being a colorful person, he even wrote a few letters to Virgil and Cicero of Ancient Rome (who of course did not respond!). Petrarch also wrote romantic poems about a woman named “Laura” based on merely seeing her once in church. Later, humanists cited Petrarch's works to try to find early support for humanism.

===The Philosophy of the Renaissance===

The Renaissance was led by devout Christians who looked to Jesus for inspiration. None of the leading Renaissance artists or writers were atheists or anti-Christians. Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were as Christian as anyone. Their Christian faith was the wellspring for their creativity and intellectual achievements.

But many historians are hostile to Christianity, and they do not want to credit Christianity for the stunning achievements of the Renaissance. Accordingly, they claim that the Renaissance embraced “humanism”, which favored the capacity of man to reason and think for himself without reliance on Christianity. There is no single definition for “humanism”, and the philosophical term was not used during the Renaissance. But any view that looks to “humans” as the sole source of value can be called “humanist”.

Under an anti-Christian view of history, emphasis in the Renaissance moved away from the focus on spiritual things that was characteristic of the Middle Ages, to a focus on material, earthly things. It is true that the Renaissance men wrote about and painted everyday things, such as the woman depicted in the Mona Lisa. It is also true that the study of nature and science began to become fields of endeavor of their own, and art and literature focused more on the present life than the afterlife. But the great artists and thinkers of the Renaissance were inspired by Christianity in performing their works, and the objects of their work were creations of God. There was nothing at all anti-religious or humanist about the Renaissance. Perhaps 90% of more of its achievements were inspired by Christian beliefs and faith.

Centuries after the Renaissance, secularism did creep in. Secularism is defined as preoccupation with the material world at the expense of disregarding the heavenly one. This caused people to become increasingly materialistic, a trend in which the church often participated, rather than trying to resist. The teachings of the Bible lost importance to some. Some people rejected religion altogether, becoming secular humanists. But even later, the greatest works were by devout Christians like Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur.

It is true that materialism crept into the church when the extravagant Medici Pope Leo X spent more money than several previous popes combined. The selling of indulgences to fund church building projects, explained further below, spawned the Protestant Reformation. But materialism in building magnificent churches or funding artists like Michelangelo is not the same as the philosophy of humanism, and the claim that humanism was part of the Renaissance is anti-Christian historical revisionism (an alteration of history for improper purposes).

===The Northern Renaissance===

The heart of the Renaissance was in Italy, but there were also great artists and thinkers in northern Europe who built on the achievements of those in Italy. Their achievements are known as the “Northern Renaissance.”

The leading thinker of the Northern Renaissance was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) in the Netherlands. He wanted more spirituality in the Catholic Church and urged a greater emphasis on the teachings of Jesus. He published a Greek edition of the New Testament, and was the first scholar to become famous through use of the printing press, developed in the Northern Renaissance. But while he wrote satires about the Church that led others to criticize it, Erasmus condemned Luther and strenuously opposed the Reformation.

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was the leading artist in Germany, copying the style of the High Renaissance that combined grace and extreme elegance, a style known as “Mannerism”. Durer created famous woodcuts and copper engravings.

The greatest painter in all of Northern Europe was the Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606-1669), who drew many great portraits known for their depiction of light and shadow. The increased number of portraits by Rembrandt and others demonstrated the new emphasis on individualism in the Renaissance. Other great painters included Jan Van Eyck (1400s) and Pieter Bruegel (mid-1500s), both of Flanders.

In England, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) became the greatest playwright in the history of the world, and Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a leading English statesman, writer and philosopher, who rose to become Lord Chancellor (1618) until he was impeached in 1621 for accepting bribes.

Francois Rabelais (early 1500s) was a leading French thinker and writer.

==Reformation==

Schisms in Christianity had occurred in the Middle Ages, most notably between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. But throughout the Middle Ages the Holy Roman Empire maintained one Christian church in western and northern Europe, based in Rome, under the leadership and authority of one pope.

It seems doubtful that the King of England and powerful German princes would accept the authority of any religious leader in Rome forever. Kings and princes do not usually like being told what to do, and a big disagreement is usually resolved in favor of the person with the biggest army. Even what appears to be a little disagreement, such as a dispute over the use of icons, can provide the spark for a separation that was already festering for decades or centuries. In addition, accusations of corruption within the Catholic Church and charges that high-ranking clergy participated in serious crimes and immoral conduct provided reasons to leave.

===The First Western European Schism: in Germany===

The disagreement that ignited the Reformation did not seem large at the time. Pope Leo X was an ambitious and extravagant man from the prominent Italian Medici family, and he became pope at the vigorous young age of 37. He wanted to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in a lavish style that he thought was appropriate for such a special church. To do so, he needed to raise a great deal of money. He invited donations in the names of the deceased, usually a relative of the donor.

Under Catholic doctrine the souls of the deceased enter “purgatory” for a process of purification before reaching heaven. Prayers are typically offered for the benefit of the souls of the deceased, typically relatives. “Indulgences” are the lessening of the punishment (purification) of someone after they die. A person typically seeks an indulgence for a dear relative or friend who has passed away.

In fundraising to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica, church officials offered indulgences in exchange for donations. No one in Rome seemed to mind, but Martin Luther objected. He nailed 95 objections or “Theses” to a church door in the German part of Europe in 1517, inviting debate on how the pope was offering indulgences:

Thesis 82: “Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”

Thesis 86: “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?”

Pope Leo X spent his time on the beauty flourishing during the Renaissance, and was a patron (a supporter) of the great artist Raphael. Pope Leo X probably never recognized the significance of Martin Luther and his followers. Some historians feel that if the pope had responded more seriously, then the subsequent schism in Germany would not have occurred.

But German nobles did not like the flow of money to Rome, and they backed Martin Luther in order to cut off the donations by Germans to support Rome.

In 1520, Pope Leo X announced the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which required Luther to withdraw 41 of his 95 Theses or be excommunicated. Luther refused and was then excommunicated (kicked out) by the Catholic Church.

It was then up to German authorities to take any legal action against Luther. The 21-year-old Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ordered him to stand trial before an assembly (a “Diet”) of estates of the Holy Roman Empire that met in Worms, a small town in what is now Germany. This famous assembly is therefore known as the “Diet of Worms.” The verdict (the “Edict of Worms”) was “guilty”. Luther was declared an outlaw who should be arrested.

But Luther had already left the trial before the verdict was rendered. He hid at Wartburg Castle at Eisenach, where Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, protected him. Luther took the pseudonym Junker Jorg (Nobleman George), grew a wide beard and dressed like a knight. While in hiding he translated the New Testament from Greek into German in 1522. (By 1534, Luther had translated all of the Old Testament from Hebrew to German also.)

Luther translated Romans 3:28 by adding an extra German word for “alone” (alleine or alleyn) after the phrase: “justified by faith”: “So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, alleyn durch den Glauben.” Luther believed that man is justified (saved) by faith alone, and that salvation comes only from faith. The Catholic Church (and Eastern Orthodox Church) taught that man is justified (saved) by faith and good works.

A remarkable invention awaited Luther’s German translation of the Bible: in 1447 the German Johannes Gutenberg had already invented the printing press (with movable type). This enabled Luther’s translation to be printed for the public in September 1522. The Christian world would never be the same again. (The Gutenberg Bible (in Latin, not German), had been printed in 1455 and it is the oldest existing (extant) book in the West.)

Charles V did all he could to stop this knew Christian religion we now call Lutheranism. In 1544, Charles V even sent armies against the German princes. But the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 gave each German ruler the right to choose the religion for his state. The princes in southern Germany selected Roman Catholicism, but the princes in northern Germany chose Lutheranism. After World War II, when Germany split into West and East Germany, the West German part contained the predominantly Roman Catholic regions and the East German part consisted of the mostly Lutheran regions.

Martin Luther continued to write, and taught at a German university for his financial support. He wrote extremely harsh things about the pope and about Jewish people, even urging the destruction of their homes and the burning of synagogues and schools. Historians debate today whether Luther’s anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) writings were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the Holocaust by the Germans in World War II. Luther harshly criticized many peoples in addition to Jews; a pamphlet of his in 1545 was entitled “Against the Roman Papacy an Institution of the Devil,” and he urged burning witches to death. Some of Luther’s writings seem quite vulgar by today’s standards. Luther was in poor health for several years before he died, in 1546.
Lutheranism has only 70 million adherents today, which is only about 7% of the Catholic population. But nearly all Christians, including Catholics, have sung a famous hymn written by Luther: “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Moreover, hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide agree with Luther that justification or salvation is by faith alone.

===The Second Western European Schism: in England===

As early as 1361 there were criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church from England. John Wyclif (or Wycliffe) (1330-1384) was a lecturer at Oxford University, a leading world university founded in the late 1100s. Wyclif was very critical of the perceived wealth and power of the Catholic Church and questioned the scriptural basis for the pope. Wyclif declared the Bible as the sole guide for Christians, and Wyclif translated the Bible into English. But Wyclif was forced out of Oxford when he rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and when the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 was blamed on Wyclif’s teachings.

The King of England split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1529 for reasons completely independent of Martin Luther and the German schism. In fact, the King of England defended the pope against Martin Luther’s complaints. But a different issue arose in England that had nothing to do with theology. The King of England did not think that he should be told whom he could or could not marry by a pope in Rome. This schism was purely over power.

King Henry VIII sought a (male) heir, but did not have any sons from his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon. King Henry VIII demanded a divorce from her so that he could take a younger wife (Anne Boleyn) who might give birth to a baby boy. King Henry VIII sought approval by the pope to divorce Queen Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope refused. The king next did what he wanted and founded the Church of England (the Anglican Church) in 1529. The pope excommunicated the king in about 1535. The king then beheaded any member of the Catholic clergy (including Thomas More) who refused to bow down to this new Church of England, and seized lands belonging to the Catholic Church for the benefit of the new Church of England. Religious conflict in England followed for several hundred years.

King Henry VIII quickly tired of his new wife Anne Boleyn, and arranged for a divorce from her in order to marry Jane Seymour. He forced Anne Boleyn to be beheaded, along with others falsely accused of wrongdoing. Jane Seymour did give birth to a son (Edward) who became Henry VIII’s heir to the thrown. But Henry VIII divorced and married, and divorced and married, and divorced and married, over and over. He had a total of six wives in his life. The fate of each wife can be remembered by this mnemonic: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

There were subsequently “protestant” separations from the Church of England. For example, the Pilgrims who left England on the Mayflower and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, sought to break away from the Church of England. The larger and more successful Puritans who settled in Boston sought to “purify” the Church of England while remaining in it.

===Other Protestant Movements===

There was a Reformation in Switzerland started by Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) and continued by John Calvin (1509-1564), who emphasized justification by faith alone and also predestination, whereby the decision about who goes to heaven and who to hell was made before the creation of the world. Calvin established a theocracy in Geneva, Switzerland.

New Protestant churches arose everywhere. French Protestants or French Calvinists were called Huguenots, and many settled later in New Jersey where they assisted Americans during the Revolution. In 1572, French Catholics massacred many Huguenots, leaving much bitterness. The Edict of Nantes granted the French Huguenots religious freedom.

Another denomination called “Anabaptists” developed based on adult baptism and a strict separation of church and state. The Quakers, Baptists, Amish and Mennonites, including many in this country, are from the Anabaptists. The Quakers are essentially “protestant” of any Christian denomination that has a paid clergy, because the Quakers reject the concept of a paid clergy. A Presbyterian Church arose in Scotland, founded by John Knox.

John Huss (or Jan Hus) (1372-1415) was a preacher in Prague who picked up on Wyclif’s views and spread them in northern and eastern Europe. Born in southern Bohemia, Huss harshly criticized immorality in the clergy and preached a doctrine concerning the Eucharist that was considered to be heretical. He was excommunicated in 1411. A Council of Constance was convened under an “antipope” (not the official pope), and this Council tried Huss in 1414 and burned him at the stake, making him a martyr. His followers, known as Hussites, fought battles against the Holy Roman Empire with surprising success.

Though the following was not a true Protestant movement, there was a Dominican friar in Florence named Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) who challenged the authority of the pope with fiery sermons and, after his excommunication, saying Mass without authority to do so. His outspokenness against immorality in the Catholic Church and in the powerful Medici family won Savonarola many supporters at first, but eventually the people of Florence turned against him, stormed his monastery, took him prisoner, and then tried, convicted and hanged him.

Today, there are over 33,000 Protestant denominations in 238 countries, increasing at a rate of about 270 to 300 denominations each year, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) by David B. Barrett, et al. Protestants total 590 million today, about 27% of the worldwide Christian population, though it is not always clear whether a Christian denomination should be labeled as “Protestant”. Is the Anglican Church, which has 73 million adherents, properly called “Protestant”?

A majority of the United States has always been Protestant, as has every single president except John F. Kennedy (who was Catholic). Nearly every Founder of the United States was Protestant.

===Catholic Church’s Internal Reformation===

In 1545, the Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent to address Protestantism, and the Council deliberated until 1563. It banned the sale of any indulgences in the future. The Council also affirmed the Church’s view that the Bible and Church were of equal authority, and the Church’s interpretation of the Bible was the final authority. Both faith and good works were necessary for salvation under Church doctrine. The Council also created an Index of Forbidden Books, which listed books that Catholics were not to read. This Index remained in effect until 1966, when the Second Vatican Council abolished it. In sum, the Catholic Church reaffirmed its basic doctrines in its response to the Reformation.

Meanwhile, Ignatius of Loyola had founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1534. This group ambitiously embarked on the Counter-Reformation to invigorate the Catholic Church against the threat of the Reformation. The Jesuits founded numerous schools and colleges throughout Europe (and later in the United States), established many missions to faraway lands, and worked to stop the spread of Protestantism. The Jesuits only accepted the smartest and hardest working priests into their order, and to this day it is considered a special honor in the Catholic Church to become a Jesuit. The Jesuit schools brought many families to the Catholic Church for hundreds of years, though in recent times many of these schools (like Georgetown in Washington, D.C.) have been criticized for losing much of their religious flavor.

Recall that Christianity had reconverted Spain after a period of Muslim rule, and in 1478 Pope Sixtus IV authorized a council in Spain under the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I to fight heresy. Contrary to popular belief today, the initial focus was on what converted Muslims and Jews were saying about Christianity. Torquemada was the first Grand Inquisitor. Critics today make a big deal about how torture was used by the Grand Inquisitor, but torture was used by virtually all civil authorities in that time, particularly as a threat to discourage lying by witnesses (perjury). Torture could be applied only once and could not endanger life or limb. Pope Sixtus IV complained that torture was being used too often, but the Spanish King and Queen ignored his complaints.

The Muslim empire continued to threaten Spain and repeatedly attempted to reconquer it from Muslim strongholds in northern Africa. It was not until 1492 that the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella were able to defeat the last Muslim fighters in Spain. But they feared the continuing threat and told the Muslim Moors to convert to Christianity or leave. There was a small but influential Jewish community that thrived within the Moslem society at the time, and the order to convert or leave applied to them also.

After the Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition was used with less violence to combat Protestantism. It was disbanded in the 1800s. Today Spain is virtually 100% Catholic in name only, and is one of the few countries that has legalized gay marriage. Its economy is socialistic, a mere shell of the mighty empire that it was in the 1500s.

===Effects of the Reformation===

The immediate effect of the Reformation was to strengthen the nation-state. Rome was no longer the center of power, as England and Germany had their own churches now. Education improved, as Catholics and Protestants tried to increase their numbers by building better schools. Also, the translation of the Bible into local languages increased the used of vernacular and decreased reliance on old Latin.

But for more than a hundred years, and even longer in England, religious wars occurred between Catholics and Protestants. Tragically, Christians killed other Christians in furtherance or defense of the new religious denominations. To this day the division between Catholics and Protestants weakens Christianity in several respects and makes it easier for enemies of Christianity to prevail.

The competition between Catholics and Protestants may have some benefits. In modern times the Catholic Church was the original leader against [[abortion]], with the Protestants eventually agreeing. Protestant evangelicals have been the leaders against teaching evolution (e.g, the American William Jennings Bryan in the 1920s). In the papal encyclical “Humani Generis” (1950), the Catholic Church prohibited teaching evolution contrary to the biblical Adam, but Catholic schools routinely teach evolution anyway. However, recent signs suggest a Catholic shift against evolution. Most Christians oppose same-sex marriage and agree on most social issues. Protestants are on average wealthier than Catholics and tend to support free enterprise more, and evangelical Protestants are often more vocal on social issues. Catholics generally prohibit divorce, while Protestants allow it. American Protestants tend to oppose immigration more than Catholics do, while Catholics tend to oppose the death penalty more than Protestants do. Perhaps the competition makes everyone try harder.

==Asia in the Middle Ages==

The massive continent of Asia is divided into “South Asia,” which is India, “East Asia,” which is China, Japan and Korea, and “Southeast Asia,” which is Vietnam and Cambodia, and “Southwest Asia” which is the Middle East. In this section we deal with East and Southeast Asia, discussing in particular what happened in China in the Middle Ages (other than the Mongols, who we discussed in the prior lecture).

Recall that in the ancient world China first had the Zhou dynasty (1122-221 B.C.) north of the Yangtze River. Next China had its first imperial or national Chinese dynasty: the Qin or Ch’in dynasty (221-206 B.C.), which was founded by the ruler of the Zhou vassal state Qin, Prince Zheng. The Qin dynasty began to construct the Great Wall to defend against foreign invaders, which stretches today for 1,400 miles. The Han empire or dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D 220, with only a brief interruption from A.D. 6-23) built on the foundation of the Qin dynasty, extending the walls and roads. The Han dynasty expanded the territory of China into Southeastern Asia regions of Vietnam and Korea, and administered the country from a centralized and organized civil service. This Han dynasty was comparable to the Roman empire, and lasted the longest of any dynasty in China. Its state philosophy was Confucianism. But the Han dynasty fell just like as the Roman empire did. Afterwards, China was ruled by regional governments known as the Three Kingdoms (A.D. 220-280). In A.D. 589, the Sui dynasty arose to reestablish centralized government. Subsequently the longer Tang and Song Dynasties ruled China.

===Sui Dynasty===

The Sui dynasty established central rule in China in A.D. 589 for the first time since the Han dynasty in A.D. 220. But the Sui dynasty ruled for only a very brief period of 29 years, until A.D. 618. However, it accomplished something magnificent: it built the Grand Canal to connect northern and southern China. This tremendous engineering achievement consisted of a canal nearly 1240 miles long, with a road running alongside it on each side. It enabled the transportation of agricultural products such as rice from the fertile Yangtze River valley to northern China. Other construction also occurred, such as repairing walls that defend China. (The current “Great Wall of China” was based on walls built as early as 210 B.C., but its present form was not completed until the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1544)). The Sui dynasty ended in a revolution against high taxes in northern China and the assassination in 618 of the emperor Sui Yangdi.

===Tang Dynasty===

The Tang dynasty ruled for nearly 300 years, from A.D. 618 to 907. This is known as the golden age of art and poetry in China. New territories were acquired, including Manchuria, Tibet, Korea and northern Vietnam. This territory became known as the “Middle Kingdom,” whereby it drew wealth from surrounding states through a ritualistic “kowtow”, such that diplomats from surrounding states were expected to pay homage to the emperor by touching their forehead repeatedly to the ground beneath the emperor. The Tang dynasty accumulated vast wealth for China during this period.

Many roads were built at that time, along with inns, post offices and stables for the horses of travelers. The roads were used for trade and communication in a manner similar to the Persian Royal Road and the roads of the Roman empire.

The most powerful ruler during the Tang dynasty was Tang Taizong (A.D. 627-649). He gained power by killing his opponents, but then ruled in a benevolent or fair manner, keeping taxes low.

Government offices were filled with the Confucian civil service system that valued education. The three requirements were to learn the writings of Confucius, study the Chinese classics, and pass the civil service exam. Land was distributed based on fertility of the soil and the needs of the farmers, but eventually powerful families and Buddhist monasteries gained control of much of the land.

Ultimately the peasants rebelled over the misuse of funds by the government. In A.D. 907 the last Tang emperor gave up. Regional rule by warlords then prevailed over China.

===Song Dynasty===

About 50 years after the fall of the Tang dynasty, the Song dynasty united China again under centralized rule. This dynasty governed for about 300 years, from A.D. 960 to 1279. It emphasized education even more than the Tang dynasty did. Art and literature thrived. Paper money was invented during the Song dynasty.

The Song dynasty ultimately collapsed from too much bureaucracy and its weak military. It was unable to fight off invading tribes like the Khitan and the Jurchen, which invaded north China and forced the Song dynasty to the south. The Mongols then took over southern China in 1279, causing the complete end of the Song dynasty.

===Culture, Trade and Religion under the Tang and Song Dynasties===

Buddhism spread in China in initial form of Mahayana Buddhism, which treated Buddha like a god. The Chinese version of Buddhism was different from the Indian form and was called “Chan Buddhism”; the Japanese version was named “Zen Buddhism.” Chan and Zen Buddhism focused more on enlightenment and meditation than Indian Buddhism. The Chinese dynasties then introduced Buddhism to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Confucianism changed to “neo-Confucianism” to adapt to these Buddhist changes.

Historians criticize a practice of the wealthy Chinese in “foot-binding” young girls’ feet with strips of cloth in order to make it more difficult for them to walk and work when they became adults. Historians view this as a way that men made women dependent on them, but the practice was also considered to make women more attractive and to be a sign that they were wealthy enough not to work.

Population grew during the Tan and Song Dynasties, and there was one tremendous invention (by accident) that would change the world: gunpowder. Other inventions included good porcelain (“chinaware”), moveable type for printing (which distributed Buddhist texts) and the magnetic compass for facilitating travel to Africa and the Persian Gulf. Iron production aided farmers and soldiers.

The civil servants (government workers) were the upper class, while merchants and shopkeepers formed the middle class. Trade by the Malay sailors brought goods from faraway. Tea and a fast-growing rice came from Vietnam, and the Chinese learned to plant and harvest two crops each year rather than just one on the same soil. The Chinese then exported a food surplus.

The adjacent countries of Japan, Korea and Vietnam all adopted modifications of the Chinese writing system, religion and type of government. Each of these regions, as well as present-day Cambodia, had empires of its own.

===Vietnam===

Vietnam, which has a large population of 84 million today, won its independence in A.D. 939, soon after the fall of the Tang dynasty. Historians describe the treatment of women in Vietnam as having been better than in China. The Lu dynasty of Vietnam ruled from 1009 to 1225 and established a capital at Hanoi, which remains the capital to this day. The Vietnamese have always been fierce fighters. They defeated three attempts by the mighty Mongols to conquer Hanoi in the late 1200s.

===Korea===

The Silla dynasty in Korea formed an alliance with the Chinese Tang dynasty and then unified the three kingdoms of the Korean peninsula for the first time in A.D. 668. The Silla dynasty expelled the Tang a decade later, establishing self-rule for the Koreans that continues today. Korea was thus one of the first nation-states to emerge in the entire world, and it assumed many of the linguistic and cultural features that it has to this day.

While Korea adopted the Chinese bureaucratic model, the old aristocracy remained in control in Korea. Its art consisted of lotus blossoms, flowing lines, complex floral patterns and soft edges. Under the Silla dynasty poetry also became popular, and artists developed a famous green celadon pottery.

In 935 a Koryo dynasty emerged after it overthrew the Silla dynasty. “Korea” today takes its name from the “Koryo dynasty.” Scholars and soldiers took control of Korea in 1392, after the Mongols invaded Korea from 1231 to 1350, and the scholars established the Choson or Yi dynasty.

===Khmer Empire===

This empire peaked in A.D. 1200 in modern Cambodia, thriving on rice production and trade with China and India. The Khmer empire built the Angkor Wat, a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu with mixed Southeast Asian and Indian art.

The Siamese, the residents of the modern Thailand (called “Siam” until 1939), destroyed the Khmer empire with conquests up until the 14th century. But “Khmer Republic” came back as the official name for Cambodia in 1970-75, and the “Khmer Rouge” was a Cambodian communist movement that savagely killed about 2 million Cambodians in the 1970s and destroyed much of the nation after the United States left nearby Vietnam. Later Vietnam communists invaded and overthrew the Cambodian communists.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 07}}

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T10:55:07Z

DeniseM: /* Old English */

World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T10:43:42Z

DeniseM: /* The History of the English Language */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

In this lecture we recount how the Middle Ages ended: with the Renaissance and the Reformation. The Renaissance lasted from the 1300s to the 1600s, and it brought the Middle Ages to a close.

“Renaissance” is a French word for “rebirth”, and the rebirth was in renewed respect for artistic and intellectual progress not seen since classical Greece and Rome. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary<ref>http://www.m-w.com</ref> describes “Renaissance” as follows: “the transitional movement in Europe between medieval and modern times beginning in the 14th century in Italy, lasting into the 17th century,” which included “a flowering of the arts and literature” and “the beginnings of modern science.”

The “Middle Ages” represent the “middle” between the great achievements of the ancient world and the Renaissance. A poet named Petrach (1304-1374), discussed below, described the early Middle Ages as “Dark Ages” of social decay. The “rebirth” or “revival” in the Renaissance was the rediscovery of the Roman and Greek cultures, as enhanced by Christianity. The “new learning” was a new recognition of the ideas discovered and developed in the past in art, science and other fields of inquiry.

The earliest beginning of the Renaissance was the poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), discussed below, who is famous for writing “Dante’s Inferno” about Hell. Another beginning date for the Renaissance is the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, when gunpowder and the cannon became essential parts of warfare. This military defeat caused Greek (Byzantine) scholars to flee to Rome, bringing their scholarship with them. They also brought their hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, causing changes to the religious order in Europe.
By the 1400s there were numerous great artists, and also advances in the existing Gothic Art. By the year 1500 the High Renaissance was in full bloom.
But a schism in Christianity in Europe was just around the corner. In 1505, a law student named Martin Luther was caught outside in the middle of a thunderstorm. A bolt of lightning struck the ground near him. Terrified, he cried out for protection and promised to become a monk if he survived the storm. He did survive, and then left law school to join an Augustinian monastery.

Martin Luther founded Protestantism in Europe on October 31, 1517, when he nailed 95 “Theses” or issues to the door of his Wittenberg Church in what is now Germany. A decade later, in 1529, King Henry VIII founded a different Protestant religion for an entirely different reason: he wanted the pope to approve his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and when the pope refused, the king founded the Church of England and seized all property of the Catholic Church in England. Other Protestant faiths also began in the 1500s, and the Catholic Church responded with an internal reformation of its own.
We end this lecture with a discussion of Asia in the Middle Ages, which was unaffected by both the Renaissance and the Reformation. Asia had issues of its own.

But before we discuss the Renaissance and the weighty issues of the Reformation, this is the perfect time to pause for a moment and review the origin and development of the English language. English is a relatively young language lacking in any origin in the ancient world. It does not come from Sanskrit or Hebrew or Greek or Latin. Recall that the Roman empire could never conquer the region of present-day Germany, and English is a Germanic Language within the Indo-European category of languages. Let's learn about its history.

== The History of the English Language ==

The development of the English language is divided into three periods: Old English (also called "Anglo-Saxon"), Middle English, and Modern English (which we speak today). Germanic tribes settled in England as long ago as about the time when the Roman empire fell, around A.D. 450. Old English developed and was used until shortly after the Norman conquest of 1066, when Latin began to cause improvements in Old English and it upgraded to medieval Middle English. Modern English is considered to have begun shortly after the end of the Middle Ages in 1500.

A good dictionary will provide a date of origin for a word, and old dates are "13c" or A.D. 1200. For example, the date of first use of the word "chase", meaning "the hunting of wild animals," is listed by Merriam-Webster dictionary as "13c". More modern words, such as "homeschool", have more recent dates of first use, such as 1980 in the case of "homeschool".

One can spend hours enjoyably learning about the history of human thought simply by looking at when words were first created for important concepts. For example, by looking up the word "tyranny" in the dictionary we see that it was developed in the 14th century (1300s), which was about the time that feudalism was being replaced by nation-states in England and France. Before that time, a word from a Germanic root would have been used instead. One can piece together much of English history simply by reading a dictionary!

The date of origin of a word can even resolve historical debates. Some (including your instructor) feel that "genocide", which is the mass killing by government of a particularly ethnic group, arose only after the development of the evolutionary theory of "survival of the fittest," and the use of gun control first to remove the ability of citizens to defend themselves. Because the "survival of the fittest" theory was not taught until the late 1800s, genocide did not occur prior to the 20th century. Others, particularly promoters of the evolutionary theory, claim that genocide occurred earlier also. But look in the dictionary at the date of origin of the word "genocide": 1944. If it had occurred in prior centuries, then a word would have developed to describe it.

The number "six", for example, is listed as having an origin of "bef. 12c," which means before A.D. 1100. That places the date of first use of simple numbers as before Middle English - indeed numbers can be traced back to proto-indo-european roots, predating all languages still extant today. Many other words behave likewise.

More generally, the study of the origin of a word is known as "etymology". Some even specialize in the field of "linguistics", which includes all aspects of languages. Beware, however, distortions in the field by those who insist that all languages are equal. They also claim that all religions are equal in truth or value, and that is no more true for religion than it is for languages. Every language has advantages or disadvantages, and the path of world history is in some ways the triumph of superior languages over inferior ones.

===Old and Middle English===

We cannot even understand Old English today, and it was somewhat primitive even when it was spoken. Here is an example that concerns an early attempt by Pope Gregory to convert the Norman-Saxons to Christianity:<ref name="M-W">http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/history.htm</ref>

:Eft he axode, hu ðære ðeode nama wære þe hi of comon. Him wæs geandwyrd, þæt hi Angle genemnode wæron. Þa cwæð he, "Rihtlice hi sind Angle gehatene, for ðan ðe hi engla wlite habbað, and swilcum gedafenað þæt hi on heofonum engla geferan beon."

Some simple pronouns like "he" are recognizable, as are the Old English equivalents of verbs like "were". Here is what that passage means, according to Merriam-Webster:<ref name="M-W"/>

:Again he [St. Gregory] asked what might be the name of the people from which they came. It was answered to him that they were named Angles. Then he said, "Rightly are they called Angles because they have the beauty of angels, and it is fitting that such as they should be angels' companions in heaven."

Middle English was an improvement due to the importation of Latin from Europe into England, at least among scholars. John Wycliffe used Middle English when he did the first new translation of the Bible in nearly 1000 years.

John Wycliffe was nearly 200 years ahead of "his time," meaning he was that far ahead of the Reformation that came later. For that reason he is called the "Morning star of the Reformation."<ref name="Wycliffe">http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/john-wycliffe.html</ref> A brilliant scholar, Wycliffe developed his own views of Christianity and attracted a following of itinerant preachers known as the "Lollards". Wycliffe simplified aspects of Christianity for peasants who otherwise had difficulties understanding it, such as developing a doctrine of the Lord's Supper in only twelve short sentences, and having his itinerant preachers teach that everywhere. The chancellor of the University of Oxford pronounced some of Wycliffe's theories as heretical. Wycliffe eventually criticized scholasticism, monasteries, and papacy, and became increasingly disliked by the English royal hierarchy.

At the time the Church prohibited new translations of the Bible, in order to maintain control and combat heresies. Wycliffe died peacefully in 1384, without having been excommunicated by the Church or executed by the King. He was blamed in England, however, for supposedly causing revolt by the peasants (such as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381). After his death a Council of the Church reviewed Wycliffe's theories and declared most of them to be false or heretical, and as a result ordered that his buried bones be dug up and burned, and they eventually were.

Here is the Parable of the Prodigal Son from Wycliffe's English translation of the Bible in 1389 (compare it to your own at Luke 15:11-21):<ref>http://pages.towson.edu/duncan/LukeMEPDE.htm</ref>

:11 Forsothe he seith, Sum man hadde tweye sones;
:12 And the 3ongere seide to the fadir, Fadir, 3yue to me the porcioun of substaunce, that byfallith to me. And the fadir departide to him the substaunce.
:13 And not aftir manye dayes, alle thingis gederid to gidre, the 3ongere sone wente in pilgrymage in to a fer cuntree; and there he wastide his substaunce in lyuynge leccherously.
:14 And aftir that he hadde endid alle thingis, a strong hungir was maad in that cuntree, and he bigan to haue nede.
:15 And he wente, and cleuyde to oon of the citeseyns of that cuntree. And he sente him in to his toun, that he schulde feede hoggis.
:16 And he coueitide to fille his wombe of the coddis whiche the hoggis eeten, and no man 3af to him.
:17 Sothli he turned a3en in to him silf, seyde, Hou many hirid men in my fadir hous, han plente of looues; forsothe I perische here thur3 hungir.
:18 I schal ryse, and I schal go to my fadir, and I schal seie to him, Fadir, I haue synned a3ens heuene, and bifore thee;
:19 Now I am not worthi to be clepid thi sone, make me as oon of thi hyrid men.�
:20 And he rysinge cam to his fadir. Sothli whanne he was 3it fer, his fadir sy3 him, and he was stirid by mercy. And he rennynge to, felde on his necke, and kiste him.
:21 And the sone seyde to him, Fadir, I haue synned a3ens heuene, and bifore thee ; and now I am not worthi to be clepid thi sone.

Shakespeare, the greatest playwright in world history, wrote in English around 1600. He used modern English, but the language has changed much in 400 years since then. His language was easily understood then, but some parts are difficult to understand today. The term "copyright" did not exist yet, and Shakespeare never published any of his plays in writing because he had no legal protection against someone copying his work; all his works were written and preserved after he died. Here is the beginning of Mark Antony's famous speech in Shakespeare's famous play, ''Julius Caesar'':<ref>http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act3-script-text-julius-caesar.htm</ref>

:Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
:I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
:The evil that men do lives after them;
:The good is oft interred with their bones;
:So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
:Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
:If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
:And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
:Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
:For Brutus is an honourable man;
:So are they all, all honourable men--
:Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
:He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
:But Brutus says he was ambitious;
:And Brutus is an honourable man.
:He hath brought many captives home to Rome
:Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
:Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
:When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
:Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
:Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
:And Brutus is an honourable man.
:You all did see that on the Lupercal
:I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
:Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
:Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
:And, sure, he is an honourable man.
:I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
:But here I am to speak what I do know.
:You all did love him once, not without cause:
:What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
:O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
:And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
:My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
:And I must pause till it come back to me.

By the end of this famous speech Marc Antony had turned the crowd in favor of Caesar and against his murderer, Brutus.

==Renaissance==

The Renaissance was a cultural “rebirth” that began in Florence, Italy, but spread to all of Europe from about 1300 to 1600 (and including 1700 in northern Europe).

During this time period, Europeans experienced a renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman civilization and in learning science, mathematics, literature, the arts, and philosophy. The term “Renaissance man” has come to mean a man who is remarkably well-rounded and learned in every subject, as this is what was expected of men during the Renaissance.

The Renaissance sparked tremendous achievements in science by Copernicus, Kepler and, to a lesser extent, Galileo, all of whom we will discuss more in the next lecture. Exploration of the world also began in the Renaissance, including the voyages of Columbus (1492), Magellan and Da Gama, whom we will also address in the next class.

The northern city-states of Italy were a perfect location for the Renaissance to occur, as Italian culture was built off of classical Greek and Roman civilization. Recall that Italy and Germany did not form nation-states like France and England, and without a centralized government the Italian city-states were conducive to culture and intellectual renewal. The Italian cities had become important and wealthy locations by selling and trading during the Crusades, and Muslim and Byzantine learning had also been brought to Italy during the Crusades. The Italian city of Florence was home to wealthy families, such as the prominent Medici family, who were willing to finance artists. Friendly competition developed between the different city-states brought out the best in people and created an environment in which initiative and creativity flourished.

The Medici family was the most prominent family in Italy, and all of Europe, in the 1400s. They acquired great wealth and prominence through banking, and used their wealth both to become powerful politicians and serve as patrons of great artists like Michelangelo, making him the first wealthy artist in history. Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) became ruler of Florence, and Lorenzo de Medici (“Lorenzo the Magnificent”) (1449-92) and his brother later ruled Florence. Lorenzo’s second son became Pope Leo X, who was pope when the Reformation began.

Renaissance man Leon Battista Alberti declared, “Men can do all things if they will.” This "can-do" spirit was typical of the Renaissance, which was one of the most special times in world history. Alberti, himself a poet, scientist, painter, architect, and mathematician, was the one who first coined the idea of “rebirth” or “Renaissance”.

There were many fabulous artists, writers, sculptors and philosophers during the Renaissance. Let's begin reviewing their work.

===Artists===
[[Image:Pieta.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Pieta|The Pieta]]]]
Perhaps the greatest achievement of the Renaissance was the outstanding artwork it produced. Especially in the Italian cities of Florence and Rome, master artists emerged who produced astonishing works of art in sculpture, painting and architecture. The devout Christian atmosphere in Italy combined with the competitive spirit of the Italian city-states created a perfect environment for the flourishing of art.

One of the first artists to incorporate new ideas into his artwork was Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), who brought unprecedented elements of realism in his paintings. Giotto, a typical Renaissance jack-of-all-trades, also designed the innovative campanile (bell tower) for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence.

Flemish (Dutch) artists introduced oil paints, and the technique of perspective was introduced by artists like Tommaso Masaccio and Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi also designed the Duomo (dome) for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral in Florence, a breakthrough in engineering and architecture that revealed Brunelleschi’s deep understanding of mathematics.

Donatello (1386-1466) was an influential painter and sculpture of the early Renaissance from Florence. He sculpted a bronze “David,” the first free-standing nude statue since the days of the Greeks and Romans, and sculpted another famous statue of St. George. Titian (Tiziano Vicelli) (1477-1576) was a painter with an unprecedented use of color and loose brushwork, evident in his stunning masterpiece ''The Assumption of the Virgin''. Raphael (1482-1520) also mastered the use of color and painted beautiful frescoes in churches and for private patrons, the most famous of which may be ''The School of Athens'', an interesting painting depicting Plato and Aristotle surrounded by their pupils. He inspired the two greatest artists in the history of the Renaissance, and indeed of all of world history: Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Michelangelo (1475-1564) is best known for his sculpture of a full-sized statue of David and for painting the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel]], an astounding fresco that included over 300 Biblical figures (including the famous image of God creating Adam with an outstretched arm and hand that touches Adam's outstretched arm and hand). The Sistine Chapel that took more than four years to complete, and an impatient Church official who wanted it completed sooner ended up being featured in the depiction of Hell! Michelangelo also sculpted amazing renditions of Moses and “the Pieta,” a sculpture of Jesus in Mary’s arms after the Crucifixion (see above right). The Pieta has an overpowering sense of love and tragedy to it unmatched by any other work of art in history. Following Brunelleschi’s model Duomo in Florence, Michelangelo designed the dome for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) embodied the “Renaissance man.” He was an architect, anatomist, sculptor, scientist, mathematician, musician, and painter. He created masterpieces such as the ''Mona Lisa'', the famous portrait of a plain-looking woman with an enigmatic smile, and ''The Last Supper'', a fabulous wall painting of Christ and the Twelve Apostles which has not been well preserved. He kept notebooks full of anatomical drawings such as the Vitruvian Man. It is said that Leonardo could draw with one hand while at the same time painting with the other, and he wrote backwards in his notebooks, so they would have to be held up to a mirror to be read. He was way ahead of his time and created conceptual designs for many devices such as a flying machine and an armored tank. He was the first to come up with the ideas of the calculator and the use of solar power for energy.

Characteristics of the Renaissance paintings include use of realism, perspective, individual persons (portraits) and frescoes. Nature was not the subject of many Renaissance paintings; most of the paintings were of humans, and hence the name "humanism" is used to describe this period. But do not be confused by that term, because the Renaissance artists were devout Christians, unlike the "humanists" of today. Paintings of nature rather than humans did not happen until later.

[[Image:Annibale Carracci 1585.jpg|right]]
After the Reformation in Germany (discussed below), painters began to adopt the Baroque style as part of the Counter-Reformation by the Catholic Church to appeal spiritually to the audience, and to make inroads into Protestant regions. The primary Baroque artists were Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Peter Paul Rubens. This style used the “revolutionary technique of dramatic, selective illumination of figures out of deep shadow - a hallmark of Baroque painting. Contrary to the traditional idealized interpretation of religious subjects, Baroque realistically presents models from the streets.”<ref>http://www.huntfor.com/arthistory/c17th-mid19th/baroque.htm</ref> An artist who specialized in the Baroque style was Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), from the northern Italian city of Bologna. Carracci used the technique of shadows and emotion to display the surprise reaction of the holy women who visited the empty tomb of Jesus on Resurrection Sunday, as reproduced here (see right).

===Writers===

Dante (1265-1321) was an early Renaissance poet, born to a prominent family in Florence. (The Italian town of Florence was considered the cradle of the Renaissance by 1425, but Venice and Rome became just as successful by the early 1500s.) Dante wrote in the Italian language of the time (the local language, like Italian, is known as "the vernacular,") rather than in ancient Latin. Dante described the path of a soul to salvation in “The Divine Comedy,” in which Dante travels through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso). In this journey, Dante is first guided by the Roman epic poet Virgil, and then he is later guided by girl he loved as a youth, named Beatrice, who had tragically died in real life. The account of Hell is known as “Dante’s Inferno,” and it is frightful. Throughout history Hell was emphasized far more than it is today, when almost no one mentions Hell in Church.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote ''The Prince'', which is an account of government by which the "end justifies the means" (in other words, a ruler can use any means to gain power and rule his state). Even today the term "Machiavellian" is used to criticize a politician who spends all his time and effort on getting ahead and manipulating other people for his own gain. A "Machiavellian" politician is a cunning person who will say or do anything if he thinks it brings him political benefit. For centuries the reputation of Machiavelli was that he had been inspired by the devil. Like other Renaissance artists and thinkers, Machiavelli lived in Florence.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) was another poet of Florence, who is described by historians as a humanist. In fact, he was a devout Christian who saw no conflict between religious faith and fully developing man’s potential. He wrote in Latin rather than the Italian vernacular and, being a colorful person, he even wrote a few letters to Virgil and Cicero of Ancient Rome (who of course did not respond!). Petrarch also wrote romantic poems about a woman named “Laura” based on merely seeing her once in church. Later, humanists cited Petrarch's works to try to find early support for humanism.

===The Philosophy of the Renaissance===

The Renaissance was led by devout Christians who looked to Jesus for inspiration. None of the leading Renaissance artists or writers were atheists or anti-Christians. Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were as Christian as anyone. Their Christian faith was the wellspring for their creativity and intellectual achievements.

But many historians are hostile to Christianity, and they do not want to credit Christianity for the stunning achievements of the Renaissance. Accordingly, they claim that the Renaissance embraced “humanism”, which favored the capacity of man to reason and think for himself without reliance on Christianity. There is no single definition for “humanism”, and the philosophical term was not used during the Renaissance. But any view that looks to “humans” as the sole source of value can be called “humanist”.

Under an anti-Christian view of history, emphasis in the Renaissance moved away from the focus on spiritual things that was characteristic of the Middle Ages, to a focus on material, earthly things. It is true that the Renaissance men wrote about and painted everyday things, such as the woman depicted in the Mona Lisa. It is also true that the study of nature and science began to become fields of endeavor of their own, and art and literature focused more on the present life than the afterlife. But the great artists and thinkers of the Renaissance were inspired by Christianity in performing their works, and the objects of their work were creations of God. There was nothing at all anti-religious or humanist about the Renaissance. Perhaps 90% of more of its achievements were inspired by Christian beliefs and faith.

Centuries after the Renaissance, secularism did creep in. Secularism is defined as preoccupation with the material world at the expense of disregarding the heavenly one. This caused people to become increasingly materialistic, a trend in which the church often participated, rather than trying to resist. The teachings of the Bible lost importance to some. Some people rejected religion altogether, becoming secular humanists. But even later, the greatest works were by devout Christians like Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur.

It is true that materialism crept into the church when the extravagant Medici Pope Leo X spent more money than several previous popes combined. The selling of indulgences to fund church building projects, explained further below, spawned the Protestant Reformation. But materialism in building magnificent churches or funding artists like Michelangelo is not the same as the philosophy of humanism, and the claim that humanism was part of the Renaissance is anti-Christian historical revisionism (an alteration of history for improper purposes).

===The Northern Renaissance===

The heart of the Renaissance was in Italy, but there were also great artists and thinkers in northern Europe who built on the achievements of those in Italy. Their achievements are known as the “Northern Renaissance.”

The leading thinker of the Northern Renaissance was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) in the Netherlands. He wanted more spirituality in the Catholic Church and urged a greater emphasis on the teachings of Jesus. He published a Greek edition of the New Testament, and was the first scholar to become famous through use of the printing press, developed in the Northern Renaissance. But while he wrote satires about the Church that led others to criticize it, Erasmus condemned Luther and strenuously opposed the Reformation.

