# **K12Together** ### **A multiage curriculum built on the mission of God** K12Together Curriculum by K12Together is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License except where otherwise noted. However, Unit Introductions for all four years of the K12Together curriculum are excluded from the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. For more information or to contact us, visit k12together.com Version 1.0 | December 2021 ### Contents **(1) Instructions** Before: To help you decide if you want to use K12Together before you start After: To help you use K12Together after you have decided **(2) Prepare: What to do *before* you meet** Weekly Plan: The bird's eye view for the next one week (i.e. a detailed Scope & Sequence) Unit Introductions: The bird's eye view for the next six weeks **(3) Learn: What to do *when* you meet** Activities: How to facilitate today's lessons Resources: How to facilitate special projects **(4) Evaluate: What to do *after* you meet** Content Weekly: Knowledge objectives that you can evaluate on a weekly basis Skills Quarterly: Skill objectives that you can evaluate on a quarterly basis # Instructions ## The Curriculum K12Together follows the mission of God through history from creation to the present. While studying history from a global, theistic perspective, students will learn about advances in science, literature and the Bible as they arise in history - not segregated from their historical context. (See "Worldview" and "Philosophy of Education" for more information) The chronological curriculum divides history into 24 unit studies. Unit 1 starts with creation, and unit 24 finishes with the world after 1960, during which students will study contemporary topics such as global warming (for science) and the book of Revelation (for Bible). Each unit is designed to be completed in 6 weeks, so that each school year you will finish six units or roughly 36 weeks of study which allows flexibility for holidays, sick days, and travel. After four years, you will complete all 24 units and start again. (See "Structure" for more information). Year 1 (Units 1-6): The Ancient World (Biology, Ecology, Biochemistry) Year 2 (Units 7-12): The Medieval World (Human Body, Health) Year 3 (Units 13-18): The Age of Discovery (Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Chemistry) Year 4 (Units 19-24): The Modern World (Physics, Technology) ## Is K12Together Right for You? STEP #1: Is K12Together right for you? Let's find out - Yes or No: I would like a comprehensive curriculum that meets national education requirements. I would like to be able to decide how much time to spend on a topic. I do not like to have students fill out workbook pages. I want to help children learn things I have not yet studied myself. I want to teach students with a wide spread of ages and abilities. I want a curriculum that can be easily adjusted for students with varying needs and abilities. I want to promote non-competitive, group learning. I want students to ask questions and design their own projects. I want the students themselves to discover and share knowledge. I want guides to evaluate and track what skills each student needs to learn. I want to teach children how to find answers for themselves. I want a curriculum that honors God and moral values. I want suggestions for activities but also want to create my own. I want teacher resources that explain how to implement suggested activities. I do not need my students to sit quietly and not talk with each other. I do not need tests to evaluate students' progress if I have clear content objectives. If you agreed to most of the above statements, then continue to Step Two: STEP 2: READ OUR DISTINCTIVES Read all three sections of K12Together Distinctives. K12Together is designed to be used in a systematic way. However, it may also be adapted for use with other curricula. STEP 3: SKIM OUR SCOPE AND SEQUENCE The Scope and Sequence section shows what the curriculum covers, and what order it is covered in. It has many layers, starting with the broad overviews and proceeding to the detailed content lists, book lists, etc.. Skim the overall content first, until you understand how the looping structure of K12Together works, then read the details of one of the Years (I-IV). All of the content of K12Together is divided into four sequential curriculum-years. Every four years, a student will repeat the content loop, but this time at a higher and deeper level. Each of the four curriculum-years (called Years I-IV) has objectives for all grade levels (Kindergarten through 12th grade), with the sequential topics broken into six units. Each unit is designed to take approximately six weeks, with five full-time school days per week, but can be easily adapted to other schedules. When a student has completed one curriculum year, he/she will proceed to the next, always studying at the level appropriate to his age or abilities. STEP 4: SKIM OUR LISTS OF RECOMMENDED BOOKS AND ACTIVITIES While in the Scope and Sequence section, pick a curriculum year and review the charts of books recommended for that year. At any given time, some books may be out of print, but the charts will give you a feel for how books can be chosen to fit with unit- or year-long themes. You may want to look at the suggested activities that are available for some units. Also skim the poetry recommendations. STEP 5: SKIM THE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVES Skills that students are expected to learn as they mature in many areas are listed under the Skills Development Objectives section of the Scope and Sequence. The K-12 skills are progressive and linear, not looping like the content objectives. So individual students begin at an appropriate level and move up the skill objectives lists as their skills improve. In each unit, skills are developed using whatever content is being studied. The skill development lists and charts were created to help teachers evaluate the skills of students and determine what skills the students should focus on next once a certain level has been reached. STEP 6: FOR USE IN A MULTI-AGE CLASS While K12Together can be used with individual students or single-grade classes, it was designed to facilitate one-room schoolhouses, large families, learning co-ops, and multi-age classrooms. You can turn your multi-age group of students into a learning team by using the How to Use K12Together section of this website. Also, suggestions for multi-age learning are incorporated throughout in the design of the Teacher Resources, activities, objectives, books, and overall structure. STEP 7: IF YOU WANT TO GO AHEAD Read How to Use K12Together and review one curriculum-year in depth. We recommend beginning with Year I (Ancient World and Biology), but it is possible to begin with any of the four years. Do the looping curriculum-years in historical order not in a random sequence. The topics are integrated as much as possible across academic disciplines (history, science, Bible, etc.); however, you may substitute your own bible or science sequence (though it is not recommended). K12Together is very careful to be comprehensive and to cover all the topics expected in high quality modern international schools, so we discourage people picking out one unit from here or there. However, you may choose to use units or teacher helps as an active-learning supplement to another complete curriculum you may be following. ## Worldview Every curriculum has a worldview - a set of assumptions about reality, moral values, and philosophical commitments - that determine what is emphasized and how it is presented. K12Together combines the modern standards of a liberal arts and sciences education with a commitment to proven classic content and values. These are expressed throughout with a global and theistic perspective: K12Together has been designed for the international context. The unfolding history of the world serves as the backbone of the curriculum. From the earliest years, students learn about the paths of civilizations and cultures around the globe. Because it is in English, more emphasis is put on Europe and America in later centuries; however, teachers can easily included emphases on their own nations during appropriate time periods. The writers of this curriculum believe there is one good eternal God, Maker and Father of us all, who is active in this world and seeks to bless all people. They also believe that there are forces of evil on earth, which actively oppose the good purposes of God, causing hatred, abuse, injustice, and violence. They believe that Jesus is the Messiah sent by God to destroy the power of Satan and sin in our lives. The foundational value of this curriculum is summarized by the Great Commandment taught by Jesus: “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love you neighbor as yourself.” Hence, respect for all people, and the good in all cultures, is combined with honesty about the evil in our own selves, our own and other cultures and history. All major religions are covered in their historical and cultural context with respect. ## Philosophy of Education K12Together combines a commitment to two principles: First, building on the natural learning ability of every child through teacher-directed exploratory learning and multiage learning teams, and second, integrating classic fields of knowledge with significant skills in an iterative, systematic way. K12Together builds on the natural learning ability of every child K12Together promotes a methodology of learning that builds on the natural learning ability of every child, extending that confidence into academic fields of study through teacher-directed exploratory learning and multiage learning teams. The teacher directs exploratory learning In K12Together, the teacher’s job is to empower the students to become effective learners. Instead of being the sole repository of knowledge, the teacher trains the students to find the answers they need, in their books, on the internet, as well as from others in the classroom or community. Though the content of K12Together is systematic and comprehensive, the teacher is able to promote exploratory learning by asking questions and assisting the students in skill-developing learning experiences (reading, experimenting, interviewing, creating, etc.). The students share what they are learning with the other students and the teacher, and everyone learns together. Thus the classroom becomes a learning team. When the teacher promotes exploratory learning: Natural curiosity is harnessed. Exploratory learning follows the natural means of learning that people use from the time they are born. Therefore, it keeps alive their natural curiosity while encouraging students to continue to develop their skills of self-teaching. Self-confidence is discovered. When students discover information for themselves and share it with each other, they feel greater enthusiasm for the subject and gain confidence in their own ability to learn. Learning becomes life-long. The importance of learning how to learn should not be underestimated. In many ways, this skill is the most important skill of all. Many great men, like Abraham Lincoln, were so poor they never had the opportunity to attend schools or buy many books, but they became great because they learned how to seek out what they wanted to learn. Students are much more likely to engage with and remember what they have learned when they have searched out and made the discovery for themselves and then shared it with others. Interests are re-enforced. Exploratory learning enables the students to focus on areas of their interest within a larger directed topic. For example, when studying ancient Egypt, the girls may choose to study how they cooked, dressed, and raised their children, or why they mummified cats. The boys might want to know how they built the pyramids, what kinds of boats they used, or what weapons they used in war. Students can research their areas of interest and report back to the rest of the group what had been discovered, so that all the students are exposed to all the findings. Teachers can approach new subjects confidently. A teacher can confidently tackle even a subject he or she knows little about, because she or he can learn alongside the students. The teacher role becomes training the students to learn, by being able to suggest avenues for finding information, people to interview, places to get books to look at, or sites to read on the internet. Since these skills remain similar for all subjects, the teacher must learn how to coach learners instead of needing to become an expert in all subject areas. Teacher preparation time is minimized. Exploratory learning lifts the burden for finding and communicating all the information off of the teacher. Instead, students teach each other by demonstrating what they have learned various ways, showing off their areas of gifting. Crafts and activities are often student initiated and resourced instead of prepared in advance with the teacher’s time and resources. K12Together lists suggested activities that are student-run learning opportunities. The classroom functions as a team: K12Together is specifically designed to encourage group learning--multiage or same age. Group learning does not have to be collaborative in such a way that one person ends up doing all the work while the rest of the group takes the credit. Instead, each person can be asked to contribute their piece of the overall puzzle, researching an area of their interest to contribute to the topic under investigation. When students are formed into learning teams: Relationships are built. Team-oriented learning builds relationships between the student-learners, as well as with the teacher-trainers. Students also build camaraderie with their siblings when children from the same family study the same subjects together. Relationships develop with their parents and community as students solicit help in finding answers or solving problems. Collaboration replaces competition. Children thrive on collaborative learning. They will often work harder for a team than for themselves. Helping each other becomes positive instead of “cheating.” Groups of students can and should work