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was the leading artist in Germany, copying the style of the High Renaissance that combined grace and extreme elegance, a style known as “Mannerism”. Durer created famous woodcuts and copper engravings.

The greatest painter in all of Northern Europe was the Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606-1669), who drew many great portraits known for their depiction of light and shadow. The increased number of portraits by Rembrandt and others demonstrated the new emphasis on individualism in the Renaissance. Other great painters included Jan Van Eyck (1400s) and Pieter Bruegel (mid-1500s), both of Flanders.

In England, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) became the greatest playwright in the history of the world, and Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a leading English statesman, writer and philosopher, who rose to become Lord Chancellor (1618) until he was impeached in 1621 for accepting bribes.

Francois Rabelais (early 1500s) was a leading French thinker and writer.

==Reformation==

Schisms in Christianity had occurred in the Middle Ages, most notably between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. But throughout the Middle Ages the Holy Roman Empire maintained one Christian church in western and northern Europe, based in Rome, under the leadership and authority of one pope.

It seems doubtful that the King of England and powerful German princes would accept the authority of any religious leader in Rome forever. Kings and princes do not usually like being told what to do, and a big disagreement is usually resolved in favor of the person with the biggest army. Even what appears to be a little disagreement, such as a dispute over the use of icons, can provide the spark for a separation that was already festering for decades or centuries. In addition, accusations of corruption within the Catholic Church and charges that high-ranking clergy participated in serious crimes and immoral conduct provided reasons to leave.

===The First Western European Schism: in Germany===

The disagreement that ignited the Reformation did not seem large at the time. Pope Leo X was an ambitious and extravagant man from the prominent Italian Medici family, and he became pope at the vigorous young age of 37. He wanted to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in a lavish style that he thought was appropriate for such a special church. To do so, he needed to raise a great deal of money. He invited donations in the names of the deceased, usually a relative of the donor.

Under Catholic doctrine the souls of the deceased enter “purgatory” for a process of purification before reaching heaven. Prayers are typically offered for the benefit of the souls of the deceased, typically relatives. “Indulgences” are the lessening of the punishment (purification) of someone after they die. A person typically seeks an indulgence for a dear relative or friend who has passed away.

In fundraising to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica, church officials offered indulgences in exchange for donations. No one in Rome seemed to mind, but Martin Luther objected. He nailed 95 objections or “Theses” to a church door in the German part of Europe in 1517, inviting debate on how the pope was offering indulgences:

Thesis 82: “Why does not the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter is most trivial.”

Thesis 86: “Why does not the pope, whose wealth is to-day greater than the riches of the richest, build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of poor believers?”

Pope Leo X spent his time on the beauty flourishing during the Renaissance, and was a patron (a supporter) of the great artist Raphael. Pope Leo X probably never recognized the significance of Martin Luther and his followers. Some historians feel that if the pope had responded more seriously, then the subsequent schism in Germany would not have occurred.

But German nobles did not like the flow of money to Rome, and they backed Martin Luther in order to cut off the donations by Germans to support Rome.

In 1520, Pope Leo X announced the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which required Luther to withdraw 41 of his 95 Theses or be excommunicated. Luther refused and was then excommunicated (kicked out) by the Catholic Church.

It was then up to German authorities to take any legal action against Luther. The 21-year-old Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ordered him to stand trial before an assembly (a “Diet”) of estates of the Holy Roman Empire that met in Worms, a small town in what is now Germany. This famous assembly is therefore known as the “Diet of Worms.” The verdict (the “Edict of Worms”) was “guilty”. Luther was declared an outlaw who should be arrested.

But Luther had already left the trial before the verdict was rendered. He hid at Wartburg Castle at Eisenach, where Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, protected him. Luther took the pseudonym Junker Jorg (Nobleman George), grew a wide beard and dressed like a knight. While in hiding he translated the New Testament from Greek into German in 1522. (By 1534, Luther had translated all of the Old Testament from Hebrew to German also.)

Luther translated Romans 3:28 by adding an extra German word for “alone” (alleine or alleyn) after the phrase: “justified by faith”: “So halten wir nun dafür, daß der Mensch gerecht werde ohne des Gesetzes Werke, alleyn durch den Glauben.” Luther believed that man is justified (saved) by faith alone, and that salvation comes only from faith. The Catholic Church (and Eastern Orthodox Church) taught that man is justified (saved) by faith and good works.

A remarkable invention awaited Luther’s German translation of the Bible: in 1447 the German Johannes Gutenberg had already invented the printing press (with movable type). This enabled Luther’s translation to be printed for the public in September 1522. The Christian world would never be the same again. (The Gutenberg Bible (in Latin, not German), had been printed in 1455 and it is the oldest existing (extant) book in the West.)

Charles V did all he could to stop this knew Christian religion we now call Lutheranism. In 1544, Charles V even sent armies against the German princes. But the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 gave each German ruler the right to choose the religion for his state. The princes in southern Germany selected Roman Catholicism, but the princes in northern Germany chose Lutheranism. After World War II, when Germany split into West and East Germany, the West German part contained the predominantly Roman Catholic regions and the East German part consisted of the mostly Lutheran regions.

Martin Luther continued to write, and taught at a German university for his financial support. He wrote extremely harsh things about the pope and about Jewish people, even urging the destruction of their homes and the burning of synagogues and schools. Historians debate today whether Luther’s anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) writings were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the Holocaust by the Germans in World War II. Luther harshly criticized many peoples in addition to Jews; a pamphlet of his in 1545 was entitled “Against the Roman Papacy an Institution of the Devil,” and he urged burning witches to death. Some of Luther’s writings seem quite vulgar by today’s standards. Luther was in poor health for several years before he died, in 1546.
Lutheranism has only 70 million adherents today, which is only about 7% of the Catholic population. But nearly all Christians, including Catholics, have sung a famous hymn written by Luther: “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Moreover, hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide agree with Luther that justification or salvation is by faith alone.

===The Second Western European Schism: in England===

As early as 1361 there were criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church from England. John Wyclif (or Wycliffe) (1330-1384) was a lecturer at Oxford University, a leading world university founded in the late 1100s. Wyclif was very critical of the perceived wealth and power of the Catholic Church and questioned the scriptural basis for the pope. Wyclif declared the Bible as the sole guide for Christians, and Wyclif translated the Bible into English. But Wyclif was forced out of Oxford when he rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and when the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 was blamed on Wyclif’s teachings.

The King of England split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1529 for reasons completely independent of Martin Luther and the German schism. In fact, the King of England defended the pope against Martin Luther’s complaints. But a different issue arose in England that had nothing to do with theology. The King of England did not think that he should be told whom he could or could not marry by a pope in Rome. This schism was purely over power.

King Henry VIII sought a (male) heir, but did not have any sons from his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon. King Henry VIII demanded a divorce from her so that he could take a younger wife (Anne Boleyn) who might give birth to a baby boy. King Henry VIII sought approval by the pope to divorce Queen Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope refused. The king next did what he wanted and founded the Church of England (the Anglican Church) in 1529. The pope excommunicated the king in about 1535. The king then beheaded any member of the Catholic clergy (including Thomas More) who refused to bow down to this new Church of England, and seized lands belonging to the Catholic Church for the benefit of the new Church of England. Religious conflict in England followed for several hundred years.

King Henry VIII quickly tired of his new wife Anne Boleyn, and arranged for a divorce from her in order to marry Jane Seymour. He forced Anne Boleyn to be beheaded, along with others falsely accused of wrongdoing. Jane Seymour did give birth to a son (Edward) who became Henry VIII’s heir to the thrown. But Henry VIII divorced and married, and divorced and married, and divorced and married, over and over. He had a total of six wives in his life. The fate of each wife can be remembered by this mnemonic: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”

There were subsequently “protestant” separations from the Church of England. For example, the Pilgrims who left England on the Mayflower and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, sought to break away from the Church of England. The larger and more successful Puritans who settled in Boston sought to “purify” the Church of England while remaining in it.

===Other Protestant Movements===

There was a Reformation in Switzerland started by Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) and continued by John Calvin (1509-1564), who emphasized justification by faith alone and also predestination, whereby the decision about who goes to heaven and who to hell was made before the creation of the world. Calvin established a theocracy in Geneva, Switzerland.

New Protestant churches arose everywhere. French Protestants or French Calvinists were called Huguenots, and many settled later in New Jersey where they assisted Americans during the Revolution. In 1572, French Catholics massacred many Huguenots, leaving much bitterness. The Edict of Nantes granted the French Huguenots religious freedom.

Another denomination called “Anabaptists” developed based on adult baptism and a strict separation of church and state. The Quakers, Baptists, Amish and Mennonites, including many in this country, are from the Anabaptists. The Quakers are essentially “protestant” of any Christian denomination that has a paid clergy, because the Quakers reject the concept of a paid clergy. A Presbyterian Church arose in Scotland, founded by John Knox.

John Huss (or Jan Hus) (1372-1415) was a preacher in Prague who picked up on Wyclif’s views and spread them in northern and eastern Europe. Born in southern Bohemia, Huss harshly criticized immorality in the clergy and preached a doctrine concerning the Eucharist that was considered to be heretical. He was excommunicated in 1411. A Council of Constance was convened under an “antipope” (not the official pope), and this Council tried Huss in 1414 and burned him at the stake, making him a martyr. His followers, known as Hussites, fought battles against the Holy Roman Empire with surprising success.

Though the following was not a true Protestant movement, there was a Dominican friar in Florence named Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) who challenged the authority of the pope with fiery sermons and, after his excommunication, saying Mass without authority to do so. His outspokenness against immorality in the Catholic Church and in the powerful Medici family won Savonarola many supporters at first, but eventually the people of Florence turned against him, stormed his monastery, took him prisoner, and then tried, convicted and hanged him.

Today, there are over 33,000 Protestant denominations in 238 countries, increasing at a rate of about 270 to 300 denominations each year, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) by David B. Barrett, et al. Protestants total 590 million today, about 27% of the worldwide Christian population, though it is not always clear whether a Christian denomination should be labeled as “Protestant”. Is the Anglican Church, which has 73 million adherents, properly called “Protestant”?

A majority of the United States has always been Protestant, as has every single president except John F. Kennedy (who was Catholic). Nearly every Founder of the United States was Protestant.

===Catholic Church’s Internal Reformation===

In 1545, the Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent to address Protestantism, and the Council deliberated until 1563. It banned the sale of any indulgences in the future. The Council also affirmed the Church’s view that the Bible and Church were of equal authority, and the Church’s interpretation of the Bible was the final authority. Both faith and good works were necessary for salvation under Church doctrine. The Council also created an Index of Forbidden Books, which listed books that Catholics were not to read. This Index remained in effect until 1966, when the Second Vatican Council abolished it. In sum, the Catholic Church reaffirmed its basic doctrines in its response to the Reformation.

Meanwhile, Ignatius of Loyola had founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1534. This group ambitiously embarked on the Counter-Reformation to invigorate the Catholic Church against the threat of the Reformation. The Jesuits founded numerous schools and colleges throughout Europe (and later in the United States), established many missions to faraway lands, and worked to stop the spread of Protestantism. The Jesuits only accepted the smartest and hardest working priests into their order, and to this day it is considered a special honor in the Catholic Church to become a Jesuit. The Jesuit schools brought many families to the Catholic Church for hundreds of years, though in recent times many of these schools (like Georgetown in Washington, D.C.) have been criticized for losing much of their religious flavor.

Recall that Christianity had reconverted Spain after a period of Muslim rule, and in 1478 Pope Sixtus IV authorized a council in Spain under the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I to fight heresy. Contrary to popular belief today, the initial focus was on what converted Muslims and Jews were saying about Christianity. Torquemada was the first Grand Inquisitor. Critics today make a big deal about how torture was used by the Grand Inquisitor, but torture was used by virtually all civil authorities in that time, particularly as a threat to discourage lying by witnesses (perjury). Torture could be applied only once and could not endanger life or limb. Pope Sixtus IV complained that torture was being used too often, but the Spanish King and Queen ignored his complaints.

The Muslim empire continued to threaten Spain and repeatedly attempted to reconquer it from Muslim strongholds in northern Africa. It was not until 1492 that the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella were able to defeat the last Muslim fighters in Spain. But they feared the continuing threat and told the Muslim Moors to convert to Christianity or leave. There was a small but influential Jewish community that thrived within the Moslem society at the time, and the order to convert or leave applied to them also.

After the Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition was used with less violence to combat Protestantism. It was disbanded in the 1800s. Today Spain is virtually 100% Catholic in name only, and is one of the few countries that has legalized gay marriage. Its economy is socialistic, a mere shell of the mighty empire that it was in the 1500s.

===Effects of the Reformation===

The immediate effect of the Reformation was to strengthen the nation-state. Rome was no longer the center of power, as England and Germany had their own churches now. Education improved, as Catholics and Protestants tried to increase their numbers by building better schools. Also, the translation of the Bible into local languages increased the used of vernacular and decreased reliance on old Latin.

But for more than a hundred years, and even longer in England, religious wars occurred between Catholics and Protestants. Tragically, Christians killed other Christians in furtherance or defense of the new religious denominations. To this day the division between Catholics and Protestants weakens Christianity in several respects and makes it easier for enemies of Christianity to prevail.

The competition between Catholics and Protestants may have some benefits. In modern times the Catholic Church was the original leader against [[abortion]], with the Protestants eventually agreeing. Protestant evangelicals have been the leaders against teaching evolution (e.g, the American William Jennings Bryan in the 1920s). In the papal encyclical “Humani Generis” (1950), the Catholic Church prohibited teaching evolution contrary to the biblical Adam, but Catholic schools routinely teach evolution anyway. However, recent signs suggest a Catholic shift against evolution. Most Christians oppose same-sex marriage and agree on most social issues. Protestants are on average wealthier than Catholics and tend to support free enterprise more, and evangelical Protestants are often more vocal on social issues. Catholics generally prohibit divorce, while Protestants allow it. American Protestants tend to oppose immigration more than Catholics do, while Catholics tend to oppose the death penalty more than Protestants do. Perhaps the competition makes everyone try harder.

==Asia in the Middle Ages==

The massive continent of Asia is divided into “South Asia,” which is India, “East Asia,” which is China, Japan and Korea, and “Southeast Asia,” which is Vietnam and Cambodia, and “Southwest Asia” which is the Middle East. In this section we deal with East and Southeast Asia, discussing in particular what happened in China in the Middle Ages (other than the Mongols, who we discussed in the prior lecture).

Recall that in the ancient world China first had the Zhou dynasty (1122-221 B.C.) north of the Yangtze River. Next China had its first imperial or national Chinese dynasty: the Qin or Ch’in dynasty (221-206 B.C.), which was founded by the ruler of the Zhou vassal state Qin, Prince Zheng. The Qin dynasty began to construct the Great Wall to defend against foreign invaders, which stretches today for 1,400 miles. The Han empire or dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D 220, with only a brief interruption from A.D. 6-23) built on the foundation of the Qin dynasty, extending the walls and roads. The Han dynasty expanded the territory of China into Southeastern Asia regions of Vietnam and Korea, and administered the country from a centralized and organized civil service. This Han dynasty was comparable to the Roman empire, and lasted the longest of any dynasty in China. Its state philosophy was Confucianism. But the Han dynasty fell just like as the Roman empire did. Afterwards, China was ruled by regional governments known as the Three Kingdoms (A.D. 220-280). In A.D. 589, the Sui dynasty arose to reestablish centralized government. Subsequently the longer Tang and Song Dynasties ruled China.

===Sui Dynasty===

The Sui dynasty established central rule in China in A.D. 589 for the first time since the Han dynasty in A.D. 220. But the Sui dynasty ruled for only a very brief period of 29 years, until A.D. 618. However, it accomplished something magnificent: it built the Grand Canal to connect northern and southern China. This tremendous engineering achievement consisted of a canal nearly 1240 miles long, with a road running alongside it on each side. It enabled the transportation of agricultural products such as rice from the fertile Yangtze River valley to northern China. Other construction also occurred, such as repairing walls that defend China. (The current “Great Wall of China” was based on walls built as early as 210 B.C., but its present form was not completed until the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1544)). The Sui dynasty ended in a revolution against high taxes in northern China and the assassination in 618 of the emperor Sui Yangdi.

===Tang Dynasty===

The Tang dynasty ruled for nearly 300 years, from A.D. 618 to 907. This is known as the golden age of art and poetry in China. New territories were acquired, including Manchuria, Tibet, Korea and northern Vietnam. This territory became known as the “Middle Kingdom,” whereby it drew wealth from surrounding states through a ritualistic “kowtow”, such that diplomats from surrounding states were expected to pay homage to the emperor by touching their forehead repeatedly to the ground beneath the emperor. The Tang dynasty accumulated vast wealth for China during this period.

Many roads were built at that time, along with inns, post offices and stables for the horses of travelers. The roads were used for trade and communication in a manner similar to the Persian Royal Road and the roads of the Roman empire.

The most powerful ruler during the Tang dynasty was Tang Taizong (A.D. 627-649). He gained power by killing his opponents, but then ruled in a benevolent or fair manner, keeping taxes low.

Government offices were filled with the Confucian civil service system that valued education. The three requirements were to learn the writings of Confucius, study the Chinese classics, and pass the civil service exam. Land was distributed based on fertility of the soil and the needs of the farmers, but eventually powerful families and Buddhist monasteries gained control of much of the land.

Ultimately the peasants rebelled over the misuse of funds by the government. In A.D. 907 the last Tang emperor gave up. Regional rule by warlords then prevailed over China.

===Song Dynasty===

About 50 years after the fall of the Tang dynasty, the Song dynasty united China again under centralized rule. This dynasty governed for about 300 years, from A.D. 960 to 1279. It emphasized education even more than the Tang dynasty did. Art and literature thrived. Paper money was invented during the Song dynasty.

The Song dynasty ultimately collapsed from too much bureaucracy and its weak military. It was unable to fight off invading tribes like the Khitan and the Jurchen, which invaded north China and forced the Song dynasty to the south. The Mongols then took over southern China in 1279, causing the complete end of the Song dynasty.

===Culture, Trade and Religion under the Tang and Song Dynasties===

Buddhism spread in China in initial form of Mahayana Buddhism, which treated Buddha like a god. The Chinese version of Buddhism was different from the Indian form and was called “Chan Buddhism”; the Japanese version was named “Zen Buddhism.” Chan and Zen Buddhism focused more on enlightenment and meditation than Indian Buddhism. The Chinese dynasties then introduced Buddhism to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Confucianism changed to “neo-Confucianism” to adapt to these Buddhist changes.

Historians criticize a practice of the wealthy Chinese in “foot-binding” young girls’ feet with strips of cloth in order to make it more difficult for them to walk and work when they became adults. Historians view this as a way that men made women dependent on them, but the practice was also considered to make women more attractive and to be a sign that they were wealthy enough not to work.

Population grew during the Tan and Song Dynasties, and there was one tremendous invention (by accident) that would change the world: gunpowder. Other inventions included good porcelain (“chinaware”), moveable type for printing (which distributed Buddhist texts) and the magnetic compass for facilitating travel to Africa and the Persian Gulf. Iron production aided farmers and soldiers.

The civil servants (government workers) were the upper class, while merchants and shopkeepers formed the middle class. Trade by the Malay sailors brought goods from faraway. Tea and a fast-growing rice came from Vietnam, and the Chinese learned to plant and harvest two crops each year rather than just one on the same soil. The Chinese then exported a food surplus.

The adjacent countries of Japan, Korea and Vietnam all adopted modifications of the Chinese writing system, religion and type of government. Each of these regions, as well as present-day Cambodia, had empires of its own.

===Vietnam===

Vietnam, which has a large population of 84 million today, won its independence in A.D. 939, soon after the fall of the Tang dynasty. Historians describe the treatment of women in Vietnam as having been better than in China. The Lu dynasty of Vietnam ruled from 1009 to 1225 and established a capital at Hanoi, which remains the capital to this day. The Vietnamese have always been fierce fighters. They defeated three attempts by the mighty Mongols to conquer Hanoi in the late 1200s.

===Korea===

The Silla dynasty in Korea formed an alliance with the Chinese Tang dynasty and then unified the three kingdoms of the Korean peninsula for the first time in A.D. 668. The Silla dynasty expelled the Tang a decade later, establishing self-rule for the Koreans that continues today. Korea was thus one of the first nation-states to emerge in the entire world, and it assumed many of the linguistic and cultural features that it has to this day.

While Korea adopted the Chinese bureaucratic model, the old aristocracy remained in control in Korea. Its art consisted of lotus blossoms, flowing lines, complex floral patterns and soft edges. Under the Silla dynasty poetry also became popular, and artists developed a famous green celadon pottery.

In 935 a Koryo dynasty emerged after it overthrew the Silla dynasty. “Korea” today takes its name from the “Koryo dynasty.” Scholars and soldiers took control of Korea in 1392, after the Mongols invaded Korea from 1231 to 1350, and the scholars established the Choson or Yi dynasty.

===Khmer Empire===

This empire peaked in A.D. 1200 in modern Cambodia, thriving on rice production and trade with China and India. The Khmer empire built the Angkor Wat, a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu with mixed Southeast Asian and Indian art.

The Siamese, the residents of the modern Thailand (called “Siam” until 1939), destroyed the Khmer empire with conquests up until the 14th century. But “Khmer Republic” came back as the official name for Cambodia in 1970-75, and the “Khmer Rouge” was a Cambodian communist movement that savagely killed about 2 million Cambodians in the 1970s and destroyed much of the nation after the United States left nearby Vietnam. Later Vietnam communists invaded and overthrew the Cambodian communists.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 07}}

Talk:World History Lecture Seven

2009-03-09T10:37:30Z

DeniseM: /* Old English */

Talk:Essay:Draft Conservapedia Application to Become SES Provider

2009-02-12T08:14:12Z

DeniseM: /* Status of project */ new section

How can we use Conservapedia materials at all, when the application says masterials should be secular, neutral, and non-ideological?
And do you want suggestions just written in under each heading?

PS it looks like we should concentrate on Section D (do we have assessment programs?) and B )beef up citations in the lectures). [[User:AddisonDM|AddisonDM]] 21:35, 11 February 2009 (EST)

: Good catch about the requirement that materials be "secular, neutral and non-ideological." I think we meet that requirement better than public school textbooks currently used. I don't think they can ban someone simply for being conservative, although some liberals may try! The teaching materials themselves (i.e., the lectures and tests and homework) meet this test better than often-used textbooks.

: Don't think the lectures need more "citations". It's the application that needs citations to research, as odd as that may sound.

: Thanks for your good insights.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:13, 11 February 2009 (EST)

:: P.S. Current [[SES]] providers include The Archdiocese of Newark, The Diocese of Camden, The Diocese of Metuchen, The Diocese of Paterson, and The Diocese of Trenton. I don't think Conservapedia is any less secular, or any more ideological, than they are.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:25, 11 February 2009 (EST)

<edit conflict> 
My impression is that the courses will have to align with the NJ state standards. Standards for early world history are [http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=6;s=3;g=8 here], and they continue [http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=6;s=3;g=12 here]. Standards for US history are [http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=6;s=4;g=8 here] and [http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=6;s=4;g=12 here]. (Note that New Jersey history must be included.) Frankly, looking over these standards, there are some areas which might be problematic. Note also that the Social Studies Skills standards are to be integrated with the various subject courses. High school students are expected to do [http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=6;s=1;g=12 the following]:
# Analyze how historical events shape the modern world.
# Formulate questions and hypotheses from multiple perspectives, using multiple sources.
# Gather, analyze, and reconcile information from primary and secondary sources to support or reject hypotheses.
# Examine source data within the historical, social, political, geographic, or economic context in which it was created, testing credibility and evaluating bias.
# Evaluate current issues, events, or themes and trace their evolution through historical periods.
# Apply problem-solving skills to national, state, or local issues and propose reasoned solutions.
# Analyze social, political, and cultural change and evaluate the impact of each on local, state, national, and international issues and events.
# Evaluate historical and contemporary communications to identify factual accuracy, soundness of evidence, and absence of bias and discuss strategies used by the government, political candidates, and the media to communicate with the public.
Hope this helps, --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 22:30, 11 February 2009 (EST)

=="Evidence"==
When they say provide evidence of this or that, how do we do that? Letters of recommendation? I don't see there being citations online which report us comprehensively or favorably. Just another thought. [[User:AddisonDM|AddisonDM]] 22:32, 11 February 2009 (EST)

: I think we could cite to material covered in class. By "evidence" I think they mean detailed descriptions with meaningful data, such as how students did on standardized tests or where they went to college. I would include some of the data at [[User:Aschlafly]].--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:43, 11 February 2009 (EST)

::See [http://www.state.nj.us/education/title1/program/ss/application.pdf page 13], which explains the type of evidence needed for each type of thing. For example, to show that you have adequate liability insurance of at least $1 million, they want "a copy of adequate liability insurance", which I assume means some kind of statement from the insurance provider. They also need a business registration certificate, evidence of the alignment of the curriculum with state standards, documentation of instructor qualifications, tax returns, credit rating, and so forth. --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 23:01, 11 February 2009 (EST)
:::Oh, here is more about the insurance, on [http://www.state.nj.us/education/title1/program/ss/application.pdf page 33] - they want "a copy of the policy cover page depicting amounts per incident and per occurrence". The whole thing needs to be in a 2" binder on white 3-hole punched paper, single-spaced in 12 point font. Mr. Aschlafly, are you ''sure'' you want to work with under-achieving public school kids? Were you able to go to the SES info sessions in January?--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 23:24, 11 February 2009 (EST)

::::It's charity. As I conservative, I support charity with my time and donations. (I would have gone to the information session had I known about it.)

::::Our application may be rejected. I might be better off if it is rejected! But I'm going to act in good faith for the deprived kids, and I hope and assume someone receiving the application will act in good faith also.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:47, 11 February 2009 (EST)

== Status of project ==

Should this be accepted, would Conservapedia be liable to receive payment for this education, and if so, how does that alter the status of Conservapedia as a voluntary project - would new editors have to sign formal contracts and so on? Or would professional editors/educators be hired? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 03:14, 12 February 2009 (EST)

Talk:World History Lecture Three

2009-02-10T22:56:13Z

DeniseM: /* Language issues */ eta

{{protect|Geo.plrd}}

Bombay doesn't exist any more - it's Mumbai. --[[User:Clearlytim|Clearlytim]] 02:34, 15 March 2007 (EDT)
:that's great, this isn't a article. [[User:Geo.plrd|Geo.]] 02:35, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

''This requires learning about many new religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.''

Confucianism isn't a religion. [[User:DukeAra|DukeAra]] 06:26, 29 February 2008 (EST)

I've deleted the very last paragraph as it was mostly incorrect. 1. Christianity may indeed be spread by freedom of speech nowadays but that was very much not the case for almost the entire history of the religion, from 330 to about 1750 AD. 2. Evangelism of Sikhism and Buddhism was almost entirely peaceful, much more so than Christianity. 3. Conversion by force is not accepted by Islamic law. [[User:HSpalding|HSpalding]] 20:05, 14 November 2008 (EST)

I've deleted the figure of 1 in 9 Chinese being Christian. This figure is very much too high. I don't know how large (or small) the Christian community is in China, so I haven't replaced it with a more accurate figure. Maybe 1 in 100? [[User:HSpalding|HSpalding]] 20:12, 14 November 2008 (EST)

== Language issues ==
I'd fix these on the page, but Ed Poor asked that I point them out here instead.
So:
* ''Ἰησοῦν'' doesn't say Iesous. Look at the case :)
* I'm not aware of systems that pronounce Jesus' name in Greek as I-ee-soos (assuming this means the first syllable rhymes with "my" and the second with "he"). Having the first syllable rhyme with "he" and the second with somewhere between "hay" and "hare" is more common. There may be a system, perhaps an American one that my classes didn't cover, that uses this pronounciation, in which case, fine, but maybe put a reference in there?
* "Gospel" is not a Greek word.
[[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 17:54, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Talk:World History Lecture Three

2009-02-10T22:54:49Z

DeniseM:

{{protect|Geo.plrd}}

Bombay doesn't exist any more - it's Mumbai. --[[User:Clearlytim|Clearlytim]] 02:34, 15 March 2007 (EDT)
:that's great, this isn't a article. [[User:Geo.plrd|Geo.]] 02:35, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

''This requires learning about many new religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.''

Confucianism isn't a religion. [[User:DukeAra|DukeAra]] 06:26, 29 February 2008 (EST)

I've deleted the very last paragraph as it was mostly incorrect. 1. Christianity may indeed be spread by freedom of speech nowadays but that was very much not the case for almost the entire history of the religion, from 330 to about 1750 AD. 2. Evangelism of Sikhism and Buddhism was almost entirely peaceful, much more so than Christianity. 3. Conversion by force is not accepted by Islamic law. [[User:HSpalding|HSpalding]] 20:05, 14 November 2008 (EST)

I've deleted the figure of 1 in 9 Chinese being Christian. This figure is very much too high. I don't know how large (or small) the Christian community is in China, so I haven't replaced it with a more accurate figure. Maybe 1 in 100? [[User:HSpalding|HSpalding]] 20:12, 14 November 2008 (EST)

== Language issues ==
I'd fix these on the page, but Ed Poor asked that I point them out here instead.
So:
* ''Ἰησοῦν'' doesn't say Iesous. Look at the case :)
* I'm not aware of systems that pronounce Jesus' name in Greek as I-ee-soos (assuming this means the first syllable rhymes with "my" and the second with "he"). Having the first syllable rhyme with "he" and the second with "hay" is more common. There may be a system, perhaps an American one that my classes didn't cover, that uses this pronounciation, in which case, fine, but maybe put a reference in there?
* "Gospel" is not a Greek word.
[[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 17:54, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Bible Retranslation Project

2009-02-06T15:33:58Z

DeniseM: Good point, I've fleshed out the paragraph to make it more qualified without removing too much material

The '''Bible Retranslation Project''' recognizes two fundamental aspects of a modern language that causes it to be a constant state of flux or change:

*familiar terms change their meanings, so text using them becomes misinterpretable
*new, more precise terms appear at a rate of about 1000 per year.<ref>http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/22/word/?rsssource=1</ref>

Terms that were clear and meaningful to one generation are often unclear and less meaningful to the next; meanwhile, entirely new terms are constantly emerging, some of which may facilitate more precise translation from the Biblical Greek and Hebrew (and Aramaic in the case of parts of the books of Ezra/Nehemya and Daniel).

It has been suggested that both effects above -- due to culture and the emergence of new terms -- may be increasing as communications increase. Certainly new terms that emerge in one place may become widespread more easily. On the other hand, one observed effect of global communications is to standardize and perhaps stabilize more and for dialect and local shifts to become more evened out, so the converse could as easily be the case.

If a word inevitably altered its meaning after an approximate number of uses, then the time period for the change in meaning would be expected shorten due to improved technology. But the most frequently used words in the English language have shifted semantically very little since Middle English, or in many cases since Old English/Anglo-Saxon.

It is posited that the rate of emergence of new terms may be directly correlated to the frequency of communication.
In the [[internet]] era, combating the effect of language degradation and creation on the understanding of the [[Bible]] becomes more important.

But there is an economic obstacle to developing a translation of the Bible that remains current with changes in language. Book sales have been declining sharply due to the internet, and it is probably not easy to recoup the substantial costs ($10 million for the [[Holman Christian Standard Bible]]) that are required to develop a new translation. With the need to recoup and enormous investment, publishers of a new Bible are probably overly cautious in changing familiar terminology despite erosion in their meaning, in fear of criticism and a poor reception. A lower-cost and more dynamic approach is needed to combat the effects of persistent degradations in language.

As a first step to the Bible Retranslation Project, it is useful to identify modern terms having changing, unclear or altered meaning, which appear in important passages in translations of the Bible into the corresponding modern language. This will help avoid cliché and the repetition of culturally-familiar but suboptimal passages while producing a superior rendition from the original Hebrew and Greek into idiomatic modern English.

== Emergent New Terms ==

Powerful new terms develop that were unknown or underutilized at the time of prior translations of the Bible into English. The English language, relatively weak at its beginning, continues to develop by adding insightful new terminology. These more precise and meaningful concepts should be utilized by English translations of the [[Bible]]. The [[King James Version]] was written in the early 1600s, and powerful terminology has been added to the English language since then, some in the past decade.

Examples include:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!New Term
!First Developed
!Potential Uses in a Bible Retranslation
|-
|[[bias]]
|
|
|-
|[[censor]]
|1882
|
|-
|[[conservative]]
|1831
|
|-
|[[gamble]]
|1775
|After [[Jesus]] released His spirit at the [[Crucifixion]], English translations should now state that the Roman soldiers "gambled" to win his clothing, rather than the less clear statement that they "cast lots." See Matt 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:24.<ref>http://biblestudy.crosswalk.com/search/?type=bible&keyword=entropy&translation=niv</ref>
|-
|[[homeschool]]
|1980s
|relevant to Jesus teaching the younger Apostles
|-
|[[media]]
|1841<ref>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/media</ref>
|relevant to prohibition against false idols
|-
|[[moral majority]]
|1979
|
|-
|self-centered
|1764
|
|-
|[[socialism]]
|1827<ref>Harry Ritter, ''Dictionary of Concepts in History,'' 419.</ref>
|
|-
|[[status worship]]
|
|
|-
|welfare (by govt)
|1904
|
|-
|work ethic
|1951
|Relevant to the parable of the talents
|-
|unprincipled
|1644
|
|}

== Examples ==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Original Term
!English Translation
!Usage
!Lack of Clarity
!Real meaning
!Suggested Improvement
|-
|Greek λόγος transliteration:"logos"
|"word"
|"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1 ([[NIV]])
|"Word" now means a short utterance of a single concept, which can include a vulgarity or a falsehood
|underlying logic or profound statement of the truth
|replace "Word" with "Truth"<ref>The same Greek term of "logos" is used in other contexts disjointed, or even against, God, and translating the term as "the truth" in those very different contexts would not work. For example, ''And whoever speaks "logos" against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him'' (Matt 12:32) and ''But he did not answer her "logos".''(Matt 15:23) Current translations already draw a distinction between these very different contexts by capitalizing "Word" in John 1:1, but not in the contrasting uses.</ref>
|-
|הָֽאָדָם (note the definite article!)
|"Adam"
|Gen 2 &c.
|It's often transliterated into ''Adam'' rather than just kept as ''the man/person/human being''. The connotation needs to be that of humanity rather than maleness; anthropos rather than aner; homo rather than vir. I feel this loses the sense of הָֽאָדָם as an Everyman, a universal figure prototypical of humanity. One might note also that חַוָּה "Eve", whilst it is undoubtedly a name, needs the connotaion of life (חָֽי) to adequately convey meaning to a reader.
|
|The man/person/human being
|-
|χάρις
|"grace"
|"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another." John 1:16 ([[NIV]])
|"grace" has become a female name and a sports term to refer primarily to smoothness in style
|spiritual and majestic gift-giving
|replace some instances of "grace" with "boundless generosity"
|-
|Tahhash
|"badger"
|Describing the skins used in the construction of the Tabernacle
|It's now thought that this is certainly not a badger (or not a ''Melis'' one)
|Possibly "Hirax", though I'm not up on the most recent theories on this. One for an expert, I think.
|
|-
|מִּשְׂרָה
|"government"
|"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. ... Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end." Isaiah 9:6-7 ([[NIV]])
|"government" now means officials paid by mandatory taxes and accountable to a democratic vote
|spiritual kingdom
|replace "government" with "kingdom" - I dislike this - I don't think that monarchy metaphors are really as strong or as relevant as they used to be in the days of the ubiquity absolute rulers. Also "kingdom" is an area of land, I think we want something like "rulership"? Though that sounds a bit ugly.
|-
|Greek εἰρήνη transliteration: "eirene"
|"peace"
|"... [[Jesus]] came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you!'" John 20:19 (NIV)<ref>http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=20&v=19&t=NIV#conc/19</ref>
|"peace" now means an absence of war
|an inner peace and lack of personal fear or anxiety
|replace "peace" with "tranquility" - but this then gives possible issues for verses like I Kings 20:18, which now reads ''And he said, Whether they be come out for tranquility, take them alive; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive.'' Perhaps we could keep "peace" for ''shalom'', and "tranquility" for ''eirene''? Except Jesus, saying "Peace be with you", is presumably using shalom alechem, or Aramaic cognate, which leads to some interesting issues of consistency.
|-
|Greek πλούσιος transliteration: "plousios": "abundantly supplied"<ref>http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=4145</ref><ref>James never used the term plousios to describe a believer.[http://www.ne14grace.org/images/James/Part%204,%20Chapter%201,%20Verses%209-12.htm]</ref>
|"rich"
|"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:24)
|nearly everyone is "abundantly supplied" today with food and entertainment, and "rich" has come to mean ''relative'' wealth without any absolute significance; continued use of "rich" is misleading in justifying laziness and socialism
|miserliness to the point of laziness and being unproductive
|"fully fed and entertained" or "idle miser," or something similar. <ref>Often this term was used by Jesus (assuming he spoke Greek) to criticize unproductive, self-absorbed people who inherit wealth, as in the encounter with the rich young man who walked away, and also the [[Prodigal Son]]. - but N.B. ''When the evening came, there came an '''idle miser''' of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple''. It could work, though.</ref>
|-
|
|"behemoth"
|Job 40:15-24
|
|beasts (sing. behemah)
|
|-
|
|"kill"
|"Thou shalt not kill" Exodus 20.13 ([[KJV]])
|In Biblical times, as today, the bearing of arms to defend ones family and society was the hallmark of Judeo-Christian civilization. The commandment referred to unjustifiable homicides - murder and manslaughter - rather than advocating blanket pacifism, as many Leftists today interpret it.
|to murder or take up arms without sufficient justification
|replace "kill" with "commit murder" depending on the original text and the context - it'd not be sensible to use murder in the context of an animal doing it, for instance!
|-
|עֲנָו (`anav )
|"meek"
|"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" Matthew 5:5 ([[KJV]]) / Ps 37
|"meek" now means excessively mild, passive, pathetically submissive.
|showing humility before God
|replace "meek" with "God-fearing"
|-
|
|"Mahlon" and "Chilion" (e.g.)
| Ruth 1:2 ''Mahlon'' and ''Chilion''
|The Hebrew forms mean nothing to a modern reader
|"Weak" and "Sick"
|I think we could afford to be bold and translate these names. Footnotes are a cowardly choice. If we had ''the name of his two sons were Feeble and Poorly'', it'd make much more of an impression.
|-
|
|"liberal"
|"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself" Proverbs 11:25 ([[KJV]])
|"liberal" now means adhering to leftist or socialistic political or social doctrines
|showing generosity
|replace "liberal" with "generous", in line with most modern English versions
|-
|Greek ᾅδου transliteration: ''haidou'', "Hades"
|"depths"
|"No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day." Matthew 11:23 ([[NIV]])
|"depths" is now understood to mean the ocean. "Hades" was used by Matthew to help Greeks comprehend Christianity's Hell. The LXX use "haidon" in Psalm 115 to translate the hebrew "dumah", so it's applicable to other concepts as well.
|Hell/depths of Hell
|replace "depths" with "Hell" - "shall be brought down to hell." (KJV) How then do we distinguish between haides and geenna (sticking to the Gk. for the moment)? Perhaps keep haides for the general realm of the dead, and geenna for a place of punishment? That seems to me to be the difference in nuance.
|-
|Greek παραδίδωμι transliteration: paradidōmi
|"gave up"
|"... he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:30 (NIV)<ref>http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=19&v=30&t=NIV#conc/30</ref>
|"gave up" has a newer meaning, attested in the OED since the eighteenth century<ref>http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50094974/50094974se136 sense 64c</ref>: it now means to quit and stop trying, or surrender. It has acquired a negative connotation.
|"relinquish" is a term that avoids ambiguiity and possible negative connotation.
|replace "gave up" with "released" or "relinquished"
|}

== The project begins: Esther א==
See the [[Book of Esther]] for a synopsis of its history.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Verse
! Translation
! Discussion and notes
|-
|וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹש הוּא אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד-כּוּשׁ--שֶׁבַע וְעֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה מְדִינָה
| And it was, in the days of Ahhashverosh - this being the Ahhashverosh reigning all the way from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces
|How do people want to transliterate ''אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ''? We could do with someone up on Persian history, really. Anyone? I've used "provinces" for מְדִינָה, though I'm very open to suggestions! Also is "all the way from... to" too colloquial, and is it justified by the text? Does הֹדּוּ really signify India, historically?
|-
|בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם--כְּשֶׁבֶת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ עַל כִּסֵּא מַלְכוּתוֹ אֲשֶׁר בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה
| In those days, when the king Ahhashverosh sat on his throne, which was in the capital, Shushan
| is "his throne" OK for kise malkhuto? I've gone with "capital" for בִּירָה which I think reads neatly.
|-
|בִּשְׁנַת שָׁלוֹשׁ לְמָלְכוֹ עָשָׂה מִשְׁתֶּה לְכָל-שָׂרָיו וַעֲבָדָיו חֵיל פָּרַס וּמָדַי הַפַּרְתְּמִים וְשָׂרֵי הַמְּדִינוֹת--לְפָנָיו
|In the third year of his reign, he made a drinking-party in his presence for all his ministers and his subjects, the warriors of Persia and Media, the aristocrats, and the ministers of the provinces.
|(''Media'' here refers to the region of that name, not to the plural form of ''medium'')
|-
|בְּהַרְאֹתוֹ, אֶת-עֹשֶׁר כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ וְאֶת-יְקָר תִּפְאֶרֶת גְּדוּלָּתוֹ יָמִים רַבִּים שְׁמוֹנִים וּמְאַת יוֹם
|
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|-
|וּבִמְלוֹאת הַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה עָשָׂה הַמֶּלֶךְ לְכָל-הָעָם הַנִּמְצְאִים בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה לְמִגָּדוֹל וְעַד-קָטָן מִשְׁתֶּה--שִׁבְעַת יָמִים בַּחֲצַר גִּנַּת בִּיתַן הַמֶּלֶךְ
|
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|-
| וּר כַּרְפַּס וּתְכֵלֶת אָחוּז בְּחַבְלֵי-בוּץ וְאַרְגָּמָן, עַל-גְּלִילֵי כֶסֶף, וְעַמּוּדֵי שֵׁשׁ; מִטּוֹת זָהָב וָכֶסֶף, עַל רִצְפַת בַּהַט-וָשֵׁשׁ--וְדַר וְסֹחָרֶת
|
|
|-
| וְהַשְׁקוֹת בִּכְלֵי זָהָב, וְכֵלִים מִכֵּלִים שׁוֹנִים; וְיֵין מַלְכוּת רָב כְּיַד הַמֶּלֶךְ
|
|
|-
| וְהַשְּׁתִיָּה כַדָּת, אֵין אֹנֵס: כִּי-כֵן יִסַּד הַמֶּלֶךְ, עַל כָּל-רַב בֵּיתוֹ--לַעֲשׂוֹת כִּרְצוֹן אִישׁ-וָאִישׁ
|
|
|-
|גַּם וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה, עָשְׂתָה מִשְׁתֵּה נָשִׁים--בֵּית, הַמַּלְכוּת, אֲשֶׁר, לַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
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|-
|בַּיּוֹם, הַשְּׁבִיעִי, כְּטוֹב לֵב-הַמֶּלֶךְ, בַּיָּיִן--אָמַר לִמְהוּמָן בִּזְּתָא חַרְבוֹנָא בִּגְתָא וַאֲבַגְתָא, זֵתַר וְכַרְכַּס, שִׁבְעַת הַסָּרִיסִים, הַמְשָׁרְתִים אֶת-פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
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|-
| לְהָבִיא אֶת-וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ--בְּכֶתֶר מַלְכוּת: לְהַרְאוֹת הָעַמִּים וְהַשָּׂרִים אֶת-יָפְיָהּ, כִּי-טוֹבַת מַרְאֶה הִיא.
|
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|-
| וַתְּמָאֵן הַמַּלְכָּה וַשְׁתִּי, לָבוֹא בִּדְבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר, בְּיַד הַסָּרִיסִים; וַיִּקְצֹף הַמֶּלֶךְ מְאֹד, וַחֲמָתוֹ בָּעֲרָה בוֹ.
|
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|-
|וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ, לַחֲכָמִים יֹדְעֵי הָעִתִּים: כִּי-כֵן, דְּבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ, לִפְנֵי, כָּל-יֹדְעֵי דָּת וָדִין.
|
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|-
| וְהַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו, כַּרְשְׁנָא שֵׁתָר אַדְמָתָא תַרְשִׁישׁ, מֶרֶס מַרְסְנָא, מְמוּכָן--שִׁבְעַת שָׂרֵי פָּרַס וּמָדַי, רֹאֵי פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, הַיֹּשְׁבִים רִאשֹׁנָה, בַּמַּלְכוּת.
|
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|-
| כְּדָת, מַה-לַּעֲשׂוֹת, בַּמַּלְכָּה, וַשְׁתִּי--עַל אֲשֶׁר לֹא-עָשְׂתָה, אֶת-מַאֲמַר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, בְּיַד, הַסָּרִיסִים.
|
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|-
|וַיֹּאמֶר מומכן (מְמוּכָן), לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְהַשָּׂרִים, לֹא עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ לְבַדּוֹ, עָוְתָה וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה: כִּי עַל-כָּל-הַשָּׂרִים, וְעַל-כָּל-הָעַמִּים, אֲשֶׁר, בְּכָל-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
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|-
| כִּי-יֵצֵא דְבַר-הַמַּלְכָּה עַל-כָּל-הַנָּשִׁים, לְהַבְזוֹת בַּעְלֵיהֶן בְּעֵינֵיהֶן: בְּאָמְרָם, הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ אָמַר לְהָבִיא אֶת-וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה לְפָנָיו--וְלֹא-בָאָה.
|
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|-
|וְהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה תֹּאמַרְנָה שָׂרוֹת פָּרַס-וּמָדַי, אֲשֶׁר שָׁמְעוּ אֶת-דְּבַר הַמַּלְכָּה, לְכֹל, שָׂרֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ; וּכְדַי, בִּזָּיוֹן וָקָצֶף.
|
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|-
| אִם-עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ טוֹב, יֵצֵא דְבַר-מַלְכוּת מִלְּפָנָיו, וְיִכָּתֵב בְּדָתֵי פָרַס-וּמָדַי, וְלֹא יַעֲבוֹר: אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תָבוֹא וַשְׁתִּי, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, וּמַלְכוּתָהּ יִתֵּן הַמֶּלֶךְ, לִרְעוּתָהּ הַטּוֹבָה מִמֶּנָּה.
|
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|-
| וְנִשְׁמַע פִּתְגָם הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר-יַעֲשֶׂה בְּכָל-מַלְכוּתוֹ, כִּי רַבָּה הִיא; וְכָל-הַנָּשִׁים, יִתְּנוּ יְקָר לְבַעְלֵיהֶן--לְמִגָּדוֹל, וְעַד-קָטָן.
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|-
| וַיִּיטַב, הַדָּבָר, בְּעֵינֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, וְהַשָּׂרִים; וַיַּעַשׂ הַמֶּלֶךְ, כִּדְבַר מְמוּכָן.
|
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|-
| וַיִּשְׁלַח סְפָרִים, אֶל-כָּל-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ--אֶל-מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה כִּכְתָבָהּ, וְאֶל-עַם וָעָם כִּלְשׁוֹנוֹ: לִהְיוֹת כָּל-אִישׁ שֹׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ, וּמְדַבֵּר כִּלְשׁוֹן עַמּוֹ
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|}

== John 1 ==
See the [[Book of John]] for a synopsis of its history.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Verse<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
! Translation
! Discussion and notes
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
| It is curious, though not necessarily meaningful, how the Greek inverts the order of God and the "Word" at the end of this all-important sentence.
|}

== References ==

<references/>

== See also ==

* [[Bible translations]]
* [http://www.biblestudytools.net/ParallelBible/ Compare two translations]
* [http://bible.cc/ Compare many translations]
* [[Disputed Bible Translations]]
* [http://bible-translation.110mb.com/critique.htm#passages English Bible versions critiqued]
[[Category:Bible]]
[[Category:Bible Versions|*]]

Bible Retranslation Project

2009-02-06T15:01:06Z

DeniseM: It's not plausible that a word changes based on number of uses. The word "and" has been one of the most common words in the language since Old English.

The '''Bible Retranslation Project''' recognizes two fundamental aspects of a modern language that causes it to be a constant state of flux or change:

*familiar terms change their meanings, so text using them becomes misinterpretable
*new, more precise terms appear at a rate of about 1000 per year.<ref>http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/22/word/?rsssource=1</ref>

Terms that were clear and meaningful to one generation are often unclear and less meaningful to the next; meanwhile, entirely new terms are constantly emerging, some of which may facilitate more precise translation from the Biblical Greek and Hebrew (and Aramaic in the case of parts of the books of Ezra/Nehemya and Daniel).

But there is an economic obstacle to developing a translation of the Bible that remains current with changes in language. Book sales have been declining sharply due to the internet, and it is probably not easy to recoup the substantial costs ($10 million for the [[Holman Christian Standard Bible]]) that are required to develop a new translation. With the need to recoup and enormous investment, publishers of a new Bible are probably overly cautious in changing familiar terminology despite erosion in their meaning, in fear of criticism and a poor reception. A lower-cost and more dynamic approach is needed to combat the effects of persistent degradations in language.

As a first step to the Bible Retranslation Project, it is useful to identify modern terms having changing, unclear or altered meaning, which appear in important passages in translations of the Bible into the corresponding modern language. This will help avoid cliché and the repetition of culturally-familiar but suboptimal passages while producing a superior rendition from the original Hebrew and Greek into idiomatic modern English.

== Emergent New Terms ==

Powerful new terms develop that were unknown or underutilized at the time of prior translations of the Bible into English. The English language, relatively weak at its beginning, continues to develop by adding insightful new terminology. These more precise and meaningful concepts should be utilized by English translations of the [[Bible]]. The [[King James Version]] was written in the early 1600s, and powerful terminology has been added to the English language since then, some in the past decade.

Examples include:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!New Term
!First Developed
!Potential Uses in a Bible Retranslation
|-
|[[bias]]
|
|
|-
|[[censor]]
|1882
|
|-
|[[conservative]]
|1831
|
|-
|[[gamble]]
|1775
|After [[Jesus]] released His spirit at the [[Crucifixion]], English translations should now state that the Roman soldiers "gambled" to win his clothing, rather than the less clear statement that they "cast lots." See Matt 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:24.<ref>http://biblestudy.crosswalk.com/search/?type=bible&keyword=entropy&translation=niv</ref>
|-
|[[homeschool]]
|1980s
|relevant to Jesus teaching the younger Apostles
|-
|[[media]]
|1841<ref>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/media</ref>
|relevant to prohibition against false idols
|-
|[[moral majority]]
|1979
|
|-
|self-centered
|1764
|
|-
|[[socialism]]
|1827<ref>Harry Ritter, ''Dictionary of Concepts in History,'' 419.</ref>
|
|-
|[[status worship]]
|
|
|-
|welfare (by govt)
|1904
|
|-
|work ethic
|1951
|Relevant to the parable of the talents
|-
|unprincipled
|1644
|
|}

== Examples ==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Original Term
!English Translation
!Usage
!Lack of Clarity
!Real meaning
!Suggested Improvement
|-
|Greek λόγος transliteration:"logos"
|"word"
|"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1 ([[NIV]])
|"Word" now means a short utterance of a single concept, which can include a vulgarity or a falsehood
|underlying logic or profound statement of the truth
|replace "Word" with "Truth"<ref>The same Greek term of "logos" is used in other contexts disjointed, or even against, God, and translating the term as "the truth" in those very different contexts would not work. For example, ''And whoever speaks "logos" against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him'' (Matt 12:32) and ''But he did not answer her "logos".''(Matt 15:23) Current translations already draw a distinction between these very different contexts by capitalizing "Word" in John 1:1, but not in the contrasting uses.</ref>
|-
|הָֽאָדָם (note the definite article!)
|"Adam"
|Gen 2 &c.
|It's often transliterated into ''Adam'' rather than just kept as ''the man/person/human being''. The connotation needs to be that of humanity rather than maleness; anthropos rather than aner; homo rather than vir. I feel this loses the sense of הָֽאָדָם as an Everyman, a universal figure prototypical of humanity. One might note also that חַוָּה "Eve", whilst it is undoubtedly a name, needs the connotaion of life (חָֽי) to adequately convey meaning to a reader.
|
|The man/person/human being
|-
|χάρις
|"grace"
|"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another." John 1:16 ([[NIV]])
|"grace" has become a female name and a sports term to refer primarily to smoothness in style
|spiritual and majestic gift-giving
|replace some instances of "grace" with "boundless generosity"
|-
|Tahhash
|"badger"
|Describing the skins used in the construction of the Tabernacle
|It's now thought that this is certainly not a badger (or not a ''Melis'' one)
|Possibly "Hirax", though I'm not up on the most recent theories on this. One for an expert, I think.
|
|-
|מִּשְׂרָה
|"government"
|"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. ... Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end." Isaiah 9:6-7 ([[NIV]])
|"government" now means officials paid by mandatory taxes and accountable to a democratic vote
|spiritual kingdom
|replace "government" with "kingdom" - I dislike this - I don't think that monarchy metaphors are really as strong or as relevant as they used to be in the days of the ubiquity absolute rulers. Also "kingdom" is an area of land, I think we want something like "rulership"? Though that sounds a bit ugly.
|-
|Greek εἰρήνη transliteration: "eirene"
|"peace"
|"... [[Jesus]] came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you!'" John 20:19 (NIV)<ref>http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=20&v=19&t=NIV#conc/19</ref>
|"peace" now means an absence of war
|an inner peace and lack of personal fear or anxiety
|replace "peace" with "tranquility" - but this then gives possible issues for verses like I Kings 20:18, which now reads ''And he said, Whether they be come out for tranquility, take them alive; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive.'' Perhaps we could keep "peace" for ''shalom'', and "tranquility" for ''eirene''? Except Jesus, saying "Peace be with you", is presumably using shalom alechem, or Aramaic cognate, which leads to some interesting issues of consistency.
|-
|Greek πλούσιος transliteration: "plousios": "abundantly supplied"<ref>http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=4145</ref><ref>James never used the term plousios to describe a believer.[http://www.ne14grace.org/images/James/Part%204,%20Chapter%201,%20Verses%209-12.htm]</ref>
|"rich"
|"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:24)
|nearly everyone is "abundantly supplied" today with food and entertainment, and "rich" has come to mean ''relative'' wealth without any absolute significance; continued use of "rich" is misleading in justifying laziness and socialism
|miserliness to the point of laziness and being unproductive
|"fully fed and entertained" or "idle miser," or something similar. <ref>Often this term was used by Jesus (assuming he spoke Greek) to criticize unproductive, self-absorbed people who inherit wealth, as in the encounter with the rich young man who walked away, and also the [[Prodigal Son]]. - but N.B. ''When the evening came, there came an '''idle miser''' of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple''. It could work, though.</ref>
|-
|
|"behemoth"
|Job 40:15-24
|
|beasts (sing. behemah)
|
|-
|
|"kill"
|"Thou shalt not kill" Exodus 20.13 ([[KJV]])
|In Biblical times, as today, the bearing of arms to defend ones family and society was the hallmark of Judeo-Christian civilization. The commandment referred to unjustifiable homicides - murder and manslaughter - rather than advocating blanket pacifism, as many Leftists today interpret it.
|to murder or take up arms without sufficient justification
|replace "kill" with "commit murder" depending on the original text and the context - it'd not be sensible to use murder in the context of an animal doing it, for instance!
|-
|עֲנָו (`anav )
|"meek"
|"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" Matthew 5:5 ([[KJV]]) / Ps 37
|"meek" now means excessively mild, passive, pathetically submissive.
|showing humility before God
|replace "meek" with "God-fearing"
|-
|
|"Mahlon" and "Chilion" (e.g.)
| Ruth 1:2 ''Mahlon'' and ''Chilion''
|The Hebrew forms mean nothing to a modern reader
|"Weak" and "Sick"
|I think we could afford to be bold and translate these names. Footnotes are a cowardly choice. If we had ''the name of his two sons were Feeble and Poorly'', it'd make much more of an impression.
|-
|
|"liberal"
|"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself" Proverbs 11:25 ([[KJV]])
|"liberal" now means adhering to leftist or socialistic political or social doctrines
|showing generosity
|replace "liberal" with "generous", in line with most modern English versions
|-
|Greek ᾅδου transliteration: ''haidou'', "Hades"
|"depths"
|"No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day." Matthew 11:23 ([[NIV]])
|"depths" is now understood to mean the ocean. "Hades" was used by Matthew to help Greeks comprehend Christianity's Hell. The LXX use "haidon" in Psalm 115 to translate the hebrew "dumah", so it's applicable to other concepts as well.
|Hell/depths of Hell
|replace "depths" with "Hell" - "shall be brought down to hell." (KJV) How then do we distinguish between haides and geenna (sticking to the Gk. for the moment)? Perhaps keep haides for the general realm of the dead, and geenna for a place of punishment? That seems to me to be the difference in nuance.
|-
|Greek παραδίδωμι transliteration: paradidōmi
|"gave up"
|"... he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:30 (NIV)<ref>http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=19&v=30&t=NIV#conc/30</ref>
|"gave up" has a newer meaning, attested in the OED since the eighteenth century<ref>http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50094974/50094974se136 sense 64c</ref>: it now means to quit and stop trying, or surrender. It has acquired a negative connotation.
|"relinquish" is a term that avoids ambiguiity and possible negative connotation.
|replace "gave up" with "released" or "relinquished"
|}

== The project begins: Esther א==
See the [[Book of Esther]] for a synopsis of its history.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Verse
! Translation
! Discussion and notes
|-
|וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹש הוּא אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד-כּוּשׁ--שֶׁבַע וְעֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה מְדִינָה
| And it was, in the days of Ahhashverosh - this being the Ahhashverosh reigning all the way from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces
|How do people want to transliterate ''אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ''? We could do with someone up on Persian history, really. Anyone? I've used "provinces" for מְדִינָה, though I'm very open to suggestions! Also is "all the way from... to" too colloquial, and is it justified by the text? Does הֹדּוּ really signify India, historically?
|-
|בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם--כְּשֶׁבֶת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ עַל כִּסֵּא מַלְכוּתוֹ אֲשֶׁר בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה
| In those days, when the king Ahhashverosh sat on his throne, which was in the capital, Shushan
| is "his throne" OK for kise malkhuto? I've gone with "capital" for בִּירָה which I think reads neatly.
|-
|בִּשְׁנַת שָׁלוֹשׁ לְמָלְכוֹ עָשָׂה מִשְׁתֶּה לְכָל-שָׂרָיו וַעֲבָדָיו חֵיל פָּרַס וּמָדַי הַפַּרְתְּמִים וְשָׂרֵי הַמְּדִינוֹת--לְפָנָיו
|In the third year of his reign, he made a drinking-party in his presence for all his ministers and his subjects, the warriors of Persia and Media, the aristocrats, and the ministers of the provinces.
|(''Media'' here refers to the region of that name, not to the plural form of ''medium'')
|-
|בְּהַרְאֹתוֹ, אֶת-עֹשֶׁר כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ וְאֶת-יְקָר תִּפְאֶרֶת גְּדוּלָּתוֹ יָמִים רַבִּים שְׁמוֹנִים וּמְאַת יוֹם
|
|
|-
|וּבִמְלוֹאת הַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה עָשָׂה הַמֶּלֶךְ לְכָל-הָעָם הַנִּמְצְאִים בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה לְמִגָּדוֹל וְעַד-קָטָן מִשְׁתֶּה--שִׁבְעַת יָמִים בַּחֲצַר גִּנַּת בִּיתַן הַמֶּלֶךְ
|
|
|-
| וּר כַּרְפַּס וּתְכֵלֶת אָחוּז בְּחַבְלֵי-בוּץ וְאַרְגָּמָן, עַל-גְּלִילֵי כֶסֶף, וְעַמּוּדֵי שֵׁשׁ; מִטּוֹת זָהָב וָכֶסֶף, עַל רִצְפַת בַּהַט-וָשֵׁשׁ--וְדַר וְסֹחָרֶת
|
|
|-
| וְהַשְׁקוֹת בִּכְלֵי זָהָב, וְכֵלִים מִכֵּלִים שׁוֹנִים; וְיֵין מַלְכוּת רָב כְּיַד הַמֶּלֶךְ
|
|
|-
| וְהַשְּׁתִיָּה כַדָּת, אֵין אֹנֵס: כִּי-כֵן יִסַּד הַמֶּלֶךְ, עַל כָּל-רַב בֵּיתוֹ--לַעֲשׂוֹת כִּרְצוֹן אִישׁ-וָאִישׁ
|
|
|-
|גַּם וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה, עָשְׂתָה מִשְׁתֵּה נָשִׁים--בֵּית, הַמַּלְכוּת, אֲשֶׁר, לַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
|
|-
|בַּיּוֹם, הַשְּׁבִיעִי, כְּטוֹב לֵב-הַמֶּלֶךְ, בַּיָּיִן--אָמַר לִמְהוּמָן בִּזְּתָא חַרְבוֹנָא בִּגְתָא וַאֲבַגְתָא, זֵתַר וְכַרְכַּס, שִׁבְעַת הַסָּרִיסִים, הַמְשָׁרְתִים אֶת-פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
|
|-
| לְהָבִיא אֶת-וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ--בְּכֶתֶר מַלְכוּת: לְהַרְאוֹת הָעַמִּים וְהַשָּׂרִים אֶת-יָפְיָהּ, כִּי-טוֹבַת מַרְאֶה הִיא.
|
|
|-
| וַתְּמָאֵן הַמַּלְכָּה וַשְׁתִּי, לָבוֹא בִּדְבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר, בְּיַד הַסָּרִיסִים; וַיִּקְצֹף הַמֶּלֶךְ מְאֹד, וַחֲמָתוֹ בָּעֲרָה בוֹ.
|
|
|-
|וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ, לַחֲכָמִים יֹדְעֵי הָעִתִּים: כִּי-כֵן, דְּבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ, לִפְנֵי, כָּל-יֹדְעֵי דָּת וָדִין.
|
|
|-
| וְהַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו, כַּרְשְׁנָא שֵׁתָר אַדְמָתָא תַרְשִׁישׁ, מֶרֶס מַרְסְנָא, מְמוּכָן--שִׁבְעַת שָׂרֵי פָּרַס וּמָדַי, רֹאֵי פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, הַיֹּשְׁבִים רִאשֹׁנָה, בַּמַּלְכוּת.
|
|
|-
| כְּדָת, מַה-לַּעֲשׂוֹת, בַּמַּלְכָּה, וַשְׁתִּי--עַל אֲשֶׁר לֹא-עָשְׂתָה, אֶת-מַאֲמַר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, בְּיַד, הַסָּרִיסִים.
|
|
|-
|וַיֹּאמֶר מומכן (מְמוּכָן), לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְהַשָּׂרִים, לֹא עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ לְבַדּוֹ, עָוְתָה וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה: כִּי עַל-כָּל-הַשָּׂרִים, וְעַל-כָּל-הָעַמִּים, אֲשֶׁר, בְּכָל-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
|
|-
| כִּי-יֵצֵא דְבַר-הַמַּלְכָּה עַל-כָּל-הַנָּשִׁים, לְהַבְזוֹת בַּעְלֵיהֶן בְּעֵינֵיהֶן: בְּאָמְרָם, הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ אָמַר לְהָבִיא אֶת-וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה לְפָנָיו--וְלֹא-בָאָה.
|
|
|-
|וְהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה תֹּאמַרְנָה שָׂרוֹת פָּרַס-וּמָדַי, אֲשֶׁר שָׁמְעוּ אֶת-דְּבַר הַמַּלְכָּה, לְכֹל, שָׂרֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ; וּכְדַי, בִּזָּיוֹן וָקָצֶף.
|
|
|-
| אִם-עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ טוֹב, יֵצֵא דְבַר-מַלְכוּת מִלְּפָנָיו, וְיִכָּתֵב בְּדָתֵי פָרַס-וּמָדַי, וְלֹא יַעֲבוֹר: אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תָבוֹא וַשְׁתִּי, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, וּמַלְכוּתָהּ יִתֵּן הַמֶּלֶךְ, לִרְעוּתָהּ הַטּוֹבָה מִמֶּנָּה.
|
|
|-
| וְנִשְׁמַע פִּתְגָם הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר-יַעֲשֶׂה בְּכָל-מַלְכוּתוֹ, כִּי רַבָּה הִיא; וְכָל-הַנָּשִׁים, יִתְּנוּ יְקָר לְבַעְלֵיהֶן--לְמִגָּדוֹל, וְעַד-קָטָן.
|
|
|-
| וַיִּיטַב, הַדָּבָר, בְּעֵינֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, וְהַשָּׂרִים; וַיַּעַשׂ הַמֶּלֶךְ, כִּדְבַר מְמוּכָן.
|
|
|-
| וַיִּשְׁלַח סְפָרִים, אֶל-כָּל-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ--אֶל-מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה כִּכְתָבָהּ, וְאֶל-עַם וָעָם כִּלְשׁוֹנוֹ: לִהְיוֹת כָּל-אִישׁ שֹׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ, וּמְדַבֵּר כִּלְשׁוֹן עַמּוֹ
|
|
|}

== John 1 ==
See the [[Book of John]] for a synopsis of its history.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Verse<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
! Translation
! Discussion and notes
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
| It is curious, though not necessarily meaningful, how the Greek inverts the order of God and the "Word" at the end of this all-important sentence.
|}

== References ==

<references/>

== See also ==

* [[Bible translations]]
* [http://www.biblestudytools.net/ParallelBible/ Compare two translations]
* [http://bible.cc/ Compare many translations]
* [[Disputed Bible Translations]]
* [http://bible-translation.110mb.com/critique.htm#passages English Bible versions critiqued]
[[Category:Bible]]
[[Category:Bible Versions|*]]

Bible Retranslation Project

2009-02-06T14:57:59Z

DeniseM: clean up a bit

The '''Bible Retranslation Project''' recognizes two fundamental aspects of a modern language that causes it to be a constant state of flux or change:

*familiar terms change their meanings, so text using them becomes misinterpretable
*new, more precise terms appear at a rate of about 1000 per year.<ref>http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/22/word/?rsssource=1</ref>

Terms that were clear and meaningful to one generation are often unclear and less meaningful to the next; meanwhile, entirely new terms are constantly emerging, some of which may facilitate more precise translation from the Biblical Greek and Hebrew (and Aramaic in the case of parts of the books of Ezra/Nehemya and Daniel).

Both effects above -- due to culture and the emergence of new terms -- may be increasing as communications increase. If a word inevitably alters its meaning after an approximate number of uses, then the time period for the change in meaning will shorten due to improved technology, just as the length of a [[sound bite]] likewise shortens. Likewise, the rate of emergence of new terms may be directly correlated to the frequency of communication. In the [[internet]] era, combating the effect of language degradation and creation on the understanding of the [[Bible]] becomes more important.

But there is an economic obstacle to developing a translation of the Bible that remains current with changes in language. Book sales have been declining sharply due to the internet, and it is probably not easy to recoup the substantial costs ($10 million for the [[Holman Christian Standard Bible]]) that are required to develop a new translation. With the need to recoup and enormous investment, publishers of a new Bible are probably overly cautious in changing familiar terminology despite erosion in their meaning, in fear of criticism and a poor reception. A lower-cost and more dynamic approach is needed to combat the effects of persistent degradations in language.

As a first step to the Bible Retranslation Project, it is useful to identify modern terms having changing, unclear or altered meaning, which appear in important passages in translations of the Bible into the corresponding modern language. This will help avoid cliché and the repetition of culturally-familiar but suboptimal passages while producing a superior rendition from the original Hebrew and Greek into idiomatic modern English.

== Emergent New Terms ==

Powerful new terms develop that were unknown or underutilized at the time of prior translations of the Bible into English. The English language, relatively weak at its beginning, continues to develop by adding insightful new terminology. These more precise and meaningful concepts should be utilized by English translations of the [[Bible]]. The [[King James Version]] was written in the early 1600s, and powerful terminology has been added to the English language since then, some in the past decade.

Examples include:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!New Term
!First Developed
!Potential Uses in a Bible Retranslation
|-
|[[bias]]
|
|
|-
|[[censor]]
|1882
|
|-
|[[conservative]]
|1831
|
|-
|[[gamble]]
|1775
|After [[Jesus]] released His spirit at the [[Crucifixion]], English translations should now state that the Roman soldiers "gambled" to win his clothing, rather than the less clear statement that they "cast lots." See Matt 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:24.<ref>http://biblestudy.crosswalk.com/search/?type=bible&keyword=entropy&translation=niv</ref>
|-
|[[homeschool]]
|1980s
|relevant to Jesus teaching the younger Apostles
|-
|[[media]]
|1841<ref>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/media</ref>
|relevant to prohibition against false idols
|-
|[[moral majority]]
|1979
|
|-
|self-centered
|1764
|
|-
|[[socialism]]
|1827<ref>Harry Ritter, ''Dictionary of Concepts in History,'' 419.</ref>
|
|-
|[[status worship]]
|
|
|-
|welfare (by govt)
|1904
|
|-
|work ethic
|1951
|Relevant to the parable of the talents
|-
|unprincipled
|1644
|
|}

== Examples ==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Original Term
!English Translation
!Usage
!Lack of Clarity
!Real meaning
!Suggested Improvement
|-
|Greek λόγος transliteration:"logos"
|"word"
|"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1 ([[NIV]])
|"Word" now means a short utterance of a single concept, which can include a vulgarity or a falsehood
|underlying logic or profound statement of the truth
|replace "Word" with "Truth"<ref>The same Greek term of "logos" is used in other contexts disjointed, or even against, God, and translating the term as "the truth" in those very different contexts would not work. For example, ''And whoever speaks "logos" against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him'' (Matt 12:32) and ''But he did not answer her "logos".''(Matt 15:23) Current translations already draw a distinction between these very different contexts by capitalizing "Word" in John 1:1, but not in the contrasting uses.</ref>
|-
|הָֽאָדָם (note the definite article!)
|"Adam"
|Gen 2 &c.
|It's often transliterated into ''Adam'' rather than just kept as ''the man/person/human being''. The connotation needs to be that of humanity rather than maleness; anthropos rather than aner; homo rather than vir. I feel this loses the sense of הָֽאָדָם as an Everyman, a universal figure prototypical of humanity. One might note also that חַוָּה "Eve", whilst it is undoubtedly a name, needs the connotaion of life (חָֽי) to adequately convey meaning to a reader.
|
|The man/person/human being
|-
|χάρις
|"grace"
|"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another." John 1:16 ([[NIV]])
|"grace" has become a female name and a sports term to refer primarily to smoothness in style
|spiritual and majestic gift-giving
|replace some instances of "grace" with "boundless generosity"
|-
|Tahhash
|"badger"
|Describing the skins used in the construction of the Tabernacle
|It's now thought that this is certainly not a badger (or not a ''Melis'' one)
|Possibly "Hirax", though I'm not up on the most recent theories on this. One for an expert, I think.
|
|-
|מִּשְׂרָה
|"government"
|"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. ... Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end." Isaiah 9:6-7 ([[NIV]])
|"government" now means officials paid by mandatory taxes and accountable to a democratic vote
|spiritual kingdom
|replace "government" with "kingdom" - I dislike this - I don't think that monarchy metaphors are really as strong or as relevant as they used to be in the days of the ubiquity absolute rulers. Also "kingdom" is an area of land, I think we want something like "rulership"? Though that sounds a bit ugly.
|-
|Greek εἰρήνη transliteration: "eirene"
|"peace"
|"... [[Jesus]] came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you!'" John 20:19 (NIV)<ref>http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=20&v=19&t=NIV#conc/19</ref>
|"peace" now means an absence of war
|an inner peace and lack of personal fear or anxiety
|replace "peace" with "tranquility" - but this then gives possible issues for verses like I Kings 20:18, which now reads ''And he said, Whether they be come out for tranquility, take them alive; or whether they be come out for war, take them alive.'' Perhaps we could keep "peace" for ''shalom'', and "tranquility" for ''eirene''? Except Jesus, saying "Peace be with you", is presumably using shalom alechem, or Aramaic cognate, which leads to some interesting issues of consistency.
|-
|Greek πλούσιος transliteration: "plousios": "abundantly supplied"<ref>http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=4145</ref><ref>James never used the term plousios to describe a believer.[http://www.ne14grace.org/images/James/Part%204,%20Chapter%201,%20Verses%209-12.htm]</ref>
|"rich"
|"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:24)
|nearly everyone is "abundantly supplied" today with food and entertainment, and "rich" has come to mean ''relative'' wealth without any absolute significance; continued use of "rich" is misleading in justifying laziness and socialism
|miserliness to the point of laziness and being unproductive
|"fully fed and entertained" or "idle miser," or something similar. <ref>Often this term was used by Jesus (assuming he spoke Greek) to criticize unproductive, self-absorbed people who inherit wealth, as in the encounter with the rich young man who walked away, and also the [[Prodigal Son]]. - but N.B. ''When the evening came, there came an '''idle miser''' of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple''. It could work, though.</ref>
|-
|
|"behemoth"
|Job 40:15-24
|
|beasts (sing. behemah)
|
|-
|
|"kill"
|"Thou shalt not kill" Exodus 20.13 ([[KJV]])
|In Biblical times, as today, the bearing of arms to defend ones family and society was the hallmark of Judeo-Christian civilization. The commandment referred to unjustifiable homicides - murder and manslaughter - rather than advocating blanket pacifism, as many Leftists today interpret it.
|to murder or take up arms without sufficient justification
|replace "kill" with "commit murder" depending on the original text and the context - it'd not be sensible to use murder in the context of an animal doing it, for instance!
|-
|עֲנָו (`anav )
|"meek"
|"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" Matthew 5:5 ([[KJV]]) / Ps 37
|"meek" now means excessively mild, passive, pathetically submissive.
|showing humility before God
|replace "meek" with "God-fearing"
|-
|
|"Mahlon" and "Chilion" (e.g.)
| Ruth 1:2 ''Mahlon'' and ''Chilion''
|The Hebrew forms mean nothing to a modern reader
|"Weak" and "Sick"
|I think we could afford to be bold and translate these names. Footnotes are a cowardly choice. If we had ''the name of his two sons were Feeble and Poorly'', it'd make much more of an impression.
|-
|
|"liberal"
|"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself" Proverbs 11:25 ([[KJV]])
|"liberal" now means adhering to leftist or socialistic political or social doctrines
|showing generosity
|replace "liberal" with "generous", in line with most modern English versions
|-
|Greek ᾅδου transliteration: ''haidou'', "Hades"
|"depths"
|"No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day." Matthew 11:23 ([[NIV]])
|"depths" is now understood to mean the ocean. "Hades" was used by Matthew to help Greeks comprehend Christianity's Hell. The LXX use "haidon" in Psalm 115 to translate the hebrew "dumah", so it's applicable to other concepts as well.
|Hell/depths of Hell
|replace "depths" with "Hell" - "shall be brought down to hell." (KJV) How then do we distinguish between haides and geenna (sticking to the Gk. for the moment)? Perhaps keep haides for the general realm of the dead, and geenna for a place of punishment? That seems to me to be the difference in nuance.
|-
|Greek παραδίδωμι transliteration: paradidōmi
|"gave up"
|"... he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." John 19:30 (NIV)<ref>http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=19&v=30&t=NIV#conc/30</ref>
|"gave up" has a newer meaning, attested in the OED since the eighteenth century<ref>http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50094974/50094974se136 sense 64c</ref>: it now means to quit and stop trying, or surrender. It has acquired a negative connotation.
|"relinquish" is a term that avoids ambiguiity and possible negative connotation.
|replace "gave up" with "released" or "relinquished"
|}

== The project begins: Esther א==
See the [[Book of Esther]] for a synopsis of its history.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Verse
! Translation
! Discussion and notes
|-
|וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹש הוּא אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד-כּוּשׁ--שֶׁבַע וְעֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה מְדִינָה
| And it was, in the days of Ahhashverosh - this being the Ahhashverosh reigning all the way from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces
|How do people want to transliterate ''אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ''? We could do with someone up on Persian history, really. Anyone? I've used "provinces" for מְדִינָה, though I'm very open to suggestions! Also is "all the way from... to" too colloquial, and is it justified by the text? Does הֹדּוּ really signify India, historically?
|-
|בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם--כְּשֶׁבֶת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ עַל כִּסֵּא מַלְכוּתוֹ אֲשֶׁר בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה
| In those days, when the king Ahhashverosh sat on his throne, which was in the capital, Shushan
| is "his throne" OK for kise malkhuto? I've gone with "capital" for בִּירָה which I think reads neatly.
|-
|בִּשְׁנַת שָׁלוֹשׁ לְמָלְכוֹ עָשָׂה מִשְׁתֶּה לְכָל-שָׂרָיו וַעֲבָדָיו חֵיל פָּרַס וּמָדַי הַפַּרְתְּמִים וְשָׂרֵי הַמְּדִינוֹת--לְפָנָיו
|In the third year of his reign, he made a drinking-party in his presence for all his ministers and his subjects, the warriors of Persia and Media, the aristocrats, and the ministers of the provinces.
|(''Media'' here refers to the region of that name, not to the plural form of ''medium'')
|-
|בְּהַרְאֹתוֹ, אֶת-עֹשֶׁר כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ וְאֶת-יְקָר תִּפְאֶרֶת גְּדוּלָּתוֹ יָמִים רַבִּים שְׁמוֹנִים וּמְאַת יוֹם
|
|
|-
|וּבִמְלוֹאת הַיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה עָשָׂה הַמֶּלֶךְ לְכָל-הָעָם הַנִּמְצְאִים בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה לְמִגָּדוֹל וְעַד-קָטָן מִשְׁתֶּה--שִׁבְעַת יָמִים בַּחֲצַר גִּנַּת בִּיתַן הַמֶּלֶךְ
|
|
|-
| וּר כַּרְפַּס וּתְכֵלֶת אָחוּז בְּחַבְלֵי-בוּץ וְאַרְגָּמָן, עַל-גְּלִילֵי כֶסֶף, וְעַמּוּדֵי שֵׁשׁ; מִטּוֹת זָהָב וָכֶסֶף, עַל רִצְפַת בַּהַט-וָשֵׁשׁ--וְדַר וְסֹחָרֶת
|
|
|-
| וְהַשְׁקוֹת בִּכְלֵי זָהָב, וְכֵלִים מִכֵּלִים שׁוֹנִים; וְיֵין מַלְכוּת רָב כְּיַד הַמֶּלֶךְ
|
|
|-
| וְהַשְּׁתִיָּה כַדָּת, אֵין אֹנֵס: כִּי-כֵן יִסַּד הַמֶּלֶךְ, עַל כָּל-רַב בֵּיתוֹ--לַעֲשׂוֹת כִּרְצוֹן אִישׁ-וָאִישׁ
|
|
|-
|גַּם וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה, עָשְׂתָה מִשְׁתֵּה נָשִׁים--בֵּית, הַמַּלְכוּת, אֲשֶׁר, לַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
|
|-
|בַּיּוֹם, הַשְּׁבִיעִי, כְּטוֹב לֵב-הַמֶּלֶךְ, בַּיָּיִן--אָמַר לִמְהוּמָן בִּזְּתָא חַרְבוֹנָא בִּגְתָא וַאֲבַגְתָא, זֵתַר וְכַרְכַּס, שִׁבְעַת הַסָּרִיסִים, הַמְשָׁרְתִים אֶת-פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
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|-
| לְהָבִיא אֶת-וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ--בְּכֶתֶר מַלְכוּת: לְהַרְאוֹת הָעַמִּים וְהַשָּׂרִים אֶת-יָפְיָהּ, כִּי-טוֹבַת מַרְאֶה הִיא.
|
|
|-
| וַתְּמָאֵן הַמַּלְכָּה וַשְׁתִּי, לָבוֹא בִּדְבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ, אֲשֶׁר, בְּיַד הַסָּרִיסִים; וַיִּקְצֹף הַמֶּלֶךְ מְאֹד, וַחֲמָתוֹ בָּעֲרָה בוֹ.
|
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|-
|וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ, לַחֲכָמִים יֹדְעֵי הָעִתִּים: כִּי-כֵן, דְּבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ, לִפְנֵי, כָּל-יֹדְעֵי דָּת וָדִין.
|
|
|-
| וְהַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו, כַּרְשְׁנָא שֵׁתָר אַדְמָתָא תַרְשִׁישׁ, מֶרֶס מַרְסְנָא, מְמוּכָן--שִׁבְעַת שָׂרֵי פָּרַס וּמָדַי, רֹאֵי פְּנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, הַיֹּשְׁבִים רִאשֹׁנָה, בַּמַּלְכוּת.
|
|
|-
| כְּדָת, מַה-לַּעֲשׂוֹת, בַּמַּלְכָּה, וַשְׁתִּי--עַל אֲשֶׁר לֹא-עָשְׂתָה, אֶת-מַאֲמַר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, בְּיַד, הַסָּרִיסִים.
|
|
|-
|וַיֹּאמֶר מומכן (מְמוּכָן), לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְהַשָּׂרִים, לֹא עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ לְבַדּוֹ, עָוְתָה וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה: כִּי עַל-כָּל-הַשָּׂרִים, וְעַל-כָּל-הָעַמִּים, אֲשֶׁר, בְּכָל-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ.
|
|
|-
| כִּי-יֵצֵא דְבַר-הַמַּלְכָּה עַל-כָּל-הַנָּשִׁים, לְהַבְזוֹת בַּעְלֵיהֶן בְּעֵינֵיהֶן: בְּאָמְרָם, הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ אָמַר לְהָבִיא אֶת-וַשְׁתִּי הַמַּלְכָּה לְפָנָיו--וְלֹא-בָאָה.
|
|
|-
|וְהַיּוֹם הַזֶּה תֹּאמַרְנָה שָׂרוֹת פָּרַס-וּמָדַי, אֲשֶׁר שָׁמְעוּ אֶת-דְּבַר הַמַּלְכָּה, לְכֹל, שָׂרֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ; וּכְדַי, בִּזָּיוֹן וָקָצֶף.
|
|
|-
| אִם-עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ טוֹב, יֵצֵא דְבַר-מַלְכוּת מִלְּפָנָיו, וְיִכָּתֵב בְּדָתֵי פָרַס-וּמָדַי, וְלֹא יַעֲבוֹר: אֲשֶׁר לֹא-תָבוֹא וַשְׁתִּי, לִפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, וּמַלְכוּתָהּ יִתֵּן הַמֶּלֶךְ, לִרְעוּתָהּ הַטּוֹבָה מִמֶּנָּה.
|
|
|-
| וְנִשְׁמַע פִּתְגָם הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר-יַעֲשֶׂה בְּכָל-מַלְכוּתוֹ, כִּי רַבָּה הִיא; וְכָל-הַנָּשִׁים, יִתְּנוּ יְקָר לְבַעְלֵיהֶן--לְמִגָּדוֹל, וְעַד-קָטָן.
|
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|-
| וַיִּיטַב, הַדָּבָר, בְּעֵינֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ, וְהַשָּׂרִים; וַיַּעַשׂ הַמֶּלֶךְ, כִּדְבַר מְמוּכָן.
|
|
|-
| וַיִּשְׁלַח סְפָרִים, אֶל-כָּל-מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ--אֶל-מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה כִּכְתָבָהּ, וְאֶל-עַם וָעָם כִּלְשׁוֹנוֹ: לִהְיוֹת כָּל-אִישׁ שֹׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ, וּמְדַבֵּר כִּלְשׁוֹן עַמּוֹ
|
|
|}

== John 1 ==
See the [[Book of John]] for a synopsis of its history.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Verse<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
! Translation
! Discussion and notes
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
| It is curious, though not necessarily meaningful, how the Greek inverts the order of God and the "Word" at the end of this all-important sentence.
|}

== References ==

<references/>

== See also ==

* [[Bible translations]]
* [http://www.biblestudytools.net/ParallelBible/ Compare two translations]
* [http://bible.cc/ Compare many translations]
* [[Disputed Bible Translations]]
* [http://bible-translation.110mb.com/critique.htm#passages English Bible versions critiqued]
[[Category:Bible]]
[[Category:Bible Versions|*]]

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T21:01:17Z

DeniseM: /* Language */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances, in philosophy, mathematics, and the humanities in general. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). If the term did not exist, we could:
* adopt it from another language - so when we needed a word for "pasta", we adopted the Italian
** adopt and Anglicize - like ''jubilee'' from ''yovel''
* create a new word from existing English words - like "homeschool"
* use a phrase rather than a word, like "politically correct"
* let an existing word change its meaning - so we happily use "key" in a computer context, for instance
* ''calque'' - literally translate another word or phrase
* create a new word from Latin or Greek roots

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a new form of writing system, in which a character represented a single consonant rather than a syllable, developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center which lent its name to the Greek for "book" because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions, although all the manuscripts in existence date from quite a long time later. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

A piece of evidence to the contrary can perhaps be found in the Rabbinic writings of the period, which are in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many of these texts, for instance the ones discussing communal prayer, describe Aramaic as being the vernacular (the language spoken by most people in their everyday business). Greek was no doubt used from time to time in politics and trade and in dealing with foreigners, but the Jewish population (of which Jesus was a part and with which he conducted much of his dealings) seem to have spoken Aramaic most of the time, and used Hebrew for religious purposes. Jewish wedding contracts are to this day written in Aramaic. Translation-commentaries of the Bible written in Aramaic (''targumim'') were popular.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us. Their doing so reflected a sad dismissiveness to non-standard and dialect works that unfortunately persists in some circles even today.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:54:55Z

DeniseM: /* Language */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances, in philosophy, mathematics, and the humanities in general. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). If the term did not exist, we could:
* adopt it from another language - so when we needed a word for "pasta", we adopted the Italian
** adopt and Anglicize - like ''jubilee'' from ''yovel''
* create a new word from existing English words - like "homeschool"
* use a phrase rather than a word, like "politically correct"
* let an existing word change its meaning - so we happily use "key" in a computer context, for instance
* ''calque'' - literally translate another word or phrase
* create a new word from Latin or Greek roots

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions, although all the manuscripts in existence date from quite a long time later. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

A piece of evidence to the contrary can perhaps be found in the Rabbinic writings of the period, which are in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many of these texts, for instance the ones discussing communal prayer, describe Aramaic as being the vernacular (the language spoken by most people in their everyday business). Greek was no doubt used from time to time in politics and trade and in dealing with foreigners, but the Jewish population (of which Jesus was a part and with which he conducted much of his dealings) seem to have spoken Aramaic most of the time, and used Hebrew for religious purposes. Jewish wedding contracts are to this day written in Aramaic. Translation-commentaries of the Bible written in Aramaic (''targumim'') were popular.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us. Their doing so reflected a sad dismissiveness to non-standard and dialect works that unfortunately persists in some circles even today.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:42:29Z

DeniseM: /* Did Jesus Preach in Greek? */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances, in philosophy, mathematics, and the humanities in general. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions, although all the manuscripts in existence date from quite a long time later. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

A piece of evidence to the contrary can perhaps be found in the Rabbinic writings of the period, which are in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many of these texts, for instance the ones discussing communal prayer, describe Aramaic as being the vernacular (the language spoken by most people in their everyday business). Greek was no doubt used from time to time in politics and trade and in dealing with foreigners, but the Jewish population (of which Jesus was a part and with which he conducted much of his dealings) seem to have spoken Aramaic most of the time, and used Hebrew for religious purposes. Jewish wedding contracts are to this day written in Aramaic. Translation-commentaries of the Bible written in Aramaic (''targumim'') were popular.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us. Their doing so reflected a sad dismissiveness to non-standard and dialect works that unfortunately persists in some circles even today.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:35:25Z

DeniseM: make paragraph more general - the wonders of the Athenian world were amazing.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances, in philosophy, mathematics, and the humanities in general. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions, although all the manuscripts in existence date from quite a long time later. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

A piece of evidence to the contrary can perhaps be found in the Rabbinic writings of the period, which are in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many of these texts, for instance the ones discussing communal prayer, describe Aramaic as being the vernacular (the language spoken by most people in their everyday business). Greek was no doubt used from time to time in politics and trade and in dealing with foreigners, but the Jewish population (of which Jesus was a part and with which he conducted much of his dealings) seem to have spoken Aramaic most of the time, and used Hebrew for religious purposes. Jewish wedding contracts are to this day written in Aramaic. Translation-commentaries of the Bible written in Aramaic (''targumim'') were popular.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:32:19Z

DeniseM: /* Did Jesus Preach in Greek? */ targumim

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions, although all the manuscripts in existence date from quite a long time later. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

A piece of evidence to the contrary can perhaps be found in the Rabbinic writings of the period, which are in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many of these texts, for instance the ones discussing communal prayer, describe Aramaic as being the vernacular (the language spoken by most people in their everyday business). Greek was no doubt used from time to time in politics and trade and in dealing with foreigners, but the Jewish population (of which Jesus was a part and with which he conducted much of his dealings) seem to have spoken Aramaic most of the time, and used Hebrew for religious purposes. Jewish wedding contracts are to this day written in Aramaic. Translation-commentaries of the Bible written in Aramaic (''targumim'') were popular.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:28:22Z

DeniseM: /* Did Jesus Preach in Greek? */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions, although all the manuscripts in existence date from quite a long time later. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

A piece of evidence to the contrary can perhaps be found in the Rabbinic writings of the period, which are in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many of these texts, for instance the ones discussing communal prayer, describe Aramaic as being the vernacular (the language spoken by most people in their everyday business). Greek was no doubt used from time to time in politics and trade and in dealing with foreigners, but the Jewish population (of which Jesus was a part and with which he conducted much of his dealings) seem to have spoken Aramaic most of the time, and used Hebrew for religious purposes. Jewish wedding contracts are to this day written in Aramaic.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:13:26Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ most of these are the same alphabet.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as those used in English (which uses the Roman alphabet) and French (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Italian (which uses the Roman alphabet) and Greek and Latin (which uses the Roman alphabet), were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:11:58Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ the previous version made it sound like someone sat down and deliberately composed them.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were descended from this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:05:37Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ Neither ancient nor modern civilizations are homogeneous!