on things together. Going to school changes from being a boring lonely chore to an anticipated experience when students are not just allowed but encouraged to help each other learn and understand. Students learn mentoring skills. In multi-age classrooms, older students are great assets. They become assistant teacher-coaches in many ways, modeling active learning in everything from computer skills to presentations. Younger students can be involved in more complicated experiments, projects, plays or productions, if they are on teams with older students. The opportunity builds respect and appreciation for children of other ages. In non-school contexts, children learn most of their skills from older children, not necessarily adults. Multiage learning teams can harness this form of natural inter-age mentoring in the classroom environment. K12Together integrates content and skills in a systematic way. K12Together believes that students need to learn classic content, values, and skills in a systematic way, by building both their skills and knowledge from year to year in an iterative process. The content is classic, integrated, and systematic. The K12Together curriculum provides comprehensive coverage of topics foundational to a thorough education. But many curricula do that. What makes K12Together’s content unique is that it integrates subjects that are usually taught with no interconnections. This integration creates significantly deeper understanding and insight. Also, the content is organized in a way that develops knowledge incrementally. Using the flow of history as a backbone, K12Together traces the growth and spread of civilizations, simultaneously incorporating literature, language arts, religion, philosophy, science, and technology. As a result, the learners’ growth of understanding reflects the progression of insight of mankind itself. Focusing on classic fields of knowledge, K12Together does not incorporate faddish or pop culture things, which children will pick up from media. Students’ learning is maximized, and wasteful activities are minimized, by combining subjects together. For example, WWII biographies and fictional literature connect students emotionally to the complexity and atrocities of that war. Historical facts are learned along with classic values such as respect for humanity, integrity, self-sacrifice, generosity, humor, and hard work. As the students trace the stages of WWII on a world map (geography), analyze inventions that turned the course of the war (technology), and discover how sonar and radar work (physics), all these subjects come alive. K12Together lists books for each unit that will help you integrate the subjects. These include specific suggestions for interesting and appropriate children’s literature for all reading levels that integrate with the content being studied in that unit. The only subjects taught independently--for which you will need a separate curriculum--are mathematics, and beginning phonics, handwriting, and grammar skills. The skills are classic, integrated, and systematic. In addition to teaching students how to learn, K12Together promotes systematic development of the classic skills associated with a quality education. Classic skills include: clear thinking, writing, and speaking; reading with comprehension and discernment; and investigating using the scientific method and effective research skills. However, more uniquely, K12Together integrates the learning of age-appropriate skills with the content. William Bennett promotes such skills/content integration in his book The Educated Child (2000), emphasizing that a rigorous teaching of skills in language arts and math, should be blended with high-level content in history, geography, literature, and science. While the skill of learning is the most fundamental to and imbedded within K12Together, practical skills are also integrated into the suggested learning activities such as skills in geography, computers, health, or first aid. Properly implemented, K12Together integrates all skill development, including art and music, with the rest of the curriculum. In order to ensure systematic development of skills, K12Together includes extensive and comprehensive skill development lists, with approximate age/grade expectations. These lists aid teachers in tracking and evaluating student progress in a variety of areas. Supplemental curricula will only be needed for mathematics and fundamental reading and handwriting skills. Obviously, specialized skills such as playing a particular instrument will also require outside training. ## Structure The K12Together curriculum has a unique structure that enables it to be used in small schools with children in a wide spread of ages. K12Together is equally useful for guiding individual students or large age-segregated classrooms. However, it is one of few curricula available created for the type of multiage learning that is possible in “one room schoolhouse” settings. All content and skill objectives, activities, and teacher resources, are designed to make family-based or small-school-based learning easy and exciting. In order to accomplish these goals, K12Together has been written with the following structural distinctives: The content is looping K12Together uses the term “looping” to refer to the way it’s content is delivered. All the students study the same content at different levels, as they loop together through four distinct curriculum years. Traditionally the term “looping” refers to keeping students together with the same teacher for several years, thus creating long-term relationships, and K12Together does keep multi-age groups of students and their teacher together for years. However, more importantly, K12Together’s looping curriculum structure helps students build on their previous knowledge in an iterative way, by looping back to a subject every fourth year at a higher and deeper level. In order to maximize opportunities for group and multi-age learning, K12Together consists of four complete curriculum-years (I-IV) of learning. Students loop through these curriculum-years at progressively higher levels. Each curriculum-year (I-IV) is offered on three broad content levels: Grades K-4 (Primary), Grades 5-8 (Middle School), and Grades 9-12 (High School). After going through all four years at whatever level is appropriate, the student will loop around and repeat the content of each year at a higher level. If a student goes through twelve years of K12Together, he or she will cover every topic at three levels of depth, the primary level, the middle school level, and the high school level (see Scope and Sequence). The genius of the looping structure is two-fold Incremental learning: Because students are exposed to all the topics at a simpler level but come back to them with increasing depth every fourth year. By the time the students are studying topics at the high school level, they are familiar with the subject and can engage in deeper analysis and discussion. Flexible but comprehensive multi-age learning: The four looping curriculum-years of K12Together provide guidance for what a student of any age would need to learn in any topic presented. Therefore, any age combination of students, and even adults, can learn together and work on projects together and help each other with their learning. Students can start at any level at any point in the curriculum, knowing that things they may have missed will be covered when the curriculum loops back to the beginning again. Questions about looping: How are age appropriate skills developed with the looping structure? The skills charts are linear instead of looping. Since skills are developed incrementally and individually, the teacher works with each student to help them make progress on the skill development charts regardless of the thematic content. Some students will progress faster in some areas than others, which K12Together enables. How are math and reading skills handled? A complete mathematics curriculum should be followed by each student, concurrently with the looping content studies. Before a student has learned to read and write, he or she will also need supplemental curricula in phonics, handwriting and grammar. Specific programs are recommended (see Recommended Math and Phonics/Grammar programs) that are flexible with their content so they can be easily integrated with whatever curriculum-year of K12Together the student is studying. The curriculum is unit-study based. The four looping curriculum-years of K12Together (Years I-IV) each consist of six units (see Scope and Sequence). Each unit is designed to be completed in six weeks; however, five to seven weeks may be used, allowing for a flexible school year from 30 to 42 weeks. School breaks can be matched with the school system of any country or be taken at times of your own choice. K12Together divides the learning into units, and the units into “unit-studies” (topic-based learning), making it very flexible: Advantages of the unit-study structure: Students of a variety of ages can easily study together, each one learning up to the level of their capacity. Each of the students can tackle a different aspect of the learning and present their findings to the others, learning teaching skills. This process spreads out the tasks of learning and promotes cooperative learning. Topics of special interest can added or expanded, while topics of little interest can be minimized or removed. This allows K12Together to be adapted to meet the educational requirements of the country that you are in, or certain weeks to be reserved for studying for country-wide exams. Real books can be used instead of textbooks. Real books are often cheaper and more beautiful than textbooks, because they compete on the open market for sales. They are often more up-to-date and accurate than textbooks because they are written by an author who is solely responsible for the content. Real books are also less likely to be influenced by political agendas. Real books can be borrowed from libraries or friends, or bought used on the internet, more easily than textbooks. However, if the school or learning group cannot afford a lot of books, K12Together’s unit studies allow information to be found for free on the internet. See the booklists in the Scope and Sequence section, under the year and unit, for suggestions for books for all ages by topic. Students can read at a level right for them, without shaming or competition. Children learn to read at different ages, some progressing faster than others. The unit-study structure of K12Together enables all students to read at a level that is comfortable for them until their reading becomes fluent. Reading books are recommended in each unit at all levels. At the primary level, books are divided into two sub-categories: ER: Emergent Readers (K-2), students who are still learning how to read, and IR: Independent Readers (grades 1-4), students who can read simple books independently. Since children learn to read at different ages, these categories overlap. Because all ages are studying the same topic, a student can pick a book at a level suitable for him to read regardless of his age. If no appropriate book can be found, an older student can read part of his book out loud for the younger student, since it will be on the same subject. The younger student thus improves his listening skills while learning what he needs to know about that unit’s topics. Students’ learning can be evaluated in a variety of ways. Unit studies are not test-based learning systems. Instead, students are evaluated on how much they participate, how well they can discuss the subject, and oral and written assignments, presentations, and projects. Some students learn best visually, others auditorially, and still others kinesthetically (through physical action). Unit studies allow students to learn and to present their learning in ways more appropriate to them as individuals, using their areas of strength. ## How to Use STEP 1: CLARIFY YOUR CLASS-TYPE: K12Together can be used for either one student or up to 20 students of different ages and abilities. Before you start, you need to clarify what type of class or school you will have. Some large schools have chosen to use K12Together as a basis for their age-graded classrooms too, so it is quite flexible. STEP 2: CHOOSE YOUR CURRICULUM YEAR: As you look through the Scope and Sequence, decide which curriculum year (I, II, III, or IV) you want to start with. We recommend starting with Year I and progressing through the curriculum years in historical order. Each curriculum year is designed to work with any age student, Kindergarten through 12th grade (5 to 18 years old). Skim the topics and content objectives for each unit, as well as other things like the recommended books and activities, to get a “feel” for the year. STEP 3: PLAN YOUR ACADEMIC CALENDAR: Each school year consists of SIX units. Each unit is designed to last about six weeks, though it can be crammed into five weeks or easily fill seven weeks. All six units take a total of approximately 36 weeks of schooling per year. Look at your calendar and figure out how to distribute each of the six units throughout the year. Take into account normal school holidays---both those from your home country, like Thanksgiving, and those from the country you are living in, if you are living overseas. Some people like to take a break between each unit; others like to do two or three units and then take a longer break. Write down each unit and each break or holiday onto your calendar. STEP 4: ASSESS YOUR STUDENTS: You will need to assess your students’ skill levels before you can gather or purchase materials for the school year. In most skill areas you can evaluate each of your student’s skills by using our different skills development lists. If you do not know what skill level a particular student has, you can guess based on their age and previous schooling/learning experiences, and then make adjustments to pick up necessary skills as the school year progresses. However, you will need a more accurate assessment of their reading and math levels before the school year begins. Reading Assessments: The reading skills of each student are assessed to figure out