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations like Athens? What about the Picts? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy in the United States today? What about, say, Mali?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T20:02:03Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ One can express complex abstract using other writing systems! Language is not the same as writing system!

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:59:25Z

DeniseM: /* Language */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new alphabet (to be distinguished from a language) developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:56:16Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ writing system is not language

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that one of the writing systems of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Because these were phonetic (characters representing sounds), any language that can be spoken can be written in this writing system - so one could (if one wanted) write English or Greek or Japanese in cuneiform.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:52:38Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ This is a translation issue, not a vocab issue

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, perhaps inspired by the LXX translations of the Hebrew ruahh, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek (as the Greek does not convey the Hebrew, and vice versa), but the term-of-art ''Holy Spirit'' exactly conveys it, being created specifically for this purpose - demonstrating the productive nature of language.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:47:46Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ Homer lived not much after 1000BC, and is one of the greatest poets and writers of all times!

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:44:58Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ correct paragraph

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not.

Note that the Ancient Hebrew writing system (although not the language) lacked vowels, (although they could be implied by the letters yud and vav, for instance).

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:43:03Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ Languages are a product of the people, not vice versa

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not. Note that even Ancient Hebrew lacked vowels, and most non-Hebrew languages were very primitive.

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T19:40:41Z

DeniseM: /* Language */ It really doesn't work like this. All human languages are productive.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him. People are a product of the language they use, and a society is dependent on the intelligence and quality of its language. The better terminology we use, the better off we will be ourselves; crude or vulgar language is never helpful to our moods or our success.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not. Note that even Ancient Hebrew lacked vowels, and most non-Hebrew languages were very primitive.

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture One

2009-02-05T19:24:53Z

DeniseM: rm assertion- all three of these models of governments are found at various times in history. Japanese divine-emperors, modern Swaziland or ancient Israel monarchies, and of course Athenian democracy.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

"World history" is the true story of thought, ideas, culture, language, wars, governments, and economic systems throughout ''all'' of mankind's history. This includes billions of people over thousands of years. Every source is available to us, from the Bible to ancient and modern historians. Everything mankind has ever written, invented, observed, conquered and destroyed is part of "World history." For example, we will study how Carthage was built into a power, and how it was then forever destroyed by its enemies from Rome.

Our course will place a special emphasis on aspects of World history that continue to be influential today, such as world religions and cultural conflicts; we will link what happened in ancient times to what is happening today. We are the product of our past. You can think about whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing. Perhaps the answer depends on what we make of it. We will make use of the Bible, which is greatest history book ever written.

American history covers only about 400 years; World history concerns over 5000 years, going back to the first evidence of recorded events. Our class covers much of the material in a course on Western Civilization or European history, but we cover more too. We will learn about Islam and Hinduism and all the forces that continue to shape our world to this day. One cannot fully understand 9/11, violence in the Middle East, or hostility between India and Pakistan without learning World history.

We will consider how mankind progressed in understanding the unseen, such as truth and gravity and God. In mathematics, mankind progressed from the discovery of geometry ([[Greeks]]) to the concept of "zero" (Indians) to calculus (English). In economics, mankind progressed from wage and price controls (Romans) to the "invisible hand" of the free market (Scottish), which then unleashed tremendous prosperity. World history spans from pre-Christian to Christian. What are we progressing towards now? We will learn to use history to predict the future.

Do not be misled by thinking that ancient peoples were dumb or boring because they lacked the technology of modern society. The Egyptians, for example, cleverly built the massive pyramids using techniques that no one to this day can figure out or duplicate. In 2600 B.C., they constructed the pyramid of Khufu containing 6 million tons of stone extending to a height of 481 feet. The workmanship was superior to anything we do today: the rock base was virtually flat, not varying in elevation by more than a half-inch; its orientation is precisely aligned with the points of a compass; its stones were perfect fits. Inside was a chapel, a causeway, and a temple. It amazes architects to this day. We would not be able to duplicate it, and no one knows how the Egyptians were able to build these intricate structures 4600 years ago. Many other cultures, from Mesopotamia to Greece to Rome to India to China, invented things and discovered knowledge that no one today is smart enough to duplicate. Can you build a useful wheel, or make paper?

A word about terminology: "B.C" means "Before (the birth of) Christ" and "A.D." means ''Anno Domini'' (Latin for "in the year of our Lord") or simply "After (the birth of) Christ." The "1st century B.C." means the 1st century before Christ, counting backwards, which are the years 100-1 B.C. The "6th century B.C." is thus 600-501 B.C. The 20th century (A.D.) included the years A.D. 1901-2000. Because A.D. means "in the year of our Lord," the truly proper form is to put the date after the A.D., as in A.D. 2006. Dates are based on the birth of Christ, and it is wrong to erase Christ from the annotation, as school textbooks do with "BCE" for "Before the Common Era" and "CE" for "Common Era." To convert from a public school textbook, remember that BCE = B.C. and CE = A.D.

World history divides into four sections: Ancient History (Creation-A.D. 500), the Middle Ages (A.D. 500-1500), the Pre-Modern Era (A.D. 1500-1900), and the Modern Era (A.D. 1900-Current). The Renaissance (A.D. 1300-1600), including the Reformation, overlaps with the Middle Ages and Pre-Modern Era. Note that dates are not precise in this course: the further back in time we go, the less we know about the actual dates of key events. For events before 1000 B.C., historians barely know a date within a few hundred years of its actual occurrence!

Let us begin.

==Introduction to Ancient History==

Ancient history is everything before about A.D. 500 or 600, when every major religion except Islam was established. Ancient history created civilization and achieved many of the greatest intellectual breakthroughs of all time. Literature, drama, mathematics, philosophy, language, etc., were all created and developed during ancient history, which is why this time period is emphasized so much in education.
[[Image:Cuneiform images.jpg|right]]
When did mankind first begin? There is no reliable evidence of man existing before 3500 B.C. The oldest writing was a pictographic tablet called a "cuneiform" (pronounced kyu-NEE-uh-form) dated to perhaps 3400 B.C. from Sumer (SOO-mur) in Southern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today). Cuneiform looks like chicken-scratches featuring wedge-like or arrow-shaped characters. Although cuneiform was a primitive writing style, it continued in use until shortly before the birth of Christ. Originally pictographs (e.g., to write "foot", you would draw a foot), cuneiform expanded to 600 stick-based symbols or figures, with each one developing multiple meanings (e.g., the symbol for "foot" also developed the meanings of "to go" or "to stand," depending on the context).<ref>http://i-cias.com/e.o/cuneiform.htm</ref> For those who "text message" on cell phones, notice how each key has multiple possible letters and how the phone resolves the ambiguity and forms words depending on how the letters fit together to form a word. Cuneiform had only 600 symbols, but their multiple meanings were resolved by seeing how they fit together to form sentences. Notice that cuneiform was not an alphabet or western-style script; the oldest script-based language is from the Indo-Aryan language, and an example dating back to 1550 B.C. was found in the Sinai.

Historians feel that spoken language originated in southeastern Europe near the Black Sea, not far from the Ararat mountain range cited in the Bible in connection with Noah. Using population estimates, we know that about 300 million people existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C. The oldest trees do not predate this time; the oldest sequoias, which never die of old age, but which, of course, do succumb to diseases, forest fires, and animal damage, are no older than 2000 B.C.

No "civilization" has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C. By "civilization" we mean an order and hierarchy in the way of life. Some type of political system or government is usually necessary to have a civilization. A structure similar to a city or town is necessary to bring together people, jobs, buildings or religious centers. Usually there are different classes of people, such as rich and poor. Some historians say there must be an agricultural surplus also: enough food to feed the people so that some workers could spend time in jobs other than farming. In a nutshell, a civilization must have cities, skilled (non-farming) workers, social and government institutions, writing to maintain records such as property ownership, and advanced technology. Memorize the oldest dates for the ancient civilizations:
<table border="1px" style="background-color:#F6F6F6;">
<tr><td>'''Name'''</td><td>'''Time of existence'''</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Mesopotamia]] (Mes-uh-puh-tay-mee-uh)</td><td>3500 – 500 B.C., when conquered by Persia</tr><tr><td>
Egypt</td><td> 3100 – 525 B.C., when conquered by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs)</td></tr><tr><td>
Indus (IN-dus) Valley:</td><td>beginning in 2900 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
China:</td><td>beginning in 2200 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
Mexican Olmec (AWL-mek):</td><td> 1200 – 300 B.C., the earliest known American civilization</td></tr><tr><td>
Peru (South America):</td><td> 900 B.C.</td></tr></table>

History books speculate about "prehistory", which predates writing (i.e., before 3400 B.C.). But there is no reliable evidence to support this speculation, and it is not worth spending time on. There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form. But in case you are asked on a standardized test, historians describe the period of time known as "prehistory" as the "Stone Age." They divide the Stone Age into two time periods: "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". The Paleolithic Age is older, when man relied mostly on hunting and picking nuts and fruit to supplement his diet. The Paleolithic Age was followed by the Neolithic Age, which consisted of the rise of agriculture. The "Neolithic Revolution" means the "Agricultural Revolution," when farming became dominant. The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have a bias for giving them older dates than archaeology actually proves.

After the Stone Age came the Bronze Age, beginning in 3500 B.C., when copper and/or bronze tools were used. That was followed by the Iron Age, which began in Turkey around 2200 B.C. and later spread to other regions. As its name suggests, people during this period used iron for tools.

Ancient civilizations are often called "classical civilizations," particularly when they produced great intellectual advances as Ancient Greece did. For example, "Classical Indian Civilization" refers to Ancient India, which lasted from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500.

Two of the oldest towns are the biblical town of Jericho, located in Palestine (on the "West Bank" of the Jordan River, between Israel and Jordan today), and Catal Huyuk, located in modern-day Turkey. Jericho was famous for its high city walls to protect against attack.
[[Image:Ancient lands.JPG|right]]
The ancient world was the source of the most basic aspects of life that we still use today, such as the seven-day week and marriage. The Bible remains the best written explanation for these and many other aspects of the ancient world. Note that all four civilizations discussed in this lecture arose in or near what we now call the "Middle East."

==Mesopotamia==

So where did civilization begin? In a region known as Mesopotamia, which is Greek for "land between the rivers." The "rivers" are the Tigris and Euphrates, located in Western Asia. Where, exactly? Civilization began in fertile areas of Iraq northeast of the desert, known as part of the "Fertile Crescent." It extends along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (including modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria) and through the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run southeast into the Persian Gulf (see the next page for the map). These rivers deposited silt in the surrounding land, creating rich alluvial soil. Today the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not far from the location of our soldiers in Iraq. But our soldiers are mostly pictured in dry, sandy areas, while the ancient people would have stayed close to the water. Moreover, ancient floods have probably changed the landscape over time.

Genesis 2:8-14 describes the beginning in Mesopotamia as follows: "Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ... A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ... The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."<ref>This course uses a variety of translations for the Bible, this time using the well-established "NIV" version.</ref> Using the ages mentioned in the Bible and counting backwards, biblical scholars have dated this as about 6000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C. This is about 500 years before our earliest record of ancient writings, which is what one might expect; it wouldn't take long for man to start writing messages, but the oldest messages are unlikely to be "extant" (still existing today).

In the fourth millennium before Christ, between about 3500 and 3000 B.C., cities began to sprout up with their own political and economic systems. Both of these developments occurred in southern Mesopotamia. The first such city (that we know of) was called Sumer, and its occupants were the Sumerians.

We owe a great deal to the work of the Sumerians. They developed the first system of writing (the cuneiform), the first codes of law and the first "city-state" (essentially a nation consisting only of a large city). Their inventions were marvelous: the seed plow, the sailboat, and the potter’s wheel. (Distinguish "cuneiform" symbols from "ideograms", which show ideas with symbols such as arrows for war, from "phonograms", in which symbols represent sounds).

Most workers in Mesopotamia were farmers, but some devoted their time to trade. They had a calendar based on the moon to aid the farmers, and they developed a mathematical system using base 12. They were marvelous inventors, creating complex systems of irrigation and discovering the plow, the cart and the wheel, and used bronze (a mixture of copper and tin) to make good farming tools. Both men and women owned private property, had slaves, and were ruled by a king.
[[Image:Mesopotamia2.PNG|right]]
They built cities known as Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Isin, Kish, just to name a few. They were smart, and developed Akkadian as their language. One interesting aspect of Akkadian is that it lacks any tense forms such as past or future tense. The verbs expressed the manner of an action rather than its time.

By 3000 B.C. the people had built major canals to channel water, and roads on which to travel. Shepherds had dogs to help them tend the sheep, just as we use today to help herd sheep together. Each city was surrounded by a moat and a wall of brick, with as many as 900 towers inside the city. Soldiers watched people entering and exiting the city, and chariots and wagons carried people and goods within the city. By 3000 B.C. mankind had already built a mini-version of Manhattan, without the automobile and steel skyscrapers. But Mesopotamia (unlike Egypt and China) was not protected by geography, and would constantly face invasion by foreigners.

Do not think there was anything primitive about these ancient cities. They had shipping, fishing, brewers and bakers. They spun wool and traded fine jewelry. They discovered the Pythagorean Theorem, though it was later named after a Greek. In 2500 B.C., the queen of Ur, which was a prominent city, lived in a palace that featured harps and many servants. Slavery existed, but it was typically confined to domestic work in the cities rather than hard labor on the farm. Slaves were given a minimum standard of living and often had the opportunity to rise to freedom through diligent work.

Temples were everywhere. But the people also built stepped mountains known as ziggurats, with a temple on top, and the Bible tells how they tried to build one higher and higher. A massive ziggurat at Ur that is described in Genesis 11:1-9 as the Tower of Babel led to hundreds of different languages (a division which may have also led to different ethnic groups) in the world. As we shall learn in this course, language is a central part of a society that has much to do with its success or failure. Societies with useful and powerful languages prospered; those with difficult-to-use and weak languages failed.

Genesis Chapter 10 places the roots of modern mankind in Noah and his three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. The term "Semitic" means "pertaining to the descendants of Shem," and includes Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Sabaeans, and Hebrews. Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. Semitic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One of Noah's descendants was Abram, who later changed his name to Abraham to reflect his covenant with God.

Both the Bible and many independent sources describe a Great Flood (or "Deluge"), which historians date at about 3300 or 3000 B.C. Very little of any history, including writings and civilization, has survived from before that time. The biblical account of the Flood is at Genesis 5-8, describing an ark having reasonable dimensions similar to modern ocean steamships. A non-biblical Sumerian (from Sumer in Mesopotamia) account of the Flood was found in the last hundred years, and that account was apparently written about 1600 B.C. Even better, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon was found dating from 3000 B.C., which also described a massive flood in great detail. There are many other ancient accounts of a massive flood found in most other cultures around the world. Fossils and limestone (the result of ocean sediment) are found today on mountaintops and land worldwide at all altitudes. Independent accounts of a great flood can be found in ancient works of China, India, Britain (Druid) and American Indians, all having striking similar details.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T2631</ref> Recently two scientists at Columbia University published a widely praised book, entitled "Noah's Flood," which proved that the Flood did occur. This book concludes that the biblical Flood "is surely a true story of the permanent destruction of a land and its people ...."<ref>Ryan & Pitman, "Noah's Flood" (Simon & Schuster, NY: 1998), p. 251.</ref> Yet no public school textbook ever mentions a massive flood.

Civilization prospered in Sumeria, and wars soon broke out. The northwest (Akkad) was constantly fighting the southeast (Sumer), and eventually an Akkadian warrior named Sargon conquered Mesopotamia. Sargon was the first person in recorded history to create an empire or multi-ethnic state, from 2334 to 2279 B.C. His empire included the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and also part of what is Turkey today. The capital of his empire was Agade in Akkad. But like many military rulers, his empire collapsed when he died. He did not have a civil (non-military) form of government to pay his soldiers and sustain his empire. Instead, he could only survive as long his soldiers continued to capture and loot. Once the empire stopped expanding upon his death, it collapsed. At the time, the city of Ur in Sumer was the leading city.

The Sumerians established many of the things that define civilization today: buildings, engineering, legal codes, written language and a military. The Sumerians also had literature: in 2000 B.C., they wrote "The Epic of Gilgamesh," considered to be oldest fictional story ever written. The Epic of Gilgamesh was based on a real person who ruled a city-state in Sumer. He struggles with religious issues in the form of multiple gods, and the story seems to draw on some of the wisdom of the Bible. This non-biblical source also describes a great flood.

Each civilization or culture had its inventions. We can thank Mesopotamia (probably Ur) for inventing the wheel in about 3500 B.C., which is the single greatest invention of all time. It is used for much more than transportation. The wheel is essential to manufacturing and even pre-digital watches. No Native American civilization had the wheel until the Europeans brought it to them.

==Babylon==

Babylonia was a relatively late achiever in the Mesopotamian world, occupying southern Mesopotamia where Sumer was. Babylonia was built around 2300 B.C. Babylon was its main city, located about 55 miles south of where Baghdad is today in Iraq. Babylon is now in ruins, but thousands of years ago was a thriving city known for the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," which were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Babylon was known as a city devoted to materialism and self-indulgence. As an example of usage, the English author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "the Babylonian halls of the big hotel," using the word "Babylonian" to denote luxurious extravagance.

As a city Babylon was smaller and less important than Ur, which enjoyed several dynasties. But the constant fighting led to the fall of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, and an Amorite king named Sumuabum established a kingdom in 1894 B.C. there. His successors built it up, and then a brilliant ruler name Hammurabi took power as the sixth king of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 B.C. (That is over forty years: there were no term limits for rulers then!).

The reign of Hammurabi signaled the end of the early Mesopotamian civilization. He created a system of justice by promulgating an elaborate code of law (called the Code of Hammurabi, or "Hammurabi's Code"). The code imposed harsh punishment of "an eye for an eye," and lower classes of people received harsher punishment than higher classes of people. If you broke the bone of a
"free man" (non-slave), then the punishment was to break one of your bones. That was simple and effective, and the Old Testament uses a similar approach in some ways (ask yourself: who used this first?). The Eighth Commandment in the Old Testament states, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Hammurabi's Code states if someone accuses another of doing something wrong, but cannot prove it, then the accuser shall be killed.

Hammurabi attempted to be righteous and much of his correspondence survives to this day. He encouraged legal contracts, but he also limited the amount of interest and wages that could be earned. After 29 years of establishing order, he then conquered all of Mesopotamia, making him the first king of the Babylonian Empire. To this day Hammurabi is respected by historians as a great leader who achieved an enormous amount of progress that benefits all of mankind.

'''Debate: Which matters more in making a society successful: its laws or its language?'''

Chaos resulted when Hammurabi died, a common result after the passing away of a powerful ruler. The Hittites (HIT-eyets) were Indo-Europeans who migrated into Anatolia (now Turkey). The Hittites were famous for bringing iron smelting to many other groups, and using the superior iron weapons and tools. They attacked and weakened the Babylonian empire, ultimately defeating it in 1600 B.C. The Kassites, led by King Agumkakrine, then took advantage of situation and grabbed power. But they continued to honor the Code of Hammurabi during their 400 year rule of the territory.

In 1124 B.C. the first Nebuchadnezzar rose to power over the Babylonian empire. He moved its capital to Babylon, then the world's largest city. Its spanned 10,000 hectares, which is slightly larger than San Francisco today.

The Babylonian empire acquired great power, and power corrupts. Eventually it turned against religion. That ultimately occurred in 598 through 586 B.C., but we have more history to cover before getting to that period!

Much of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is written with references to Babylon. The main reason is that Babylon rose to enormous power and captured the Hebrews, and held them in captivity. This is known as the Babylonian Exile or Babylonian Captivity.

==Israel==

While the Kassites were in control of Babylon, the oldest religion that is still active today began: Judaism. The ancient Hebrews were descendants of Abram (later in his life his name became "Abraham", meaning "father of many"), who lived in Ur around 2000 B.C., and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob. Later the name of the ancient Hebrews became known as the "Israelites", once the kingdom of the Hebrews was established with the crowning of King David around 1000 B.C. But Israel did not remain intact as a nation in the ancient world; after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, it split into two kingdoms, and then was captured and taken into captivity. Beginning with the terminology in the Book of Esther, which was written between 200 and 300 B.C., the people of the former Israel became known as the "Jewish people," or the "Jews". Judaism did not exist before Abraham; it would, however, be an anachronism to describe Abraham as Jewish even in the ancient sense let alone in the modern; and it is not known where his ancestors lived in the prior millennium; they could have lived throughout the Middle East, including ancient Egypt.

The timeline is easy to remember: '''Jesus (6 B.C. to about A.D. 30) lived half-way between Abraham (2000 B.C.) and today (A.D. 2009). King David and the founding of Israel was halfway between Abraham and Jesus.'''

The conflict between the Hebrew (Jewish) and Arab peoples is described by some as a family feud. Both sides are descended from the same father, Abraham, as recounted in Genesis 16. But Jewish and Arab peoples trace their lineage from different sons of Abraham who were rivals for their father's love. The Bible states that Jewish people are descendants of Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah. The Koran (the main holy book of Islam) states that Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham (then Abram) and the Egyptian woman Hagar. The Old Testament teaches that Abraham offered to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, while Islam teaches that Abraham's sacrifice was of his son Ishmael. Islam teaches that Ishmael helped Abraham build a mosque in Mecca (the venerated Kaaba). Ishmael went a different way from the rest of Abraham's family, and there have been hard feelings by Ishmael's descendants ever since. Note that the Bible's version of this was written first, preceding the Koran by over a thousand years.

The ancient Hebrews who were descended from Jacob migrated away from Ur in Mesopotamia to Palestine, where they resided between 2000 and about 1500 B.C. But they migrated over to Egypt to escape a bad famine. There they served as slaves for perhaps hundreds of years, though they undoubtedly contributed greatly to the intellectual progress of the Egyptian culture. As described in the Book of Exodus, Moses (who had been adopted by a royal family there) ultimately led 600,000 Hebrews out of Egypt around 1250 B.C.<ref>1250 B.C. is known as the "late date" or estimate for the time of the Exodus; the "early date" or estimate for the Exodus is 1447 B.C.</ref> Egyptian historians refer to slaves and captives called "Hapiru", but some doubt that these were the Hebrews. Regardless, the Bible contains many verified references to the Egyptian pharaohs demonstrating that the Jewish ancestors were in Egypt. The Hebrews' escape from Egypt is called the "Exodus", and is described by that book in the Old Testament. During the passage, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. (In Manhattan today there is a famous medical school on the upper East Side named "Mount Sinai.") Moses is also credited as being the scribe for the first five books of the Bible (the "Pentateuch" or in Hebrew תּוֹרָה, the Torah).

The dates given below are estimates, and the homework encourages you to improve on them:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Events'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|-
|Creation of Adam and Eve
|3700-4004 B.C.
|-
|Flood
|perhaps 2300 B.C.
|-
|Tower of Babel
|perhaps 2200 B.C.
|-
|Call of Abram (Abraham)
|born c. 2000 B.C.
|-
|Covenant
|1921 B.C.
|-
|Abraham to Palestine area
|1921 B.C. to 1690 B.C.
|-
|Joseph to Egypt
|1880 B.C.<ref>This is based on the "early date" estimate for Exodus. See http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html</ref>
|-
|Moses and Exodus
|1447 or 1270 B.C.
|-
|Entering the Promised Land
|1400 or 1230 B.C.
|-
|Israelite kingdom established under King David
|1010 B.C.
|-
|Israel divided into Israel and Judah
|931 B.C.
|-
|Israel (10 tribes) conquered by Assyrians
|721 B.C.
|-
|Judah (2 tribes) conquered by Neo-Babylonians
|585 to 515 B.C.
|-
|Persians conquer Babylonian empire, captives freed
|515 B.C.
|-
|Jerusalem rebuilt
|starting 515 B.C.
|}

While most ancient peoples worshiped many pagan (non-existent) gods, the Hebrews worshiped only one God (''monolatry'') (but even misbehaving Hebrews had false gods – note the Second Commandment). The Hebrews referred to God as "YHVH" (Latinised as "Jehovah"), and to this day observant Jewish people consider it improper to pronounce this name or write it for trivial purposes; some prefer not even to write the English word "God", and instead write "G-d".

It is the name God instructed Moses to use at the encounter at the miraculous burning bush that continued to burn without destruction in Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and He said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

It remains a mystery as to precisely when the books of the Old Testament were written, but here are some estimates:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Book'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|'''Basis for Dates'''
|'''Books included'''
|-
|Genesis and all of Pentateuch
|1440-1400 B.C.
|Time of Moses and Exodus (early dates used)
|Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
|-
|Joshua and historical books
|1400-250 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,<ref>There are two books of Samuel because the work was longer than the length of the ancient scroll!</ref> 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther
|-
|Wisdom Literature
|dating back perhaps older than Genesis
|Job, David & Solomon are main authors
|Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
|-
|Major Prophets
|785-520 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (of Jeremiah), Ezekial and Daniel
|-
|Minor Prophets
|753-455 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
|}

After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled back in the hills of Palestine or Canaan along eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, approximately where Israel is today. They quickly developed a productive society despite the barrenness of the land. They implemented a system of private property, which much sharing within the family structure. Before long, they became targets for their primitive, pagan neighbors. Worst among these were the Philistines, who had iron weapons and good organization. The Hebrews, in contrast, were loosely affiliated and unprepared to defend against outside invasions. The Bible recounts many of these struggles with the Philistines, which God used to punish the Hebrews for disobedience and bring them back to Him.

<big>'''Saul, David and Solomon'''</big>

Inevitably a Hebrew warrior, Saul, took power around 1000 B.C. and defeated the Philistines and Canaanites. The priest Samuel anointed Saul as King, but many Hebrews declined to obey him. David, a shrewd fighter who had trained as a mercenary with the Philistines, became famous as a teenager for defeating the Philistine giant Goliath as described in the Bible. David next built an empire for Israel that extended from Damascus, then a thriving city in the Fertile Crescent, all the way south past what is now the Gaza Strip. For its capital he built a hill city called Jerusalem, and encapsulated it within a wall. II Samuel 9-20 describes this period.

David's son was Solomon, who ruled for forty years (965-925 B.C.) and constructed the great temple of Jerusalem. He was known for his wisdom and justice. He created two states: Israel in the north, with a capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with a capital at Jerusalem. But Solomon also taxed the Hebrews heavily and, after he died, the empire fell into decline. The Kingdom of Israel split after the death of Solomon. ''See'' I Kings 12.
[[Image:Twelve Tribes of Israel.JPG|right]]
Judah in the south survived longer than Israel in the north. The southern Kingdom of Judah consisted of two of the twelve Hebrew tribes, while the northern Kingdom of Israel had the other ten Hebrew tribes. But due to its northern location, the Kingdom of Israel had to contend with Assyria, which was a cruel and extremely powerful kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. It was located in present-day northern Iraq and at times controlled the northern part of present-day Syria. Assyria became an independent state in the 14th century B.C., expanded in the 9th century B.C. and, under powerful kings like Sargon II, united most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule. It was finally destroyed by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612-609 B.C.

<big>'''Assyrian Empire'''</big>

The Assyrians defeated the Kingdom of Israel in 772 B.C, and then scattered and dispersed the ten Hebrew tribes throughout the Assyrian Kingdom. The Assyrian empire was so powerful because it used iron weapons and battering rams, and did not hesitate even to tunnel under enemies' walls. The Assyrians also enslaved the peoples it captured, taking them away from their homeland. The scattering of the Hebrews by the Assyrians was the first of several "diaspora" (pronounced deye-AS-puh-ruh), which means the scattering of the Jewish people away from their homeland. In Judah, however, a young ruler known as Joshua ultimately rose to power in 640 B.C. and overthrew the Assyrian influence, which was in a state of decline then. But Joshua himself ran into the merciless power of the Chaldean empire.

The Chaldean empire defeated both the Hebrews and the Assyrians. Chaldea was the region in southern Babylonia, covering what is now southern Iraq. This land borders the coast of the Persian Gulf between the Euphrates delta and the Arabian desert.

As Assyrian power began to decline, a ruler named Nabopolassar was able to establish a Chaldean dynasty, beginning in 625 B.C. and extending until the Persians conquered the territory by invading in 539 B.C. from present-day Iran. In that brief span of time an important ruler commanded the Chaldean dynasty and all of Babylonian empire: Nebuchadnezzar II (NEB-uh-kuhd-NEZ-ur), who reigned from 605 to 562 B.C.

<big>'''Chaldean Empire'''</big>

Nebuchadnezzar II was a military genius who demonstrated his prowess with a massive conquest of the Egyptian army in 606 or 605 B.C., thereby gaining control of all of Syria. After his father's death, he obtained the submission of Judah and spent the next few years expanding the Babylonian empire into Palestine. Although Nebuchadnezzar suffered many losses, he persisted and ultimately captured Jerusalem on March 16, 597, and then later again in 586, when the Chaldeans also destroyed Solomon's temple. Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped and deported prominent Hebrews back to Babylonia, as recounted in the Bible and known as the Babylonian Exile. Nebuchadnezzar was a godless military commander who suffered from seven years of madness, but at times he protected key prophets like Jeremiah. Daniel described the period of madness by Nebuchadnezzar, but the Babylonian people did not dare criticize their own ruler. Daniel 4:34-37.

Babylon was a culture that did not have the value system of the Hebrews, and Babylonians did not accept God. The Babylonians were constantly raiding, kidnapping, killing or converting the Hebrews into slaves. Much of the Old Testament is about how the Hebrews would gain or lose favor with the Lord, and the Babylonians would prevail against the Hebrews as they lost favor with the Lord. "Babylon" is mentioned 246 times in the Old Testament!

Because he captured and exiled the Hebrews, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament. As mentioned above, it was during his second invasion of Jerusalem, the city that had been previously established as the Hebrew center by David in 1000 B.C., that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the holy Temple built by King Solomon ("Solomon's Temple"). Nebuchadnezzar then captured the Jewish people and took them back to Babylon in what is known as the Babylonian Exile or Captivity, which lasted from 597 to 538 B.C. (beginning with his first invasion of Jerusalem). "But because our ancestors had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia." Ezra 5:12.

<big>'''Persian Empire'''</big>

The death of Nebuchadnezzar II signaled the end of the Babylonian empire, which then fell into decline. It was inevitable that Babylon itself would be conquered. Cyrus the Great was the King of Persia (the ancient name for Iran) (539-530 B.C.), who conquered Asia Minor for the Persians, including the territories of Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine and Syria. His kingdom was known as the Achaemenid (ə-kē'mə-nĭd) (or Persian) empire. He freed the Hebrews and ended the Babylonian Exile, allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. The tomb of Cyrus the Great still exists at Pasargadae, the town that was the capital of his empire but which is now in ruins in present-day Iran.

More than a thousand years later, during the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Muslims planned to destroy this tomb because it is contrary to their religion. However, the possibility that the tomb was somehow built to honor the mother of King Solomon, a respected prophet in Islam, justified preserving the tomb to this day, and it is inscribed today with the following verse of the Qur'an (Koran): "Qabr-e Madar-e Sulaiman" which means the tomb of the mother of Solomon.
 
<big>'''Rebuilding Jerusalem'''</big>

The Hebrews rebuilt Jerusalem's walls and temple, but did not restore the magnificence the city had under Solomon. The Hebrews remained under Persian rule until Alexander the Great conquered the Persians around 330 B.C. Later, when the Roman Empire rose to power, Palestine became a province to Rome, until Palestine rebelled and Rome retaliated by destroying the temple in A.D. 70, again dispersing the Jewish people to distant lands.

''To what do we owe the ancient Hebrews?'' The concept of monotheism: one and only one God. The Hebrews established the covenant of loyalty between God and his chosen ones. Part of the covenant was the promise of a future Messiah to save the people from their sins, and Jewish people debate today whether the Messiah was supposed to establish a kingdom on earth. Later some Jewish people accepted Jesus as the Messiah, while some did not. The moral code by which the Hebrew people strove to live was set forth in the Ten Commandments, which were carved in stone and kept in the sacred Ark of the Covenant as described repeatedly in the Bible (see, e.g., Exodus 25:9-10). Highly specific requirements of daily life are also set forth in the Torah (the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament). The authorities on Jewish law are known as "rabbis", but there is no single, centralized religious authority on Judaism like a pope. Next to the Bible, the next most authoritative Jewish work is the Talmud, which is a collection of writings by rabbis.

==Egypt==

Ancient Egypt was a tremendous civilization located in the fertile Nile Valley. Ancient Egypt existed from about 3000 B.C. up until Alexander the Great conquered it in 332 B.C. The Nile is the greatest river in the world, and is unique in flowing south-to-north, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. It floods with great regularity each year (unlike the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), providing plentiful water for farming. Situated in a desert, Egypt developed irrigation techniques that led it to be called an "hydraulic empire."

What is special about Egypt? Well, for starters, it is the oldest stationary civilization that remains in existence. Geography helped protect it against invaders. To its east and west are deserts, to the north is the Mediterranean Sea and to the south is the rest of Africa. Dividing Egypt in half is the great and mighty Nile. Egypt is self-sufficient with natural resources such as plentiful clay and stone and the ability to trade for timber with nearby Lebanon and copper from Sinai. Just as the unique, closed-in geography of the island of Manhattan has encouraged the development of a powerful economy in New York City, the landscape of Egypt enhanced its independence. Even when conquered, the civilization does not shift anywhere, thanks to the natural boundaries.
[[Image:Ancient Egypt.jpg|right]]
Ancient Egypt was always ruled by a "pharaoh" or king, who was considered to be a god and absolute owner and dictator of the country. He was worshiped by the people.

The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and British all conquered and ruled Egypt at some point. In that respect, the story of who ran Egypt is the history of the greatest world powers ever. Egypt did not have native rule between 341 B.C., when the Persians conquered the last Pharaoh (Nectanebo II), until A.D. 1952, when the native Egyptian president Nasser overthrew a British constitutional monarchy.

<big>'''The Three Kingdoms'''</big>

Ancient Egypt is divided into three periods: the Old Kingdom (3100-2200 B.C.), the Middle Kingdom (2100-1650 B.C.) and the New Kingdom (1550-700 B.C.). The peak in power of ancient Egypt was 1567-1085 B.C.

The '''Old Kingdom''' is known for its security and prosperity, free from foreign invaders. A unique Egyptian kingship developed during this period, and they built the great pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) as built by Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops (pronounced KEE-aps). The pyramids protected and preserved pharaohs for what they expected in the after-life, and were marvelous engineering feats that cannot be duplicated even today.

The '''Middle Kingdom''' was a period during which Egyptian religion extended beyond the kings to the nobles and ordinary citizens. Pharaohs began to share power with local distinguished persons. The pharaohs were strong during this period and promoted trade by digging the Great Canal, which connected the Nile River to the Red Sea. The Middle Kingdom is best known for its cultural achievements, such as literature and artwork. During this period the Egyptians were also successful in draining parts of the Nile delta in Lower (northern) Egypt. Trade expanded, but civil war plagued the Middle Kingdom just as it was a problem in the Old Kingdom.

The '''New Kingdom''' followed a period of foreign rule for a century by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs) (from 1650 to 1580 B.C.), who were Semitic peoples invading Egypt from across the Sinai Peninsula. The Hyksos adopted much of Egyptian culture, including calling themselves pharaohs. The Hyksos introduced the horse and chariot into Egypt. Afterward, the Egyptians extended their empire along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean into Mesopotamia, primarily under the rule of the great warrior Thutmose III. A dynasty from Upper Egypt began this period of the New Kingdom, and it extended throughout Syria, Palestine and, to the south, Nubia. Also, the pharaohs constructed large buildings and massive cities.

After the New Kingdom ended in 700 B.C., Egypt went into a decline and was subsequently conquered by the Persians in 525 B.C.

<big>'''Pharaohs'''</big>

Here is a brief review of the famous Egyptian rulers. The first was Menes (or Mena). In 3100 B.C. he was already king of southern Upper Egypt, and he united it with northern Lower Egypt (note that lower Egypt is closer to the sea-level of the Mediterranean, north of Upper Egypt, as shown on the map). We know his name because Egyptian men, not women, wore make-up and his name was found on palettes used to apply make-up.

Though Menes is called the first "pharaoh" (Egyptian ruler), actually that term was not used until the 18th Dynasty, 1539-1292 B.C. (Egypt was organized by "dynasties", where one family (including descendants) controlled the country.) The term "pharaoh" signifies the Egyptian custom claiming that its ruler was a god, similar to the sky god Horus and the sun gods Re, Amon and Aton. He was considered to be the preserver of a god-given order, called ma'at. Even after death the pharaoh supposedly retained divine status and magical powers. This was a theocracy (rule by a god).

The Egyptian people were divided into separate levels or classes. The highest level consisted of the priests and nobles, and below them were the peasants, and below the peasants were the slaves (which included the Hebrews until Moses led them out in the Exodus). Women were respected in their role of child-rearing and managing household finances, and there were two Egyptian queens: Queen Ahhotep and Queen Hatshepsut. Queen Ahhotep ruled in the Middle Kingdom and helped liberate Egypt from the Hyksos. Her mummy was discovered in A.D. 1859, and her tomb contained many military artifacts honoring her. Queen Hatshepsut served in the place of her young son who was heir to the throne, and she ruled for 15 years until her death in 1458 B.C. She is known for expanding trade. Women were also included in the gods (goddesses) that Egyptians worshiped. More generally, rights of dynasty were inherited through the mother's side, making Egypt a "matriarchal" society.

The most famous pharaoh was Pharaoh Ramses II, who served during the New Kingdom. Slavery first became widespread during the New Kingdom, probably using Hebrews as slaves. The Hebrew Exodus occurred under Ramses II, making him the last great pharaoh in the New Kingdom.

Modern discoveries shed new light on the Egyptian culture. In A.D. 1922, Howard Carter discovered in the Valley of the Kings the untouched tomb of Tutankhamen, a young pharaoh surrounded by magnificent gold and other artifacts. These have been presented in museums ever since. Tutankhamen ruled from 1361 to 1352 B.C., but very little is known about his reign.

<big>'''Egyptian Achievements'''</big>

Egyptians invented mummification, which began in the 4th Dynasty. It took the Egyptians a long time to develop this art, but they ultimately succeeded to perfection. Without going into all the gory details, it consists of removing the internal organs from a body after death, treating the body with resin, and then wrapping it tightly in linen bandages. You should consider becoming a doctor if you have an interest in this!

''Religion'': The ancient Egyptians worshiped many gods, often inspired by animals or aspects of nature such as the sun. Only nobles could aspire to an afterlife, and only the king himself could become unified with Osiris, a legendary king who represented the forces of agriculture. These religious views subsequently lost out to more powerful concepts of Christianity and Islam. Now Egypt is 90% Sunnite Muslim, and the remainder mostly Christian (Copts).

The Christian Copts trace their ancestors directly to the ancient Egyptians. Unlike the Muslims in Egypt, who consider themselves Arabs, the Christian Copts do not consider themselves to be Arabs and the Christian Copts still use ancient Egyptian surnames. They cite the sojourn by Jesus' family in Egypt to escape Herod, and the proselytizing in Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who wrote the Gospel and was martyred at Alexandria, Egypt. He is considered the first leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, followed by an unbroken line of 117 successors to the present Pope Shenouda III. A pharaoh was considered to be a sun god, and eventually monotheism (one all-powerful god) became popular in Egypt, with the sun god Aton commanding all Egyptians' attention.

''Language'': The Egyptians developed a written language consisting of hieroglyphics, which are pictographs. It originated around 3100 B.C. It was written on papyrus as a kind of paper; papyrus is a thin parchment constructed from reeds near the Nile river. Historians could not understand hieroglyphics until the discovery of the "Rosetta Stone" by Napoleon's troops in 1799 near the seaside town of Rosetta, located in northern Egypt. It sits in the British Museum today. It consists of a slab of black basalt inscribing a royal decree to the king Ptolemy V, dating from 196 B.C. The Stone is marvelous in inscribing the same message three times: once in Greek, once in Demotic (a simple form of hieroglyphics used 700 B.C. to A.D. 400), and once in hieroglyphic. This enabled a French expert in the Greek language, Jean Francois Champollion, to determine what the hieroglyphic characters mean, and build a dictionary that could be used to translate other works written in hieroglyphics. Champollion had been a child prodigy in learning numerous languages while still a teenager.

Egypt's complex, picture-based writing system lasted for many years. It is important to emphasize that the hieroglyphs were not merely pictures of the semantic concepts signified, but included characters representing more abstract phonemic and morphemic categories. Abstract concepts could thus be represented. The difference between a language and a writinng system should also be borne in mind.

''Science'': A magnificent city named "Alexandria" was created by Alexander the Great in Egypt in 334 B.C., and it became a cultural center for many centuries. Eventually it grew to be second only to Rome in size and wealth, but declined over a thousand years later after Islamic conquerors established Cairo as the capital of Egypt. Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexandria is also known for the Library of Alexandria, which was the largest in the world at that time and reflected the cultural leadership of the city.

In A.D. 100, while Alexandria was still a great city, Ptolemy (pronounced "tah-luh-mee") was born there and was named after the long line of Egyptian kings. He wrote magnificent works on astronomy, optics, geography, mechanics and geometry. He is best known for his complex theory that placed planet Earth at the center of universe, since all things appeared to fall towards Earth and thus towards the center. The Ptolemaic system was the prevailing view until Copernicus proposed the sun as the center of the solar system over 1000 years later.

''Culture'': Egypt used slaves as most ancient cultures did. Women in Egypt were very powerful, holding the right to own property, divorce their husbands, manage businesses and even become priestesses. It was possible for poor people to rise to the upper class through talent and hard work. Taxes were a burden. The government claimed ownership of one-fifth of all produce (Genesis 47:24). The society had some ethical principles, such as the royal advice that "more acceptable is the character of one upright of heart than the ox of the evildoer." Feeding the poor, taking care of the disadvantaged, and avoid bribes in administering justice were respected. The Egyptians learned to travel up and down the Nile River by using the current in one direction, and the Etesian winds to propel sailboats upstream into the other direction. Egyptian architecture was the pyramid and colonnaded temples like the one Karnak, using a style later copied by the Greeks.

''Trade'': Egypt was not as advanced as Mesopotamia in trade, though trade did improve during the New Kingdom and some commerce with Sumer was established then.

''Inventions'': Egyptians invented our 365-day solar calendar, based on 12 months of about 30 days each. But Mesopotamia was more advanced than Egypt. To Mesopotamia we owe our "base 60" system for our clock (60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour). Egyptians lacked the concept of money, and relied on primitive barter (selling a good in exchange for a different good in return). The Egyptian Old Kingdom lacked the wheel; the pyramids were built without use of the wheel!

== References ==

<references/>

[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 01}}

World History Lecture One

2009-02-05T18:55:49Z

DeniseM: /* Egypt */ corrected wrong paragraph

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

"World history" is the true story of thought, ideas, culture, language, wars, governments, and economic systems throughout ''all'' of mankind's history. This includes billions of people over thousands of years. Every source is available to us, from the Bible to ancient and modern historians. Everything mankind has ever written, invented, observed, conquered and destroyed is part of "World history." For example, we will study how Carthage was built into a power, and how it was then forever destroyed by its enemies from Rome.

Our course will place a special emphasis on aspects of World history that continue to be influential today, such as world religions and cultural conflicts; we will link what happened in ancient times to what is happening today. We are the product of our past. You can think about whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing. Perhaps the answer depends on what we make of it. We will make use of the Bible, which is greatest history book ever written.

American history covers only about 400 years; World history concerns over 5000 years, going back to the first evidence of recorded events. Our class covers much of the material in a course on Western Civilization or European history, but we cover more too. We will learn about Islam and Hinduism and all the forces that continue to shape our world to this day. One cannot fully understand 9/11, violence in the Middle East, or hostility between India and Pakistan without learning World history.

We will consider how mankind progressed in understanding the unseen, such as truth and gravity and God. In mathematics, mankind progressed from the discovery of geometry ([[Greeks]]) to the concept of "zero" (Indians) to calculus (English). In economics, mankind progressed from wage and price controls (Romans) to the "invisible hand" of the free market (Scottish), which then unleashed tremendous prosperity. Government progressed from rulers who claimed to be gods (Egyptians), to monarchs (Middle Ages), to constitutional republics (United States). World history spans from pre-Christian to Christian. What are we progressing towards now? We will learn to use history to predict the future.

Do not be misled by thinking that ancient peoples were dumb or boring because they lacked the technology of modern society. The Egyptians, for example, cleverly built the massive pyramids using techniques that no one to this day can figure out or duplicate. In 2600 B.C., they constructed the pyramid of Khufu containing 6 million tons of stone extending to a height of 481 feet. The workmanship was superior to anything we do today: the rock base was virtually flat, not varying in elevation by more than a half-inch; its orientation is precisely aligned with the points of a compass; its stones were perfect fits. Inside was a chapel, a causeway, and a temple. It amazes architects to this day. We would not be able to duplicate it, and no one knows how the Egyptians were able to build these intricate structures 4600 years ago. Many other cultures, from Mesopotamia to Greece to Rome to India to China, invented things and discovered knowledge that no one today is smart enough to duplicate. Can you build a useful wheel, or make paper?

A word about terminology: "B.C" means "Before (the birth of) Christ" and "A.D." means ''Anno Domini'' (Latin for "in the year of our Lord") or simply "After (the birth of) Christ." The "1st century B.C." means the 1st century before Christ, counting backwards, which are the years 100-1 B.C. The "6th century B.C." is thus 600-501 B.C. The 20th century (A.D.) included the years A.D. 1901-2000. Because A.D. means "in the year of our Lord," the truly proper form is to put the date after the A.D., as in A.D. 2006. Dates are based on the birth of Christ, and it is wrong to erase Christ from the annotation, as school textbooks do with "BCE" for "Before the Common Era" and "CE" for "Common Era." To convert from a public school textbook, remember that BCE = B.C. and CE = A.D.

World history divides into four sections: Ancient History (Creation-A.D. 500), the Middle Ages (A.D. 500-1500), the Pre-Modern Era (A.D. 1500-1900), and the Modern Era (A.D. 1900-Current). The Renaissance (A.D. 1300-1600), including the Reformation, overlaps with the Middle Ages and Pre-Modern Era. Note that dates are not precise in this course: the further back in time we go, the less we know about the actual dates of key events. For events before 1000 B.C., historians barely know a date within a few hundred years of its actual occurrence!

Let us begin.

==Introduction to Ancient History==

Ancient history is everything before about A.D. 500 or 600, when every major religion except Islam was established. Ancient history created civilization and achieved many of the greatest intellectual breakthroughs of all time. Literature, drama, mathematics, philosophy, language, etc., were all created and developed during ancient history, which is why this time period is emphasized so much in education.
[[Image:Cuneiform images.jpg|right]]
When did mankind first begin? There is no reliable evidence of man existing before 3500 B.C. The oldest writing was a pictographic tablet called a "cuneiform" (pronounced kyu-NEE-uh-form) dated to perhaps 3400 B.C. from Sumer (SOO-mur) in Southern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today). Cuneiform looks like chicken-scratches featuring wedge-like or arrow-shaped characters. Although cuneiform was a primitive writing style, it continued in use until shortly before the birth of Christ. Originally pictographs (e.g., to write "foot", you would draw a foot), cuneiform expanded to 600 stick-based symbols or figures, with each one developing multiple meanings (e.g., the symbol for "foot" also developed the meanings of "to go" or "to stand," depending on the context).<ref>http://i-cias.com/e.o/cuneiform.htm</ref> For those who "text message" on cell phones, notice how each key has multiple possible letters and how the phone resolves the ambiguity and forms words depending on how the letters fit together to form a word. Cuneiform had only 600 symbols, but their multiple meanings were resolved by seeing how they fit together to form sentences. Notice that cuneiform was not an alphabet or western-style script; the oldest script-based language is from the Indo-Aryan language, and an example dating back to 1550 B.C. was found in the Sinai.

Historians feel that spoken language originated in southeastern Europe near the Black Sea, not far from the Ararat mountain range cited in the Bible in connection with Noah. Using population estimates, we know that about 300 million people existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C. The oldest trees do not predate this time; the oldest sequoias, which never die of old age, but which, of course, do succumb to diseases, forest fires, and animal damage, are no older than 2000 B.C.

No "civilization" has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C. By "civilization" we mean an order and hierarchy in the way of life. Some type of political system or government is usually necessary to have a civilization. A structure similar to a city or town is necessary to bring together people, jobs, buildings or religious centers. Usually there are different classes of people, such as rich and poor. Some historians say there must be an agricultural surplus also: enough food to feed the people so that some workers could spend time in jobs other than farming. In a nutshell, a civilization must have cities, skilled (non-farming) workers, social and government institutions, writing to maintain records such as property ownership, and advanced technology. Memorize the oldest dates for the ancient civilizations:
<table border="1px" style="background-color:#F6F6F6;">
<tr><td>'''Name'''</td><td>'''Time of existence'''</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Mesopotamia]] (Mes-uh-puh-tay-mee-uh)</td><td>3500 – 500 B.C., when conquered by Persia</tr><tr><td>
Egypt</td><td> 3100 – 525 B.C., when conquered by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs)</td></tr><tr><td>
Indus (IN-dus) Valley:</td><td>beginning in 2900 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
China:</td><td>beginning in 2200 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
Mexican Olmec (AWL-mek):</td><td> 1200 – 300 B.C., the earliest known American civilization</td></tr><tr><td>
Peru (South America):</td><td> 900 B.C.</td></tr></table>

History books speculate about "prehistory", which predates writing (i.e., before 3400 B.C.). But there is no reliable evidence to support this speculation, and it is not worth spending time on. There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form. But in case you are asked on a standardized test, historians describe the period of time known as "prehistory" as the "Stone Age." They divide the Stone Age into two time periods: "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". The Paleolithic Age is older, when man relied mostly on hunting and picking nuts and fruit to supplement his diet. The Paleolithic Age was followed by the Neolithic Age, which consisted of the rise of agriculture. The "Neolithic Revolution" means the "Agricultural Revolution," when farming became dominant. The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have a bias for giving them older dates than archaeology actually proves.

After the Stone Age came the Bronze Age, beginning in 3500 B.C., when copper and/or bronze tools were used. That was followed by the Iron Age, which began in Turkey around 2200 B.C. and later spread to other regions. As its name suggests, people during this period used iron for tools.

Ancient civilizations are often called "classical civilizations," particularly when they produced great intellectual advances as Ancient Greece did. For example, "Classical Indian Civilization" refers to Ancient India, which lasted from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500.

Two of the oldest towns are the biblical town of Jericho, located in Palestine (on the "West Bank" of the Jordan River, between Israel and Jordan today), and Catal Huyuk, located in modern-day Turkey. Jericho was famous for its high city walls to protect against attack.
[[Image:Ancient lands.JPG|right]]
The ancient world was the source of the most basic aspects of life that we still use today, such as the seven-day week and marriage. The Bible remains the best written explanation for these and many other aspects of the ancient world. Note that all four civilizations discussed in this lecture arose in or near what we now call the "Middle East."

==Mesopotamia==

So where did civilization begin? In a region known as Mesopotamia, which is Greek for "land between the rivers." The "rivers" are the Tigris and Euphrates, located in Western Asia. Where, exactly? Civilization began in fertile areas of Iraq northeast of the desert, known as part of the "Fertile Crescent." It extends along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (including modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria) and through the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run southeast into the Persian Gulf (see the next page for the map). These rivers deposited silt in the surrounding land, creating rich alluvial soil. Today the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not far from the location of our soldiers in Iraq. But our soldiers are mostly pictured in dry, sandy areas, while the ancient people would have stayed close to the water. Moreover, ancient floods have probably changed the landscape over time.

Genesis 2:8-14 describes the beginning in Mesopotamia as follows: "Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ... A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ... The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."<ref>This course uses a variety of translations for the Bible, this time using the well-established "NIV" version.</ref> Using the ages mentioned in the Bible and counting backwards, biblical scholars have dated this as about 6000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C. This is about 500 years before our earliest record of ancient writings, which is what one might expect; it wouldn't take long for man to start writing messages, but the oldest messages are unlikely to be "extant" (still existing today).

In the fourth millennium before Christ, between about 3500 and 3000 B.C., cities began to sprout up with their own political and economic systems. Both of these developments occurred in southern Mesopotamia. The first such city (that we know of) was called Sumer, and its occupants were the Sumerians.

We owe a great deal to the work of the Sumerians. They developed the first system of writing (the cuneiform), the first codes of law and the first "city-state" (essentially a nation consisting only of a large city). Their inventions were marvelous: the seed plow, the sailboat, and the potter’s wheel. (Distinguish "cuneiform" symbols from "ideograms", which show ideas with symbols such as arrows for war, from "phonograms", in which symbols represent sounds).

Most workers in Mesopotamia were farmers, but some devoted their time to trade. They had a calendar based on the moon to aid the farmers, and they developed a mathematical system using base 12. They were marvelous inventors, creating complex systems of irrigation and discovering the plow, the cart and the wheel, and used bronze (a mixture of copper and tin) to make good farming tools. Both men and women owned private property, had slaves, and were ruled by a king.
[[Image:Mesopotamia2.PNG|right]]
They built cities known as Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Isin, Kish, just to name a few. They were smart, and developed Akkadian as their language. One interesting aspect of Akkadian is that it lacks any tense forms such as past or future tense. The verbs expressed the manner of an action rather than its time.

By 3000 B.C. the people had built major canals to channel water, and roads on which to travel. Shepherds had dogs to help them tend the sheep, just as we use today to help herd sheep together. Each city was surrounded by a moat and a wall of brick, with as many as 900 towers inside the city. Soldiers watched people entering and exiting the city, and chariots and wagons carried people and goods within the city. By 3000 B.C. mankind had already built a mini-version of Manhattan, without the automobile and steel skyscrapers. But Mesopotamia (unlike Egypt and China) was not protected by geography, and would constantly face invasion by foreigners.

Do not think there was anything primitive about these ancient cities. They had shipping, fishing, brewers and bakers. They spun wool and traded fine jewelry. They discovered the Pythagorean Theorem, though it was later named after a Greek. In 2500 B.C., the queen of Ur, which was a prominent city, lived in a palace that featured harps and many servants. Slavery existed, but it was typically confined to domestic work in the cities rather than hard labor on the farm. Slaves were given a minimum standard of living and often had the opportunity to rise to freedom through diligent work.

Temples were everywhere. But the people also built stepped mountains known as ziggurats, with a temple on top, and the Bible tells how they tried to build one higher and higher. A massive ziggurat at Ur that is described in Genesis 11:1-9 as the Tower of Babel led to hundreds of different languages (a division which may have also led to different ethnic groups) in the world. As we shall learn in this course, language is a central part of a society that has much to do with its success or failure. Societies with useful and powerful languages prospered; those with difficult-to-use and weak languages failed.

Genesis Chapter 10 places the roots of modern mankind in Noah and his three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. The term "Semitic" means "pertaining to the descendants of Shem," and includes Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Sabaeans, and Hebrews. Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. Semitic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One of Noah's descendants was Abram, who later changed his name to Abraham to reflect his covenant with God.

Both the Bible and many independent sources describe a Great Flood (or "Deluge"), which historians date at about 3300 or 3000 B.C. Very little of any history, including writings and civilization, has survived from before that time. The biblical account of the Flood is at Genesis 5-8, describing an ark having reasonable dimensions similar to modern ocean steamships. A non-biblical Sumerian (from Sumer in Mesopotamia) account of the Flood was found in the last hundred years, and that account was apparently written about 1600 B.C. Even better, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon was found dating from 3000 B.C., which also described a massive flood in great detail. There are many other ancient accounts of a massive flood found in most other cultures around the world. Fossils and limestone (the result of ocean sediment) are found today on mountaintops and land worldwide at all altitudes. Independent accounts of a great flood can be found in ancient works of China, India, Britain (Druid) and American Indians, all having striking similar details.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T2631</ref> Recently two scientists at Columbia University published a widely praised book, entitled "Noah's Flood," which proved that the Flood did occur. This book concludes that the biblical Flood "is surely a true story of the permanent destruction of a land and its people ...."<ref>Ryan & Pitman, "Noah's Flood" (Simon & Schuster, NY: 1998), p. 251.</ref> Yet no public school textbook ever mentions a massive flood.

Civilization prospered in Sumeria, and wars soon broke out. The northwest (Akkad) was constantly fighting the southeast (Sumer), and eventually an Akkadian warrior named Sargon conquered Mesopotamia. Sargon was the first person in recorded history to create an empire or multi-ethnic state, from 2334 to 2279 B.C. His empire included the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and also part of what is Turkey today. The capital of his empire was Agade in Akkad. But like many military rulers, his empire collapsed when he died. He did not have a civil (non-military) form of government to pay his soldiers and sustain his empire. Instead, he could only survive as long his soldiers continued to capture and loot. Once the empire stopped expanding upon his death, it collapsed. At the time, the city of Ur in Sumer was the leading city.

The Sumerians established many of the things that define civilization today: buildings, engineering, legal codes, written language and a military. The Sumerians also had literature: in 2000 B.C., they wrote "The Epic of Gilgamesh," considered to be oldest fictional story ever written. The Epic of Gilgamesh was based on a real person who ruled a city-state in Sumer. He struggles with religious issues in the form of multiple gods, and the story seems to draw on some of the wisdom of the Bible. This non-biblical source also describes a great flood.

Each civilization or culture had its inventions. We can thank Mesopotamia (probably Ur) for inventing the wheel in about 3500 B.C., which is the single greatest invention of all time. It is used for much more than transportation. The wheel is essential to manufacturing and even pre-digital watches. No Native American civilization had the wheel until the Europeans brought it to them.

==Babylon==

Babylonia was a relatively late achiever in the Mesopotamian world, occupying southern Mesopotamia where Sumer was. Babylonia was built around 2300 B.C. Babylon was its main city, located about 55 miles south of where Baghdad is today in Iraq. Babylon is now in ruins, but thousands of years ago was a thriving city known for the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," which were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Babylon was known as a city devoted to materialism and self-indulgence. As an example of usage, the English author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "the Babylonian halls of the big hotel," using the word "Babylonian" to denote luxurious extravagance.

As a city Babylon was smaller and less important than Ur, which enjoyed several dynasties. But the constant fighting led to the fall of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, and an Amorite king named Sumuabum established a kingdom in 1894 B.C. there. His successors built it up, and then a brilliant ruler name Hammurabi took power as the sixth king of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 B.C. (That is over forty years: there were no term limits for rulers then!).

The reign of Hammurabi signaled the end of the early Mesopotamian civilization. He created a system of justice by promulgating an elaborate code of law (called the Code of Hammurabi, or "Hammurabi's Code"). The code imposed harsh punishment of "an eye for an eye," and lower classes of people received harsher punishment than higher classes of people. If you broke the bone of a
"free man" (non-slave), then the punishment was to break one of your bones. That was simple and effective, and the Old Testament uses a similar approach in some ways (ask yourself: who used this first?). The Eighth Commandment in the Old Testament states, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Hammurabi's Code states if someone accuses another of doing something wrong, but cannot prove it, then the accuser shall be killed.

Hammurabi attempted to be righteous and much of his correspondence survives to this day. He encouraged legal contracts, but he also limited the amount of interest and wages that could be earned. After 29 years of establishing order, he then conquered all of Mesopotamia, making him the first king of the Babylonian Empire. To this day Hammurabi is respected by historians as a great leader who achieved an enormous amount of progress that benefits all of mankind.

'''Debate: Which matters more in making a society successful: its laws or its language?'''

Chaos resulted when Hammurabi died, a common result after the passing away of a powerful ruler. The Hittites (HIT-eyets) were Indo-Europeans who migrated into Anatolia (now Turkey). The Hittites were famous for bringing iron smelting to many other groups, and using the superior iron weapons and tools. They attacked and weakened the Babylonian empire, ultimately defeating it in 1600 B.C. The Kassites, led by King Agumkakrine, then took advantage of situation and grabbed power. But they continued to honor the Code of Hammurabi during their 400 year rule of the territory.

In 1124 B.C. the first Nebuchadnezzar rose to power over the Babylonian empire. He moved its capital to Babylon, then the world's largest city. Its spanned 10,000 hectares, which is slightly larger than San Francisco today.

The Babylonian empire acquired great power, and power corrupts. Eventually it turned against religion. That ultimately occurred in 598 through 586 B.C., but we have more history to cover before getting to that period!

Much of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is written with references to Babylon. The main reason is that Babylon rose to enormous power and captured the Hebrews, and held them in captivity. This is known as the Babylonian Exile or Babylonian Captivity.

==Israel==

While the Kassites were in control of Babylon, the oldest religion that is still active today began: Judaism. The ancient Hebrews were descendants of Abram (later in his life his name became "Abraham", meaning "father of many"), who lived in Ur around 2000 B.C., and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob. Later the name of the ancient Hebrews became known as the "Israelites", once the kingdom of the Hebrews was established with the crowning of King David around 1000 B.C. But Israel did not remain intact as a nation in the ancient world; after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, it split into two kingdoms, and then was captured and taken into captivity. Beginning with the terminology in the Book of Esther, which was written between 200 and 300 B.C., the people of the former Israel became known as the "Jewish people," or the "Jews". Judaism did not exist before Abraham; it would, however, be an anachronism to describe Abraham as Jewish even in the ancient sense let alone in the modern; and it is not known where his ancestors lived in the prior millennium; they could have lived throughout the Middle East, including ancient Egypt.

The timeline is easy to remember: '''Jesus (6 B.C. to about A.D. 30) lived half-way between Abraham (2000 B.C.) and today (A.D. 2009). King David and the founding of Israel was halfway between Abraham and Jesus.'''

The conflict between the Hebrew (Jewish) and Arab peoples is described by some as a family feud. Both sides are descended from the same father, Abraham, as recounted in Genesis 16. But Jewish and Arab peoples trace their lineage from different sons of Abraham who were rivals for their father's love. The Bible states that Jewish people are descendants of Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah. The Koran (the main holy book of Islam) states that Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham (then Abram) and the Egyptian woman Hagar. The Old Testament teaches that Abraham offered to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, while Islam teaches that Abraham's sacrifice was of his son Ishmael. Islam teaches that Ishmael helped Abraham build a mosque in Mecca (the venerated Kaaba). Ishmael went a different way from the rest of Abraham's family, and there have been hard feelings by Ishmael's descendants ever since. Note that the Bible's version of this was written first, preceding the Koran by over a thousand years.

The ancient Hebrews who were descended from Jacob migrated away from Ur in Mesopotamia to Palestine, where they resided between 2000 and about 1500 B.C. But they migrated over to Egypt to escape a bad famine. There they served as slaves for perhaps hundreds of years, though they undoubtedly contributed greatly to the intellectual progress of the Egyptian culture. As described in the Book of Exodus, Moses (who had been adopted by a royal family there) ultimately led 600,000 Hebrews out of Egypt around 1250 B.C.<ref>1250 B.C. is known as the "late date" or estimate for the time of the Exodus; the "early date" or estimate for the Exodus is 1447 B.C.</ref> Egyptian historians refer to slaves and captives called "Hapiru", but some doubt that these were the Hebrews. Regardless, the Bible contains many verified references to the Egyptian pharaohs demonstrating that the Jewish ancestors were in Egypt. The Hebrews' escape from Egypt is called the "Exodus", and is described by that book in the Old Testament. During the passage, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. (In Manhattan today there is a famous medical school on the upper East Side named "Mount Sinai.") Moses is also credited as being the scribe for the first five books of the Bible (the "Pentateuch" or in Hebrew תּוֹרָה, the Torah).

The dates given below are estimates, and the homework encourages you to improve on them:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Events'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|-
|Creation of Adam and Eve
|3700-4004 B.C.
|-
|Flood
|perhaps 2300 B.C.
|-
|Tower of Babel
|perhaps 2200 B.C.
|-
|Call of Abram (Abraham)
|born c. 2000 B.C.
|-
|Covenant
|1921 B.C.
|-
|Abraham to Palestine area
|1921 B.C. to 1690 B.C.
|-
|Joseph to Egypt
|1880 B.C.<ref>This is based on the "early date" estimate for Exodus. See http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html</ref>
|-
|Moses and Exodus
|1447 or 1270 B.C.
|-
|Entering the Promised Land
|1400 or 1230 B.C.
|-
|Israelite kingdom established under King David
|1010 B.C.
|-
|Israel divided into Israel and Judah
|931 B.C.
|-
|Israel (10 tribes) conquered by Assyrians
|721 B.C.
|-
|Judah (2 tribes) conquered by Neo-Babylonians
|585 to 515 B.C.
|-
|Persians conquer Babylonian empire, captives freed
|515 B.C.
|-
|Jerusalem rebuilt
|starting 515 B.C.
|}

While most ancient peoples worshiped many pagan (non-existent) gods, the Hebrews worshiped only one God (''monolatry'') (but even misbehaving Hebrews had false gods – note the Second Commandment). The Hebrews referred to God as "YHVH" (Latinised as "Jehovah"), and to this day observant Jewish people consider it improper to pronounce this name or write it for trivial purposes; some prefer not even to write the English word "God", and instead write "G-d".

It is the name God instructed Moses to use at the encounter at the miraculous burning bush that continued to burn without destruction in Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and He said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

It remains a mystery as to precisely when the books of the Old Testament were written, but here are some estimates:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Book'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|'''Basis for Dates'''
|'''Books included'''
|-
|Genesis and all of Pentateuch
|1440-1400 B.C.
|Time of Moses and Exodus (early dates used)
|Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
|-
|Joshua and historical books
|1400-250 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,<ref>There are two books of Samuel because the work was longer than the length of the ancient scroll!</ref> 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther
|-
|Wisdom Literature
|dating back perhaps older than Genesis
|Job, David & Solomon are main authors
|Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
|-
|Major Prophets
|785-520 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (of Jeremiah), Ezekial and Daniel
|-
|Minor Prophets
|753-455 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
|}

After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled back in the hills of Palestine or Canaan along eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, approximately where Israel is today. They quickly developed a productive society despite the barrenness of the land. They implemented a system of private property, which much sharing within the family structure. Before long, they became targets for their primitive, pagan neighbors. Worst among these were the Philistines, who had iron weapons and good organization. The Hebrews, in contrast, were loosely affiliated and unprepared to defend against outside invasions. The Bible recounts many of these struggles with the Philistines, which God used to punish the Hebrews for disobedience and bring them back to Him.

<big>'''Saul, David and Solomon'''</big>

Inevitably a Hebrew warrior, Saul, took power around 1000 B.C. and defeated the Philistines and Canaanites. The priest Samuel anointed Saul as King, but many Hebrews declined to obey him. David, a shrewd fighter who had trained as a mercenary with the Philistines, became famous as a teenager for defeating the Philistine giant Goliath as described in the Bible. David next built an empire for Israel that extended from Damascus, then a thriving city in the Fertile Crescent, all the way south past what is now the Gaza Strip. For its capital he built a hill city called Jerusalem, and encapsulated it within a wall. II Samuel 9-20 describes this period.

David's son was Solomon, who ruled for forty years (965-925 B.C.) and constructed the great temple of Jerusalem. He was known for his wisdom and justice. He created two states: Israel in the north, with a capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with a capital at Jerusalem. But Solomon also taxed the Hebrews heavily and, after he died, the empire fell into decline. The Kingdom of Israel split after the death of Solomon. ''See'' I Kings 12.
[[Image:Twelve Tribes of Israel.JPG|right]]
Judah in the south survived longer than Israel in the north. The southern Kingdom of Judah consisted of two of the twelve Hebrew tribes, while the northern Kingdom of Israel had the other ten Hebrew tribes. But due to its northern location, the Kingdom of Israel had to contend with Assyria, which was a cruel and extremely powerful kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. It was located in present-day northern Iraq and at times controlled the northern part of present-day Syria. Assyria became an independent state in the 14th century B.C., expanded in the 9th century B.C. and, under powerful kings like Sargon II, united most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule. It was finally destroyed by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612-609 B.C.

<big>'''Assyrian Empire'''</big>

The Assyrians defeated the Kingdom of Israel in 772 B.C, and then scattered and dispersed the ten Hebrew tribes throughout the Assyrian Kingdom. The Assyrian empire was so powerful because it used iron weapons and battering rams, and did not hesitate even to tunnel under enemies' walls. The Assyrians also enslaved the peoples it captured, taking them away from their homeland. The scattering of the Hebrews by the Assyrians was the first of several "diaspora" (pronounced deye-AS-puh-ruh), which means the scattering of the Jewish people away from their homeland. In Judah, however, a young ruler known as Joshua ultimately rose to power in 640 B.C. and overthrew the Assyrian influence, which was in a state of decline then. But Joshua himself ran into the merciless power of the Chaldean empire.

The Chaldean empire defeated both the Hebrews and the Assyrians. Chaldea was the region in southern Babylonia, covering what is now southern Iraq. This land borders the coast of the Persian Gulf between the Euphrates delta and the Arabian desert.

As Assyrian power began to decline, a ruler named Nabopolassar was able to establish a Chaldean dynasty, beginning in 625 B.C. and extending until the Persians conquered the territory by invading in 539 B.C. from present-day Iran. In that brief span of time an important ruler commanded the Chaldean dynasty and all of Babylonian empire: Nebuchadnezzar II (NEB-uh-kuhd-NEZ-ur), who reigned from 605 to 562 B.C.

<big>'''Chaldean Empire'''</big>

Nebuchadnezzar II was a military genius who demonstrated his prowess with a massive conquest of the Egyptian army in 606 or 605 B.C., thereby gaining control of all of Syria. After his father's death, he obtained the submission of Judah and spent the next few years expanding the Babylonian empire into Palestine. Although Nebuchadnezzar suffered many losses, he persisted and ultimately captured Jerusalem on March 16, 597, and then later again in 586, when the Chaldeans also destroyed Solomon's temple. Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped and deported prominent Hebrews back to Babylonia, as recounted in the Bible and known as the Babylonian Exile. Nebuchadnezzar was a godless military commander who suffered from seven years of madness, but at times he protected key prophets like Jeremiah. Daniel described the period of madness by Nebuchadnezzar, but the Babylonian people did not dare criticize their own ruler. Daniel 4:34-37.

Babylon was a culture that did not have the value system of the Hebrews, and Babylonians did not accept God. The Babylonians were constantly raiding, kidnapping, killing or converting the Hebrews into slaves. Much of the Old Testament is about how the Hebrews would gain or lose favor with the Lord, and the Babylonians would prevail against the Hebrews as they lost favor with the Lord. "Babylon" is mentioned 246 times in the Old Testament!

Because he captured and exiled the Hebrews, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament. As mentioned above, it was during his second invasion of Jerusalem, the city that had been previously established as the Hebrew center by David in 1000 B.C., that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the holy Temple built by King Solomon ("Solomon's Temple"). Nebuchadnezzar then captured the Jewish people and took them back to Babylon in what is known as the Babylonian Exile or Captivity, which lasted from 597 to 538 B.C. (beginning with his first invasion of Jerusalem). "But because our ancestors had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia." Ezra 5:12.

<big>'''Persian Empire'''</big>

The death of Nebuchadnezzar II signaled the end of the Babylonian empire, which then fell into decline. It was inevitable that Babylon itself would be conquered. Cyrus the Great was the King of Persia (the ancient name for Iran) (539-530 B.C.), who conquered Asia Minor for the Persians, including the territories of Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine and Syria. His kingdom was known as the Achaemenid (ə-kē'mə-nĭd) (or Persian) empire. He freed the Hebrews and ended the Babylonian Exile, allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. The tomb of Cyrus the Great still exists at Pasargadae, the town that was the capital of his empire but which is now in ruins in present-day Iran.

More than a thousand years later, during the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Muslims planned to destroy this tomb because it is contrary to their religion. However, the possibility that the tomb was somehow built to honor the mother of King Solomon, a respected prophet in Islam, justified preserving the tomb to this day, and it is inscribed today with the following verse of the Qur'an (Koran): "Qabr-e Madar-e Sulaiman" which means the tomb of the mother of Solomon.
 
<big>'''Rebuilding Jerusalem'''</big>

The Hebrews rebuilt Jerusalem's walls and temple, but did not restore the magnificence the city had under Solomon. The Hebrews remained under Persian rule until Alexander the Great conquered the Persians around 330 B.C. Later, when the Roman Empire rose to power, Palestine became a province to Rome, until Palestine rebelled and Rome retaliated by destroying the temple in A.D. 70, again dispersing the Jewish people to distant lands.

''To what do we owe the ancient Hebrews?'' The concept of monotheism: one and only one God. The Hebrews established the covenant of loyalty between God and his chosen ones. Part of the covenant was the promise of a future Messiah to save the people from their sins, and Jewish people debate today whether the Messiah was supposed to establish a kingdom on earth. Later some Jewish people accepted Jesus as the Messiah, while some did not. The moral code by which the Hebrew people strove to live was set forth in the Ten Commandments, which were carved in stone and kept in the sacred Ark of the Covenant as described repeatedly in the Bible (see, e.g., Exodus 25:9-10). Highly specific requirements of daily life are also set forth in the Torah (the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament). The authorities on Jewish law are known as "rabbis", but there is no single, centralized religious authority on Judaism like a pope. Next to the Bible, the next most authoritative Jewish work is the Talmud, which is a collection of writings by rabbis.

==Egypt==

Ancient Egypt was a tremendous civilization located in the fertile Nile Valley. Ancient Egypt existed from about 3000 B.C. up until Alexander the Great conquered it in 332 B.C. The Nile is the greatest river in the world, and is unique in flowing south-to-north, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. It floods with great regularity each year (unlike the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), providing plentiful water for farming. Situated in a desert, Egypt developed irrigation techniques that led it to be called an "hydraulic empire."

What is special about Egypt? Well, for starters, it is the oldest stationary civilization that remains in existence. Geography helped protect it against invaders. To its east and west are deserts, to the north is the Mediterranean Sea and to the south is the rest of Africa. Dividing Egypt in half is the great and mighty Nile. Egypt is self-sufficient with natural resources such as plentiful clay and stone and the ability to trade for timber with nearby Lebanon and copper from Sinai. Just as the unique, closed-in geography of the island of Manhattan has encouraged the development of a powerful economy in New York City, the landscape of Egypt enhanced its independence. Even when conquered, the civilization does not shift anywhere, thanks to the natural boundaries.
[[Image:Ancient Egypt.jpg|right]]
Ancient Egypt was always ruled by a "pharaoh" or king, who was considered to be a god and absolute owner and dictator of the country. He was worshiped by the people.

The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and British all conquered and ruled Egypt at some point. In that respect, the story of who ran Egypt is the history of the greatest world powers ever. Egypt did not have native rule between 341 B.C., when the Persians conquered the last Pharaoh (Nectanebo II), until A.D. 1952, when the native Egyptian president Nasser overthrew a British constitutional monarchy.

<big>'''The Three Kingdoms'''</big>

Ancient Egypt is divided into three periods: the Old Kingdom (3100-2200 B.C.), the Middle Kingdom (2100-1650 B.C.) and the New Kingdom (1550-700 B.C.). The peak in power of ancient Egypt was 1567-1085 B.C.

The '''Old Kingdom''' is known for its security and prosperity, free from foreign invaders. A unique Egyptian kingship developed during this period, and they built the great pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) as built by Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops (pronounced KEE-aps). The pyramids protected and preserved pharaohs for what they expected in the after-life, and were marvelous engineering feats that cannot be duplicated even today.

The '''Middle Kingdom''' was a period during which Egyptian religion extended beyond the kings to the nobles and ordinary citizens. Pharaohs began to share power with local distinguished persons. The pharaohs were strong during this period and promoted trade by digging the Great Canal, which connected the Nile River to the Red Sea. The Middle Kingdom is best known for its cultural achievements, such as literature and artwork. During this period the Egyptians were also successful in draining parts of the Nile delta in Lower (northern) Egypt. Trade expanded, but civil war plagued the Middle Kingdom just as it was a problem in the Old Kingdom.

The '''New Kingdom''' followed a period of foreign rule for a century by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs) (from 1650 to 1580 B.C.), who were Semitic peoples invading Egypt from across the Sinai Peninsula. The Hyksos adopted much of Egyptian culture, including calling themselves pharaohs. The Hyksos introduced the horse and chariot into Egypt. Afterward, the Egyptians extended their empire along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean into Mesopotamia, primarily under the rule of the great warrior Thutmose III. A dynasty from Upper Egypt began this period of the New Kingdom, and it extended throughout Syria, Palestine and, to the south, Nubia. Also, the pharaohs constructed large buildings and massive cities.

After the New Kingdom ended in 700 B.C., Egypt went into a decline and was subsequently conquered by the Persians in 525 B.C.

<big>'''Pharaohs'''</big>

Here is a brief review of the famous Egyptian rulers. The first was Menes (or Mena). In 3100 B.C. he was already king of southern Upper Egypt, and he united it with northern Lower Egypt (note that lower Egypt is closer to the sea-level of the Mediterranean, north of Upper Egypt, as shown on the map). We know his name because Egyptian men, not women, wore make-up and his name was found on palettes used to apply make-up.

Though Menes is called the first "pharaoh" (Egyptian ruler), actually that term was not used until the 18th Dynasty, 1539-1292 B.C. (Egypt was organized by "dynasties", where one family (including descendants) controlled the country.) The term "pharaoh" signifies the Egyptian custom claiming that its ruler was a god, similar to the sky god Horus and the sun gods Re, Amon and Aton. He was considered to be the preserver of a god-given order, called ma'at. Even after death the pharaoh supposedly retained divine status and magical powers. This was a theocracy (rule by a god).

The Egyptian people were divided into separate levels or classes. The highest level consisted of the priests and nobles, and below them were the peasants, and below the peasants were the slaves (which included the Hebrews until Moses led them out in the Exodus). Women were respected in their role of child-rearing and managing household finances, and there were two Egyptian queens: Queen Ahhotep and Queen Hatshepsut. Queen Ahhotep ruled in the Middle Kingdom and helped liberate Egypt from the Hyksos. Her mummy was discovered in A.D. 1859, and her tomb contained many military artifacts honoring her. Queen Hatshepsut served in the place of her young son who was heir to the throne, and she ruled for 15 years until her death in 1458 B.C. She is known for expanding trade. Women were also included in the gods (goddesses) that Egyptians worshiped. More generally, rights of dynasty were inherited through the mother's side, making Egypt a "matriarchal" society.

The most famous pharaoh was Pharaoh Ramses II, who served during the New Kingdom. Slavery first became widespread during the New Kingdom, probably using Hebrews as slaves. The Hebrew Exodus occurred under Ramses II, making him the last great pharaoh in the New Kingdom.

Modern discoveries shed new light on the Egyptian culture. In A.D. 1922, Howard Carter discovered in the Valley of the Kings the untouched tomb of Tutankhamen, a young pharaoh surrounded by magnificent gold and other artifacts. These have been presented in museums ever since. Tutankhamen ruled from 1361 to 1352 B.C., but very little is known about his reign.

<big>'''Egyptian Achievements'''</big>

Egyptians invented mummification, which began in the 4th Dynasty. It took the Egyptians a long time to develop this art, but they ultimately succeeded to perfection. Without going into all the gory details, it consists of removing the internal organs from a body after death, treating the body with resin, and then wrapping it tightly in linen bandages. You should consider becoming a doctor if you have an interest in this!

''Religion'': The ancient Egyptians worshiped many gods, often inspired by animals or aspects of nature such as the sun. Only nobles could aspire to an afterlife, and only the king himself could become unified with Osiris, a legendary king who represented the forces of agriculture. These religious views subsequently lost out to more powerful concepts of Christianity and Islam. Now Egypt is 90% Sunnite Muslim, and the remainder mostly Christian (Copts).

The Christian Copts trace their ancestors directly to the ancient Egyptians. Unlike the Muslims in Egypt, who consider themselves Arabs, the Christian Copts do not consider themselves to be Arabs and the Christian Copts still use ancient Egyptian surnames. They cite the sojourn by Jesus' family in Egypt to escape Herod, and the proselytizing in Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who wrote the Gospel and was martyred at Alexandria, Egypt. He is considered the first leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, followed by an unbroken line of 117 successors to the present Pope Shenouda III. A pharaoh was considered to be a sun god, and eventually monotheism (one all-powerful god) became popular in Egypt, with the sun god Aton commanding all Egyptians' attention.

''Language'': The Egyptians developed a written language consisting of hieroglyphics, which are pictographs. It originated around 3100 B.C. It was written on papyrus as a kind of paper; papyrus is a thin parchment constructed from reeds near the Nile river. Historians could not understand hieroglyphics until the discovery of the "Rosetta Stone" by Napoleon's troops in 1799 near the seaside town of Rosetta, located in northern Egypt. It sits in the British Museum today. It consists of a slab of black basalt inscribing a royal decree to the king Ptolemy V, dating from 196 B.C. The Stone is marvelous in inscribing the same message three times: once in Greek, once in Demotic (a simple form of hieroglyphics used 700 B.C. to A.D. 400), and once in hieroglyphic. This enabled a French expert in the Greek language, Jean Francois Champollion, to determine what the hieroglyphic characters mean, and build a dictionary that could be used to translate other works written in hieroglyphics. Champollion had been a child prodigy in learning numerous languages while still a teenager.

Egypt's complex, picture-based writing system lasted for many years. It is important to emphasize that the hieroglyphs were not merely pictures of the semantic concepts signified, but included characters representing more abstract phonemic and morphemic categories. Abstract concepts could thus be represented. The difference between a language and a writinng system should also be borne in mind.

''Science'': A magnificent city named "Alexandria" was created by Alexander the Great in Egypt in 334 B.C., and it became a cultural center for many centuries. Eventually it grew to be second only to Rome in size and wealth, but declined over a thousand years later after Islamic conquerors established Cairo as the capital of Egypt. Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexandria is also known for the Library of Alexandria, which was the largest in the world at that time and reflected the cultural leadership of the city.

In A.D. 100, while Alexandria was still a great city, Ptolemy (pronounced "tah-luh-mee") was born there and was named after the long line of Egyptian kings. He wrote magnificent works on astronomy, optics, geography, mechanics and geometry. He is best known for his complex theory that placed planet Earth at the center of universe, since all things appeared to fall towards Earth and thus towards the center. The Ptolemaic system was the prevailing view until Copernicus proposed the sun as the center of the solar system over 1000 years later.

''Culture'': Egypt used slaves as most ancient cultures did. Women in Egypt were very powerful, holding the right to own property, divorce their husbands, manage businesses and even become priestesses. It was possible for poor people to rise to the upper class through talent and hard work. Taxes were a burden. The government claimed ownership of one-fifth of all produce (Genesis 47:24). The society had some ethical principles, such as the royal advice that "more acceptable is the character of one upright of heart than the ox of the evildoer." Feeding the poor, taking care of the disadvantaged, and avoid bribes in administering justice were respected. The Egyptians learned to travel up and down the Nile River by using the current in one direction, and the Etesian winds to propel sailboats upstream into the other direction. Egyptian architecture was the pyramid and colonnaded temples like the one Karnak, using a style later copied by the Greeks.

''Trade'': Egypt was not as advanced as Mesopotamia in trade, though trade did improve during the New Kingdom and some commerce with Sumer was established then.

''Inventions'': Egyptians invented our 365-day solar calendar, based on 12 months of about 30 days each. But Mesopotamia was more advanced than Egypt. To Mesopotamia we owe our "base 60" system for our clock (60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour). Egyptians lacked the concept of money, and relied on primitive barter (selling a good in exchange for a different good in return). The Egyptian Old Kingdom lacked the wheel; the pyramids were built without use of the wheel!

== References ==

<references/>

[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 01}}

Talk:World History Homework One Answers - Student Seven

2009-02-05T18:39:48Z

DeniseM: question about language

When you say their language was weak, could you elaborate? [[User:DeniseM|DeniseM]] 13:39, 5 February 2009 (EST)

World History Lecture Five

2009-02-05T18:10:40Z

DeniseM: /* The Rise of Islam */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

World History

Fifth Lecture – Middle Ages

Instructor, Andy Schlafly

==Introduction to the Middle Ages==

The “[[Middle Ages]]” is the period from the fall of the western [[Roman empire]] to the intellectual and cultural revival known as the “[[Renaissance]]”. As a rough approximation, the dates of the Middle Ages are from A.D. 500 to 1500, even though the Renaissance really began hundreds of years earlier than 1500 and Rome fell before 500.

Both the beginning and end of the Middle Ages occurred in what is now [[Italy]], and it was Italian humanists (non-religious intellectuals) who wanted to criticize the thousand years that separated the Roman empire from the Renaissance. By A.D. 1500 the humanists revered and esteemed the classical Greek and Roman civilizations of the ancient world, and revived the approach taken by those ancient civilizations. The humanists viewed the mostly quiet religious activity between A.D. 500 and 1500 as a waste of time, and mischaracterized the period as one of darkness and ignorance. However, it is true that not much was accomplished intellectually or culturally between about A.D. 500 and 1000.

Recall that the [[Germanic tribes]] destroyed the Roman empire in the west in the A.D. 400s, and in particular [[Alaric]] the [[Visigoth]] sacked [[Rome]] in A.D. 410. Many of the Germanic tribes eventually converted to [[Christianity]], but their own customs made the social organization of the Roman empire impossible to maintain. The networks of roads, water, shipping and agriculture that flourished during the Roman empire began to decay. There was little scholarship or artistic activity either. Basically, little was accomplished for hundreds of years in western Europe. Except for the Carolingian court of [[Charlemagne]] discussed below, there was no kingdom in Europe from the fall of Rome to A.D. 1000.

Christianity and its new network of churches helped filled the void. Also, a new method developed for protecting private property and encouraging farming on a local level rather than through a centralized empire: [[feudalism]]. It arose independently in western Europe and [[Japan]].

Under decentralized government in the Middle Ages, a huge church-state network called “Christendom” held influence over all of Europe. Christendom consisted of a religious hierarchy known as the [[sacerdotium]] and a secular (non-religious) hierarchy known as the [[imperium]]. These corresponded to man’s spiritual needs and his worldly or temporal needs. In western Europe, the pope of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] ruled over the religious side and an emperor ruled over the secular side, but they were constantly cooperating or arguing with each other. Emperors tried to control church officials and vice-versa. The Church even had its own armies and cities, and a powerful pope named [[Innocent III]] even asserted the right to resolve disputes between kings. The pope would [[excommunicate]] (kick out of the Church) kings to show his disapproval, and at times even attempted to remove kings from power. This all makes for interesting reading and debate.

There were other threats to peace. Foreigners from Asia known as “[[Mongols]]” were vicious warriors who seemed invincible. And there was terrible disease: the [[Bubonic Plague]] was probably the worst disease in all of history, killing a large percentage of the European population.

But before we reach those topics, there is something else of enormous importance that happened in the early part of the Middle Ages: [[Islam]] began. It attracted [[Arabs]] at first, and then spread as far away as [[Spain]] in the West and [[Southeast Asia]] in the East. Islam may even surpass Christianity as the world’s most popular religion in the 21st century, despite Christianity being nearly 50% older than Islam.

==The Rise of Islam==

There is only one major world religion that developed after [[Jesus Christ]] if we do not include Sikhism: Islam. But it has gained more adherents and conquered more countries in the past 1300 years than any other non-Christian religion. The religion of Islam is one of the most important aspects of World History, and its importance is growing.

Its founder was [[Muhammad]] (570-632 A.D.), a successful merchant in [[Mecca]]. The word Islam means “submission to God.” According to Islamic (Muslim) beliefs, Muhammad founded Islam based on revelations from the Angel Gabriel, whom many Christians recognize as having the same name as the angel who appeared to [[Mary the mother of Jesus|Mary]], the mother of Jesus. (The angel Gabriel is also mentioned in the [[Old Testament]], such as in the [[Book of Daniel]].) In fact, Islam treats Mary, Jesus and the Old Testament prophets as very holy people, and Islam considers [[Abraham]] as their father just as the [[Jewish]] people do. Muslims considered Christians and Jews “people of the book”, and allowed them special rights in the early days of Islam—times have obviously changed since then.

Muhammad preached a new [[monotheistic]] religion based on only one god, Allah, at a time when Mecca was still [[polytheistic]]. Located in Mecca was the “Ka’aba”, a temple which housed the “Black Stone,” an important religious relic of the [[Arab]]s’ polytheistic religion. Businessmen in Mecca—who made a substantial profit off of the swarms of [[pilgrims]] who came to see the holy shrine—feared that they might lose customers from Muhammad’s preaching and they drove him out in A.D. 622 in what is known as the “hijra” or withdrawal. Muhammad’s flight (to the town of [[Medina]]) marks the first year of the Islamic calendar.

Muhammad formed a community of this new faith, called the “umma”, and they began to help the poor. His teachings were recorded in the [[Qur’an]] or Koran, which is the bible of Islam. Muhammad then returned to Mecca in A.D. 630 with his followers, and conquered it. By 632, Islam controlled nearly all of [[Arabia]]. It has quickly spread and expanded both in popularity and power ever since, at times growing faster than even Christianity. Islam is most popular in the Middle East, Arabia, North Africa and Central Asia. [[Pakistan]] is Muslim, while [[India]] is [[Hindu]], causing those two countries to be in perpetual conflict with each other. At one point Islam became popular in [[Spain]], but that country was later retaken by [[Catholicism]].

The tremendous growth of Islam is due to its “Five Pillars of Islam” and moral commands set forth in the Qur’an (Koran). The Five Pillars of Islam are these:

1. Submission to one god, Allah, whose prophet was Muhammad. This is simple and powerful. It is easy for everyone to understand.

2. Prayer to Allah five times a day while facing Mecca. This is more than many Christians pray.

3. Fasting for the entire month of [[Ramadan]], whereby no food is eaten during daylight hours in that month. Fasting strengthens the body and soul.

4. Almsgiving: Muslims must donate to the poor.

5. The [[Hajj]] or pilgrimage at least once during a Muslim’s lifetime to Mecca, where Muhammad himself made a hajj from A.D. 629 to 632.

Islam also has a social law known as the “[[shariah]]” to dictate how people should relate to each other. The shariah can impose harsh punishments pursuant to the Qur’an for wrongful conduct. Islam strictly prohibits alcohol, drugs, [[gambling]], [[prostitution]], [[homosexuality]], [[pornography]] and other harmful activity. [[Abortion]] is illegal under Islamic law.

The shariah also requires women to wear veils to conceal their beauty in public—a practice known as “[[hijab]]”. American women reporters in [[Iran]] today wear veils when appearing on television to provide us with live news. Women are expected to obey their husbands, and under Islamic law are considered the property of their husbands and other male members of their household. Men are allowed to take up to four wives in some Muslim countries. In Islam’s earliest days (before the [[Shiites]] took power), women were not required to wear veils. It was only after encounters with [[Persians]] and [[Byzantines]]—when the strict Shiites controlled the Islamic world—that women were required to veil themselves in public.

A recent newspaper article described how three-quarters of the 900 taxi drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport are [[Somalis]], many of them Muslim. As Muslims, they do not believe in allowing alcohol in their cab. About three times each day, a Muslim cab driver refuses a customer because he notices that the customer is carrying alcohol. “It is a religious issue,” said one Muslim cabdriver. “I cannot force anybody to change their belief, but not in my cab. I don’t want the guilt. I just want to be an innocent person.” A flight-attendant described how she mentioned to a cabdriver to be careful with her suitcase because it contained wine. The driver then refused her service, and told other cabdrivers. Four other cabdrivers then refused her service. “What’s going to be next?” she said. “Do I have to cover my head?” But a Muslim cabdriver responded, “According to Muslim law, a Muslim driver cannot question a person's faith or beliefs,” he said. “It’s not a matter of the person, it’s what the person is carrying.”

The Islamic religion adheres to only the Arabic version of the Qur’an as the only authentic version, and translations are not accepted. This caused the spread of the Arabic language throughout the Middle East and into Asia, and increased the influence of the new religion. This also prevents any translators from changing the meaning of the Qur’an.

Muhammad’s first successor or “[[caliph]]” was his friend [[Abu-Bakr]]. He kept together the Islamic faith, but around A.D. 660 a schism occurred in Islam between the [[Sunnis]], the largest group, and the Shiites (or Shi’ites or Shia). They could not agree on who should be the successor to Muhammad, and the Shiites chose [[Ali]], a son-in-law of Muhammad, as caliph. The Sunnis—made up of the members of the Umayyad clan—triumphed in the first period of Islamic history. During the reign of a Sunni king named [[Umar]], Islam grew at an astounding rate. At the [[Battle of Yarmuk]], 40,000 Muslims defeated an army of 120,000 Byzantines. In 750 A.D., the Abbasid clan—whose members supported the Shiite sect—defeated the Umayyads. The rule of Abassid caliph “Harun al-Rashid” is known as the “Golden Age of Islam.”

To this day, the Sunnis and Shiites clash with each other, with the Sunnis considered to be more moderate and friendlier to western countries like the United States and the Shiites viewed as more extreme and hostile to western countries. The Sunnis are Arab and have ruled countries such as [[Saudi Arabia]] and [[Iraq]], while the Shiites have majorities in Iraq and Iran.

The recent effort to form a [[democracy]] in Iraq has given the Shiites new power in one of the largest Muslim countries, causing concern by the Sunnis. This Shiites have religious practices that include beating their chests, slashing their forwards and weeping. The Sunnis are more reserved in their ceremonies. [[Jordan]]’s King [[Abdullah II]] declared in December 2005 that he feared that Iran sought to create “a Shiite crescent” in the Middle East consisting of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Iran denied this.

Islam is more forceful than other major religions in obtaining conversion and discouraging other faiths. Islam is hostile to missionary work by other faiths, such as Christianity. Islamic countries may also favor the Islamic faith by not requiring a poll tax by Muslims but requiring practitioners of other religions to pay a tax. Critics of Islam say that it encourages violence against “infidels” or non-believers. Occasionally there are news reports of brutal killings of Christian girls or imprisonment and death sentences for Christian missionaries in Muslim countries. In [[Afghanistan]], a Muslim was sentenced to death for converting to Christianity.

Muslim hostility and violence towards [[Jewish]] people is even worse. Biblical scholars trace the conflict to the rival sons of Abraham, [[Ishmael]] and [[Isaac]], as discussed in our Lecture One (see Mesopotamia section). In 691 Sunni Muslims built the [[Dome of the Rock]], a [[mosque]] in [[Jerusalem]], on the same site where Jews believe God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, “Mount Moriah.” It is probably the most controversial religious site in the world today. Some extreme Muslim groups in the Middle East are determined to destroy [[Israel]], and acts of terrorism to kill Jewish people are common there. But while Muslim terrorist acts against defenseless Jewish civilians are common, there are almost never similar acts of terrorist by Jewish people against innocent Muslim civilians.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Islam is the “[[jihad]]”, which is defined in western dictionaries as any Muslim holy war against infidels. But another meaning of a “jihad” in Islam is an internal spiritual struggle within each person for control over himself and his complete allegiance to Allah. Muslim scholars describe jihad as being waged through the heart, the tongue, the hand, and the sword. Through jihad, Muslims are guaranteed entrance into heaven.

Islam came very close to conquering western Europe and forcibly converting Christians to Muslims in the A.D. 700s. By then Spain was already under Muslim control by the [[Moors]], and Muslim soldiers were advancing into Gaul (modern [[France]]). For twenty years they defeated Christian armies until the [[Battle of Tours]] (France) in 732, where massive Muslim forces met a determined Christian opponent named [[Charles Martel]] (the “Hammer”), who led the Germanic peoples known as “[[Franks]]” to a decisive defeat of the Muslims. Historians say that all of Europe might have become Muslim if not for this single victory. In the course of this battle, the Muslim leader [[Emir Abd er Rahman]] was killed, and the Muslims retreated back to Spain. Muslims today refer to this key battle as “The Court of Martyrs” in Arabic.

The most famous Muslim in the western world has been [[Muhammad Ali]], a champion boxer in the 1960s and 1970s who was the most-recognized athlete at that time. He converted to Islam and then refused to be drafted for the [[Vietnam War]] because the Islamic faith did not consider it to be a “holy war.” Judges rejected his claim and he was jailed, until the [[United States Supreme Court]] held that this view qualified Muhammad Ali for the “conscientious objector” exemption from the draft. He was released from jail and then won back his boxing championship.

On Election Day in early November 2006, [[Keith Ellison]] is expected to become the first Muslim ever elected to the [[United States Congress]]. He’s from [[Minnesota]], where there is a strong Muslim neighborhood. The [[Detroit]], Michigan area has the largest settlement of Muslims in America. In France the growing Muslim population is very influential and Christianity has greatly declined there.

===Contributions of Islam to Society===

Muslim countries helped facilitate trade between Asia and Europe. Muslims also transmitted Indian mathematical discoveries to western Europe and Muslims established universities when much of western Europe was declining. Islamic learning included the works of [[Ibn Sina]] (980-1037 A.D.) who wrote “Canon of the Medicine,” a book describing many infectious diseases and their causes, during the Golden Age of Islam. Islamic architecture, as represented in mosques, is strikingly beautiful. Islamic religion strictly prohibits artists from depicting the human form, which contributes to the distinguishing geometric characteristics of Muslim architecture. [[Omar Khayyam]] lived in Persia, was tutored by a sheik, was probably Islamic, and was brilliant in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and especially literature, writing a famous collection of poems entitled the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Islamic values are typically more conservative on matters of morality than many countries that are traditionally Christian. The Arabic language is closely related to [[Hebrew]] as both belong to the Semitic group of languages. It spread with Islam to be the language of nearly 200 million persons today, and has given many words to the English language. Examples include “[[algebra]]”, “cipher”, “coffee” and “sugar”.

==Russians, Slavs and Turks==

[[Russia]] today is by far the largest country in the world by land mass, having almost twice the area of the second-largest country ([[Canada]]). Russia currently has the world’s eighth largest population, ranking behind number one [[China]], number two [[India]], number three [[United States]], and several other Asian countries and [[Brazil]].

Russia is located on what is known as the “[[steppe]]” (pronounced simply as “step”), which is a broad, flat grassland lacking trees. The steppe stretches across Asia and eastern Europe. The steppe has fertile soil and navigable rivers for trade. By A.D. 100, [[Slavic]] peoples (the “Slavs”) had settled the steppe and cultivated the soil with iron tools. They lived in tribes and villages but were easy victims for nomadic fighters such as the [[Huns]].

Beginning in the A.D. 800s, the [[Vikings]] conducted trade from [[Constantinople]] and the [[Black Sea]]. The Slavs established an important trade city known as [[Kiev]], which exists to this day, and named the territory “Rus”, from which the name Russian comes.

The capital of Rus was Kiev from A.D. 882 to 1169, and it prospered. [[Prince Vladimir]] of Kiev chose [[Orthodox Christianity]] as the religion, and established the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] for the Russian people, which led to cultural exchanges between Russia and [[Byzantine]]. Some historians say that the prince rejected Islam because of its prohibition on alcohol, which is a profitable export for Russia to this day. The more likely reason was that the prince was [[Christian]] himself, as he enthusiastically promoted Christian [[baptism]] for everyone.

Kiev furnished many slaves to the Byzantine empire (the word “Slav” comes from same word root as the word “slave”). This was enormously profitable. Kiev also traded in many other goods, and by A.D. 1000 was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It declined in the 13th century as the [[Mongols]] successfully invaded Russia and interfered with trade.

Meanwhile, Islam was converting many [[Turks]], who were superb fighters. Many of them had been raised as slaves in the [[Abbasid empire]]. When these slaves were used as soldiers, they were called “[[mamelukes]]”.

A group of Turks known as the [[Seljuk Turks|Seljuks]] had converted to become [[Sunni Muslims]], and they gained control of trade routes connecting Asia and Europe. In 1055, the Seljuks captured [[Baghdad]] from the Persians, and killed the [[Shiite]] officials there. The Seljuk Turks gained in power and defeated the Byzantine empire in 1071 at the [[Battle of Manzikert]]. They soon controlled [[Anatolia]]. But the Turks did not adopt the Arabic language. Instead, they adopted the culture and language of Persia, referred to their rulers as “shah”, and almost obliterated the Arabic language from Persia. Seljuk ruler [[Malik Shah]] (1055-1092) supported Persian artists and culture. They were not great engineers, and the Persian irrigation and canal system collapsed. Disagreements between the Sunnis and Shiites emerged, and the Seljuk power declined after the death of Malik Shah.

It was the occupation of [[Jerusalem]] by the Sunni Seljuk Turks that later led to the Crusades to recapture Jerusalem for Christianity, which we will discuss in the next class.

==Western Europe in the early Middle Ages==

After the Roman empire fell in the A.D. 400s there was the possibility that all of the achievements of the classical civilizations, including much of their knowledge, would be lost. Who would preserve the geometry discoveries of Euclid, or the philosophical advances of Plato and Aristotle? Who would maintain copies of the Gospels to preserve the teachings of Jesus? Who would safeguard history books?

The period from the 5th to the 8th century (A.D. 400s through 700s) is known as the “Dark Ages” in western Europe. Everything seemed to decline and nothing outstanding seemed to emerge. Rome was sacked (invaded and looted) three times during this period, for example. Barbaric tribes terrorized everyone. The culture and economy declined. Roads and waterways fell into disrepair. The western world was at risk of losing all its knowledge and advances.

===Monasteries===

Historians credit Christian monasteries for preserving culture and knowledge during these “dark” times. The monasteries were communities of monks, usually male, who had committed the rest of their lives to God. They often moved apart so that they could be by themselves and pray many times a day. While not praying, the monks would read and write and teach, and they preserved the knowledge and history that might otherwise have been lost.

The most famous of these “orders” or communities was one established by St. Benedict in Italy in about A.D. 520. His “Rule of St. Benedict” is a strict set of disciplinary guidelines that require giving away all of one’s possessions and vowing obedience to the “abbot”, a monk elected to supervise the others. The Rule included other requirements also, such a vow of stability (promise not to move somewhere else), and stressed the importance of prayer and manual labor (“ora et labora”). St. Benedict had a sister, St. Scholastica, who established a similar rule for nuns to live by.

Abiding by strict rules of discipline and living separate from society, monks had no distractions. So they established schools and libraries, and transcribed or copied great works that needed to be preserved and duplicated (the printing press was not invented until about A.D. 1440). Venerable Bede, an English monk, wrote a history of England in A.D. 731 that is considered a masterpiece.

Monasteries continue to exist to this day. There is a Benedictine monastery only fifteen minutes away from our classroom in Morristown, New Jersey, known as “Delbarton”. These monks still abide by the same Rule that St. Benedict established in A.D. 520.

===Britain, King Arthur and the Anglo-Saxons===

As the Roman empire was collapsing in the A.D. 400s, it withdrew from Britain. In the view of some, the legend of King Arthur dates to this time, when a hero named Ambrosius Aurelianus emerged for the British people. But no one knows how much of the legend of King Arthur has a factual basis, if any.

Who were the British people at that time? The “Anglo-Saxons”, who were Germanic tribes that conquered England and ruled it in a chaotic manner until the Norman conquest of A.D. 1066 brought order and prosperity to the entire island. The “Anglo-Saxons” were actually a mixture of three different Germanic peoples: the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. The “Picts” were another group of people who settled Scotland at this time. The greatest Anglo-Saxon ruler was Alfred the Great, who defended Britain from Viking attacks in the A.D. 800s.

Pope Gregory the Great send Augustine of Canterbury to convert Britain to Christianity in A.D. 596, and English monks and nuns helped that effort in the centuries that followed.

===Charlemagne and the Carolingian Court===

Small Germanic kingdoms dominated western Europe after the fall of the Roman empire. But Christianity continued to grow, and the Catholic Church based in Rome increased its power. Bit by bit, person by person, the Germans were converted to become Catholics. Clovis, the leader of a German group known as “Franks”, ruled over the important area of Gaul that corresponds to modern France and portions of its surroundings. His wife Clotilda converted Clovis to Catholicism, and then Clovis converted his entire army too. The pope then supported Clovis and he became even more powerful. This was how the Roman Catholic Church interacted with military rulers.

One of the most significant popes was Gregory the Great (Gregory I) (A.D. 540-604). He decided to use church money for non-religious (secular) purposes, such as establishing government programs for the poor (welfare), supporting armies, and paying for public projects such as roads. Pope Gregory blurred the lines between church and state, which became known as the “temporal power” of the Catholic Church, and this would become a source of enormous conflict in future centuries.

Gaul was the most significant part of the former Roman empire, and many terms come from it. “Major domo,” for example, is the term for the major of the palace, which in Gaul was the most powerful person in the kingdom.

From Gaul a leader emerged named Charles Martel, who ruled the Franks from A.D. 719-741 and extended their territory. He crushed the Muslim invasion at the Battle of Tours in 732 (see above). His son had the humorous name “Pepin the Short,” but he was also a brilliant leader of the Franks. Pepin conquered territory around Rome and then gave it as a gift to the pope. The pope returned the favor with the “Donation of Pepin,” laying the foundation for the Papal States, which were territories under the control of the pope. Charles Martel and Pepin’s family were the Carolingian dynasty that ruled the Franks from 751 all the way to 987.

Pepin’s son (and Charles Martel’s grandson) was Charlemagne (A.D. 742-814), who became the most famous member of the family. The name “Charlemagne” (SHAR-luh-MAIN) is from the Latin “Carolus Magnum,” which means “Charles the Great.” He conquered the territory once held by the Roman empire in his attempt to reestablish it; he educated children in palace schools; and he created the “missi dominici” (king’s officials) to watch over his empire. His revival of education became known as the Carolingian Renaissance, a brief period of progress or light in what is otherwise criticized as the Dark Ages.

Charlemagne was a well-educated Christian known to be highly intelligent and a promoter of arts and learning. He served king of the Franks from A.D. 768 until his death in 814. The Franks were offended by a practice of another Germanic tribe, the Saxons, whereby they would leave their dead out on funeral pyres to be consumed by animals. This seemed contrary to the Christian faith in the resurrection, and for 35 years Charlemagne attempted to forcibly convert the Saxons to Christianity. But the Saxons would revert to paganism after every conversion, until Charlemagne made paganism a crime against the state. Critics say that Charlemagne treated non-Christians badly, and cite an example of how Charlemagne ordered 4,500 Saxons to be beheaded after they destroyed one of his armies.

Charlemagne was very good to Christians and he was crowned “Holy Roman Emperor” by Pope Leo III in A.D. 800, supposedly by the pope placing a crown on him by surprise from behind during Christmas mass in Rome (a “coronation”). This established the precedent for the practice that pope decided who would be king, a practice continued by Charlemagne’s son. The power of the Catholic Church thereby grew even stronger. This moment in A.D. 800, the crowning of Charlemagne in Rome, is considered to be the birth of the “Holy Roman Empire.”

Charlemagne had a prestige that many future kings in the Middle Ages attempted unsuccessfully to duplicate. His empire, also known also known as the Carolingian empire, covered modern-day France, Germany to the River Elbe, much of Italy and part of Spain. One of the most lasting effects of his rule was the establishment of Christianity as the main religion in the West.

The capital of the Carolingian empire was not Rome, but Aachen in what is now Germany. Charlemagne’s son Louis “the Pious” held the empire together from 814-840, but when he died his three sons fought with each other. They split the empire three ways in the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Western Europe was just too vast and diverse for a single ruler, and a new system was needed. That new system was feudalism.

===Feudalism in Western Europe===

The new system of government and economics for western Europe was feudalism, also known as manorialism. The feudal system arose in the 8th century in the Frankish kingdom as a way to protect against foreign invasions, especially invasions by Vikings (“Danes”) from Scandinavia. The Normans (descendants of Scandinavians and Franks from Normandy, France) brought feudalism to southern Italy and Sicily. The Norman conquest of Britain in 1066 brought the feudal system to England, Scotland and Ireland. Viking invasions lasted until the 10th century, by which time many Vikings had accepted Christianity and settled into civilizations of their own in northern Europe. The end of the Viking raids enabled trade to increase in western Europe.

The basic feudal system consisted of a “noble” or “lord” who possessed land (called a “fief”) given by the king. The lords lived in castles surrounded by moats, and rented their land out to “vassals.” Vassals were also considered nobles, but with less power. They provided military service to the lords in exchange for protection and land, which they in turn rented out to the “peasants” or “serfs” to farm. The system had some similarities to the plantation system used in the south in America before the Civil War, except the peasants and vassals were not bound to their lord in western Europe and thus were not slaves. Instead, the peasants were bound to their land, and when one lord sold all the land to another lord, the peasants did not move. Warfare amongst the various different estates was common under feudalism, due to the lack of any kind of centralized government, and peasants were required to fight for their lords against foreign invaders. They were also required to provide their lord with a share of their crops while not fighting an invasion.

Initially, most peasants were free men, but eventually became more and more dependent on the lords, especially as serfdom increased. Serfs were bound to the land by custom and heredity and were not particularly free. The peasants did not have the iron plow until about A.D. 1000, and it was hard work to till the soil with the primitive wooden plows. After discovering the iron plow, food production soared.

The peasants worked on these estates or “manors” in order to obtain a “benefice” (privilege) to keep some of the food they grew for their own families, and also to benefit from the protection from foreign invasion. So the deal was this: the lord allowed the peasant to farm land on the lord’s estate (the “manor”) in exchange for the peasant giving the lord some of the food and fighting in wars as needed. In the words of a popular business expression today, this was a “win-win” situation for both, though obviously the lord benefits more. Critics say that women were discriminated against with respect to ownership of property, because they did not have the opportunity to serve in the army to acquire land and only sons, not daughters, inherited fiefs.

The feudal system was quite flexible, and a successful way to run an economy. Lords, vassals, and peasants often had contractual agreements with each other, which led to the development of charters stating lists of rights and privileges. A lord could himself be a vassal to another lord, and thus multiple layers could develop. In this respects the system was like a version of multilevel systems of marketing used today (like Amway): everyone earns a share of workers he recruits to work for him, and those workers in turn have an incentive to recruit more workers. Modern corporations likewise have multiple layers of employees and compensation systems, though not tied to land as on the feudal estates.

The feudal system had elements of free enterprise that remain beneficial to us today. Everyone in the feudal system had an incentive to work hard, and the ability to buy, sell and inherit property created substantial rewards. There was no centralized government or national regulations, so each lord was free to become as strong and powerful as he could. All sources of wealth at that time consisted of land (unlike today, where stocks, cash, offshore oil wells, copyrights, patents and other forms of property are a big part of the overall wealth, and unlike Jesus’ time, when much wealth consisted of ownership of sheep, cattle and other animals). Feudalism converted much useless land and forests into productive farmland.

“Chivalry” developed as a code of behavior for everyone, and it required loyalty to one’s lord and to God. Christianity was honored, as were women, who under the code of chivalry were to be considered the equivalent of the Virgin Mary. When an enemy was conquered, they were to be treated fairly and with good sportsmanship. Tournaments of jousting knights were held to entertain spectators and improve combat skills. On the humorous side, it became popular to use battering rams and catapults in warfare. This was a free enterprise approach to the military, whereby each lord developed his own army. The system developed very good soldiers, and they kept their skills sharp by engaging in frequent battles with rival manors or estates. Through competition and free enterprise, the warriors became fighters superior to the foreign invaders, and the invasions stopped.

Later, beginning in 1099 and continuing until the 1300s, the wealth and highly trained soldiers made possible the Crusades to recapture Jerusalem (which had fallen under Muslim control).

Impact of Feudalism Today: Our law of real property (land) is based on the feudal system. Homes today are usually owned as a “fee” or “fee simple,” which is the concept developed by the feudal system to represent a grant of land to someone. Also, the roots of our free enterprise economic system of private property are in feudalism.

==Feudalism and Religion in Japan==

On the other side of the world, in the “Far East,” Japan was independently developing a feudal system similar to that in western Europe. The centralized system of Japan had weakened and declined just as it had in western Europe. The reasons were different, however. The Japanese culture always stressed self-discipline and military skills, and when combined with introduction of writing in the 5th century and Buddhism in the 6th century, there was little need for a centralized government. In addition, the central government that did exist, which was known as the Heian court, lost credibility through its own extravagance and waste.

Aristocratic clans had dominated Japan until A.D. 500, when the Yamato clan gradually gained prominence as the leading clan and named themselves “emperor”. But the real power remained controlled by those of noble birth, and then (like now) the “emperor” was just a figurehead. Shinto was the dominant religion, though it has since merged somewhat with Buddhism.

Feudalism then developed in Japan as families began to acquire control over land and establish independent estates, just as the lords did in western Europe. The peasants were bound to both the land and their master in Japan. Like medieval Europe, fortresses were constructed to protect the large estates and moats were even used to surround the fortress, for added protection. An example of a family that built a large, independent estate was the Fujiwara.

The world’s first psychological novel, “The Tale of Genji,” was written in the 1000s by Lady Murasaki about Japanese culture during the Heian period (794-1185). This was a period of great style in Japan with its center at the capital at Heian, where Kyoto is today. Recently, in 1997, Kyoto became known as the place where many nations attempted to limit the alleged global warming through the “Kyoto Treaty” for reducing factory and car emissions, which the United States never ratified.

Skilled military leaders or generals, known as “bushi”, raised their own armies of “samurai” soldiers to protect their estates. Like the chivalry in western Europe, the samurai lived by a code of conduct known as the “bushido,” meaning “the way of the warrior”. One difference is that bushido included a code for Japanese women to follow, which chivalry did not. Bushido involved a ritual known as “seppuku”, by which samurai committed suicide through self-disembowelment. Seppuku was practiced when a warrior faced the prospect of dishonor, to avoid disloyalty, or to display protest.

Even more than in western Europe, strict loyalty to one’s lord was emphasized in Japan. About a thousand years later this code would make the Japanese extremely tenacious fighters against Americans in World War II. The bushido required the samurai never to retreat or surrender. Family values were part of the bushido also. A version of Buddhism developed that ensured salvation and heaven for those who lived upright lives.

For hundreds of years the aristocrats gained more and more land in Japan until A.D. 1185, when the Minamoto clan became the most powerful and announced that their leader would served as a military governor called a “shogun”. This clan then ruled Japan for nearly 400 years from its capital at Kamakura, which is south of present-day Tokyo.

When the Minamoto clan seized power in the 12th century, they held onto it for a few hundred years. Some of their emperors were children. Civil war eventually erupted in Japan in 1467, and the country fell back into feudalism consisting of many tiny kingdoms, with each one ruled by a “daimyo”. The daimyo held the same role as the lords in the feudalism of western Europe.

The national religion of Japan is Shinto, which considers the emperor to be a living god. Shinto is more like a code of conduct than a religion. Shinto has no afterlife. Instead, it demands loyalty and obedience of all to the emperor, who is divine. It led to extreme nationalism in Japan that made it a very tough opponent of the United States in World War II. It was not until the United States defeated Japan in World War II that the emperor renounced his status as a god and the state religion of Shinto ended. Today Shinto consists of the worship of “kami” in shrines supervised by priests. Worship consists of personal purification and daily prayers to the kumi.

Shinto has similarities to Buddhism, but there is major difference in Japan: Shinto is a religion of life used for marriage, while Buddhism is a religion of death used for funerals.

==America==

There were three noteworthy ancient American civilizations:
* Teotihuacan ([[Mexico]]) in A.D. 100-900
* Maya (modern-day [[Guatemala]]) in A.D. 300-900
* Moche A.D. 200-700

They all engaged in human sacrifice, and practiced [[polytheistic]] religions—sharing a common belief in [[Quetzelcoatl]] (KWET-suhl-kuh-WA-tuhl), a god of the wind and air depicted as a feathered serpent. The [[Aztec]] civilization, which came much later, also worshiped this god. The Teotihuacan, Maya, and Moche civilizations also used a truncated [[pyramid]] similar to a [[ziggurat]], entertainment by ball-playing, and reliance on [[corn]] as a crop. They are known as “Pre-Columbian” because they predate the arrival to the New World by [[Christopher Columbus]] in 1492. Each of these civilizations is explained (along with proper pronunciations) below:

The Teotihuacan (pronounced TA-oh-TEE-wuh-KHAN) (A.D. 100-900)

The Teotihuacan civilization followed the Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica, creating a large city totaling perhaps 200,000 people. They worshiped gods of the sun and moon, as well as goddesses of rain and water. People lived in barrios (suburbs or ghettos) around the city. Like many ancient societies, they had an upper class of priests and nobles.

The Maya (MAH-yuh or MEYE-uh) (A.D. 300-900)

The Maya civilization in [[Central America]] was located on the Yucatan peninsula, which totaled 5-16 million people. The [[Mayans]] have been called the “Greeks of the New World” by many historians. The Mayans had some knowledge of [[mathematics]], [[astronomy]], ritual ball games for entertainment, and the use of their own pictographic language. Unlike Europeans at the time, Mayans did understand the concept of [[zero]] just as the Indians in South Asia did.

The Mayans used a yearly solar calendar that was perhaps more precise than the Roman (Julian) calendar, using 18 months and 20 days per month, which has almost the same number of days as our 365-day calendar. The Mayans also built temples looking very similar to the ziggurats used in Mesopotamia, puzzling many historians. The Mayans constructed a spectacular capital at Tikal and a worship center at Chichen Itza featuring the ziggurats. For food, the Mayans grew maize (corn), squash and beans. They also traded in stones, salt, honey and shells. Like American Indians the Mayans had no coins or paper money, but sometimes traded in cacao (chocolate) beans. Unlike the American Indians, the Mayans used a written language based on symbols or “glyphs”, as in hieroglyphics.

The Mayan religion was polytheistic and Mayans “appeased the gods” by sacrificing children to the gods. The Mayans believed in creation as explained in their religious text named the “Popol Vuh,” and the Mayans hoped that a god named Quetzalcoatl would return to rule in peace. Wealthy women enjoyed some rights in the society and most women stayed in the home to raise children.

The reason for the decline of the Mayan civilization is unknown. Mayan cities were abruptly abandoned in the 800s and by the mid-900s the civilization was just a shadow of its former self. It disintegrated into independent towns, or city-states. But today 4 million people still speak the Mayan language.

The Toltecs (A.D. 900-1200)

The Toltecs were a northern Mexican nomadic tribe that ruled about 50 miles north of present-day Mexico City, in a city called Tula. They were fighters who helped conquer the city of Teotihuacan in the 8th century. But living by the sword they also were conquered by the sword, as Jesus says, and the Toltecs fell at the hands of northern Chichimec tribes.

The Toltecs may have traded with a group that lived in the southwestern portion of the United States, the Anasazi. Some historians feel that the Toltecs traded obsidian, which is black volcanic glass having a unique shape, for jade with the Anasazians.

The Toltecs had a religious leader named Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl. According to legend, war forced him to flee into the Gulf of Mexico, but he vowed to return one day. This legend was transmitted to the Aztecs, who rose to power in the Valley of Mexico once the Toltecs declined.

The Aztecs (the Mexica) (A.D. 1200-1521)

The Aztecs adopted many of the legends, ball games, calendar and customs of their predecessors, but were more warlike. In 1325, they built their capital named Tenochtitlan in central Mexico on an island in Lake Texcoco pursuant to a prophecy, and constructed three causeways to connect it to the mainland. The capital city was magnificent, featuring splendid pyramids and temples. The Aztecs trade with far-away peoples, and acquired wealth through trade and tributes. Intellectually, however, the Aztecs did not advance knowledge or civilization.

For food they used plots of floating land called chinampas, which were made from soil dredged from the bottom of the lake. They grew mostly corn and some squash and beans. They traded gems, cacoa (chocolate), and animal skins. They were more powerful than their neighbors and even formed a “Triple Alliance” with the city-states of Tlacopan and Texcoco to keep peace. The Aztecs had very little bureaucracy and did not maintain a standing army. There was no reason to, as soldiers could be summoned as needed.

The Aztecs funded their activities based on mandatory tributes, and they would sacrifice people (including their enemies) with greater frequency than prior civilizations. For example, the Aztecs worshiped a war god named Huitzilopochtli, to whom the Aztecs sacrificed prisoners of war. They felt this helped their future with the gods.

Montezuma II was the ruler when the Spanish arrived and conquered the Aztecs in 1519. Historians feel that the Aztecs had already been weakened internally, partly due to their demands of tribute and human sacrifice. The Spaniards, under Hernando Cortes, crushed the Aztecs in 1521 and destroyed the Aztec capital at Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). Cortes founded Mexico City as the new capital.

The Incas (the Quechua) (beginning in A.D. 1250, but especially 1438-1537)

The Incas developed a massive empire in the [[Andes]] Mountains in South America, considered to be the largest civilization in all of the Americas. Its beginnings were in the Moche civilization that thrived in South America in the first millennium, along the Andes mountain range. Their culture was based on a system of “reciprocity”, whereby people traded favors and work in a cooperative manner, and on “verticality”, whereby people exploited the advantages of different altitudes in the mountains for jobs like growing different crops.

A ruler named Pachacuti (A.D. 1438-1471) conquered the surroundings of Lake Titicaca and then gained control of the coastal Chimu, which had been a power in the 900s, by cutting off its irrigation system. He established an empire on the west side of South America that extended along the coast from nearly from the top (north) of South America to its bottom (south), including present-day Ecuador and Chile. The empire also extended many miles inland, including the high regions of the mountains. Included were 12 million people of many different ethnic backgrounds. Loyalty was obtained by taking important hostages from conquered peoples, and also by settling reliable Quechua loyalists in each conquered area. The capital was at Cuzco.

Unlike other civilizations, the Incas lacked a written language. Instead, the Incas used a large cord to administer their empire. The “quipu” was a third cord that held together many different cords of various colors, shapes and sizes. The cords kept an accounting of things in the empire, such as population. The Incas had superb roads and system of messengers and soldiers to transmit messages and maintain order. Stations existed along the roads for supplies, food, and overnight stays, like hotels. Overall, the Incas were good administrators of their vast empire.

The Incas differed from the Aztecs in that the Incas did not demand tribute to fund the empire. Instead, the Incas required people to work in “mita”, which were shifts of mandatory farming, building, or mining. Small groups formed (“ayllu”) to do community projects. Women cared for the households and did tasks like making clothes. Like the Central American (“Mesoamerican”) societies, daughters inherited from their mothers and sons inherited from their fathers, a system known as “parallel descent.”

The Spanish called the Incas “big ears” because the wealthy (aristocrats) would wear earrings so heavy that they would stretch their ears. The king, or “Inca”, was considered to be a god who descended from the sun, while his main wife was considered to be from the moon. Like the Egyptians, mummification was used to preserve the rulers after they died, and major decisions would even be made in the presence of the mummies to benefit from their wisdom.

Religion played a key role. There was a god believed to be the creator named Viracocha. Human sacrifice was used but animal sacrifice was more popular. Sin was recognized and punished in an afterlife. The main religious city was probably Machu Picchu, located high in the Andes and first discovered in 1912 by Hiram Bingham.

The Incas used irrigation and food was plentiful. They devised a system to freeze-dry potatoes in order to survive famine. However, the Incas had very few skilled artisans, in contrast to Mesoamerica.

Civil war caused decline in the Inca empire in 1525, when ruler Huayna Capac died and his two sons, Atahualpa and Huascar, fought. Although Atahualpa won, his empire was weakened and he was no match for the Spaniards when they arrived from Europe.

[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 05}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T16:08:35Z

DeniseM: /* Persia */ identity of ahhashverosh disputed.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. A language is essential to the progress and survival of a society - the better the language, the more successful the society is able to become. Peoples and cultures having only primitive languages could not withstand against peoples and cultures having more powerful languages. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him. People are a product of the language they use, and a society is dependent on the intelligence and quality of its language. The better terminology we use, the better off we will be ourselves; crude or vulgar language is never helpful to our moods or our success.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not. Note that even Ancient Hebrew lacked vowels, and most non-Hebrew languages were very primitive.

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Ahhashverosh held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T16:05:07Z

DeniseM: /* Did Jesus Preach in Greek? */ changed - previous version was assuming the outcome

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. A language is essential to the progress and survival of a society - the better the language, the more successful the society is able to become. Peoples and cultures having only primitive languages could not withstand against peoples and cultures having more powerful languages. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him. People are a product of the language they use, and a society is dependent on the intelligence and quality of its language. The better terminology we use, the better off we will be ourselves; crude or vulgar language is never helpful to our moods or our success.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not. Note that even Ancient Hebrew lacked vowels, and most non-Hebrew languages were very primitive.

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the phrases that the gospel-writers rendered in Aramaic were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Xerxes I held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture Two

2009-02-05T15:57:16Z

DeniseM: /* Did Jesus Preach in Greek? */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. This week becomes even more interesting as we begin to learn the "classical" period of World history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500.

During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, because there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world. No telephones or the internet existed yet, and sending a message from one side of Europe to the other required a dangerous trip of many weeks or months by a messenger. Good roads did not exist, and messages may never reach their intended destinations.

The five "classical" civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and Central and South America). We devote this week to what many consider as the greatest civilization ever: classical Greece. It was the birthplace of democracy and many other insights and advances. It was ancient Greece that developed the first language powerful enough to express the concepts at the foundation for Christianity and to enable those principles to be spread throughout the world. Let's begin by looking at language.

== Language ==

Linguistics, which means the study of language, is a fascinating aspect of World history. A language is essential to the progress and survival of a society - the better the language, the more successful the society is able to become. Peoples and cultures having only primitive languages could not withstand against peoples and cultures having more powerful languages. Language expresses and communicates ideas, and facilitates the trade that brings wealth to a civilization. Observe for yourself how difficult it is, if not impossible, to think about and remember an idea without a term to express it. What term can one use, for example, to describe someone who promotes a belief system that encourages harmful terrorism, yet does not personally engage in terrorism himself? Or what word can we use to describe a person, like a drug dealer or lying politician, who profits from promoting things that are hurtful to others? The lack of a good term makes it more difficult to criticize him. People are a product of the language they use, and a society is dependent on the intelligence and quality of its language. The better terminology we use, the better off we will be ourselves; crude or vulgar language is never helpful to our moods or our success.

The English language is constantly adding helpful new words. For example, the term "homeschooling" did not exist until about about 1980 (check your own dictionary and it should state when a word was first used). Once the term was created, the homeschooling movement was able to grow far faster than when the term did not exist. Without the term, how could one tell others how good it is?

The term "politically correct" is another example of how language influences thinking. Without the existence of the term, which did not arise until 1983, the undesired concept it represents was very hard to express and remember. It was much more difficult to criticize "political correctness" when there was a lack of a good term to describe this concept.

All languages develop based on common and basic aspects of life, such as language needed to describe food, animals, daily activities and commerce or trade (like the word "coin"). But much more is needed in language in order to express the intangibles, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not. Note that even Ancient Hebrew lacked vowels, and most non-Hebrew languages were very primitive.

An example of a concept that Jesus needed to express was the "Holy Spirit." Few languages can convey the full meaning of this concept. The Greek words "pneuma" (wind or breath) and "paraclete" (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the guiding, driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word "spirit" fails to convey the full meaning of the Greek. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and thus have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the "Holy Spirit" and other key concepts of Christianity.

Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as "it is finished."<ref>John 19:30 (King James Version).</ref> In the 20th century it was discovered that the actual Greek term used by John had this meaning in commerce in the 1st century: "paid in full." So now some translate these final words by Christ "it is accomplished." But even that may not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin ("paid in full") that existed in Greek. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.

Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. Can you imagine such primitive writing conveying the concept of "Holy Spirit" or "sin" or "redemption" or "faith"? It was an inadequate language for religion, far too primitive for the needs of the powerful concepts of Christianity.

But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon's temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world's first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.

The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on an alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, were developed using this Phoenician alphabet. This Phoenician alphabet was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps greater than the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.

'''Mystery: What was the level of literacy in ancient civilizations? What percentage of people could read and write? Was literacy higher or lower than literacy today?'''

== Ancient Greece ==

=== Introduction ===

Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest civilization of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Ancient Greece invented democracy, discovered mathematics and philosophy, and developed places of learning - and these are only a few examples of Greece's great accomplishments. The achievements of ancient Greece are even more remarkable when we consider that they succeeded in discovering and developing new ideas without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.

There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.

At its beginning, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. At the end of that period the Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the "Doric order."

[[Image:beginnings_hist_greece.jpg|550px]]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprising a city and surrounding countryside.

Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow and few noteworthy advances were produced. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. was the "dark ages," during which there was little progress and from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for nearly 1000 years before disappearing for a while.

Greece then thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'' in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.<ref>http://aesopfables.com/</ref>

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit:

{{cquote|A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.}}

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense.<ref>http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_development?page=3&greekEncoding=UnicodeC</ref> Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy.

By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.

Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this. (The United States did ''not'' invent democracy, and does not have a direct democracy as Athens did; instead, the United States elects representatives who make decisions for the citizens.)

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

Democratic Athens' main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a harsh military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp — if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.

There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the "spartiates", were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called "perioeci", consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as "helots", and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!

The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money! For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.

=== The Persian Empire versus Athens, and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.) ===

Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. From 500 B.C. into the early 400s B.C. (i.e., 490s and 480s), Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.

In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus's son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as "satraps", who were carefully watched by a special force called the "King's Eyes and Ears" to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called "Avesta".

[[Image:Persian empire.jpg|600px]]

The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire. Athens came to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.

Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and then sought to punish Athens in particular. In 490 B.C., Darius brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans — with their military-obsessed society — refused to come, as they were in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the long "marathon" run in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.

Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains by using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor. The Persians then conquered and ransacked ("sacked") Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.

The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C., and the subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C., catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.

During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the "Delian League" (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League's budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.

=== The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) ===

Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). The war began in 431 B.C., when fighting erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).

But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 B.C. a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a large city in Sicily that was attacking allies of Athens. Alcibiades had dreams of conquering Sicily entirely in order to form a massive new empire. But his plan was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens' grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all the men and resources it had left to confront and fight him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.

Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta's anti-democratic party took control. '''Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.'''

Postscript: A decade after the war, democracy rose up again and the tables turned on Sparta. In 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion when it surrendered Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia. The surrender was a surprise loss because Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them '''and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta'''. Perhaps the ultimate fall of Sparta is an illustration of the biblical insight, "he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

=== Greek Knowledge ===

'''Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously'''. That may have been its finest achievement, even more than inventing democracy. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one's soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his "Socratic method" set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. But Socrates ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth. Socrates was executed by being forced to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. Some even suggest that Jesus's reference in connection with his Crucifixion to "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"<ref>John 18:11 (NIV).</ref> to be an allusion to Socrates' death by being forced to drink poison. Socrates left no writings.

Socrates' greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, Plato was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or "forms" or "ideas", such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato's work.

Plato's greatest work was his book called "The Republic," which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.

Plato's finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. Aristotle lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. But Aristotle's approach was the opposite of Plato's: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato's interest in physics and math, Aristotle was fascinated by biology and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other accouterments found in modern universities. Less impressive was how Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.

Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly in light of his name "Cynicism", focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were small, and they rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous "Cynic".

Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (pronounced hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus' History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the "Father of History." Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens' loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens' loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although not comparable in achievement to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece's freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed historical account, "Hellenica".

Ancient Greece contributed enormously to medicine. The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.), although some claim that medicine started even earlier in ancient India. Hippocrates issued the "Hippocratic Oath" that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce [[abortion]]." People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath, and most medical schools have quietly omitted this key part of the oath.

Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered as one of the finest mathematicians of all time. He discovered "pi", the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered "Archimedes' principle" allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring "eureka!", meaning "I have found it!" Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him, an idiotic act of violence typical of the Romans. The "Archimedes screw" is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.

Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians discovered it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.

Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves! He went on to give powerful political speeches -- known as the "Phillipics" - against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, "Let us take up arms and march!" But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes' life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.

The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.

The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.

In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.

A note about slavery: it existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (such as Russian slaves and also African slaves purchased from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines. Slavery has a very ancient history. It was not until free enterprise was invented and promoted in the British Empire by Adam Smith in 1776 that the world could generate enough wealth and free itself from the scourge of slavery.

=== Did Jesus Preach in Greek? ===

Some historians have speculated that Jesus taught Greek and that the Gospels were originally written in Greek rather than Aramaic. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus' sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, "Little girl, get up!" (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba ("Father"; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"; Mark 15:34); Cephas ("Peter"; John 1:42); Mammon ("Wealth"; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca ("Fool"; Matt. 5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus' dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem. But notice how the Aramaic sayings were never part of His teachings, but were slang, names, or speech related in some way to childhood or emotional utterances.

The powerful Greek language would have very been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce took place often in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees as "hypocrites", is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip), but others, like John, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas, had Aramaic or Hebrew names. There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. The Gospel of John even seems to take advantage of the Greek "Socratic method" in repeating questions and then providing the important information as answers to the questions.<ref>For example, John 3:4 states, “How can a man be born again? Is it even possible?” (Answer, yes, by the Spirit and water. John 3:5-8).</ref> For an interesting presentation of the view that Jesus taught in Greek, look at website discussing it on the internet.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! The Introduction to the Gospel of John in its original Greek<ref>[http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Jhn&c=1&t=tr&x=8&y=9 Textus Receptus]</ref>
!
! Translation (note how the English requires more letters than the Greek, although a Hebrew translation requires fewer letters than the Greek<ref>בְּרֵאשִׁית הָיָה הַדָּבָר וְהַדָּבָר הָיָה אֵת הָאֱלֹהִים וֵאלֹהִים הָיָה הַדָּבָר</ref>)
|-
| Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
|
| In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
|}

Regardless of whether Jesus taught in Greek, the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Greek. But it is a form of Greek known as "biblical Greek." Biblical Greek was a product of the confluence or combination of the Jewish and Greek cultures in Palestine in the 1st century A.D. Biblical Greek is different from classical Greek that preceded it, and different from Hellenistic Greek that came later. The New Testament has 550 Greek words that scholars could not find anywhere else, and some of the Greek syntax in the New Testament is odd. Anti-Christians once used these facts to criticize the New Testament and the religion of Christianity, and even mock us.

Then in the 1800s archaeologists discovered Greek papyri manuscripts that had been buried in the hot sand in Egypt, which preserved them beautifully. These manuscripts included all kinds of literary and legal documents, in Greek. Nearly all of the unusual New Testament Greek words were found used in ordinary writings in these manuscripts. After examination of these Egyptian manuscripts, the preeminent German scholar Adolf Deissmann concluded what Christians had known all along: the New Testament was written in the Greek language of the common man in the 1st century A.D., and there is nothing to criticize about it.

'''Mystery: Did Jesus teach in Greek?'''

== The Hellenistic Age ==

The term "Hellenistic" means anything related to Greek history, culture or art '''after''' the life of one remarkable man named "Alexander the Great," who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and conquered nearly the entire world of his day. Alexander was not originally Greek himself, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his extraordinary military conquests, the equal of which has never been seen since.

Here is Alexander's background. The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century B.C. and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century B.C., even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.

In ancient Greece the common military formation was the "phalanx", which is the Greek word for "finger". It is composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and he crushed the Greek armies. But Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander, who became "Alexander the Great."

=== Alexander the Great ===

Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the remarkable wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. We could say that Alexander was homeschooled by this extraordinary tutor! Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle's marked-up copy of the ''Iliad'', the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals.

Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.

In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander's army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and even his daughter's hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army -- capturing every one of its empire's vast treasures! Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.

There are numerous fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military leader ever. Illustrating Alexander's approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge "Gordian knot," a massive tangle of rope wrapped too tightly for anyone to unravel. Alexander and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.

He surrounded himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even used underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other! Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death, unlike Jesus.

Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.

Alexander's empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt, showed its tribute to him by using his name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)

Christianity, which relied primarily on the Greek language, spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.

=== Greek Contributions ===

What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks started the Olympics!

But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is partly based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial during the Passion). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!

Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did the concepts of freedom and knowledge. The idea of moderation illustrated by the "Golden Mean" (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential as architecture. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by the Greek Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. Note that the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Many historians credit the Greeks for "humanism", by which historians mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge as best they could before the advent of Christianity.

Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides ("Medea") and Sophocles ("Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex"). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes ("Lysistrata").

Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshiping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as "oracles" in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices — a crude process called "divination".

The Greeks are not known for being as practical as the later Romans, but the Greeks did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy!), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.

== Other Ancient Peoples ==

=== The Hittites ===

The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves "Aryans", a term meaning "noble people." Descendants of these Aryans include the Kurds and Persians today.

In 1650 B.C., the Hittites were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others' rule.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah's great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. But remarkable archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed, and these archeological "finds" did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.

=== Assyria ===

Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.

It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent civilization in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.

The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions "Assyria" 119 times, including this typical verse: "The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him."<ref>2 Kings 18:7 (NRSV).</ref>

Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.

=== The Chaldeans (also spelled as "Chaldaeans") ===

The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. Although the Chaldeans remained in power for only fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the "Neo-Babylonian empire." Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans, including the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Chaldeans' short reign is chronicled in the biblical Book of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezza's downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar's son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar's imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
 
=== Persia ===

Persia was the "Land of the Aryans," and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called "Persian rugs." These rugs are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.

The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.

'''Fast-forward to the 20th century''': The Nazis, as ignorant as they were, used the term "Aryans" to refer to Nordic people, and as a result of the incorrect Nazi usage the term "Aryan" today is misleadingly used to describe blond and blue-eyed people descended from Northern Europe rather than from the Persian region (the region between India and Europe, or Indo-European). After Darwin's theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany around 1900, racists claimed that the Aryans (Nordics) were superior to everyone else. One of the worst of these Darwinian racists was the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were somehow inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (note, by the way, that Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).

Let's return back to the ancient world. The glory days of the Persian empire were from 550 to 331 B.C., and were discussed in detail earlier in this lecture. The Old Testament mentions Persia frequently during this time period. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion's den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Xerxes I held what might be called a "Miss Persia" beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage. It is the Book of Esther that first refers to the Hebrew people as "Jewish", and it was written around 300 B.C.

The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa -- primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them, and far more.

After Alexander the Great died, the Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But the past greatness of the Persian empire was never achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.

Afterward, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. The Sassanid empire made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region, including Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.

Today Persia is called "Iran", and it is 99% Muslim. There are concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons now.

=== The Celts ===

The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also to northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshiping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called "druids". They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts. It was not converted to Christianity until the Italian "Saint Patrick" was a successful missionary there in the mid-400s A.D.

=== Central and South America ===

In about 2000 B.C., Mesoamerica (which means "middle America") consisted of primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period. Mesoamerica was the region of Central America today, but including present-day Mexico.

Beginning about 1200 B.C. a civilization developed known as the Olmec ("mother civilization"). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. This civilization lasted until 100 B.C. It used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.

In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the [[Andes]] mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called "Chavin de Huantar."

In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until these were brought over by European explorers.

=== Africa ===

Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
 
[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 02}}

World History Lecture One

2009-02-05T15:35:30Z

DeniseM: /* Israel */

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

"World history" is the true story of thought, ideas, culture, language, wars, governments, and economic systems throughout ''all'' of mankind's history. This includes billions of people over thousands of years. Every source is available to us, from the Bible to ancient and modern historians. Everything mankind has ever written, invented, observed, conquered and destroyed is part of "World history." For example, we will study how Carthage was built into a power, and how it was then forever destroyed by its enemies from Rome.

Our course will place a special emphasis on aspects of World history that continue to be influential today, such as world religions and cultural conflicts; we will link what happened in ancient times to what is happening today. We are the product of our past. You can think about whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing. Perhaps the answer depends on what we make of it. We will make use of the Bible, which is greatest history book ever written.

American history covers only about 400 years; World history concerns over 5000 years, going back to the first evidence of recorded events. Our class covers much of the material in a course on Western Civilization or European history, but we cover more too. We will learn about Islam and Hinduism and all the forces that continue to shape our world to this day. One cannot fully understand 9/11, violence in the Middle East, or hostility between India and Pakistan without learning World history.

We will consider how mankind progressed in understanding the unseen, such as truth and gravity and God. In mathematics, mankind progressed from the discovery of geometry ([[Greeks]]) to the concept of "zero" (Indians) to calculus (English). In economics, mankind progressed from wage and price controls (Romans) to the "invisible hand" of the free market (Scottish), which then unleashed tremendous prosperity. Government progressed from rulers who claimed to be gods (Egyptians), to monarchs (Middle Ages), to constitutional republics (United States). World history spans from pre-Christian to Christian. What are we progressing towards now? We will learn to use history to predict the future.

Do not be misled by thinking that ancient peoples were dumb or boring because they lacked the technology of modern society. The Egyptians, for example, cleverly built the massive pyramids using techniques that no one to this day can figure out or duplicate. In 2600 B.C., they constructed the pyramid of Khufu containing 6 million tons of stone extending to a height of 481 feet. The workmanship was superior to anything we do today: the rock base was virtually flat, not varying in elevation by more than a half-inch; its orientation is precisely aligned with the points of a compass; its stones were perfect fits. Inside was a chapel, a causeway, and a temple. It amazes architects to this day. We would not be able to duplicate it, and no one knows how the Egyptians were able to build these intricate structures 4600 years ago. Many other cultures, from Mesopotamia to Greece to Rome to India to China, invented things and discovered knowledge that no one today is smart enough to duplicate. Can you build a useful wheel, or make paper?

A word about terminology: "B.C" means "Before (the birth of) Christ" and "A.D." means ''Anno Domini'' (Latin for "in the year of our Lord") or simply "After (the birth of) Christ." The "1st century B.C." means the 1st century before Christ, counting backwards, which are the years 100-1 B.C. The "6th century B.C." is thus 600-501 B.C. The 20th century (A.D.) included the years A.D. 1901-2000. Because A.D. means "in the year of our Lord," the truly proper form is to put the date after the A.D., as in A.D. 2006. Dates are based on the birth of Christ, and it is wrong to erase Christ from the annotation, as school textbooks do with "BCE" for "Before the Common Era" and "CE" for "Common Era." To convert from a public school textbook, remember that BCE = B.C. and CE = A.D.

World history divides into four sections: Ancient History (Creation-A.D. 500), the Middle Ages (A.D. 500-1500), the Pre-Modern Era (A.D. 1500-1900), and the Modern Era (A.D. 1900-Current). The Renaissance (A.D. 1300-1600), including the Reformation, overlaps with the Middle Ages and Pre-Modern Era. Note that dates are not precise in this course: the further back in time we go, the less we know about the actual dates of key events. For events before 1000 B.C., historians barely know a date within a few hundred years of its actual occurrence!

Let us begin.

==Introduction to Ancient History==

Ancient history is everything before about A.D. 500 or 600, when every major religion except Islam was established. Ancient history created civilization and achieved many of the greatest intellectual breakthroughs of all time. Literature, drama, mathematics, philosophy, language, etc., were all created and developed during ancient history, which is why this time period is emphasized so much in education.
[[Image:Cuneiform images.jpg|right]]
When did mankind first begin? There is no reliable evidence of man existing before 3500 B.C. The oldest writing was a pictographic tablet called a "cuneiform" (pronounced kyu-NEE-uh-form) dated to perhaps 3400 B.C. from Sumer (SOO-mur) in Southern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today). Cuneiform looks like chicken-scratches featuring wedge-like or arrow-shaped characters. Although cuneiform was a primitive writing style, it continued in use until shortly before the birth of Christ. Originally pictographs (e.g., to write "foot", you would draw a foot), cuneiform expanded to 600 stick-based symbols or figures, with each one developing multiple meanings (e.g., the symbol for "foot" also developed the meanings of "to go" or "to stand," depending on the context).<ref>http://i-cias.com/e.o/cuneiform.htm</ref> For those who "text message" on cell phones, notice how each key has multiple possible letters and how the phone resolves the ambiguity and forms words depending on how the letters fit together to form a word. Cuneiform had only 600 symbols, but their multiple meanings were resolved by seeing how they fit together to form sentences. Notice that cuneiform was not an alphabet or western-style script; the oldest script-based language is from the Indo-Aryan language, and an example dating back to 1550 B.C. was found in the Sinai.

Historians feel that spoken language originated in southeastern Europe near the Black Sea, not far from the Ararat mountain range cited in the Bible in connection with Noah. Using population estimates, we know that about 300 million people existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C. The oldest trees do not predate this time; the oldest sequoias, which never die of old age, but which, of course, do succumb to diseases, forest fires, and animal damage, are no older than 2000 B.C.

No "civilization" has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C. By "civilization" we mean an order and hierarchy in the way of life. Some type of political system or government is usually necessary to have a civilization. A structure similar to a city or town is necessary to bring together people, jobs, buildings or religious centers. Usually there are different classes of people, such as rich and poor. Some historians say there must be an agricultural surplus also: enough food to feed the people so that some workers could spend time in jobs other than farming. In a nutshell, a civilization must have cities, skilled (non-farming) workers, social and government institutions, writing to maintain records such as property ownership, and advanced technology. Memorize the oldest dates for the ancient civilizations:
<table border="1px" style="background-color:#F6F6F6;">
<tr><td>'''Name'''</td><td>'''Time of existence'''</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Mesopotamia]] (Mes-uh-puh-tay-mee-uh)</td><td>3500 – 500 B.C., when conquered by Persia</tr><tr><td>
Egypt</td><td> 3100 – 525 B.C., when conquered by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs)</td></tr><tr><td>
Indus (IN-dus) Valley:</td><td>beginning in 2900 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
China:</td><td>beginning in 2200 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
Mexican Olmec (AWL-mek):</td><td> 1200 – 300 B.C., the earliest known American civilization</td></tr><tr><td>
Peru (South America):</td><td> 900 B.C.</td></tr></table>

History books speculate about "prehistory", which predates writing (i.e., before 3400 B.C.). But there is no reliable evidence to support this speculation, and it is not worth spending time on. There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form. But in case you are asked on a standardized test, historians describe the period of time known as "prehistory" as the "Stone Age." They divide the Stone Age into two time periods: "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". The Paleolithic Age is older, when man relied mostly on hunting and picking nuts and fruit to supplement his diet. The Paleolithic Age was followed by the Neolithic Age, which consisted of the rise of agriculture. The "Neolithic Revolution" means the "Agricultural Revolution," when farming became dominant. The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have a bias for giving them older dates than archaeology actually proves.

After the Stone Age came the Bronze Age, beginning in 3500 B.C., when copper and/or bronze tools were used. That was followed by the Iron Age, which began in Turkey around 2200 B.C. and later spread to other regions. As its name suggests, people during this period used iron for tools.

Ancient civilizations are often called "classical civilizations," particularly when they produced great intellectual advances as Ancient Greece did. For example, "Classical Indian Civilization" refers to Ancient India, which lasted from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500.

Two of the oldest towns are the biblical town of Jericho, located in Palestine (on the "West Bank" of the Jordan River, between Israel and Jordan today), and Catal Huyuk, located in modern-day Turkey. Jericho was famous for its high city walls to protect against attack.
[[Image:Ancient lands.JPG|right]]
The ancient world was the source of the most basic aspects of life that we still use today, such as the seven-day week and marriage. The Bible remains the best written explanation for these and many other aspects of the ancient world. Note that all four civilizations discussed in this lecture arose in or near what we now call the "Middle East."

==Mesopotamia==

So where did civilization begin? In a region known as Mesopotamia, which is Greek for "land between the rivers." The "rivers" are the Tigris and Euphrates, located in Western Asia. Where, exactly? Civilization began in fertile areas of Iraq northeast of the desert, known as part of the "Fertile Crescent." It extends along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (including modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria) and through the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run southeast into the Persian Gulf (see the next page for the map). These rivers deposited silt in the surrounding land, creating rich alluvial soil. Today the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not far from the location of our soldiers in Iraq. But our soldiers are mostly pictured in dry, sandy areas, while the ancient people would have stayed close to the water. Moreover, ancient floods have probably changed the landscape over time.

Genesis 2:8-14 describes the beginning in Mesopotamia as follows: "Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ... A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ... The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."<ref>This course uses a variety of translations for the Bible, this time using the well-established "NIV" version.</ref> Using the ages mentioned in the Bible and counting backwards, biblical scholars have dated this as about 6000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C. This is about 500 years before our earliest record of ancient writings, which is what one might expect; it wouldn't take long for man to start writing messages, but the oldest messages are unlikely to be "extant" (still existing today).

In the fourth millennium before Christ, between about 3500 and 3000 B.C., cities began to sprout up with their own political and economic systems. Both of these developments occurred in southern Mesopotamia. The first such city (that we know of) was called Sumer, and its occupants were the Sumerians.

We owe a great deal to the work of the Sumerians. They developed the first system of writing (the cuneiform), the first codes of law and the first "city-state" (essentially a nation consisting only of a large city). Their inventions were marvelous: the seed plow, the sailboat, and the potter’s wheel. (Distinguish "cuneiform" symbols from "ideograms", which show ideas with symbols such as arrows for war, from "phonograms", in which symbols represent sounds).

Most workers in Mesopotamia were farmers, but some devoted their time to trade. They had a calendar based on the moon to aid the farmers, and they developed a mathematical system using base 12. They were marvelous inventors, creating complex systems of irrigation and discovering the plow, the cart and the wheel, and used bronze (a mixture of copper and tin) to make good farming tools. Both men and women owned private property, had slaves, and were ruled by a king.
[[Image:Mesopotamia2.PNG|right]]
They built cities known as Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Isin, Kish, just to name a few. They were smart, and developed Akkadian as their language. One interesting aspect of Akkadian is that it lacks any tense forms such as past or future tense. The verbs expressed the manner of an action rather than its time.

By 3000 B.C. the people had built major canals to channel water, and roads on which to travel. Shepherds had dogs to help them tend the sheep, just as we use today to help herd sheep together. Each city was surrounded by a moat and a wall of brick, with as many as 900 towers inside the city. Soldiers watched people entering and exiting the city, and chariots and wagons carried people and goods within the city. By 3000 B.C. mankind had already built a mini-version of Manhattan, without the automobile and steel skyscrapers. But Mesopotamia (unlike Egypt and China) was not protected by geography, and would constantly face invasion by foreigners.

Do not think there was anything primitive about these ancient cities. They had shipping, fishing, brewers and bakers. They spun wool and traded fine jewelry. They discovered the Pythagorean Theorem, though it was later named after a Greek. In 2500 B.C., the queen of Ur, which was a prominent city, lived in a palace that featured harps and many servants. Slavery existed, but it was typically confined to domestic work in the cities rather than hard labor on the farm. Slaves were given a minimum standard of living and often had the opportunity to rise to freedom through diligent work.

Temples were everywhere. But the people also built stepped mountains known as ziggurats, with a temple on top, and the Bible tells how they tried to build one higher and higher. A massive ziggurat at Ur that is described in Genesis 11:1-9 as the Tower of Babel led to hundreds of different languages (a division which may have also led to different ethnic groups) in the world. As we shall learn in this course, language is a central part of a society that has much to do with its success or failure. Societies with useful and powerful languages prospered; those with difficult-to-use and weak languages failed.

Genesis Chapter 10 places the roots of modern mankind in Noah and his three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. The term "Semitic" means "pertaining to the descendants of Shem," and includes Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Sabaeans, and Hebrews. Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. Semitic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One of Noah's descendants was Abram, who later changed his name to Abraham to reflect his covenant with God.

Both the Bible and many independent sources describe a Great Flood (or "Deluge"), which historians date at about 3300 or 3000 B.C. Very little of any history, including writings and civilization, has survived from before that time. The biblical account of the Flood is at Genesis 5-8, describing an ark having reasonable dimensions similar to modern ocean steamships. A non-biblical Sumerian (from Sumer in Mesopotamia) account of the Flood was found in the last hundred years, and that account was apparently written about 1600 B.C. Even better, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon was found dating from 3000 B.C., which also described a massive flood in great detail. There are many other ancient accounts of a massive flood found in most other cultures around the world. Fossils and limestone (the result of ocean sediment) are found today on mountaintops and land worldwide at all altitudes. Independent accounts of a great flood can be found in ancient works of China, India, Britain (Druid) and American Indians, all having striking similar details.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T2631</ref> Recently two scientists at Columbia University published a widely praised book, entitled "Noah's Flood," which proved that the Flood did occur. This book concludes that the biblical Flood "is surely a true story of the permanent destruction of a land and its people ...."<ref>Ryan & Pitman, "Noah's Flood" (Simon & Schuster, NY: 1998), p. 251.</ref> Yet no public school textbook ever mentions a massive flood.

Civilization prospered in Sumeria, and wars soon broke out. The northwest (Akkad) was constantly fighting the southeast (Sumer), and eventually an Akkadian warrior named Sargon conquered Mesopotamia. Sargon was the first person in recorded history to create an empire or multi-ethnic state, from 2334 to 2279 B.C. His empire included the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and also part of what is Turkey today. The capital of his empire was Agade in Akkad. But like many military rulers, his empire collapsed when he died. He did not have a civil (non-military) form of government to pay his soldiers and sustain his empire. Instead, he could only survive as long his soldiers continued to capture and loot. Once the empire stopped expanding upon his death, it collapsed. At the time, the city of Ur in Sumer was the leading city.

The Sumerians established many of the things that define civilization today: buildings, engineering, legal codes, written language and a military. The Sumerians also had literature: in 2000 B.C., they wrote "The Epic of Gilgamesh," considered to be oldest fictional story ever written. The Epic of Gilgamesh was based on a real person who ruled a city-state in Sumer. He struggles with religious issues in the form of multiple gods, and the story seems to draw on some of the wisdom of the Bible. This non-biblical source also describes a great flood.

Each civilization or culture had its inventions. We can thank Mesopotamia (probably Ur) for inventing the wheel in about 3500 B.C., which is the single greatest invention of all time. It is used for much more than transportation. The wheel is essential to manufacturing and even pre-digital watches. No Native American civilization had the wheel until the Europeans brought it to them.

==Babylon==

Babylonia was a relatively late achiever in the Mesopotamian world, occupying southern Mesopotamia where Sumer was. Babylonia was built around 2300 B.C. Babylon was its main city, located about 55 miles south of where Baghdad is today in Iraq. Babylon is now in ruins, but thousands of years ago was a thriving city known for the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," which were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Babylon was known as a city devoted to materialism and self-indulgence. As an example of usage, the English author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "the Babylonian halls of the big hotel," using the word "Babylonian" to denote luxurious extravagance.

As a city Babylon was smaller and less important than Ur, which enjoyed several dynasties. But the constant fighting led to the fall of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, and an Amorite king named Sumuabum established a kingdom in 1894 B.C. there. His successors built it up, and then a brilliant ruler name Hammurabi took power as the sixth king of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 B.C. (That is over forty years: there were no term limits for rulers then!).

The reign of Hammurabi signaled the end of the early Mesopotamian civilization. He created a system of justice by promulgating an elaborate code of law (called the Code of Hammurabi, or "Hammurabi's Code"). The code imposed harsh punishment of "an eye for an eye," and lower classes of people received harsher punishment than higher classes of people. If you broke the bone of a
"free man" (non-slave), then the punishment was to break one of your bones. That was simple and effective, and the Old Testament uses a similar approach in some ways (ask yourself: who used this first?). The Eighth Commandment in the Old Testament states, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Hammurabi's Code states if someone accuses another of doing something wrong, but cannot prove it, then the accuser shall be killed.

Hammurabi attempted to be righteous and much of his correspondence survives to this day. He encouraged legal contracts, but he also limited the amount of interest and wages that could be earned. After 29 years of establishing order, he then conquered all of Mesopotamia, making him the first king of the Babylonian Empire. To this day Hammurabi is respected by historians as a great leader who achieved an enormous amount of progress that benefits all of mankind.

'''Debate: Which matters more in making a society successful: its laws or its language?'''

Chaos resulted when Hammurabi died, a common result after the passing away of a powerful ruler. The Hittites (HIT-eyets) were Indo-Europeans who migrated into Anatolia (now Turkey). The Hittites were famous for bringing iron smelting to many other groups, and using the superior iron weapons and tools. They attacked and weakened the Babylonian empire, ultimately defeating it in 1600 B.C. The Kassites, led by King Agumkakrine, then took advantage of situation and grabbed power. But they continued to honor the Code of Hammurabi during their 400 year rule of the territory.

In 1124 B.C. the first Nebuchadnezzar rose to power over the Babylonian empire. He moved its capital to Babylon, then the world's largest city. Its spanned 10,000 hectares, which is slightly larger than San Francisco today.

The Babylonian empire acquired great power, and power corrupts. Eventually it turned against religion. That ultimately occurred in 598 through 586 B.C., but we have more history to cover before getting to that period!

Much of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is written with references to Babylon. The main reason is that Babylon rose to enormous power and captured the Hebrews, and held them in captivity. This is known as the Babylonian Exile or Babylonian Captivity.

==Israel==

While the Kassites were in control of Babylon, the oldest religion that is still active today began: Judaism. The ancient Hebrews were descendants of Abram (later in his life his name became "Abraham", meaning "father of many"), who lived in Ur around 2000 B.C., and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob. Later the name of the ancient Hebrews became known as the "Israelites", once the kingdom of the Hebrews was established with the crowning of King David around 1000 B.C. But Israel did not remain intact as a nation in the ancient world; after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, it split into two kingdoms, and then was captured and taken into captivity. Beginning with the terminology in the Book of Esther, which was written between 200 and 300 B.C., the people of the former Israel became known as the "Jewish people," or the "Jews". Judaism did not exist before Abraham; it would, however, be an anachronism to describe Abraham as Jewish even in the ancient sense let alone in the modern; and it is not known where his ancestors lived in the prior millennium; they could have lived throughout the Middle East, including ancient Egypt.

The timeline is easy to remember: '''Jesus (6 B.C. to about A.D. 30) lived half-way between Abraham (2000 B.C.) and today (A.D. 2009). King David and the founding of Israel was halfway between Abraham and Jesus.'''

The conflict between the Hebrew (Jewish) and Arab peoples is described by some as a family feud. Both sides are descended from the same father, Abraham, as recounted in Genesis 16. But Jewish and Arab peoples trace their lineage from different sons of Abraham who were rivals for their father's love. The Bible states that Jewish people are descendants of Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah. The Koran (the main holy book of Islam) states that Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham (then Abram) and the Egyptian woman Hagar. The Old Testament teaches that Abraham offered to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, while Islam teaches that Abraham's sacrifice was of his son Ishmael. Islam teaches that Ishmael helped Abraham build a mosque in Mecca (the venerated Kaaba). Ishmael went a different way from the rest of Abraham's family, and there have been hard feelings by Ishmael's descendants ever since. Note that the Bible's version of this was written first, preceding the Koran by over a thousand years.

The ancient Hebrews who were descended from Jacob migrated away from Ur in Mesopotamia to Palestine, where they resided between 2000 and about 1500 B.C. But they migrated over to Egypt to escape a bad famine. There they served as slaves for perhaps hundreds of years, though they undoubtedly contributed greatly to the intellectual progress of the Egyptian culture. As described in the Book of Exodus, Moses (who had been adopted by a royal family there) ultimately led 600,000 Hebrews out of Egypt around 1250 B.C.<ref>1250 B.C. is known as the "late date" or estimate for the time of the Exodus; the "early date" or estimate for the Exodus is 1447 B.C.</ref> Egyptian historians refer to slaves and captives called "Hapiru", but some doubt that these were the Hebrews. Regardless, the Bible contains many verified references to the Egyptian pharaohs demonstrating that the Jewish ancestors were in Egypt. The Hebrews' escape from Egypt is called the "Exodus", and is described by that book in the Old Testament. During the passage, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. (In Manhattan today there is a famous medical school on the upper East Side named "Mount Sinai.") Moses is also credited as being the scribe for the first five books of the Bible (the "Pentateuch" or in Hebrew תּוֹרָה, the Torah).

The dates given below are estimates, and the homework encourages you to improve on them:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Events'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|-
|Creation of Adam and Eve
|3700-4004 B.C.
|-
|Flood
|perhaps 2300 B.C.
|-
|Tower of Babel
|perhaps 2200 B.C.
|-
|Call of Abram (Abraham)
|born c. 2000 B.C.
|-
|Covenant
|1921 B.C.
|-
|Abraham to Palestine area
|1921 B.C. to 1690 B.C.
|-
|Joseph to Egypt
|1880 B.C.<ref>This is based on the "early date" estimate for Exodus. See http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html</ref>
|-
|Moses and Exodus
|1447 or 1270 B.C.
|-
|Entering the Promised Land
|1400 or 1230 B.C.
|-
|Israelite kingdom established under King David
|1010 B.C.
|-
|Israel divided into Israel and Judah
|931 B.C.
|-
|Israel (10 tribes) conquered by Assyrians
|721 B.C.
|-
|Judah (2 tribes) conquered by Neo-Babylonians
|585 to 515 B.C.
|-
|Persians conquer Babylonian empire, captives freed
|515 B.C.
|-
|Jerusalem rebuilt
|starting 515 B.C.
|}

While most ancient peoples worshiped many pagan (non-existent) gods, the Hebrews worshiped only one God (''monolatry'') (but even misbehaving Hebrews had false gods – note the Second Commandment). The Hebrews referred to God as "YHVH" (Latinised as "Jehovah"), and to this day observant Jewish people consider it improper to pronounce this name or write it for trivial purposes; some prefer not even to write the English word "God", and instead write "G-d".

It is the name God instructed Moses to use at the encounter at the miraculous burning bush that continued to burn without destruction in Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and He said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

It remains a mystery as to precisely when the books of the Old Testament were written, but here are some estimates:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Book'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|'''Basis for Dates'''
|'''Books included'''
|-
|Genesis and all of Pentateuch
|1440-1400 B.C.
|Time of Moses and Exodus (early dates used)
|Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
|-
|Joshua and historical books
|1400-250 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,<ref>There are two books of Samuel because the work was longer than the length of the ancient scroll!</ref> 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther
|-
|Wisdom Literature
|dating back perhaps older than Genesis
|Job, David & Solomon are main authors
|Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
|-
|Major Prophets
|785-520 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (of Jeremiah), Ezekial and Daniel
|-
|Minor Prophets
|753-455 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
|}

After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled back in the hills of Palestine or Canaan along eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, approximately where Israel is today. They quickly developed a productive society despite the barrenness of the land. They implemented a system of private property, which much sharing within the family structure. Before long, they became targets for their primitive, pagan neighbors. Worst among these were the Philistines, who had iron weapons and good organization. The Hebrews, in contrast, were loosely affiliated and unprepared to defend against outside invasions. The Bible recounts many of these struggles with the Philistines, which God used to punish the Hebrews for disobedience and bring them back to Him.

<big>'''Saul, David and Solomon'''</big>

Inevitably a Hebrew warrior, Saul, took power around 1000 B.C. and defeated the Philistines and Canaanites. The priest Samuel anointed Saul as King, but many Hebrews declined to obey him. David, a shrewd fighter who had trained as a mercenary with the Philistines, became famous as a teenager for defeating the Philistine giant Goliath as described in the Bible. David next built an empire for Israel that extended from Damascus, then a thriving city in the Fertile Crescent, all the way south past what is now the Gaza Strip. For its capital he built a hill city called Jerusalem, and encapsulated it within a wall. II Samuel 9-20 describes this period.

David's son was Solomon, who ruled for forty years (965-925 B.C.) and constructed the great temple of Jerusalem. He was known for his wisdom and justice. He created two states: Israel in the north, with a capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with a capital at Jerusalem. But Solomon also taxed the Hebrews heavily and, after he died, the empire fell into decline. The Kingdom of Israel split after the death of Solomon. ''See'' I Kings 12.
[[Image:Twelve Tribes of Israel.JPG|right]]
Judah in the south survived longer than Israel in the north. The southern Kingdom of Judah consisted of two of the twelve Hebrew tribes, while the northern Kingdom of Israel had the other ten Hebrew tribes. But due to its northern location, the Kingdom of Israel had to contend with Assyria, which was a cruel and extremely powerful kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. It was located in present-day northern Iraq and at times controlled the northern part of present-day Syria. Assyria became an independent state in the 14th century B.C., expanded in the 9th century B.C. and, under powerful kings like Sargon II, united most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule. It was finally destroyed by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612-609 B.C.

<big>'''Assyrian Empire'''</big>

The Assyrians defeated the Kingdom of Israel in 772 B.C, and then scattered and dispersed the ten Hebrew tribes throughout the Assyrian Kingdom. The Assyrian empire was so powerful because it used iron weapons and battering rams, and did not hesitate even to tunnel under enemies' walls. The Assyrians also enslaved the peoples it captured, taking them away from their homeland. The scattering of the Hebrews by the Assyrians was the first of several "diaspora" (pronounced deye-AS-puh-ruh), which means the scattering of the Jewish people away from their homeland. In Judah, however, a young ruler known as Joshua ultimately rose to power in 640 B.C. and overthrew the Assyrian influence, which was in a state of decline then. But Joshua himself ran into the merciless power of the Chaldean empire.

The Chaldean empire defeated both the Hebrews and the Assyrians. Chaldea was the region in southern Babylonia, covering what is now southern Iraq. This land borders the coast of the Persian Gulf between the Euphrates delta and the Arabian desert.

As Assyrian power began to decline, a ruler named Nabopolassar was able to establish a Chaldean dynasty, beginning in 625 B.C. and extending until the Persians conquered the territory by invading in 539 B.C. from present-day Iran. In that brief span of time an important ruler commanded the Chaldean dynasty and all of Babylonian empire: Nebuchadnezzar II (NEB-uh-kuhd-NEZ-ur), who reigned from 605 to 562 B.C.

<big>'''Chaldean Empire'''</big>

Nebuchadnezzar II was a military genius who demonstrated his prowess with a massive conquest of the Egyptian army in 606 or 605 B.C., thereby gaining control of all of Syria. After his father's death, he obtained the submission of Judah and spent the next few years expanding the Babylonian empire into Palestine. Although Nebuchadnezzar suffered many losses, he persisted and ultimately captured Jerusalem on March 16, 597, and then later again in 586, when the Chaldeans also destroyed Solomon's temple. Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped and deported prominent Hebrews back to Babylonia, as recounted in the Bible and known as the Babylonian Exile. Nebuchadnezzar was a godless military commander who suffered from seven years of madness, but at times he protected key prophets like Jeremiah. Daniel described the period of madness by Nebuchadnezzar, but the Babylonian people did not dare criticize their own ruler. Daniel 4:34-37.

Babylon was a culture that did not have the value system of the Hebrews, and Babylonians did not accept God. The Babylonians were constantly raiding, kidnapping, killing or converting the Hebrews into slaves. Much of the Old Testament is about how the Hebrews would gain or lose favor with the Lord, and the Babylonians would prevail against the Hebrews as they lost favor with the Lord. "Babylon" is mentioned 246 times in the Old Testament!

Because he captured and exiled the Hebrews, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament. As mentioned above, it was during his second invasion of Jerusalem, the city that had been previously established as the Hebrew center by David in 1000 B.C., that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the holy Temple built by King Solomon ("Solomon's Temple"). Nebuchadnezzar then captured the Jewish people and took them back to Babylon in what is known as the Babylonian Exile or Captivity, which lasted from 597 to 538 B.C. (beginning with his first invasion of Jerusalem). "But because our ancestors had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia." Ezra 5:12.

<big>'''Persian Empire'''</big>

The death of Nebuchadnezzar II signaled the end of the Babylonian empire, which then fell into decline. It was inevitable that Babylon itself would be conquered. Cyrus the Great was the King of Persia (the ancient name for Iran) (539-530 B.C.), who conquered Asia Minor for the Persians, including the territories of Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine and Syria. His kingdom was known as the Achaemenid (ə-kē'mə-nĭd) (or Persian) empire. He freed the Hebrews and ended the Babylonian Exile, allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. The tomb of Cyrus the Great still exists at Pasargadae, the town that was the capital of his empire but which is now in ruins in present-day Iran.

More than a thousand years later, during the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Muslims planned to destroy this tomb because it is contrary to their religion. However, the possibility that the tomb was somehow built to honor the mother of King Solomon, a respected prophet in Islam, justified preserving the tomb to this day, and it is inscribed today with the following verse of the Qur'an (Koran): "Qabr-e Madar-e Sulaiman" which means the tomb of the mother of Solomon.
 
<big>'''Rebuilding Jerusalem'''</big>

The Hebrews rebuilt Jerusalem's walls and temple, but did not restore the magnificence the city had under Solomon. The Hebrews remained under Persian rule until Alexander the Great conquered the Persians around 330 B.C. Later, when the Roman Empire rose to power, Palestine became a province to Rome, until Palestine rebelled and Rome retaliated by destroying the temple in A.D. 70, again dispersing the Jewish people to distant lands.

''To what do we owe the ancient Hebrews?'' The concept of monotheism: one and only one God. The Hebrews established the covenant of loyalty between God and his chosen ones. Part of the covenant was the promise of a future Messiah to save the people from their sins, and Jewish people debate today whether the Messiah was supposed to establish a kingdom on earth. Later some Jewish people accepted Jesus as the Messiah, while some did not. The moral code by which the Hebrew people strove to live was set forth in the Ten Commandments, which were carved in stone and kept in the sacred Ark of the Covenant as described repeatedly in the Bible (see, e.g., Exodus 25:9-10). Highly specific requirements of daily life are also set forth in the Torah (the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament). The authorities on Jewish law are known as "rabbis", but there is no single, centralized religious authority on Judaism like a pope. Next to the Bible, the next most authoritative Jewish work is the Talmud, which is a collection of writings by rabbis.

==Egypt==

Ancient Egypt was a tremendous civilization located in the fertile Nile Valley. Ancient Egypt existed from about 3000 B.C. up until Alexander the Great conquered it in 332 B.C. The Nile is the greatest river in the world, and is unique in flowing south-to-north, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. It floods with great regularity each year (unlike the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), providing plentiful water for farming. Situated in a desert, Egypt developed irrigation techniques that led it to be called an "hydraulic empire."

What is special about Egypt? Well, for starters, it is the oldest stationary civilization that remains in existence. Geography helped protect it against invaders. To its east and west are deserts, to the north is the Mediterranean Sea and to the south is the rest of Africa. Dividing Egypt in half is the great and mighty Nile. Egypt is self-sufficient with natural resources such as plentiful clay and stone and the ability to trade for timber with nearby Lebanon and copper from Sinai. Just as the unique, closed-in geography of the island of Manhattan has encouraged the development of a powerful economy in New York City, the landscape of Egypt enhanced its independence. Even when conquered, the civilization does not shift anywhere, thanks to the natural boundaries.
[[Image:Ancient Egypt.jpg|right]]
Ancient Egypt was always ruled by a "pharaoh" or king, who was considered to be a god and absolute owner and dictator of the country. He was worshiped by the people.

The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and British all conquered and ruled Egypt at some point. In that respect, the story of who ran Egypt is the history of the greatest world powers ever. Egypt did not have native rule between 341 B.C., when the Persians conquered the last Pharaoh (Nectanebo II), until A.D. 1952, when the native Egyptian president Nasser overthrew a British constitutional monarchy.

<big>'''The Three Kingdoms'''</big>

Ancient Egypt is divided into three periods: the Old Kingdom (3100-2200 B.C.), the Middle Kingdom (2100-1650 B.C.) and the New Kingdom (1550-700 B.C.). The peak in power of ancient Egypt was 1567-1085 B.C.

The '''Old Kingdom''' is known for its security and prosperity, free from foreign invaders. A unique Egyptian kingship developed during this period, and they built the great pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) as built by Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops (pronounced KEE-aps). The pyramids protected and preserved pharaohs for what they expected in the after-life, and were marvelous engineering feats that cannot be duplicated even today.

The '''Middle Kingdom''' was a period during which Egyptian religion extended beyond the kings to the nobles and ordinary citizens. Pharaohs began to share power with local distinguished persons. The pharaohs were strong during this period and promoted trade by digging the Great Canal, which connected the Nile River to the Red Sea. The Middle Kingdom is best known for its cultural achievements, such as literature and artwork. During this period the Egyptians were also successful in draining parts of the Nile delta in Lower (northern) Egypt. Trade expanded, but civil war plagued the Middle Kingdom just as it was a problem in the Old Kingdom.

The '''New Kingdom''' followed a period of foreign rule for a century by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs) (from 1650 to 1580 B.C.), who were Semitic peoples invading Egypt from across the Sinai Peninsula. The Hyksos adopted much of Egyptian culture, including calling themselves pharaohs. The Hyksos introduced the horse and chariot into Egypt. Afterward, the Egyptians extended their empire along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean into Mesopotamia, primarily under the rule of the great warrior Thutmose III. A dynasty from Upper Egypt began this period of the New Kingdom, and it extended throughout Syria, Palestine and, to the south, Nubia. Also, the pharaohs constructed large buildings and massive cities.

After the New Kingdom ended in 700 B.C., Egypt went into a decline and was subsequently conquered by the Persians in 525 B.C.

<big>'''Pharaohs'''</big>

Here is a brief review of the famous Egyptian rulers. The first was Menes (or Mena). In 3100 B.C. he was already king of southern Upper Egypt, and he united it with northern Lower Egypt (note that lower Egypt is closer to the sea-level of the Mediterranean, north of Upper Egypt, as shown on the map). We know his name because Egyptian men, not women, wore make-up and his name was found on palettes used to apply make-up.

Though Menes is called the first "pharaoh" (Egyptian ruler), actually that term was not used until the 18th Dynasty, 1539-1292 B.C. (Egypt was organized by "dynasties", where one family (including descendants) controlled the country.) The term "pharaoh" signifies the Egyptian custom claiming that its ruler was a god, similar to the sky god Horus and the sun gods Re, Amon and Aton. He was considered to be the preserver of a god-given order, called ma'at. Even after death the pharaoh supposedly retained divine status and magical powers. This was a theocracy (rule by a god).

The Egyptian people were divided into separate levels or classes. The highest level consisted of the priests and nobles, and below them were the peasants, and below the peasants were the slaves (which included the Hebrews until Moses led them out in the Exodus). Women were respected in their role of child-rearing and managing household finances, and there were two Egyptian queens: Queen Ahhotep and Queen Hatshepsut. Queen Ahhotep ruled in the Middle Kingdom and helped liberate Egypt from the Hyksos. Her mummy was discovered in A.D. 1859, and her tomb contained many military artifacts honoring her. Queen Hatshepsut served in the place of her young son who was heir to the throne, and she ruled for 15 years until her death in 1458 B.C. She is known for expanding trade. Women were also included in the gods (goddesses) that Egyptians worshiped. More generally, rights of dynasty were inherited through the mother's side, making Egypt a "matriarchal" society.

The most famous pharaoh was Pharaoh Ramses II, who served during the New Kingdom. Slavery first became widespread during the New Kingdom, probably using Hebrews as slaves. The Hebrew Exodus occurred under Ramses II, making him the last great pharaoh in the New Kingdom.

Modern discoveries shed new light on the Egyptian culture. In A.D. 1922, Howard Carter discovered in the Valley of the Kings the untouched tomb of Tutankhamen, a young pharaoh surrounded by magnificent gold and other artifacts. These have been presented in museums ever since. Tutankhamen ruled from 1361 to 1352 B.C., but very little is known about his reign.

<big>'''Egyptian Achievements'''</big>

Egyptians invented mummification, which began in the 4th Dynasty. It took the Egyptians a long time to develop this art, but they ultimately succeeded to perfection. Without going into all the gory details, it consists of removing the internal organs from a body after death, treating the body with resin, and then wrapping it tightly in linen bandages. You should consider becoming a doctor if you have an interest in this!

''Religion'': The ancient Egyptians worshiped many gods, often inspired by animals or aspects of nature such as the sun. Only nobles could aspire to an afterlife, and only the king himself could become unified with Osiris, a legendary king who represented the forces of agriculture. These religious views subsequently lost out to more powerful concepts of Christianity and Islam. Now Egypt is 90% Sunnite Muslim, and the remainder mostly Christian (Copts).

The Christian Copts trace their ancestors directly to the ancient Egyptians. Unlike the Muslims in Egypt, who consider themselves Arabs, the Christian Copts do not consider themselves to be Arabs and the Christian Copts still use ancient Egyptian surnames. They cite the sojourn by Jesus' family in Egypt to escape Herod, and the proselytizing in Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who wrote the Gospel and was martyred at Alexandria, Egypt. He is considered the first leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, followed by an unbroken line of 117 successors to the present Pope Shenouda III. A pharaoh was considered to be a sun god, and eventually monotheism (one all-powerful god) became popular in Egypt, with the sun god Aton commanding all Egyptians' attention.

''Language'': The Egyptians developed a written language consisting of hieroglyphics, which are pictographs. It originated around 3100 B.C. It was written on papyrus as a kind of paper; papyrus is a thin parchment constructed from reeds near the Nile river. Historians could not understand hieroglyphics until the discovery of the "Rosetta Stone" by Napoleon's troops in 1799 near the seaside town of Rosetta, located in northern Egypt. It sits in the British Museum today. It consists of a slab of black basalt inscribing a royal decree to the king Ptolemy V, dating from 196 B.C. The Stone is marvelous in inscribing the same message three times: once in Greek, once in Demotic (a simple form of hieroglyphics used 700 B.C. to A.D. 400), and once in hieroglyphic. This enabled a French expert in the Greek language, Jean Francois Champollion, to determine what the hieroglyphic characters mean, and build a dictionary that could be used to translate other works written in hieroglyphics. Champollion had been a child prodigy in learning numerous languages while still a teenager.

Egypt's complex, picture-based language probably hindered its growth. The picture-based language was not as easy to use as the alphabet-based Phoenician language later adopted by the Greeks and Romans. How would one express Christian concepts like salvation, faith, hope and redemption in hieroglyphics? It seems impossible.

''Science'': A magnificent city named "Alexandria" was created by Alexander the Great in Egypt in 334 B.C., and it became a cultural center for many centuries. Eventually it grew to be second only to Rome in size and wealth, but declined over a thousand years later after Islamic conquerors established Cairo as the capital of Egypt. Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexandria is also known for the Library of Alexandria, which was the largest in the world at that time and reflected the cultural leadership of the city.

In A.D. 100, while Alexandria was still a great city, Ptolemy (pronounced "tah-luh-mee") was born there and was named after the long line of Egyptian kings. He wrote magnificent works on astronomy, optics, geography, mechanics and geometry. He is best known for his complex theory that placed planet Earth at the center of universe, since all things appeared to fall towards Earth and thus towards the center. The Ptolemaic system was the prevailing view until Copernicus proposed the sun as the center of the solar system over 1000 years later.

''Culture'': Egypt used slaves as most ancient cultures did. Women in Egypt were very powerful, holding the right to own property, divorce their husbands, manage businesses and even become priestesses. It was possible for poor people to rise to the upper class through talent and hard work. Taxes were a burden. The government claimed ownership of one-fifth of all produce (Genesis 47:24). The society had some ethical principles, such as the royal advice that "more acceptable is the character of one upright of heart than the ox of the evildoer." Feeding the poor, taking care of the disadvantaged, and avoid bribes in administering justice were respected. The Egyptians learned to travel up and down the Nile River by using the current in one direction, and the Etesian winds to propel sailboats upstream into the other direction. Egyptian architecture was the pyramid and colonnaded temples like the one Karnak, using a style later copied by the Greeks.

''Trade'': Egypt was not as advanced as Mesopotamia in trade, though trade did improve during the New Kingdom and some commerce with Sumer was established then.

''Inventions'': Egyptians invented our 365-day solar calendar, based on 12 months of about 30 days each. But Mesopotamia was more advanced than Egypt. To Mesopotamia we owe our "base 60" system for our clock (60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour). Egyptians lacked the concept of money, and relied on primitive barter (selling a good in exchange for a different good in return). The Egyptian Old Kingdom lacked the wheel; the pyramids were built without use of the wheel!

== References ==

<references/>

[[Category:World History lectures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:World History Lecture 01}}

World History Lecture One

2009-02-05T15:29:40Z

DeniseM: /* Israel */ It's still the Torah even if it's not in scroll form. Consider fact-checking before teaching children this material.

[[World History Lecture One|1]]-[[World History Lecture Two|2]]-[[World History Lecture Three|3]]-[[World History Lecture Four|4]]-[[World History Lecture Five|5]]-[[World History Lecture Six|6]]-[[World History Lecture Seven|7]]-[[World History Lecture Eight|8]]-[[World History Lecture Nine|9]]-[[World History Lecture Ten|10]]-[[World History Lecture Eleven|11]]-[[World History Lecture Twelve|12]]-[[World History Lecture Thirteen|13]]-[[World History Lecture Fourteen|14]]

"World history" is the true story of thought, ideas, culture, language, wars, governments, and economic systems throughout ''all'' of mankind's history. This includes billions of people over thousands of years. Every source is available to us, from the Bible to ancient and modern historians. Everything mankind has ever written, invented, observed, conquered and destroyed is part of "World history." For example, we will study how Carthage was built into a power, and how it was then forever destroyed by its enemies from Rome.

Our course will place a special emphasis on aspects of World history that continue to be influential today, such as world religions and cultural conflicts; we will link what happened in ancient times to what is happening today. We are the product of our past. You can think about whether that is a good thing, or a bad thing. Perhaps the answer depends on what we make of it. We will make use of the Bible, which is greatest history book ever written.

American history covers only about 400 years; World history concerns over 5000 years, going back to the first evidence of recorded events. Our class covers much of the material in a course on Western Civilization or European history, but we cover more too. We will learn about Islam and Hinduism and all the forces that continue to shape our world to this day. One cannot fully understand 9/11, violence in the Middle East, or hostility between India and Pakistan without learning World history.

We will consider how mankind progressed in understanding the unseen, such as truth and gravity and God. In mathematics, mankind progressed from the discovery of geometry ([[Greeks]]) to the concept of "zero" (Indians) to calculus (English). In economics, mankind progressed from wage and price controls (Romans) to the "invisible hand" of the free market (Scottish), which then unleashed tremendous prosperity. Government progressed from rulers who claimed to be gods (Egyptians), to monarchs (Middle Ages), to constitutional republics (United States). World history spans from pre-Christian to Christian. What are we progressing towards now? We will learn to use history to predict the future.

Do not be misled by thinking that ancient peoples were dumb or boring because they lacked the technology of modern society. The Egyptians, for example, cleverly built the massive pyramids using techniques that no one to this day can figure out or duplicate. In 2600 B.C., they constructed the pyramid of Khufu containing 6 million tons of stone extending to a height of 481 feet. The workmanship was superior to anything we do today: the rock base was virtually flat, not varying in elevation by more than a half-inch; its orientation is precisely aligned with the points of a compass; its stones were perfect fits. Inside was a chapel, a causeway, and a temple. It amazes architects to this day. We would not be able to duplicate it, and no one knows how the Egyptians were able to build these intricate structures 4600 years ago. Many other cultures, from Mesopotamia to Greece to Rome to India to China, invented things and discovered knowledge that no one today is smart enough to duplicate. Can you build a useful wheel, or make paper?

A word about terminology: "B.C" means "Before (the birth of) Christ" and "A.D." means ''Anno Domini'' (Latin for "in the year of our Lord") or simply "After (the birth of) Christ." The "1st century B.C." means the 1st century before Christ, counting backwards, which are the years 100-1 B.C. The "6th century B.C." is thus 600-501 B.C. The 20th century (A.D.) included the years A.D. 1901-2000. Because A.D. means "in the year of our Lord," the truly proper form is to put the date after the A.D., as in A.D. 2006. Dates are based on the birth of Christ, and it is wrong to erase Christ from the annotation, as school textbooks do with "BCE" for "Before the Common Era" and "CE" for "Common Era." To convert from a public school textbook, remember that BCE = B.C. and CE = A.D.

World history divides into four sections: Ancient History (Creation-A.D. 500), the Middle Ages (A.D. 500-1500), the Pre-Modern Era (A.D. 1500-1900), and the Modern Era (A.D. 1900-Current). The Renaissance (A.D. 1300-1600), including the Reformation, overlaps with the Middle Ages and Pre-Modern Era. Note that dates are not precise in this course: the further back in time we go, the less we know about the actual dates of key events. For events before 1000 B.C., historians barely know a date within a few hundred years of its actual occurrence!

Let us begin.

==Introduction to Ancient History==

Ancient history is everything before about A.D. 500 or 600, when every major religion except Islam was established. Ancient history created civilization and achieved many of the greatest intellectual breakthroughs of all time. Literature, drama, mathematics, philosophy, language, etc., were all created and developed during ancient history, which is why this time period is emphasized so much in education.
[[Image:Cuneiform images.jpg|right]]
When did mankind first begin? There is no reliable evidence of man existing before 3500 B.C. The oldest writing was a pictographic tablet called a "cuneiform" (pronounced kyu-NEE-uh-form) dated to perhaps 3400 B.C. from Sumer (SOO-mur) in Southern Mesopotamia (where Iraq is today). Cuneiform looks like chicken-scratches featuring wedge-like or arrow-shaped characters. Although cuneiform was a primitive writing style, it continued in use until shortly before the birth of Christ. Originally pictographs (e.g., to write "foot", you would draw a foot), cuneiform expanded to 600 stick-based symbols or figures, with each one developing multiple meanings (e.g., the symbol for "foot" also developed the meanings of "to go" or "to stand," depending on the context).<ref>http://i-cias.com/e.o/cuneiform.htm</ref> For those who "text message" on cell phones, notice how each key has multiple possible letters and how the phone resolves the ambiguity and forms words depending on how the letters fit together to form a word. Cuneiform had only 600 symbols, but their multiple meanings were resolved by seeing how they fit together to form sentences. Notice that cuneiform was not an alphabet or western-style script; the oldest script-based language is from the Indo-Aryan language, and an example dating back to 1550 B.C. was found in the Sinai.

Historians feel that spoken language originated in southeastern Europe near the Black Sea, not far from the Ararat mountain range cited in the Bible in connection with Noah. Using population estimates, we know that about 300 million people existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C. The oldest trees do not predate this time; the oldest sequoias, which never die of old age, but which, of course, do succumb to diseases, forest fires, and animal damage, are no older than 2000 B.C.

No "civilization" has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C. By "civilization" we mean an order and hierarchy in the way of life. Some type of political system or government is usually necessary to have a civilization. A structure similar to a city or town is necessary to bring together people, jobs, buildings or religious centers. Usually there are different classes of people, such as rich and poor. Some historians say there must be an agricultural surplus also: enough food to feed the people so that some workers could spend time in jobs other than farming. In a nutshell, a civilization must have cities, skilled (non-farming) workers, social and government institutions, writing to maintain records such as property ownership, and advanced technology. Memorize the oldest dates for the ancient civilizations:
<table border="1px" style="background-color:#F6F6F6;">
<tr><td>'''Name'''</td><td>'''Time of existence'''</td></tr><tr><td>
[[Mesopotamia]] (Mes-uh-puh-tay-mee-uh)</td><td>3500 – 500 B.C., when conquered by Persia</tr><tr><td>
Egypt</td><td> 3100 – 525 B.C., when conquered by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs)</td></tr><tr><td>
Indus (IN-dus) Valley:</td><td>beginning in 2900 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
China:</td><td>beginning in 2200 B.C.</td></tr><tr><td>
Mexican Olmec (AWL-mek):</td><td> 1200 – 300 B.C., the earliest known American civilization</td></tr><tr><td>
Peru (South America):</td><td> 900 B.C.</td></tr></table>

History books speculate about "prehistory", which predates writing (i.e., before 3400 B.C.). But there is no reliable evidence to support this speculation, and it is not worth spending time on. There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form. But in case you are asked on a standardized test, historians describe the period of time known as "prehistory" as the "Stone Age." They divide the Stone Age into two time periods: "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic". The Paleolithic Age is older, when man relied mostly on hunting and picking nuts and fruit to supplement his diet. The Paleolithic Age was followed by the Neolithic Age, which consisted of the rise of agriculture. The "Neolithic Revolution" means the "Agricultural Revolution," when farming became dominant. The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have a bias for giving them older dates than archaeology actually proves.

After the Stone Age came the Bronze Age, beginning in 3500 B.C., when copper and/or bronze tools were used. That was followed by the Iron Age, which began in Turkey around 2200 B.C. and later spread to other regions. As its name suggests, people during this period used iron for tools.

Ancient civilizations are often called "classical civilizations," particularly when they produced great intellectual advances as Ancient Greece did. For example, "Classical Indian Civilization" refers to Ancient India, which lasted from 300 B.C. to A.D. 500.

Two of the oldest towns are the biblical town of Jericho, located in Palestine (on the "West Bank" of the Jordan River, between Israel and Jordan today), and Catal Huyuk, located in modern-day Turkey. Jericho was famous for its high city walls to protect against attack.
[[Image:Ancient lands.JPG|right]]
The ancient world was the source of the most basic aspects of life that we still use today, such as the seven-day week and marriage. The Bible remains the best written explanation for these and many other aspects of the ancient world. Note that all four civilizations discussed in this lecture arose in or near what we now call the "Middle East."

==Mesopotamia==

So where did civilization begin? In a region known as Mesopotamia, which is Greek for "land between the rivers." The "rivers" are the Tigris and Euphrates, located in Western Asia. Where, exactly? Civilization began in fertile areas of Iraq northeast of the desert, known as part of the "Fertile Crescent." It extends along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (including modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria) and through the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run southeast into the Persian Gulf (see the next page for the map). These rivers deposited silt in the surrounding land, creating rich alluvial soil. Today the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not far from the location of our soldiers in Iraq. But our soldiers are mostly pictured in dry, sandy areas, while the ancient people would have stayed close to the water. Moreover, ancient floods have probably changed the landscape over time.

Genesis 2:8-14 describes the beginning in Mesopotamia as follows: "Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ... A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ... The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."<ref>This course uses a variety of translations for the Bible, this time using the well-established "NIV" version.</ref> Using the ages mentioned in the Bible and counting backwards, biblical scholars have dated this as about 6000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C. This is about 500 years before our earliest record of ancient writings, which is what one might expect; it wouldn't take long for man to start writing messages, but the oldest messages are unlikely to be "extant" (still existing today).

In the fourth millennium before Christ, between about 3500 and 3000 B.C., cities began to sprout up with their own political and economic systems. Both of these developments occurred in southern Mesopotamia. The first such city (that we know of) was called Sumer, and its occupants were the Sumerians.

We owe a great deal to the work of the Sumerians. They developed the first system of writing (the cuneiform), the first codes of law and the first "city-state" (essentially a nation consisting only of a large city). Their inventions were marvelous: the seed plow, the sailboat, and the potter’s wheel. (Distinguish "cuneiform" symbols from "ideograms", which show ideas with symbols such as arrows for war, from "phonograms", in which symbols represent sounds).

Most workers in Mesopotamia were farmers, but some devoted their time to trade. They had a calendar based on the moon to aid the farmers, and they developed a mathematical system using base 12. They were marvelous inventors, creating complex systems of irrigation and discovering the plow, the cart and the wheel, and used bronze (a mixture of copper and tin) to make good farming tools. Both men and women owned private property, had slaves, and were ruled by a king.
[[Image:Mesopotamia2.PNG|right]]
They built cities known as Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Isin, Kish, just to name a few. They were smart, and developed Akkadian as their language. One interesting aspect of Akkadian is that it lacks any tense forms such as past or future tense. The verbs expressed the manner of an action rather than its time.

By 3000 B.C. the people had built major canals to channel water, and roads on which to travel. Shepherds had dogs to help them tend the sheep, just as we use today to help herd sheep together. Each city was surrounded by a moat and a wall of brick, with as many as 900 towers inside the city. Soldiers watched people entering and exiting the city, and chariots and wagons carried people and goods within the city. By 3000 B.C. mankind had already built a mini-version of Manhattan, without the automobile and steel skyscrapers. But Mesopotamia (unlike Egypt and China) was not protected by geography, and would constantly face invasion by foreigners.

Do not think there was anything primitive about these ancient cities. They had shipping, fishing, brewers and bakers. They spun wool and traded fine jewelry. They discovered the Pythagorean Theorem, though it was later named after a Greek. In 2500 B.C., the queen of Ur, which was a prominent city, lived in a palace that featured harps and many servants. Slavery existed, but it was typically confined to domestic work in the cities rather than hard labor on the farm. Slaves were given a minimum standard of living and often had the opportunity to rise to freedom through diligent work.

Temples were everywhere. But the people also built stepped mountains known as ziggurats, with a temple on top, and the Bible tells how they tried to build one higher and higher. A massive ziggurat at Ur that is described in Genesis 11:1-9 as the Tower of Babel led to hundreds of different languages (a division which may have also led to different ethnic groups) in the world. As we shall learn in this course, language is a central part of a society that has much to do with its success or failure. Societies with useful and powerful languages prospered; those with difficult-to-use and weak languages failed.

Genesis Chapter 10 places the roots of modern mankind in Noah and his three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. The term "Semitic" means "pertaining to the descendants of Shem," and includes Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Sabaeans, and Hebrews. Semitic languages include Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. Semitic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One of Noah's descendants was Abram, who later changed his name to Abraham to reflect his covenant with God.

Both the Bible and many independent sources describe a Great Flood (or "Deluge"), which historians date at about 3300 or 3000 B.C. Very little of any history, including writings and civilization, has survived from before that time. The biblical account of the Flood is at Genesis 5-8, describing an ark having reasonable dimensions similar to modern ocean steamships. A non-biblical Sumerian (from Sumer in Mesopotamia) account of the Flood was found in the last hundred years, and that account was apparently written about 1600 B.C. Even better, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon was found dating from 3000 B.C., which also described a massive flood in great detail. There are many other ancient accounts of a massive flood found in most other cultures around the world. Fossils and limestone (the result of ocean sediment) are found today on mountaintops and land worldwide at all altitudes. Independent accounts of a great flood can be found in ancient works of China, India, Britain (Druid) and American Indians, all having striking similar details.<ref>See, e.g., http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T2631</ref> Recently two scientists at Columbia University published a widely praised book, entitled "Noah's Flood," which proved that the Flood did occur. This book concludes that the biblical Flood "is surely a true story of the permanent destruction of a land and its people ...."<ref>Ryan & Pitman, "Noah's Flood" (Simon & Schuster, NY: 1998), p. 251.</ref> Yet no public school textbook ever mentions a massive flood.

Civilization prospered in Sumeria, and wars soon broke out. The northwest (Akkad) was constantly fighting the southeast (Sumer), and eventually an Akkadian warrior named Sargon conquered Mesopotamia. Sargon was the first person in recorded history to create an empire or multi-ethnic state, from 2334 to 2279 B.C. His empire included the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and also part of what is Turkey today. The capital of his empire was Agade in Akkad. But like many military rulers, his empire collapsed when he died. He did not have a civil (non-military) form of government to pay his soldiers and sustain his empire. Instead, he could only survive as long his soldiers continued to capture and loot. Once the empire stopped expanding upon his death, it collapsed. At the time, the city of Ur in Sumer was the leading city.

The Sumerians established many of the things that define civilization today: buildings, engineering, legal codes, written language and a military. The Sumerians also had literature: in 2000 B.C., they wrote "The Epic of Gilgamesh," considered to be oldest fictional story ever written. The Epic of Gilgamesh was based on a real person who ruled a city-state in Sumer. He struggles with religious issues in the form of multiple gods, and the story seems to draw on some of the wisdom of the Bible. This non-biblical source also describes a great flood.

Each civilization or culture had its inventions. We can thank Mesopotamia (probably Ur) for inventing the wheel in about 3500 B.C., which is the single greatest invention of all time. It is used for much more than transportation. The wheel is essential to manufacturing and even pre-digital watches. No Native American civilization had the wheel until the Europeans brought it to them.

==Babylon==

Babylonia was a relatively late achiever in the Mesopotamian world, occupying southern Mesopotamia where Sumer was. Babylonia was built around 2300 B.C. Babylon was its main city, located about 55 miles south of where Baghdad is today in Iraq. Babylon is now in ruins, but thousands of years ago was a thriving city known for the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," which were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Babylon was known as a city devoted to materialism and self-indulgence. As an example of usage, the English author G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "the Babylonian halls of the big hotel," using the word "Babylonian" to denote luxurious extravagance.

As a city Babylon was smaller and less important than Ur, which enjoyed several dynasties. But the constant fighting led to the fall of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, and an Amorite king named Sumuabum established a kingdom in 1894 B.C. there. His successors built it up, and then a brilliant ruler name Hammurabi took power as the sixth king of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 B.C. (That is over forty years: there were no term limits for rulers then!).

The reign of Hammurabi signaled the end of the early Mesopotamian civilization. He created a system of justice by promulgating an elaborate code of law (called the Code of Hammurabi, or "Hammurabi's Code"). The code imposed harsh punishment of "an eye for an eye," and lower classes of people received harsher punishment than higher classes of people. If you broke the bone of a
"free man" (non-slave), then the punishment was to break one of your bones. That was simple and effective, and the Old Testament uses a similar approach in some ways (ask yourself: who used this first?). The Eighth Commandment in the Old Testament states, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Hammurabi's Code states if someone accuses another of doing something wrong, but cannot prove it, then the accuser shall be killed.

Hammurabi attempted to be righteous and much of his correspondence survives to this day. He encouraged legal contracts, but he also limited the amount of interest and wages that could be earned. After 29 years of establishing order, he then conquered all of Mesopotamia, making him the first king of the Babylonian Empire. To this day Hammurabi is respected by historians as a great leader who achieved an enormous amount of progress that benefits all of mankind.

'''Debate: Which matters more in making a society successful: its laws or its language?'''

Chaos resulted when Hammurabi died, a common result after the passing away of a powerful ruler. The Hittites (HIT-eyets) were Indo-Europeans who migrated into Anatolia (now Turkey). The Hittites were famous for bringing iron smelting to many other groups, and using the superior iron weapons and tools. They attacked and weakened the Babylonian empire, ultimately defeating it in 1600 B.C. The Kassites, led by King Agumkakrine, then took advantage of situation and grabbed power. But they continued to honor the Code of Hammurabi during their 400 year rule of the territory.

In 1124 B.C. the first Nebuchadnezzar rose to power over the Babylonian empire. He moved its capital to Babylon, then the world's largest city. Its spanned 10,000 hectares, which is slightly larger than San Francisco today.

The Babylonian empire acquired great power, and power corrupts. Eventually it turned against religion. That ultimately occurred in 598 through 586 B.C., but we have more history to cover before getting to that period!

Much of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, is written with references to Babylon. The main reason is that Babylon rose to enormous power and captured the Hebrews, and held them in captivity. This is known as the Babylonian Exile or Babylonian Captivity.

==Israel==

While the Kassites were in control of Babylon, the oldest religion that is still active today began: Judaism. The ancient Hebrews were descendants of Abram (later in his life his name became "Abraham", meaning "father of many"), who lived in Ur around 2000 B.C., and his wife Sarah, through their son Isaac and Isaac's son Jacob. Later the name of the ancient Hebrews became known as the "Israelites", once the kingdom of the Hebrews was established with the crowning of King David around 1000 B.C. But Israel did not remain intact as a nation in the ancient world; after the reigns of King David and his son Solomon, it split into two kingdoms, and then was captured and taken into captivity. Beginning with the terminology in the Book of Esther, which was written between 200 and 300 B.C., the people of the former Israel became known as the "Jewish people," or the "Jews". Judaism did not exist before Abraham, and it is not known where his ancestors lived in the prior millennium; they could have lived throughout the Middle East, including ancient Egypt.

The timeline is easy to remember: '''Jesus (6 B.C. to about A.D. 30) lived half-way between Abraham (2000 B.C.) and today (A.D. 2009). King David and the founding of Israel was halfway between Abraham and Jesus.'''

The conflict between the Hebrew (Jewish) and Arab peoples is described by some as a family feud. Both sides are descended from the same father, Abraham, as recounted in Genesis 16. But Jewish and Arab peoples trace their lineage from different sons of Abraham who were rivals for their father's love. The Bible states that Jewish people are descendants of Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah. The Koran (the main holy book of Islam) states that Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham (then Abram) and the Egyptian woman Hagar. The Old Testament teaches that Abraham offered to sacrifice his son Isaac to the Lord, while Islam teaches that Abraham's sacrifice was of his son Ishmael. Islam teaches that Ishmael helped Abraham build a mosque in Mecca (the venerated Kaaba). Ishmael went a different way from the rest of Abraham's family, and there have been hard feelings by Ishmael's descendants ever since. Note that the Bible's version of this was written first, preceding the Koran by over a thousand years.

The ancient Hebrews who were descended from Jacob migrated away from Ur in Mesopotamia to Palestine, where they resided between 2000 and about 1500 B.C. But they migrated over to Egypt to escape a bad famine. There they served as slaves for perhaps hundreds of years, though they undoubtedly contributed greatly to the intellectual progress of the Egyptian culture. As described in the Book of Exodus, Moses (who had been adopted by a royal family there) ultimately led 600,000 Hebrews out of Egypt around 1250 B.C.<ref>1250 B.C. is known as the "late date" or estimate for the time of the Exodus; the "early date" or estimate for the Exodus is 1447 B.C.</ref> Egyptian historians refer to slaves and captives called "Hapiru", but some doubt that these were the Hebrews. Regardless, the Bible contains many verified references to the Egyptian pharaohs demonstrating that the Jewish ancestors were in Egypt. The Hebrews' escape from Egypt is called the "Exodus", and is described by that book in the Old Testament. During the passage, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. (In Manhattan today there is a famous medical school on the upper East Side named "Mount Sinai.") Moses is also credited as being the scribe for the first five books of the Bible (the "Pentateuch" or in Hebrew תּוֹרָה, the Torah).

The dates given below are estimates, and the homework encourages you to improve on them:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Events'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|-
|Creation of Adam and Eve
|3700-4004 B.C.
|-
|Flood
|perhaps 2300 B.C.
|-
|Tower of Babel
|perhaps 2200 B.C.
|-
|Call of Abram (Abraham)
|born c. 2000 B.C.
|-
|Covenant
|1921 B.C.
|-
|Abraham to Palestine area
|1921 B.C. to 1690 B.C.
|-
|Joseph to Egypt
|1880 B.C.<ref>This is based on the "early date" estimate for Exodus. See http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html</ref>
|-
|Moses and Exodus
|1447 or 1270 B.C.
|-
|Entering the Promised Land
|1400 or 1230 B.C.
|-
|Israelite kingdom established under King David
|1010 B.C.
|-
|Israel divided into Israel and Judah
|931 B.C.
|-
|Israel (10 tribes) conquered by Assyrians
|721 B.C.
|-
|Judah (2 tribes) conquered by Neo-Babylonians
|585 to 515 B.C.
|-
|Persians conquer Babylonian empire, captives freed
|515 B.C.
|-
|Jerusalem rebuilt
|starting 515 B.C.
|}

While most ancient peoples worshiped many pagan (non-existent) gods, the Hebrews worshiped only one God (''monolatry'') (but even misbehaving Hebrews had false gods – note the Second Commandment). The Hebrews referred to God as "YHVH" (Latinised as "Jehovah"), and to this day observant Jewish people consider it improper to pronounce this name or write it for trivial purposes; some prefer not even to write the English word "God", and instead write "G-d".

It is the name God instructed Moses to use at the encounter at the miraculous burning bush that continued to burn without destruction in Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'; and He said, 'Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

It remains a mystery as to precisely when the books of the Old Testament were written, but here are some estimates:

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|'''Book'''
|'''Estimated Dates'''
|'''Basis for Dates'''
|'''Books included'''
|-
|Genesis and all of Pentateuch
|1440-1400 B.C.
|Time of Moses and Exodus (early dates used)
|Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy
|-
|Joshua and historical books
|1400-250 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,<ref>There are two books of Samuel because the work was longer than the length of the ancient scroll!</ref> 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther
|-
|Wisdom Literature
|dating back perhaps older than Genesis
|Job, David & Solomon are main authors
|Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs
|-
|Major Prophets
|785-520 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (of Jeremiah), Ezekial and Daniel
|-
|Minor Prophets
|753-455 B.C.
|dated by evidence of historical events
|Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
|}

After leaving Egypt, the Hebrews settled back in the hills of Palestine or Canaan along eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, approximately where Israel is today. They quickly developed a productive society despite the barrenness of the land. They implemented a system of private property, which much sharing within the family structure. Before long, they became targets for their primitive, pagan neighbors. Worst among these were the Philistines, who had iron weapons and good organization. The Hebrews, in contrast, were loosely affiliated and unprepared to defend against outside invasions. The Bible recounts many of these struggles with the Philistines, which God used to punish the Hebrews for disobedience and bring them back to Him.

<big>'''Saul, David and Solomon'''</big>

Inevitably a Hebrew warrior, Saul, took power around 1000 B.C. and defeated the Philistines and Canaanites. The priest Samuel anointed Saul as King, but many Hebrews declined to obey him. David, a shrewd fighter who had trained as a mercenary with the Philistines, became famous as a teenager for defeating the Philistine giant Goliath as described in the Bible. David next built an empire for Israel that extended from Damascus, then a thriving city in the Fertile Crescent, all the way south past what is now the Gaza Strip. For its capital he built a hill city called Jerusalem, and encapsulated it within a wall. II Samuel 9-20 describes this period.

David's son was Solomon, who ruled for forty years (965-925 B.C.) and constructed the great temple of Jerusalem. He was known for his wisdom and justice. He created two states: Israel in the north, with a capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with a capital at Jerusalem. But Solomon also taxed the Hebrews heavily and, after he died, the empire fell into decline. The Kingdom of Israel split after the death of Solomon. ''See'' I Kings 12.
[[Image:Twelve Tribes of Israel.JPG|right]]
Judah in the south survived longer than Israel in the north. The southern Kingdom of Judah consisted of two of the twelve Hebrew tribes, while the northern Kingdom of Israel had the other ten Hebrew tribes. But due to its northern location, the Kingdom of Israel had to contend with Assyria, which was a cruel and extremely powerful kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. It was located in present-day northern Iraq and at times controlled the northern part of present-day Syria. Assyria became an independent state in the 14th century B.C., expanded in the 9th century B.C. and, under powerful kings like Sargon II, united most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf under Assyrian rule. It was finally destroyed by a Chaldean-Median coalition in 612-609 B.C.

<big>'''Assyrian Empire'''</big>

The Assyrians defeated the Kingdom of Israel in 772 B.C, and then scattered and dispersed the ten Hebrew tribes throughout the Assyrian Kingdom. The Assyrian empire was so powerful because it used iron weapons and battering rams, and did not hesitate even to tunnel under enemies' walls. The Assyrians also enslaved the peoples it captured, taking them away from their homeland. The scattering of the Hebrews by the Assyrians was the first of several "diaspora" (pronounced deye-AS-puh-ruh), which means the scattering of the Jewish people away from their homeland. In Judah, however, a young ruler known as Joshua ultimately rose to power in 640 B.C. and overthrew the Assyrian influence, which was in a state of decline then. But Joshua himself ran into the merciless power of the Chaldean empire.

The Chaldean empire defeated both the Hebrews and the Assyrians. Chaldea was the region in southern Babylonia, covering what is now southern Iraq. This land borders the coast of the Persian Gulf between the Euphrates delta and the Arabian desert.

As Assyrian power began to decline, a ruler named Nabopolassar was able to establish a Chaldean dynasty, beginning in 625 B.C. and extending until the Persians conquered the territory by invading in 539 B.C. from present-day Iran. In that brief span of time an important ruler commanded the Chaldean dynasty and all of Babylonian empire: Nebuchadnezzar II (NEB-uh-kuhd-NEZ-ur), who reigned from 605 to 562 B.C.

<big>'''Chaldean Empire'''</big>

Nebuchadnezzar II was a military genius who demonstrated his prowess with a massive conquest of the Egyptian army in 606 or 605 B.C., thereby gaining control of all of Syria. After his father's death, he obtained the submission of Judah and spent the next few years expanding the Babylonian empire into Palestine. Although Nebuchadnezzar suffered many losses, he persisted and ultimately captured Jerusalem on March 16, 597, and then later again in 586, when the Chaldeans also destroyed Solomon's temple. Nebuchadnezzar kidnapped and deported prominent Hebrews back to Babylonia, as recounted in the Bible and known as the Babylonian Exile. Nebuchadnezzar was a godless military commander who suffered from seven years of madness, but at times he protected key prophets like Jeremiah. Daniel described the period of madness by Nebuchadnezzar, but the Babylonian people did not dare criticize their own ruler. Daniel 4:34-37.

Babylon was a culture that did not have the value system of the Hebrews, and Babylonians did not accept God. The Babylonians were constantly raiding, kidnapping, killing or converting the Hebrews into slaves. Much of the Old Testament is about how the Hebrews would gain or lose favor with the Lord, and the Babylonians would prevail against the Hebrews as they lost favor with the Lord. "Babylon" is mentioned 246 times in the Old Testament!

Because he captured and exiled the Hebrews, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament. As mentioned above, it was during his second invasion of Jerusalem, the city that had been previously established as the Hebrew center by David in 1000 B.C., that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the holy Temple built by King Solomon ("Solomon's Temple"). Nebuchadnezzar then captured the Jewish people and took them back to Babylon in what is known as the Babylonian Exile or Captivity, which lasted from 597 to 538 B.C. (beginning with his first invasion of Jerusalem). "But because our ancestors had angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia." Ezra 5:12.

<big>'''Persian Empire'''</big>

The death of Nebuchadnezzar II signaled the end of the Babylonian empire, which then fell into decline. It was inevitable that Babylon itself would be conquered. Cyrus the Great was the King of Persia (the ancient name for Iran) (539-530 B.C.), who conquered Asia Minor for the Persians, including the territories of Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine and Syria. His kingdom was known as the Achaemenid (ə-kē'mə-nĭd) (or Persian) empire. He freed the Hebrews and ended the Babylonian Exile, allowing the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. The tomb of Cyrus the Great still exists at Pasargadae, the town that was the capital of his empire but which is now in ruins in present-day Iran.

More than a thousand years later, during the Islamic conquest of Iran, the Muslims planned to destroy this tomb because it is contrary to their religion. However, the possibility that the tomb was somehow built to honor the mother of King Solomon, a respected prophet in Islam, justified preserving the tomb to this day, and it is inscribed today with the following verse of the Qur'an (Koran): "Qabr-e Madar-e Sulaiman" which means the tomb of the mother of Solomon.
 
<big>'''Rebuilding Jerusalem'''</big>

The Hebrews rebuilt Jerusalem's walls and temple, but did not restore the magnificence the city had under Solomon. The Hebrews remained under Persian rule until Alexander the Great conquered the Persians around 330 B.C. Later, when the Roman Empire rose to power, Palestine became a province to Rome, until Palestine rebelled and Rome retaliated by destroying the temple in A.D. 70, again dispersing the Jewish people to distant lands.

''To what do we owe the ancient Hebrews?'' The concept of monotheism: one and only one God. The Hebrews established the covenant of loyalty between God and his chosen ones. Part of the covenant was the promise of a future Messiah to save the people from their sins, and Jewish people debate today whether the Messiah was supposed to establish a kingdom on earth. Later some Jewish people accepted Jesus as the Messiah, while some did not. The moral code by which the Hebrew people strove to live was set forth in the Ten Commandments, which were carved in stone and kept in the sacred Ark of the Covenant as described repeatedly in the Bible (see, e.g., Exodus 25:9-10). Highly specific requirements of daily life are also set forth in the Torah (the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament). The authorities on Jewish law are known as "rabbis", but there is no single, centralized religious authority on Judaism like a pope. Next to the Bible, the next most authoritative Jewish work is the Talmud, which is a collection of writings by rabbis.

==Egypt==

Ancient Egypt was a tremendous civilization located in the fertile Nile Valley. Ancient Egypt existed from about 3000 B.C. up until Alexander the Great conquered it in 332 B.C. The Nile is the greatest river in the world, and is unique in flowing south-to-north, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. It floods with great regularity each year (unlike the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), providing plentiful water for farming. Situated in a desert, Egypt developed irrigation techniques that led it to be called an "hydraulic empire."

What is special about Egypt? Well, for starters, it is the oldest stationary civilization that remains in existence. Geography helped protect it against invaders. To its east and west are deserts, to the north is the Mediterranean Sea and to the south is the rest of Africa. Dividing Egypt in half is the great and mighty Nile. Egypt is self-sufficient with natural resources such as plentiful clay and stone and the ability to trade for timber with nearby Lebanon and copper from Sinai. Just as the unique, closed-in geography of the island of Manhattan has encouraged the development of a powerful economy in New York City, the landscape of Egypt enhanced its independence. Even when conquered, the civilization does not shift anywhere, thanks to the natural boundaries.
[[Image:Ancient Egypt.jpg|right]]
Ancient Egypt was always ruled by a "pharaoh" or king, who was considered to be a god and absolute owner and dictator of the country. He was worshiped by the people.

The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks and British all conquered and ruled Egypt at some point. In that respect, the story of who ran Egypt is the history of the greatest world powers ever. Egypt did not have native rule between 341 B.C., when the Persians conquered the last Pharaoh (Nectanebo II), until A.D. 1952, when the native Egyptian president Nasser overthrew a British constitutional monarchy.

<big>'''The Three Kingdoms'''</big>

Ancient Egypt is divided into three periods: the Old Kingdom (3100-2200 B.C.), the Middle Kingdom (2100-1650 B.C.) and the New Kingdom (1550-700 B.C.). The peak in power of ancient Egypt was 1567-1085 B.C.

The '''Old Kingdom''' is known for its security and prosperity, free from foreign invaders. A unique Egyptian kingship developed during this period, and they built the great pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) as built by Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops (pronounced KEE-aps). The pyramids protected and preserved pharaohs for what they expected in the after-life, and were marvelous engineering feats that cannot be duplicated even today.

The '''Middle Kingdom''' was a period during which Egyptian religion extended beyond the kings to the nobles and ordinary citizens. Pharaohs began to share power with local distinguished persons. The pharaohs were strong during this period and promoted trade by digging the Great Canal, which connected the Nile River to the Red Sea. The Middle Kingdom is best known for its cultural achievements, such as literature and artwork. During this period the Egyptians were also successful in draining parts of the Nile delta in Lower (northern) Egypt. Trade expanded, but civil war plagued the Middle Kingdom just as it was a problem in the Old Kingdom.

The '''New Kingdom''' followed a period of foreign rule for a century by the Hyksos (HIK-sohs) (from 1650 to 1580 B.C.), who were Semitic peoples invading Egypt from across the Sinai Peninsula. The Hyksos adopted much of Egyptian culture, including calling themselves pharaohs. The Hyksos introduced the horse and chariot into Egypt. Afterward, the Egyptians extended their empire along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean into Mesopotamia, primarily under the rule of the great warrior Thutmose III. A dynasty from Upper Egypt began this period of the New Kingdom, and it extended throughout Syria, Palestine and, to the south, Nubia. Also, the pharaohs constructed large buildings and massive cities.

After the New Kingdom ended in 700 B.C., Egypt went into a decline and was subsequently conquered by the Persians in 525 B.C.

<big>'''Pharaohs'''</big>

Here is a brief review of the famous Egyptian rulers. The first was Menes (or Mena). In 3100 B.C. he was already king of southern Upper Egypt, and he united it with northern Lower Egypt (note that lower Egypt is closer to the sea-level of the Mediterranean, north of Upper Egypt, as shown on the map). We know his name because Egyptian men, not women, wore make-up and his name was found on palettes used to apply make-up.

Though Menes is called the first "pharaoh" (Egyptian ruler), actually that term was not used until the 18th Dynasty, 1539-1292 B.C. (Egypt was organized by "dynasties", where one family (including descendants) controlled the country.) The term "pharaoh" signifies the Egyptian custom claiming that its ruler was a god, similar to the sky god Horus and the sun gods Re, Amon and Aton. He was considered to be the preserver of a god-given order, called ma'at. Even after death the pharaoh supposedly retained divine status and magical powers. This was a theocracy (rule by a god).

The Egyptian people were divided into separate levels or classes. The highest level consisted of the priests and nobles, and below them were the peasants, and below the peasants were the slaves (which included the Hebrews until Moses led them out in the Exodus). Women were respected in their role of child-rearing and managing household finances, and there were two Egyptian queens: Queen Ahhotep and Queen Hatshepsut. Queen Ahhotep ruled in the Middle Kingdom and helped liberate Egypt from the Hyksos. Her mummy was discovered in A.D. 1859, and her tomb contained many military artifacts honoring her. Queen Hatshepsut served in the place of her young son who was heir to the throne, and she ruled for 15 years until her death in 1458 B.C. She is known for expanding trade. Women were also included in the gods (goddesses) that Egyptians worshiped. More generally, rights of dynasty were inherited through the mother's side, making Egypt a "matriarchal" society.

The most famous pharaoh was Pharaoh Ramses II, who served during the New Kingdom. Slavery first became widespread during the New Kingdom, probably using Hebrews as slaves. The Hebrew Exodus occurred under Ramses II, making him the last great pharaoh in the New Kingdom.

Modern discoveries shed new light on the Egyptian culture. In A.D. 1922, Howard Carter discovered in the Valley of the Kings the untouched tomb of Tutankhamen, a young pharaoh surrounded by magnificent gold and other artifacts. These have been presented in museums ever since. Tutankhamen ruled from 1361 to 1352 B.C., but very little is known about his reign.

<big>'''Egyptian Achievements'''</big>

Egyptians invented mummification, which began in the 4th Dynasty. It took the Egyptians a long time to develop this art, but they ultimately succeeded to perfection. Without going into all the gory details, it consists of removing the internal organs from a body after death, treating the body with resin, and then wrapping it tightly in linen bandages. You should consider becoming a doctor if you have an interest in this!

''Religion'': The ancient Egyptians worshiped many gods, often inspired by animals or aspects of nature such as the sun. Only nobles could aspire to an afterlife, and only the king himself could become unified with Osiris, a legendary king who represented the forces of agriculture. These religious views subsequently lost out to more powerful concepts of Christianity and Islam. Now Egypt is 90% Sunnite Muslim, and the remainder mostly Christian (Copts).

The Christian Copts trace their ancestors directly to the ancient Egyptians. Unlike the Muslims in Egypt, who consider themselves Arabs, the Christian Copts do not consider themselves to be Arabs and the Christian Copts still use ancient Egyptian surnames. They cite the sojourn by Jesus' family in Egypt to escape Herod, and the proselytizing in Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist, who wrote the Gospel and was martyred at Alexandria, Egypt. He is considered the first leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, followed by an unbroken line of 117 successors to the present Pope Shenouda III. A pharaoh was considered to be a sun god, and eventually monotheism (one all-powerful god) became popular in Egypt, with the sun god Aton commanding all Egyptians' attention.

''Language'': The Egyptians developed a written language consisting of hieroglyphics, which are pictographs. It originated around 3100 B.C. It was written on papyrus as a kind of paper; papyrus is a thin parchment constructed from reeds near the Nile river. Historians could not understand hieroglyphics until the discovery of the "Rosetta Stone" by Napoleon's troops in 1799 near the seaside town of Rosetta, located in northern Egypt. It sits in the British Museum today. It consists of a slab of black basalt inscribing a royal decree to the king Ptolemy V, dating from 196 B.C. The Stone is marvelous in inscribing the same message three times: once in Greek, once in Demotic (a simple form of hieroglyphics used 700 B.C. to A.D. 400), and once in hieroglyphic. This enabled a French expert in the Greek language, Jean Francois Champollion, to determine what the hieroglyphic characters mean, and build a dictionary that could be used to translate other works written in hieroglyphics. Champollion had been a child prodigy in learning numerous languages while still a teenager.

Egypt's complex, picture-based language probably hindered its growth. The picture-based language was not as easy to use as the alphabet-based Phoenician language later adopted by the Greeks and Romans. How would one express Christian concepts like salvation, faith, hope and redemption in hieroglyphics? It seems impossible.

''Science'': A magnificent city named "Alexandria" was created by Alexander the Great in Egypt in 334 B.C., and it became a cultural center for many centuries. Eventually it grew to be second only to Rome in size and wealth, but declined over a thousand years later after Islamic conquerors established Cairo as the capital of Egypt. Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Alexandria is also known for the Library of Alexandria, which was the largest in the world at that time and reflected the cultural leadership of the city.

In A.D. 100, while Alexandria was still a great city, Ptolemy (pronounced "tah-luh-mee") was born there and was named after the long line of Egyptian kings. He wrote magnificent works on astronomy, optics, geography, mechanics and geometry. He is best known for his complex theory that placed planet Earth at the center of universe, since all things appeared to fall towards Earth and thus towards the center. The Ptolemaic system was the prevailing view until Copernicus proposed the sun as the center of the solar system over 1000 years later.

''Culture'': Egypt used slaves as most ancient cultures did. Women in Egypt were very powerful, holding the right to own property, divorce their husbands, manage businesses and even become priestesses. It was possible for poor people to rise to the upper class through talent and hard work. Taxes were a burden. The government claimed ownership of one-fifth of all produce (Genesis 47:24). The society had some ethical principles, such as the royal advice that "more acceptable is the character of one upright of heart than the ox of the evildoer." Feeding the poor, taking care of the disadvantaged, and avoid bribes in administering justice were respected. The Egyptians learned to travel up and down the Nile River by using the current in one direction, and the Etesian winds to propel sailboats upstream into the other direction. Egyptian architecture was the pyramid and colonnaded temples like the one Karnak, using a style later copied by the Greeks.

''Trade'': Egypt was not as advanced as Mesopotamia in trade, though trade did improve during the New Kingdom and some commerce with Sumer was established then.

''Inventions'': Egyptians invented our 365-day solar calendar, based on 12 months of about 30 days each. But Mesopotamia was more advanced than Egypt. To Mesopotamia we owe our "base 60" system for our clock (60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour). Egyptians lacked the concept of money, and relied on primitive barter (selling a good in exchange for a different good in return). The Egyptian Old Kingdom lacked the wheel; the pyramids were built without use of the wheel!

== References ==

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[[Category:World History lectures]]
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