if he or she is a beginning reader (not knowing even the alphabet), emergent reader (still needing phonics instruction), an independent reader (able to figure out new words alone by sound and context), or a mature reader (able to read and understand higher level books). Students reading levels can be determined even if no reading assessment tests are available, by starting with the easiest level of books and having the student read a paragraph from each reading level. If a student knows the sounds of the alphabet, and can read some words on sight but still has to figure out most words by saying the sound of each letter, he is considered an “Emergent Reader.” “Independent Readers” may still struggle with some words, but does not need help to figure them out. Give the student progressively more difficult books to read from until the student gets to a level where he is mis-reading several words in a paragraph or slows down significantly. This level is too hard for him and he should begin using books at an easier level where he can quickly read all but a two or three words on a page. If you have children that have not yet begun to read or who are “Emergent Readers,” still needing phonics instruction, purchase a “learning to read” program. We recommend simple phonics programs with simple phonic readers coupled with reading a lot to and with the child. No student should ever be shamed for not reading well. Children learn to read over a wide age span (ages 4 to 12), but once they have learned to read, their abilities are similar regardless of when they achieved mastery. It is worth checking the eyesight of all students, but especially those struggling with reading. Math: You will need to assess the mathematical skills of each student in order to pick a mathematics curriculum at an appropriate level for him or her. This step is best done well before the school year starts if you have to order books, but can otherwise be done during the first week or two if you have books on hand. If you know your student well, you can use the math skills development section of this website to figure out what he already knows. If you do not know the student, have him work on some pages from the math books you have, starting with review pages from the easiest level and moving up. Students that place below grade level will need to be given a chance to explain orally what they know or don’t know, in case they are not good at taking paper tests. After you have assessed the appropriate math level for each child, you will be ready to choose math books and order them. There are several good math curricula available through Sonlight Curriculum (Sonlight.com) or Christianbooks.com (in the homeschooling section), some of which come with placement test that be ordered and given to the students. STEP 5: LIST YOUR RESOURCES: First, review the topics and books recommended for the first few units you will be covering. Then, write down lists of resources on those subjects available to you: people, books, internet, libraries (public or of friends). Compare what you have with the K12Together recommended booklists. Decide which books you would prefer to buy. Sources for the books listed, or similar books, include Amazon.com and Sonlight Curriculum (see Sonlight.com). Figure out when to order the books you need, allowing plenty of time (at least 6 weeks) for delivery. You do not need a complete set of books, but it is helpful to have real books especially for younger children, rather than to rely on the internet for information. STEP 6: PLAN YOUR UNIT: The students become learners when they take ownership of their own education. So, at the start of each unit use the scope and sequence unit descriptions to give the students an overview of what they are going to learn and what activities they can choose from. Before meeting with the students, go over the content objectives yourself for your unit, focusing on the learning levels you have in your class. Roughly divide up the content objectives into six weeks. Some units have suggested breakdown charts as examples that you can either follow or alter. Then, show your students what they will be covering in the next six weeks and encourage them to help you to plan when to learn what, to split up topic objectives between them according to their interests, and to choose the books they want to read from libraries (on topic). Students can choose or invent their own activities, but the teacher must make sure that the activities are an effective means of learning the content and advancing the students in their skills. Be sure to check out the recommended poetry, art or other activities for that unit under the scope and sequence section. Remember, the teacher does not need to know the content being covered but must be prepared to help the students find it out. Remain flexible, as the students may want to spend more time on one area and show less interest in another. If you are having trouble getting them to engage with a subject, try telling them to write down what they already know about that topic and what they would like to know. Whenever possible, introduce a new topic by telling an interesting story or fact (e.g. “Did you know that no one knows how the Egyptians built the pyramids?”). Also, be sure to check out the Teacher Resources section of this website. It has dozens of helps to enable you to manage and promote exploratory and multiage learning, and facilitate the recommended activities with multiage teams. Be sure to use the forms found in the subsection called Tracking and Evaluating Student Learning to help you monitor student progress. STEP 7: GATHER YOUR MATERIALS: Once the students have helped plan out the unit and the activities, encourage the students to brainstorm about what they will need to accomplish their plans and where to get those things (e.g. “Where can we get a worm to dissect?”). Consider this step part of the educational process for each unit as it develops problem-solving skills and initiative. Then, ask the students to gather all needed supplies, including paper, paints, pens, scissors, tape, and items for specific activities. You may need to order some materials from a distance. STEP 8: SET UP YOUR CLASSROOM: Next, the students should help set up the classroom in a way that will facilitate exploratory learning. Instead of each student having an assigned seat, it is better to have a number of group learning stations, as well as a library area and a computer station with one or more computers. These can be large tables surrounded by chairs, or rugs and floor pillows where students can read or discuss topics. Students can decorate and arrange the classroom, leaving plenty of space for putting up things created during each unit. Each student should have a part of a shelf or a box where he can keep his own books, papers, lunch or other materials. For more insights into how to set up and run a multi-age classroom, consult the Teacher Resources section of this website. STEP 9: WRITE LEARNING CONTRACTS: After you have planned the unit with the students, schedule an individual meeting with each student, while the rest continue working on setting up the classroom. Use the examples of Learning Contracts for various ages in the Teacher Resources section to make a learning contract with each student. Then arrange for a time in the first week to meet with the parents of the students. Each student should explain his learning contract to his parents and both will sign it. You will need to help the younger students talk with their parents, and be prepared to answer questions for the older students. If you have a lot of students, divide up the days and only have some students come on each day with their parents. ## Glossary ER = Emergent Readers (K-2) IR = Independent Readers (1-4) MS = Middle School (5-8) HS = High School (9-12) LG = Large group (All students) SG = Small group A = Activity or Assignment for week N/A = Not available (unfinished portions of K12Together) ## How to Plan a Unit Prepare Review the key topics and worldview focus to be covered this unit. Read the worldview introduction. Look at the unit overview for a weekly topic breakdown. Check the Teacher Resources section of K12Together.com to see the Sample Lesson Plans given for Year 1 Unit 1. They are given in two forms: multi-subject unit plans by learning level (such as IR/Independent Reader or MS Middle School) or multi-age by subject (such as K-12 Science or K-12 History/Geography). Read through the content objectives (for overall flow of material): Note ideas for field trips. Note areas where you feel you need to do extra reading. Gather all materials (guide / books / other resources such as maps). Explore the books and resources available to you. Note helpful pictures, charts, diagrams you can point students to as they research, or that you can use to grab student interest as you introduce topics. Plan Decide how much to cover of the unit content in each week, given your context and resources. Make lists of activities/projects and plot out over a six-week basis on a calendar (a regular calendar with a space for each day can be used, or a sheduling calendar with a page for each week.) Group the activities by the week in which they begin, then within week by age or ability levels of students involved: All students, ER (emerging readers), IR (independent readers), MS (middle school), HS (high school) Note the intended completion date for activities (e.g. 2 wks or 4 wks). Aim for 1 LG (large group) lesson / 1-2 SG (small group) lessons per subject per week (i.e. Lit. on Monday, Bible on Tues., History on Wed., Science on Thurs.) The students will begin assignments/projects/activities on the LG or SG lesson days, then work on them throughout the week. Assign books to the students for the unit (such as their small group readers) based on their reading and/or comprehension level. (NOTE: The following is an example of what you could write in a square on your calendar for one day, say Tuesday in the first week of the unit. The large group lessons are usually done with all the students, but the small group lessons are done with a particular reading or comprehension level.) LG = Large group (All students) SG = Small group (such as ER) A = Activity or Assignment for week (For the students, not teacher, to do) Other symbols are levels (see above) At the beginning of each unit, do the following with the students: Give an overview of the topics to be studied the unit. Direct student thinking toward identifying things they already know about these subjects and things they are curious to find out or particular interests in these topic areas. (For example: Some might wonder about the warfare techniques of the ancient Egyptians, while others might want to know what clothing they wore, how they developed their writing system or built the pyramids.) Involve the students in coming up with activity and project ideas that will help them learn the content objectives for their age group. Some projects can be done as ability-level groups and others can contain contributions from individuals. (For example: Small multiage groups could each develop a wall poster, some showing Egyptian weapons and diagrams of warfare techniques, some showing clothing styles and textile manufacturing techniques, etc. The older children do the more difficult research and representations). At the beginning of each week during the unit: Review key topics and worldview focus to help yourself stay on track. Review the content objectives, checking off those covered the previous week (older students can help evaluate and check off their own content objectives). Make a list of assignments, projects or activities that should have been completed, noting any that still need to be presented or completed. Review last week’s plan to see if anything needs to be followed up on this week (and adjust this week’s plan accordingly). Plan large group, small group, and individual lessons for the coming week. On the first day of each week, do the following with the students: Give an overview of lessons / topics to be covered that week. Discuss learning objectives and any ongoing projects/assignments as well as new having the students come up with any new projects/assignments that should come up that week. Supervise the students as they plan their daily work for the whole week (each one on an individual work-plan calendar). The students will each need a page for each week which shows each day separately. They can either buy calendars for the whole year that show a week at a time, or you can give them a page at the beginning of each week, transfer any unfinished work from the past week, and keep their past weekly sheets in a notebook. (NOTE: Students are keeping their own daily schedules and while the teacher will not have her own daily plan for each individual student or grade level, the student will have one – monitored by the teacher – so all are clear what is to be done) At the end of each day with the students: Check the students’ work plans (particularly for younger or struggling students) to see how they have progressed (self-managing older students can be checked on a bi-weekly or weekly basis). Make sure that the students are taking home their reading books with their Reading Tracking Forms (see Teacher Resources section—putting them into large zip-lock bags help younger students keep the books and tracking forms in good condition). Make a note of any students that are falling behind in their reading. Note any students you need to meet with first thing the next morning for direction, checking off work, etc. [Uncompleted work can be assigned as homework. See the Teacher Resources section of the K12Together.com web site for a description of our recommended Student Assessment: Mastery Learning and Student Grades] Note any student that needs an individual lesson to understand something. Keep a list of individual lessons that you will need to be given to specific students during work time the following day. When possible, assign competent older students to give individual lessons to younger students in areas where they need help. Gather materials for tomorrow’s lessons with the students’ help. Prepare the classroom for the next day. While you are meeting with individual students to review their work plans, the other students should be returning everything to its proper place, and put all of their personal belongings into their own basket, box, or shelf. Note: The samples of the first unit of Year One have been completely planned out for you in a couple of different ways so that there is a model to follow (See the Y1U1 Sample Lesson Plans in the Teacher Resource section of this web site. There are both single-level but multi-subject plans, as well as single-subject but multi-age plans. However, do not think that you will need to be as detailed in what you are planning.) You will find as you go along that the planning process will get easier, and the students will become more used to being a part of the planning process and tracking their own progress in their individual work-plan calendars. Remember to use the Teacher Resources, as many have been specifically designed to go with the K12Together curriculum, and include helpful forms and teaching recommendations. Bible Lessons LG: Genesis 1 read and discuss SG: mini lessons ER/IR – 7 Creation days A: make wall chart of creation wk MS/HS – Hermeneutics A: diagram hermeneutical process ## What is the purpose of the Unit Introductions? What you did not learn in school and will not learn in the books. The K12Together uses a lot of books from many sources for its program. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a book, whether textbook or otherwise, that looks at history and all of reality from a God-centered perspective. So, how are you going to figure out what to teach in order to add this back in? That is why it is important to read the Unit Introduction before trying to teach any unit. The foundational Christian worldview that K12Together is trying to teach is that God is taking an active part in history and creation, with specific purposes in mind. It is His desire that all peoples, from all tribes and tongue, would come to know Him and worship Him. He longs for none to perish but wants all to come to theknowledge of Him and His salvation. But the average person, even the average Christian, schooled from typical textbooks without this perspective, has never learned to look at reality and the story of history through the lens of what God has been doing from creation to the present day. In the Introductions, before each of the 24 units (6 per year) of K12Together, we try, as briefly as possible, to put back in this global God-centered perspective and to tie together events going on in one part of the world that are influencing what is going on elsewhere. Also, questions that commonly come up which challenge the validity of Christianity are addressed from time to time. The connections between biblical history and secular history are made. You will discover the part that people of faith, the word of God and followers of Jesus Christ have played at crucial points in history. Secular misrepresentations, such as “evolution has been proven as fact” or the idea that “primitive” people are less violent (the “noble savage” of Rousseau), will be exposed. Modern myths, like “capitalism makes the rich richer and the poor poorer” or “ Christianity is the enemy of science”, will be refuted with historical data. Even the books used in our curriculum have fallen prey to the anti-Christian spin prevalent in Western academia. The Intros will hopefully help to overcome that bias. The third purpose of the introductions, especially during Year 2, is to include material that is frequently left out of books for children and young adults. Since the historical period covered in Year 2 is often skipped over, there is a lot of history in these unit introductions. No introduction is intended to cover the material that can easily be found in the recommended books for that unit (see book recommendations). What else will you find in the Unit Introductions? We address questions commonly raised to challenge the validity of Christianity. We help you make key connections between biblical history and secular history. We refute with historical data modern myths like “capitalism makes the rich richer and the poor poorer,” or “ Christianity is the enemy of science.” Secular deceptions, such as “evolution has been proven as fact” or “primitive people are less violent” (Rousseau’s “noble savage”), are exposed. Even the excellent books used in this curriculum have fallen prey to the anti-Christian spin prevalent in Western academia. The Unit Introductions will help to overcome that bias. We help you discover what roles people of faith, the word of God, and devoted followers of Jesus Christ have played at crucial points in history… and much more! Begin your preparations for each unit study by making time to read the Unit Introduction. Mark key information you want to remember as you teach the lessons. Reference these pages throughout the unit to ensure you carefully build this God-centered perspective into all aspects of your classroom study. ## Student Assessment: Mastery Learning and Student Grades K12Together recommends a type of learning often called “Mastery Learning.” In Mastery Learning, the goal is to master the task at hand, not merely to be graded, so students redo their work until it is right before moving on. Mastery Learning imitates real life in three ways: First, in real life it is not acceptable to turn in B or C level work. It is important to do things well and right. Secondly, in real life making mistakes and improving what you have done is part of the normal process and should not be considered shameful, but be considered part of the learning and upgrading process. Thirdly, in real life, people who learn how to get the help they need are much be off than those who try to learn in isolation, so Mastery Learning encourages learning from peers, resources, parents, older children and teachers, instead of insisting on isolated progress. For example, in Math this process could be as simple as circling problems that the students have done incorrectly and giving them the opportunity to correct their mistakes before grading. Sometimes it is best to only assign half of the problems of each type, and if the student can complete these successfully, he or she can skip the other half. If they make mistakes, they correct their mistakes and do a few more of the type them got wrong, giving the teacher the opportunity to figure out what they may not understand. If the student feels confused about what he or she has done wrong, an older student or the teacher can help them. This is not “cheating” because the goal is to gain understanding and start getting the right answers as soon as possible, not just getting an A or B grade. Similarly, in Language Arts writing assignments, misspelled words are circled and the student must look up the word or ask an older student how to spell it, and correct their spelling. They will hopefully learn to ask others or look words up that they are doubtful about, before turning in their work. By this means, they are practicing the process that adults use in real life to learn how to spell new words. If there is a lot of writing and the teacher consistently enforces students fixing their spelling with no condemnation (as we correct children when they are learning to talk), a spelling course is not necessarily needed. A course like “Spelling Power” can help students to recognize spelling rules and patterns, and one way to use this course is to see what kind of words the student is consistently misspelling and give them some lists to practice that fit that pattern (the course provides some diagnostic tests). It is also important, in Language Arts writing assignments, to help the students to consistently progress in their writing skills (see the Skills Development section of K12Together). They should be improving in organization and grammar, as well as writing in interesting ways. K12Together recommends using the writing courses from the Institute for Excellence in Writing, which trains students to express themselves well in sentences, paragraphs, essays, and papers. It is easily used with the content of your choice to match the topics in K12Together units. Also, students can start at the simplest level and progress as fast as they are able to their level of competency. It helps students to recognize when their own writing is boring or poorly organized so that they are willing and know how to re-write it and improve it. K12Together has a recommended Reading Tracking system (see form under Teacher Resources). The point of this system is to provide daily reading at home, and to track what the student is reading, but to emphasize enjoyment moving toward mastery of the reading process. The problem is students progress in their reading skills at significantly different rates, but, given the right environment most all end up reading effectively and enjoying reading in their areas of interest. In some students the auditory (listening) skills are significantly ahead of the visual skills, and always reading at their visual level becomes too boring. So the reading system allows for the student to “get credit for” listening to books read aloud as well as credit for reading aloud and reading to themselves but retelling it to the parents (at the younger ages). Simpler books are read by the student, and the more difficult and more interesting books can be read by the parents or older siblings to the student. It is important that some of the books be assigned to go with the curriculum topics but the students also get to choose other books, and even comic books, magazines or web pages, that they want to read for themselves. All types of reading will get credit on their Reading Tracking form. In Science, experiments often go wrong and students need to learn how to figure out what might have gone wrong and re-do the experiment more carefully or change it in some way if the experiment itself was flawed. For more on teaching science correctly, see the Teacher Resource document entitled “How to Teach Science Right.” In all subjects, no shame should ever be attached to making mistakes, which is important to the learning process. Just like learning a sport may require hitting a ball (and missing) multiple times before the skill is mastered, so all forms of learning require making mistakes before mastery is achieved. The most important function of the teacher is to train students how to find out what they need to know in order to correct their own mistakes and to take pride in a job well done. Likewise older children should be trained to help and to encourage the younger children in all subjects like assistant teachers. Even those children that are only slightly older can take pride in helping younger students---showing them how to find the right page or look something up on the internet. Grading work All students that quickly cooperate and fix their mistakes or improve their work should receive an “A.” If a student refuses to improve his or her work past a certain level, the teacher can say “If you do such and such you will get an A, but if you stop here you will get a B (or a C). This message can also be put in a note and attached to the work for the student to take to the parents, in case they would like to help the student improve his or her work quality. Make clear to the parents that while they should not do the student’s work, they can help the student rework it. If the parents sign off on the student leaving the work as it is, then given them the grade you suggested was appropriate, and move the student on to the next assignment (sometimes student just gets frustrated with a certain assignment). But if there is a consistent failure to move toward mastery, you should have a parent/teacher/student meeting where you consider possible learning disabilities and/or making the assignments much easier for a while until the student can work at a level where he or she feels competent and successful. Sometimes going back to a simpler reading or writing level can help the student work out unseen problems until his brain “gets” it. If learning disabilities (such as dyslexia) are suspected, there are tests that can be given to discern what they are. However, it is important not to stigmatize a child who may just be lagging in their development, because labels tend to create a “can’t do” attitude in children. In summary, the purpose of Mastery Learning is to create a “real life” learning environment where children are rewarded for making mistakes but cheerfully correcting them and progressing in their skills. The point is to create a sense of growing mastery and competence instead of frustration, and pride in learning to do things well and get the help one needs from a variety of sources. These life-long learner skills are invaluable. # Prepare: Weekly Plan ## 1 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God created the universe, and has a plan for the world and us. God reveals Himself to all peoples through His creation, which we learn more about through science (general revelation). When God reveals Himself, Satan immediately attempts to distort our understanding of God’s revelation. When Adam and Eve believed Satan rather than God, their relationship with God was damaged. Evil, violence, and death came into the world as a result of the fall, and were not a part of God’s good creation. God reveals himself personally to specific people and families whom He calls to be His messengers to the rest of the families of the earth (special revelation), and whom He makes a special covenant with. Extinct animals and plants were every bit as complex as modern animals. Many forms of extinct life were huge, and could not be sustained in the world’s current climate. God created distinct “kinds” of living organisms, that can be classified according to their structure and function. The living kingdoms are all intricately interdependent, and could not have evolved one kingdom at a time. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible The Beginning of Time (Creation – 1900 BC) Genesis 1-11 (Creation through Abraham) God, the Bible, and Science Biblical Record Big Bang Paleontology (Dinosaurs) Archaeology Anthropology Science Darwin's Theory of Evolution Science Scientific Method Intelligent Design Theory Parts of a Microscope Classification of Organisms (Living Things) **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 History: Time (past, present, future), History / Prehistory, Biblical record, Worldview Science: Big Bang, Entropy 2 Bible: God and the Bible, Genesis 1, Inductive Bible Study, Hermeneutics History: Time (continued), Worldview (continued) Science: Science, Scientific Method, Definition of life, Microscopy 3 Bible: God and the Bible, Genesis 1:1-2:4, Creation, Basic Doctrines History: Theory of Evolution, Overview, Darwin, Origin of Species, Intelligent Design, Paleontology, Dinosaurs, Age of the Earth, Fossiles / Fossil Record, Dating Methods, Archeology overview, Worldview and religion Science: Theory of Evolution terms and concepts, Intelligent Design 4 Bible: Genesis 2:5-3:24, The Fall, Redemption and Atonement History: Paleontology continued, Dinosaurs, Age of the Earth, Fossils / Fossil Record, Archeology continued, Artifacts, Tools Science: Theory of Evolution myths and fallacies, Intelligent Design, Cytology, Cellular Structures 5 Bible: Genesis 4-9, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Covenant History: Paleontology continued, Dinosaurs, Ice Age, Flood Theories, Archeology continued, Simulated Dig, Culture Science: Theory of Evolution, Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design, Cytology, Cellular Processes 6 Bible: Genesis 10-11, Table of Nations, Tower of Babel, Spread of Nations History: Archeology continued, Culture, Stone Age, Rise of Civilizations Science: Origin of Man, Human Ancestors, Fossil Record, Cytology, Cellular Processes ## 2 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The Bible is history. God’s plan to reconcile all the families of the earth to Himself unfolds through the lives of families He has chosen, through their time in Egypt and the formation of the people of Israel. He also is interacting with all the peoples of the earth and their rulers. The chemistry of life, and the DNA molecule, show the careful design of God. It is chemically impossible for the DNA molecule to evolve, not just because it contains so much complex informational code, but because outside of the cell membrane, the molecule is quickly destroyed by the presence of oxygen. The cell itself is an exceedingly complicated “city” of micro-machines and micro-factories. All of nature works together, but since the Fall, evil species have developed that attack and destroy other species. Man has often inadvertently damaged ecosystems by introducing non-native species and by over-killing. Climates, habitats, and ecosystems are in constant flux, but species are regularly dying out and no new species are developing to replace them. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible God's Plan Unfolds (3100-30 BC) Genesis 12-50 Exodus – Deuteronomy (Isaac to Joshua) Ancient Mesopotamia Sumer Ancient Egypt Science Ecology I: The Environment The Biosphere Ecosystems The Role of Man in the Biosphere HS: Biochemistry / Genetics HS: Cytology (Cellular structure, processes) **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Genesis 12 – 22, Abraham’s call, Abraham and Lot, Melchizidech and the Abrahamic Covenant, Hagar and Ishmael, Isaac History: Early Civilizations, Monotheism, Polytheism, Animism, Mesopotamia, Geography Interdependence, City-state, Sumer, History and rulers, Religion / Ziggurat Science: Ecology, Living/Non-living, Biochemistry Organic chemistry, The Biosphere, Introduce Biomes, Natural Resources, Irrigation, Basic chemistry 2 Bible: Genesis 23 – 50, Covenant with Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Covenant with Jacob, Joseph History: Culture, Sumer continued, Polar Region (Tundra, Taiga), Ecology, Cuneiform writing, Biome, Geography and life Science: Ecosystem Communities, Mountain-Coniferous Forest, Temperate Deciduous Forest, Populations Habitat, Niche Cytology: Cellular Structure, 3 Bible: Exodus 1 – 15, Nation of Israel Moses’ life History: History and pharaohs, Food pyramids, Plagues, Dynasty and city Passover Food webs Exodus Desertification Science: Ancient Egypt Ecology, Geography Grassland (Savannah, Chaparral), Desert, Cytology: Cellular Processes Energy, Metabolism, Protein synthesis, Food chains 4 Bible: Exodus 16 – 40, Leviticus 1 – 15, 10 Commandments, Covenant renewal, Tabernacle, Priesthood, Overview of laws History: Ancient Egypt, Mummification, Culture, Religion Science: Ecology, Tropical Forest, Rainforest, Soil, Basic Genetics, Genes, Chromosomes 5 Bible: Leviticus 16 – 27, Numbers 1 – 9, Obedience, Census of Israel, Tribes and duties, Atonement Cont. History: Ancient Egypt continued, Hieroglyphics, Culture, Tutankhamun water, Climax and succession in communities Science: Ecology, Freshwater Biomes Celebrations Pyramids Pond, Lake, Stream, River, Wetlands Cycles in nature, carbon-oxygen, nitrogen, mineral, Genetics Chromosome and gene change Modern genetics 6 Numbers 10 – 36 Cont. Ancient Egypt Ecology Tribes leave Sinai Cont. Culture Marine-Ocean Biomes: Laws for Canaan Art and architecture Reefs, Seashore (Intertidal Zone), Victories Contributions Abyssal and Pelagic Zones, Estuaries Deuteronomy Changes in ecosystems, environment Moses’ counsel Moses’ blessing Man in the Biosphere Ecology Ecosystem The Biosphere Man in the Biosphere ## 3 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God loves and pours His blessings on all peoples, both near and far away. God is interacting with all the peoples of the earth and their rulers. God fulfills His covenant with Abraham to give the land to his descendants, even though they are repeatedly disobedient. God judges nations as well as individuals, and that judgment is sometimes carried out by evil nations or people. The Monera, Protista, and Fungi kingdoms are not often thought about, but are crucial to life and ecosystems on earth. Life was created by God for his purposes; even the smallest forms of life (single cell animals) are exceedingly complex and could not have evolved through random processes. There is no mechanism whereby life can evolve from non-life or complex micro-machines, like the flagella of bacteria, can randomly evolve. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Mankind Walks Away from God (2100 BC – 220 AD) Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel 1-8 The Promised Land Ancient India Ancient China Ancient Japan Science The Kingdom Monera, Protista and Fungi (Microorganisms) **III. Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Joshua 1 – 8, Joshua, Rahab, Crossing the Jordan, Jericho, Ai History: Ancient India, Indus valley civilization, Geography, History and rulers Science: Kingdom Monera (Bacteria) 2 Bible: Joshua 9 – 24, Southern conquest, Northern conquest, Dividing the land, Joshua’s farewell History: Ancient India Cont., Vedic and Epic ages, Persian invasion (Mauryan Empire), Buddhism, Hinduism Science: Kingdom Monera (Bacteria) 3 Bible: Judges 1 – 8, Cycle of judges, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, History: Ancient Far East (Japan, Korea), Geography, History (clans), Structure, Culture Science: Kingdom Protista, Classification and specimens 4 Bible: Judges 9 – 21, Jephthah, Samson, Civil war History: Ancient China, Geography, History / dynasties, Art / technology Science: Kingdom Protista, Life processes, Environmental Role 5 Bible: Ruth, Story, Message, Kinsman redeemer History: Ancient China, Shang dynasty, Zhou dynasty, Confucius, Daoism Science: Kingdom Fungi, Classification, Structure, Life Processes 6 Bible: I Samuel 1 – 8, Hannah, Samuel’s call, Philistines and the Ark, Israel wants a king, End of judges, Beginning of kings History: Ancient China, Qin dynasty, Great Wall, Han dynasty, The civil service, Silk Road Science: Kingdom Fungi, Decomposition (Environmental Role), Lichen, Yeast, Fermentation ## 4 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God was working in the nation of Israel and surrounding nations. The history in the Bible is taking place within the larger history of the Middle East and Mediterranean. Fossilized insects (in amber) and other invertebrates (like jelly fish) show these species have remained virtually unchanged since they first appeared. **II. The Big Picture** History/ Bible God is Faithful (1800 BC – 612 BC) Samuel to the Fall of Ninevah I Samuel 9 – II Chronicles, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah 1-39, Micah, Obadiah, Nahum Peoples of the Middle East Science Zoology: The Animal Kingdom (Invertebrates) Invertebrate classification Internal and external parts Invertebrate systems **III. Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: 1 Samuel 9-15, 1 Samuel 16-31, 1 Chronicles 1-10, Saul, Saul and David History: Middle East Peoples, Hebrews Science: Animal Kingdom (Invertebrates), Spiders, Anthropods (arachnids) 2 Bible: 2 Samuel 1-24, 1 Chronicles 11-29, David History: Middle East Peoples, Hebrews Science: Animal Kingdom (Invertebrates), Insects, Arthropods 3 Bible: 1 Kings 1-11, 2 Chronicles 1-9, Solomon History: Middle East Peoples, Hebrews Science: Animal Kingdom (Invertebrates), Insects, Arthropods 4 Bible: 1 Kings 12-22, 2 Kings 1-20, 2 Chronicles 10-32, Obadiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah, Exile of Israel History: Middle East People, Hittites Science: Animal Kingdom (Invertebrates), Platyhelminthes, Nematodes, Annelids 5 Bible: 2 Kings 21-23, 2 Chronicles 26-35, Isaiah, Nahum, Jonah, Kings and prophets of Israel and Judah History: Middle East Peoples, Assyrians Science: Animal Kingdom (Invertebrates), Sponges and Jellies, Cnidaria 6 Bible: 2 Kings 24-25, 2 Chronicles 36, Daniel 1-5, Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah, Exile of Judah History: Middle East Peoples, Babylonians, Chaldeans Science: Animal Kingdom (INvertebrates), Sea creatures, Mollusks, Echinoderms, Arthropods (crustaceans) ## 5 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God is always in control. He sets up and takes down rulers and nations. Man makes his plans, but God determines the ultimate outcome. The plant kingdom is as intricately complex as the animal kingdom. The living kingdoms are all intricately interdependent, and could not have evolved one kingdom at a time. The fossil record does not support evolution of the species through natural selection. In animals with backbones (vertebrates), specialized features, such as feathers and retinal eyes, appear in the fossil record suddenly. There are no intermediate stages that would demonstrate a slow evolutionary development of these complex systems. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible God is in Control (2500 – 400 BC) Isaiah 40-66 Zephaniah Jeremiah Lamentations Habakkuk Ezekiel Daniel Esther Ancient Persia (the Exile) Ancient and Classical Greece Science Zoology: The Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates) Vertebrate classification Vertebrate systems Internal and external parts **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Daniel 6 – 12, Esther, Lion’s den, Visions and interpretations, Prophecy, End times History: Ancient Persia, History / Rulers, Geography, Culture Science: Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates), Fish 2 Bible: Ezekiel, Visions and interpretations, Parables and signs, Prophecy, End times, Before/during/after siege of Jerusalem History: Ancient Persia, Culture, Technology, Religion Science: Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates), Amphibians 3 Bible: Zephaniah, Judgement for Judah and the nations, Future restoration History: Ancient Greece, Minoans, Mycenaens, Dark and Archaic Ages Science: Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates), Reptiles 4 Bible: Habakkuk, Habakkuk’s questions, God’s answer to Habakkuk’s prayer History: Ancient Greece, Classical Age, Persian War, Peloponnesian War Science: Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates), Birds 5 Bible: Jeremiah 1 – 38, Prophecies for Judah and the nations, Prophecy about the Messiah History: Ancient Greece, Classical Age, Greek Culture, Famous Greeks Science: Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates), Mammals 6 Bible: Jeremiah 39 – 52, Lamentations, Jerusalem after the fall History: Ancient Greece, Hellenism, Alexander the Great, Cultural influence on Western world Science: Animal Kingdom (Vertebrates), Mammals ## 6 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God prepared the world for the birth of Christ through the Pax Romana, the widespread use of the Greek language, and the collection and translation of the Hebrew books into the Old Testament (called the Septuagint). The plant kingdom is as intricately complex as the animal kingdom. The living kingdoms are all intricately interdependent, and could not have evolved one kingdom at a time. Similar to the animal world, the fossil record shows major phylla, such as ferns, as persistently distinct, without transitionary forms to other types of plants. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible God Sets the Stage (500-4 BC) Return from Exile Intertestamental Period Haggai Zechariah Ezra Nehemiah Malachi Joel Hellenistic Age and The Rise of Rome (to the birth of Christ) Alexander the Great Science Botany: The Plant Kingdom Plant classification Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds Plant systems **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Ezra, Zerubabbel and rebuilding the temple, Ezra and reform History: Ancient Greece, Hellenism, Alexander the Great, Cultural influence on Western world, Collapse of Greek Empire Science: Plant Kingdom, Roots 2 Bible: Nehemiah, Rebuilding walls, Reading the law, Reform History: Ancient Rome, Geography of area, Etruscans, Legends / culture, Etruscan rulers, Science: Plant Kingdom, Stems 3 Bible: Haggai, Command to rebuild the temple, Future glory of temple, God’s promise, Army and Strategy, Weapons and Technology History: Ancient Rome, Republic, Senate, Government, Law code, Punic Wars Science: Plant Kingdom, Leaves, Photosynthesis 4 Bible: Zechariah, Visions, The coming Messiah, The Kingdom of God History: Ancient Rome, Republic and Julius Caesar, Politics, History and Rulers Science: Plant Kingdom, Flowers and Fruits, Technology 5 Bible: Joel, Day of the Lord, God’s promise, Future restoration History: Ancient Rome, Empire (Augustus Caesar), Architecture, City Science: Plant Kingdom, Seeds 6 Bible: Malachi, The coming Messiah, Encouragement for Israel History: Ancient Rome, Jews/Jerusalem: Intertestamental Period, Rulers and sects, Maccabbean revolt Science: Plant Kingdom, Seedless plants, Non-flowering plants ## 7 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** Jesus Christ and the early Christians, although starting small, had a profound impact on the Roman Empire; the plan of God to redeem all peoples moves forward despite the opposition of men. Jesus is the only one who provides reconciliation between sinful people and God. All other religions, including corrupted forms of Christianity, are based on human effort to achieve spiritual goals. God took great care in creating our bodies. As we understand the beauty and complexity of them, we can glorify God. Our bodies also serve as an example to us of the community of believers (“the body of Christ”) that need to function together to serve God fully. **II. The Big Picture** AD 1-400 History / Bible Roman Empire and the Early Church (Birth of Christ to Constantine) Persecution of Early Christians Pompeii Gospels (First three units) Science Human Body, Part I: Support Systems Skeletal System Muscular System Human Body, Part II: Communication Nervous System (Sensory Organs) **III. Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Review Old Testament, Messianic prophecy, Gospels: Introduction, Mt 1:1; Mk 1:1; Lk 1:1-4; Jn 1:1-18, God’s perfect timing of Jesus’ arrival, Christianity and Judaism History: Roman Empire, Review of Roman Republic (Year I), Geography, History and Emperors, Pompeii Science: What Makes Us Human, Parts of Body, Body Directionality, Body Regions, Cells, Tissues, Organs, Systems 2 Bible: Gospels: The Birth of Christ, Lk 1:5-80, 3:23-38; Mt 1:2-17, Promise, Birth of John the Baptist, Annunciation, Mary and Elizabeth, Genealogy of Jesus History: Roman Empire, Herod and the Temple, Government and Military Structure, Pax Romana, Culture and Religion, Early Church, Birth and life of Christ, Jews and Jewish culture Science: Part I: Support Systems, Skeletal System, Structure and Function of Skeletal System, Bones, Bone Tissue, Cartilage 3 Bible: Gospels: The Birth of Christ, Mt 1:18-25, 2:1-12; Lk 2:1-20, Birth of Jesus, Adoration of Jesus History: Roman Empire, Art, Architecture, Influence on Western/Eastern culture, Early Church, Pentecost, Apostles, Saul’s conversion, Paul’s missionary journeys Science: Skeletal System, Ligaments and Joints, Bone Marrow, Diseases Affecting Skeletal System, Treatment and Prevention 4 Bible: Gospels: Jesus’ childhood, Life in Palestine, Lk 2:21-52; Mt 2:13-23, Presentation in the Temple, Early Church: Spread of the Gospel, Flight to Egypt, Jesus in the Temple History: Roman Empire, Morality in and plagues in Roman Empire, Emperors from Nero to M. Aurelius, Destruction of Jerusalem/temple/Judea, Persecution/martyrs of 1st/2nd century Science: Muscular System, Structure / Function of Muscular System, Major Muscles, Muscle Tissue, Actions of Muscles (Voluntary/Involuntary Contraction/Relaxation) 5 Bible: Gospels: Preparation for Ministry, Mt 3:1-17, 4:1-11; Mk 1:2-13, Lk 3:1-22, 4:1-13; Jn 1:19-34, John the Baptist, Jesus’ baptism, Jesus’ temptation. History: Roman Empire, Dependance on slaves & mercenaries, Division of the empire, Early church leaders, Apostles’ Creed, Christian heresies, Gnosticism, Justin Martyr, Ireneaus, Organization of early church, Patriarchs. Science: Muscular System, Tendons, Attachment of Muscles and Connective Tissue, Common Muscular Injuries/Diseases, Treatment, Prevention, Muscle Cells, Myofilaments, Energy Sources, Classification of Muscles. 6 Bible: Gospels: Beginning of Public Ministry, Mk 1:16-20, 3:16, 11:15-17, Mt 4:18-22, 16:17-18, 21:12-13, Lk 5:1-11, 6:14, 19:45-46, Jn 1:35-51, 2:1-25, 3:23-36, Jesus chooses disciples, Jesus’ first miracles and early ministry, Cleansing of the Temple, Jesus and Nicodemus, Jesus and John the Baptist. History: Roman Empire/Christianity Part II: Communication, Constantine, Nicene Creed, Center moves to Constantinople, Arius, Arian Heresy, Two paradigm shifts in Christianity, New Testament canon, State religion (385 AD, Theodosius). Science: Nervous System, Structure and Function of Nervous System, Neurons, Nerves, Reflex Arc, Central Nervous System, Brain and Spinal Cord. ## 8 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God loves the Eastern Hemisphere people groups, and wants us to love them too. The basic beliefs and value systems of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism are quite different from each other and from Christianity. Each one of them contains some of God’s truth, but they have very different views of reality and present solutions to life’s problems incompatible with God’s plan. God took intricate care in designing our bodies. For a while evolutionists assumed that there were parts of our bodies “left over” from evolutionary processes, so they carelessly removed organs that they could see no purpose for. Today we realize that the systems of our bodies are extremely intricate and related in many ways. Recognizing the body is designed is crucial to figuring out how to keep it functioning well. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible AD 1-600 Armenian Ethiopian Nestorian Christianity Medieval China India to 600 Comparative Eastern Religions / Animism Gospels (Continued) Science Nervous System Sensory Organs Endocrine System Human Body, Part III: Organ Systems Circulatory System Respiratory System **III. Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Gospels: Ministry in Galilee, Mt 4:12-23; Mk 1:14-45, 2-3:19, Lk 4:14-44, 5-6:16; Jn 4:1-46, Jesus’ journey through Galilee, Woman of Samaria, Call of the disciples, Jesus in the synagogue, Teaching, Preaching, Healing, and cleansing History: Christianity spreads east and south, Armenian Christianity, Ethiopian Christianity, Persian/Nestorian Christianity, Animism Science: Nervous System, Diseases and Disorders Affecting Nervous System, Treatment, Prevention, Five Senses 2 Bible: Gospels: Sermon on the Mount, Mt 4:24-7:29, Beatitudes, Teaching on relationship to world, Teaching on relationship to others, Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer, Teaching on relationship to God History: India 1-600 AD Through the Gupta Empire, Solidifying of Hinduism, Spread of Buddhism to other locations Science: Endocrine System, Structure and Function of Endocrine System, Hormones, Hormone-producing Cells, Target Cells, Glands of Endocrine (and Exocrine) System, Diseases/Disorders, Treatment and Prevention, Nervous System 3 Bible: Gospels: Sermon on the Plain, Mk 6:17-49, Beatitudes, Teaching on relationships History: Comparative Eastern Religions (India), Hinduism Structure, Buddhism and Christianity Science: Circulatory System, Function of Circulatory System, Blood and Vessels, Arteries and Veins 4 Gospels: Ministry in Galilee, Mt 8:1-11:30; Lk 7:1-35; Jn 4:46-54, Healing and cleansing, Casting out demons; defeating evil, Discipleship, instruction, Mission, persecution, reward, Jesus and John the Baptist “Come unto me…” History: China 1-600 AD, Han Dynasty to Sui Dynasty, Korean pennisula Science: Circulatory System, Heart and Pericardium, Blood Flow and Circulation, Pulse, Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Blood and Heart Diseases, Treatment, Prevention 5 Bible: Gospels: Ministry in Galilee, Mt 12-13; Mk 3:19-6:6; Lk 7:36-8:56, Pharisees, the Law, and Jesus, Casting out demons; defeating evil, Parables and the Kingdom of God History: Comparative Eastern Religions (China), Early Chinese Christians, Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism Science: Respiratory System, Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide Flow, Organs of Respiratory System, Structure and Function of Respiratory System 6 Bible: Gospels: Ministry in Galilee, Mt 14:1-16:12; Mk 6:6-8:26, Lk 9:1-17; Jn 5:1-6:59, Journey to Jerusalem, Healing, Mision of the apostles, Miracles and signs, Death of John the Baptist, Syrophoenician woman, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Jesus History: Comparative Eastern Religions (Japan), Shintoism, Zen, (Japanese history is in unit 4), Science: Respiratory System, Air Passageways-From Trachea to Alveoli, Lungs and Thoracic Cavity Lung/Respiratory Diseases, Treatment, Prevention Basal Metabolic Rate and Lung Capacity ## 9 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** God made sure that truth and His word was preserved in the midst of the paganism, syncretism, and pressure from Islam during the upheaval of the Dark Ages (AD 400 to 800) through the diligent copying by Celtic monks. Translations start to be made but most are opposed by the Latin and Greek-speaking churches, making the scriptures unreadable for non-clerics at a distance from the Mediterranean. The northern European tribes are pushed ahead of the armies of the Huns, spilling into and ultimately settling down in the Balkans, Italy, France, Spain and North Africa. God uses these waves of migrations, and these people groups become first Arian then orthodox Christians. After the Roman Empire loses power in the West, the church increasingly takes over the former functions of the Empire. When the religious leaders have secular power and guarenteed salaries, people with wrong motives and little faith seek religious offices and the integrity of the church diminishes. Benedict and his twin sister establish monasteries and convents, where his rigorous but reasonable Rule of discipline for monks sets a new standard that will be followed for millenia. God took intricate care in designing our bodies. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible 400-800 Barbarian Invasions to Charlemagne St. Patrick St. Augustine Franks and Saxons Byzantium (Justinian) Islam: History and Religion Pope Gregory, Boniface, Benedict Gospels (Continued) Science Digestive System Excretory System Reproductive System **III. Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Gospels: The Way to the Cross, Mt 16:13-18:35; Mk 8:27-9:50, Lk 9:18-50; Jn 6:60-71, Peter’s confession, Jesus foretells His Passion, Transfiguration, Parables and teachings of Jesus, Gospels: Journey to Jerusalem, Lk 9:51-18:14, Sending of the seventy, Lord’s Prayer, Mary and Martha, Parables and teachings of Jesus, Healing and cleansing, The Kingdom of God History: Barbarians and Huns, Barbarian Invasions (sack Rome 410), Attila the Hun, Fall of Carthage to Vandals (430), Last Western Emperor (476), The Western church survives, Augustine (converted 386, d. 430), St. Patrick (389-470?), Celtic missionaries, Columba, etc. Science: Digestive System, Structure and Function of Digestive System, Alimentary Canal (Digestive Tract), Organs of Alimentary Canal, Flow of Alimentary Canal from Mouth to Elimination, Mouth and Parts 2 Bible: Gospels: Jesus in Jerusalem, Jn 7:1-10:21, Jesus’ teaching about His identity, Gospels: Ministry in Judea, Mt 19:1-20:34; Mk 10:1-52, Lk 18:15-19:27; Jn 10:22-12:11, Parables and teachings of Jesus, Miracles and healings History: The Rise of Roman Catholic Church, Monasticism (Benedictine order), Conversion of Franks/Clovis, Pope Gregory I (the Great), Augustine of Kent/conv. Angle/Saxon Villi, Conversion of Visigoths in Spain, Synod of Whitby: (Celtic church joins Roman) Science: Digestive System, Teeth and Disease/s, Treatment, and Prevention, Digestion, Mucous and Enzymes, Liver, Pancreas, Gallbladder, Small Intestine, Nutritional Intake, Muscles of System, Diseases, Disorders, Treatment, Prevention 3 Bible: Gospels: Final Ministry in Jerusalem, Mt 21:1-23:39; Mk 11:1-12:44, Lk 19:28-21:4; Jn 12:12-19, Triumphal entry, Jesus in the Temple, Priests and scribes conspire, Jesus’ authority, Parables, Great Commandment, Lament over Jerusalem History: Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire), Justinian I, Code of Justinian, Hagia Sophia, Influence on Europe and Middle East, Loss of M. East to Islam, Emperor Leo III, iconoclast controversy, Eastern Orthodox Church, Armenian Christianity survives Science: Excretory System, Structure and Function of System, Excretion and Elimination, Organs of Urinary System 4 Bible: Gospels: Jesus Teaches on End Times, Mt 24:1-25:46; Mk 13:1-37, Lk 21:5-38; Jn 12:20-50, Signs of the end; persecutions, False prophets; Second Coming, Greeks seek Jesus, Parables, Last Judgement History: Islam, How is was started, Mohammad the prophet (d. 632), Prediction of Temple destruction, Spread of Islam, Conquer Egypt to Meso. (651), Conquer N. Africa to Spain (715), Islamic Caliphates, Sunni vs. Shi’ia Islam Science: Excretory System, Path of Urine Flow, Kidneys Filtration, Re-absorption, Secretion, Kidneys Diseases, Disorders, Treatment, Prevention 5 Bible: Gospels: The Passion of the Christ, Mt 26:1-27:66; Mk 14:1-15:47, Lk 22:1-23:56; Jn 13:1-19:42, Anointing, betrayal, Last supper, Peter’s denial, Jesus’ last teachings and prayer; Gethsemane, arrest, trials; Crucifixion, death, burial History: Islam, Comparison with Christianity, Five pillars, Koranic view of Jesus, Islamic religious organization, Islamic culture, Harun al Rashid (Aaron the Just), Islamic golden age in Baghdad Science: Reproductive System, Structure and Function of Male and Female Systems, Growth/Development of a Human Being, Changes During Puberty, Hormones, Ovarian and Uterine Cycles 6 Bible: Gospels: Resurrection, Gospels: Ending of the Gospel Narrative, Mt 28:1-28; Mk 16:1-20, Lk 24:1-53; Jn 20:1-21:25, Resurrection, Women at the tomb; Road to Emmaus, Jesus appears to disciples, Great Commission Ascension History: Rise of the Holy Roman Empire (in west), The Franks and the Saxons, Charles Martel, Merovingian kings of Franks, Charlemagne, life and impact, Pope makes Church “Holy Roman Empire” Science: Reproductive System, Fertilization and Pregnancy, Aging and Changes in Systems, Abortion, Euthanasia, Sexual Purity (in BJ book last section); Reproductive Diseases/Disorders, Treatment, Prevention ## 10 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The peoples of Europe continue to conquer and be conquered as the Vikings rise to ascendancy (AD 800 to 1000). However, God uses their invasions to expose them to the power of the gospel. Lifestyle changes begin to occur when the Vikings become Christians but are shallow due to lack of having the scriptures in their own languages. The Vikings settle down from England and France to the rivers of Russia, soon becoming the Christianized rulers of these areas. In the book of Acts, God helps the apostles understand His intention to spread the gospel to all peoples without them having to adopt foreign cultural forms. The Vikings adapted outwardly more than inwardly, while God desires us to change at the heart level more than in outward cultural forms. God took intricate care in designing our bodies. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible 800-1100 Vikings Eric the Red Leif Erickson King Arthur Alfred the Great Early Middle Ages Cluny Monasteries Japan and Far East 600-1200 Acts 1-9 Science Human Body, Part IV: Defense Systems Lymphatic System Immune System **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Chapters 10 – 11:18, Peter and Cornelius, Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit, “Gospel to the gentiles”, Peter reports to Jerusalem church History: Middle Ages 1100 – 1400 (MA Part 1), Culture, Knights, heraldry, tournaments, Occupations, Chivalry, castles, Eleanor of Aquitaine Science: Nutrition 2 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapter 11:19 – 12, Church at Antioch (Saul and Barnabas), James’ death, Peter delivered from prison, Herod’s death History: Middle Ages: Church, Cathedrals, Gothic architecture, Leadership (government, church), Split of East/West church (1054), Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian monastic reform Science: Fitness 3 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapters 13 – 14, First Missionary Journey (Paul and Barnabas) History: Middle Ages: Crusades, Richard the Lion Heart/Robin Hood, Nur al-Din, Saladin Syria (Antioch, Seleucia), Knights Templar, Hospitalar, etc. Cyprus (Salamis, Paphos), Children’s Crusade Pamphylia (Perga, Antioch, Iconium, Islam during the Crusade era Lystra, Derbe, Attalia) Science: Health Care (Personal Hygiene), Review Sensory Organs (Including Skin, Hair, Nails), Body Care 4 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Continued Chapter 15:1 – 35, Jerusalem Council; Letter to Gentiles, Gospel transcends culture History: Middle Ages: Christian reform, Reform movements of Middle Ages: St Francis and the Franciscans, Peter Waldo and the Waldensians, Dominic and the Dominicans, The Cathar heretics Science: Body Care, Safety Practices 5 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapters 15:36 – 18:17, Second Missionary Journey: (Paul and Barnabas separate), (Paul, Silas, and Timothy), Syria, Cilicia, Phrygia, Galatia, Troas, Macedonia (Samothrace, Neapolis, Thessalonica, Berea), Greece (Athens, Corinth), (Ephesus, Caesarea, Jerusalem) History: Middle Ages: Scholasticism, Rise of Scholasticism: Anslem, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Rise of Science/Scientific method, Ockham: Divorce of Faith and Reason, Rise of the Universities, Use of vernacular languages, Dantes Divine Comedy, 1314 Return, Canterbury Tales 1388 Science: History of Medicine 6 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapters 18:18 – 20, Ministry of Apollos, Third Missionary Journey: Paul and disciples, Phrygia, Galatia, Asia (Ephesus and region), Macedonia, Greece To Jerusalem (Asia: Troas to Miletus), History: Middle Ages: Impact of plagues, 1300-1400 AD, Plagues (Black Death), Impact of Plague on Feudalism, Breakdown of the feudal system, Rise of towns, Rise of Capitalism and guilds Science: Medications and Drug use ## 11 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The pope tells the feudal lords of Europe to stop fighting each other and go to save Jerusalem and Constantinople from the Turks. All the Crusades were led by nominally Christian Viking descendants who still held to Viking values for war with a thin veneer of chivalry from their exposure to Christianity. The Crusades and other violent and oppressive events occur in a Christian world because so-called Christian populations have not learned and incorporated Christ’s teaching into their lives. Making the church a defender of earthly power has dire consequences. The church should not become wedded to a particular people group or nation. During the Middle Ages, God called people to bring social change and religious renewal. Some of these, like the Waldensians, were persecuted by the church for not bowing to its demands. Others, like the Fransicans and Dominicans, successfully won the church’s approval and brought renewal to hundreds of thousands of nominal Christians. European towns grow as long centuries of relative safety follow the conversion of Europe’s last people groups. The Crusades and the plagues both helped break down the feudal system. The plagues help to stop further Crusades, could God have used them to stop the Crusades? The church promotes learning and innovation through its universities, and the Scholastics, scholars of the later Middle Ages, establish the foundation for the scientific revolution. The development of capitalism, initiated by banking systems run by Jewish communities and Crusading orders, allows for greater freedom in trade and innovation in manufacturing. God expects us to learn about and take care of our own bodies and those of our family through informed nutrition, hygiene and treatment. Medical techniques often lag behind current available knowledge of how the body functions. God creates each person individually in the womb; therefore, abortion is the killing of His innocent children and anathema to Him. We as Christians must help solve the problems of society that make abortion an attractive alternative to so many. Disease is a major hindrance to the advancement of God’s kingdom around the world. There is a great need of medical research for eradication and effective prevention of widespread disease, not just the treatment thereof. AIDS, malaria, and other diseases kill more people each year than all the wars. Substance abuse is a worldwide problem, cutting lives short before the gospel can be heard. In the Western nations, alcohol and other legal drugs are the most abused substances, creating a culture of drug use. However, illegal drug trade worldwide depends on large amounts of money flowing from the richer nations. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible 1100-1300 Middle Ages Crusades Plagues Robin Hood Canterbury Tales Cistercians St. Francis Friars Acts 10-20 Science History of Medicine Medication / Drug Use Primary Health Care (Personal Hygiene) Nutrition and Fitness Metabolism **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Acts of the Apostles, Chapters 10 – 11:18, “Gospel to the gentiles”, Peter and Cornelius Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit, Peter reports to Jerusalem church History: Middle Ages 1100 – 1400 (MA Part 1), Culture, Occupations; Knights, heraldry, tournaments; Chivalry, castles, Eleanor of Aquitaine Science: Nutrition 2 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont., Chapter 11:19 – 12, Church at Antioch (Saul and Barnabas), James’ death, Peter delivered from prison, Herod’s death History: Middle Ages: Church, Cathedrals, Gothic architecture, Leadership (government, church), Split of East/West church (1054), Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercian monastic reform Science: Fitness 3 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapters 13 – 14, First Missionary Journey: (Paul and Barnabas), Syria (Antioch, Seleucia), Cyprus (Salamis, Paphos), Pamphylia (Perga, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Attalia) History: Middle Ages: Crusades, Crusades, Richard the Lion Heart/Robin Hood, Nur al-Din, Saladin, Knights Templar, Hospitalar, etc. Children’s Crusade, Islam during the Crusade era Science: Health Care (Personal Hygiene), Review Sensory Organs (Including Skin, Hair, Nails), Body Care 4 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapter 15:1 – 35, Jerusalem Council; Letter to Gentiles, Gospel transcends culture History: Middle Ages: Christian reform, Reform movements of Middle Ages: St Francis and the Franciscans, Peter Waldo and the Waldensians, Dominic and the Dominicans, The Cathar heretics Science: Body Care Continued, Safety Practices 5 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapters 15:36 – 18:17, Second Missionary Journey: (Paul and Barnabas separate), (Paul, Silas, and Timothy) , Syria, Cilicia, Phrygia, Galatia, Troas, Macedonia (Samothrace, Neapolis, Thessalonica, Berea, Greece (Athens, Corinth), Return (Ephesus, Caesarea, Jerusalem) History: Middle Ages: Scholasticism, Rise of Scholasticism: Anslem, Abelard; Thomas Aquinas, Rise of Science/Scientific method, Ockham: Divorce of Faith and Reason, Rise of the Universities, Use of vernacular languages, Dantes Divine Comedy 1314, Canterbury Tales 1388 Science: History of Medicine 6 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Cont. Chapters 18:18 – 20, Ministry of Apollos, Third Missionary Journey: (Paul and disciples), Phrygia, Galatia, Asia (Ephesus and region), Macedonia, Greece, To Jerusalem (Asia: Troas to Miletus) History: Middle Ages: Impact of plagues, 1300-1400 AD Plagues (Black Death), Impact of Plague on Feudalism, Breakdown of the feudal system, Rise of towns, Rise of Capitalism and guilds Science: Medications and Drug use ## 12 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The trade routes to the East become increasingly cut off by the Turks and the Mongols. Europeans begin to seek new routes for trading with India and China by sea. The fall of Constantinople in 1453AD submerges most of the rest of the eastern church to Muslim rule. The Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic and Assyrian churches survive, but the Nestorian Christians, throughout Persia and central Asia, are almost entirely converted to Islam. Persecution and lack of scriptures in their own languages are major factors. During the time of Marco Polo a great opportunity was missed to bring the gospel to China at the request of the Khan himself. God opens doors, but Christians are responsible to be obedient for God’s kingdom to go forward. The doors to China don’t open again until the 16th and 19th centuries, and then under less-than-ideal circumstances. Everyone should know how to help others in a time of crisis with first aid skills and survival skills. Knowledge and practice of proper health care and survival skills are foundational to all international development work around the world. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible 1200-1450 Europe and Asia in the 13th-14th Centuries Medieval Empires: Ottomans, Mongols Kublai Kahn Genghis Kahn Ming Dynasty Marco Polo 100 Years War (France vs. England) Joan of Arc Fall of Constantinople Acts 21-28 Science Safety and Survival Skills Primary Health Care (First Aid, CPR) **III. The Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Chapters 21 – 23:11, Paul’s journey to Jerusalem, Paul visits James Paul’s arrest, defense before crowd, Paul before Council History: Middle Ages 1200-1450 (MA Part 2), King John and the Magna Carta, 100 Years War, Joan of Arc, 1309-1377 pope in Avignon not Rome, Multiple popes (1378-1417) Science: Safety and Survival Skills, Car/Walking Safety, Bicycle Safety, Safety with Animals, Indoor/Outdoor Safety 2 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Chapters 23:12 – 24, Plot to kill Paul, Paul before Felix, Festus succeeds Felix History: Mongols 1200-1450, Genghis Khan c.1206, Kublai Khan c.1264, Marco Polo, Tamerlane c.1369 Science: Safety and Survival Skills, Stranger Safety and Personal Protection, Water Safety, Fire Safety, Accidents and Accident Prevention 3 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Chapters 25 – 26, Paul appeals to the emperor, Paul before Festus, Paul before King Agrippa History: Ottoman Empire 1200-1450, Rise to power, Control of Asia Minor, Middle Eastern trade routes, Holy Land Science: Safety and Survival Skills, First Aid Kit Preparation, Maps and Map Reading Skills, Orienteering, Outdoor Survival Skills 4 Bible: Acts of the Apostles Chapter 27 – 28, Paul goes to Rome, Shipwreck and Malta, Paul and Jewish leaders in Rome, Paul ministers in Rome History: End of Byzantium 1200-1450, Branches of the Orthodox church, Early signs of the Rennaissance/Reformation, Fall of Constantinople Science: Safety and Survival Skills, Outdoor Survival Skills Continued 5 Bible: Insights in Mission, Reflect on what was learned this year from the study of the Gospels, Jesus’ teachings, and the lives of the disciples. What do we learn about: God’s heart for all peoples? The spread of the gospel to the nations? Effective ways to participate? History: The Far East 1200-1450, The Sung/Song dynasty, China under the Mongols through the Ming Dynasty, India under Islam Science: Primary Health Care-First Aid/CPR, Emergencies and Emergency Preparation, Basic First Aid Skills/Actions 6 Bible: Insights in Mission, Reflect on what was learned this year from the study of Acts, the early church, and the spread of Christianity during the Middle Ages. What can we learn about: God’s heart for all peoples? The spread of the gospel to the nations? Effective ways to participate? History: The Far East 1200-1450, Japan in the age of Shoguns, Korea Science: Primary Health Care-First Aid/CPR, Emergencies and Emergency Preparation, Basic First Aid Skills/Actions ## 13 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** Just as God ultimately superintends the course of nations in the Bible, He also determines the fate of nations in the rest of history. He allows Christian nations to be overrun by pagan and vice-versa, but in the end He continues to build His kingdom on earth working through a few godly people. The need to find new trade routes and greed were the primary motives that led the explorers to search for alternative trade routes to the East after the overland route was blocked by the Ottoman Turks. As a result, many of the Europeans that got to new areas first were highly exploitative of the people. The Catholic missionaries and the Pope tried to ensure fair treatment of indigenous peoples, and several popes in a row banned slavery, but the greedy merchants ignored them. God created the awesome beauty of the universe, which in its predictability enabled mankind to guide his course over long distances on land and later on the sea by looking at the stars. The Psalms repeatedly extol the power of God over nature and the nations, yet also emphasize His involvement with us at the most intimate level. The earth cannot support life apart from a careful combination of astronomical qualities. Even the moon, (and no one is quite sure how earth got it) is crucial to the wellbeing of life on earth. Scientists are still puzzling over a solar system and earth carefully designed to provide all that life needs. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible 600-1600 African Kingdoms Cultures of the New World Mayas, Aztecs, Incas Age of Exploration Columbus and other Early Explorers Psalms 1-75 Science Astronomy Solar System Moon, stars, constellations Asteroids, meteors, comets **III. Weekly Plan** 1 Bible: N/A for units 13-24 History: Pre-European African Civilizations, Ghana Empire, Mali Empire, Songhai Empire. Science: Astronomy, The Universe, Big Bang, Extent, Galaxies 2 History: Pre-European American Civilizations, Maya, Aztec, Inca Science: Astronomy, Galaxies continued, Stars and Constellations 3 History: Exploration, Reasons, Ibn Battuta, Chinese, Prince Henry Science: Astronomy, Our Sun and Solar System 4 History: Portuguese Exploration , Diaz, Da Gama, Cabral Science: Astronomy, Our Solar System continued, Asteroids, Meteors, Comets 5 History: Spanish Exploration, Columbus, Vespucci, Magellan, Balboa Science: Astronomy, Earth, Rotation Day and Night, Revolution Seaons 6 History: Conquistadors and Conquest, Cortez, Pizarro Science: Astronomy, Earth's Satellite (Moon) and its Effects on Earth ## 14 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** A new worldview, which glorified man and his reasoning abilities, emerged during the Renaissance, as an outgrowth of Christianity's emphasis on the value of human beings. However, this ultimately led to a belief that God is inactive and irrelevant (diesm) and later that it is impossible to be confident of His existence (agnosticism). Ultimately "knowledge" was confined to that which cannot only be reasoned out but also can be proven, restricting "reality" to the material world. Secular humanism developed into a dominant Western worldview that would compete with the Judeo-Christian worldview up to the present time. The Renaissance gained impetus from the many Greek scholars that fled the east after the fall of Constantinople. They brought the Greek classics with them and a rebirth of love for classical art forms mixed with the wealth and relative peace of the era, led to rich patrons supporting many artists and later musicians. As seen in the book of Job: God is sovereign over the forces of nature; however, if God does not restrain him, Satan can purposefully cause natural destruction and disease. Satan is also a being with personhood who can act, think, talk and make plans. There is a constant battle going on between the good forces of God and the evil forces of Satan. Nature and human beings themselves are also subjected to the "laws of sin and death" resulting from the Fall, so while some natural disasters or deaths are related to Satan's direct action, most are due to the chaos and fallen nature of Creation. Job is probably the oldest book in the Old Testament, written around the time of Abraham, so the understanding of Satan as an adversarial being to God did not "evolve" at a later date, nor come from Zoroastrian sources while the Jews were captive in Babylon. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Renaissance HS: Erasmus Artists of the Renaissance Sin and Repentance Job Science Geology Layers of Earth Surface of Earth Plate Tectonics Landforms Volcanoes and Earthquakes Erosions and Depositions Types **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Trade and towns, Groth of towns, Trade and Industry, Life in Towns, Religious Life, Italian City States Science: Geology, Layers of Earth, Plate Tectonics 2 History: Renaissance (Definition of and changes), Worldview changes, Humanism, Neoclassical Revival, Increased Wealth, Leisure, Renaissance Man Science: Geology, Plate Tectonics continued, Convergent and Divergent Plates, Faults, Geologic Formation of Land 3 History: Renaissance continued (Education, Philosophy, Writing), Dante, Chaucer, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Erasmus Science: Geology, Surface Features (Landforms) of Earth, Mountain Building, Types of Mountains 4 History: Renaissance continued (Inventions), Printing Press, Banking, Clock, Eyeglasses, Musket, Flush Toilet Science: Geology, Volcanoes 5 History: Renaissance continued (Painting), Giotto, Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo Science: Geology, Earthquakes 6 History: Renaissance continued (Other Arts), Architecture, Brunelleschi, Sculpture, Donatello, Ghiberti, Music and Instruments Science: Geology, Erosion, Deposition, Weathering, Surface Features from Erosion and Weathering ## 15 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** During the Middle Ages, the churches and monasteries guarded and passed on spiritual life and knowledge. However, the invention of the printing press and the Reformation ended this monopoly on Truth by increasingly putting the Bible in the hands of every man, giving each the opportunity to know God for himself. Early English translators, Wycliffe and Tyndale, were persecuted, but Luther succeeds in legally translating the Bible into German. Martin Luther and the other reformers placed great importance on one's personal relationship with God, the priesthood of every believer, the personal reading and authority of the Scriptures, and holy living. These principles led to a revival of genuine faith, especially for the literate middle classes that were increasing in number. However, the early Protestants continued affiliating with political powers, which led to political wars based on religious demarcations (known as "wars of religion"). People of other religious affiliations, even other genuine believers such as the Anabaptists, were considered threats to existing powers and persecuted. The book of Romans, foundational to the Reformation, emphasizes that no one can be made righteous through his own efforts, but that it is only by God's forgiving grace, based on Christ's holy sacrifice, that we are reconciled with Him. We still have much to figure out about rocks and fossils: Gemstones, like rubies and diamonds, can now be made in a lab, showing that long periods of time are not necessary for their formation. Fossils can only be formed under certain conditions where life is sealed off from decomposition, such as in floods. Fossils are not dated directly; they are dated by volcanic pieces of rock in the sedimentary rock layers in which they are found; however, there are problems with always assuming that the animal died at the time of an eruption. Erosion can take place either very slowly or very quickly, during natural disasters. Rock layers that are lain down millions of years apart from each other should show clear signs of erosion between the layers; however, this is often not the case. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Reformation Gutenberg's Bible Inventions Printing Wycliffe Thomas a Kempis Tyndale, Luther, Calvin Salvation by Grace The Book of Romans Science Rocks and Minerals Rock Cycle Rock Testing Minerals: Crystals, Gemstones Erosion and Deposition Processes **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Pre-Reformation, 14th/15th Century Church, Papal System, Indulgences, Power and Wealth, Priesthood, Penance, Purgatory, Vulgate Science: Geology continued, Erosion, Deposition, Weathering continued, Streams, Rivers, Glaciers, Caves 2 History: Pre-Reformation, Wycliffe, Hus, Bible Translation, Tyndale, Erasmus Science: Geology, Types of Rocks, Rock Cycle, Rocky Testing 3 History: German Reformation, Luther Science: Geology, Minerals, Crystals, Gemstones 4 History: Swiss Reformation, Calvin, Zwingli, Scottish Reformation, Knox Science: Geology, Fossils (not Dinosaurs) 5 History: Anabaptists, Grebel, Sattler, Simons, English Reformation, Henry VII, Thomas More Science: Geology, Metals, Soil, Formation of Soil, Composition and Testing 6 History: Catholic Reformation (Spanish Inquisition), Council of Trent Science: Geology, Soils continued, Summary and Review of Geology ## 16 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** During the later 16th century and 17th century, there occurred the Age of Enlightenment, a movement that brought together the humanism of the Renaissance with the reasoning of the rising Scientific Revolution. Philosophers glorify the human reason as the ultimate determiner of all truth, and begin to undermine faith in general and special revelation. The "Puritans" within the Church of England, petitioned King James I for changes. One result is an official translation of the Bible into English, which produced a very readable but well-written version usable in both houses and churches. Getting the Bible into the standard language of the people promoted deeper faith, higher literacy rates, and higher morals. When James's son Charles I tried, like other European monarchs, to assume a divine right to absolute rule, this resulted in the civil war in England. The "Parliamentary forces" led by Puritan Oliver Cromwell, beat the forces of the king and established the power of Parliament even though the country later reverts to a monarchy in a constitutional "rule of law" form. Other European nations such as France and Russia meanwhile strengthened the absolute rule of their monarchs. The ocean and air currents around the earth are crucial to life on our planet. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Age of Reason Enlightenment Rational Deism vs. Personal Faith Elizabethan area: Shakespeare, Composers Rise of Science and Technology Ecclesiastes Science Oceanography Meteorology Weather and Climate Air and Ocean Currents Tornadoes and Hurricanes **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Elizabethan England, Spanish Armada Science: Oceanography and Meteorology Overview, Underwater Features and Landforms, Shorelines and Beaches 2 History: The Age of Absolutism, France and Louis XIV Science: Oceanography, Waves, Tides, Currents, Erosions and Deposition review 3 History: Austria, Russia, Prussia, Englands's Constitutional Monarchy Science: Oceanography, Layers and Life Forms of Ocean 4 History: The Age of Reason / Enlightenment, Science, Philosophy Science: Meteorology, Our Sun and the Weather, The Atmosphere Layers, Clouds, The Water Cycle of Rain and Snow 5 History: Arts and Music Science: Meteorology, CLimates of the World, Air and Wind Currents, Fronts and Storms 6 History: The Age of Revolution, Agricultural, Industrial Science: Meteorology, Tornadoes, Hurricans, Recording and Measuring the Weather Today, Weather Forecasts and Maps ## 17 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** There were a wide variety of motivations in the colonization of the New World. In North America, some came for religious freedom, some for financial gain, and some as prisoners. The motivations of the people determined the character, survival, and impact of the colony. The landing of the pilgrims unintentionally in an area devoid of current tribal inhabitation, and their encounter with an English-speaking Indian, Squanto, show God's providential advance planning and care for the pilgrims. The Puritans and Franciscans both wanted to serve God by bringing the gospel to the unevangelized tribes in the Americas, and by building a new kind of society based on Biblical values. These aspirations created unique societies but proved difficult to keep from sliding into legalism. In America the churches saw the value of being separated from political powers of the state, because many of them had fled persecution by governments that allowed only one "state church" in Europe. By allowing the freedom of religious pluralism and local self-governance, they laid the foundation for democracy. The Evangelical Awakening, which hit both England and America, unleashed the spiritual power of Christian lay people, transforming society and morals, and building a firm foundation for democratic forms of government on both sides of the Atlantic. With this awakening came a new emphasis on each individual having a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, a conversion experience in which they were "born again." The atomic structure of matter is complex but beautiful, and organized in amazing ways that provide for crucial properties of elements and molecules. Minute deviations in any one of many areas would make life impossible. Immense amounts of energy are stored in the smallest atom. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Colonization of the New World Great Awakening Wesley Whitefield Jonathan Edwards The Holy Spirit Being "Born Again" North American Indians Later Explorers Science Chemistry I Atoms Elements Periodic Table Scientific Notations / Measurement Peroperties of Elements States of Matters (Solid, gas, liquid) Volume, density, pressure Radiation Nuclear Fission and Fusion **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Native American Nations in North America, Crop Exchanges, Disease Science: Inorganic Chemistry, Matter Definition and 3 Forms, Scientific Notation / Measurement, Properties and Classification of Matter, Energy in Matter 2 History: European Claims to the New World, Mayflower, Plymouth, Pilgrims, Jamestown Science: Inorganic Chemistry, Elements, Periodic Table 3 History: English Colonial Settlements, Leaders Science: Inorganic Chemistry, Atoms and Their Structure 4 History: Colonial Life, Occupations, Social Structure, Government and Law, Slavery Science: Inorganic Chemistry, Molecules 5 History: Religious Differences, Great Awakening, Methodist Revivals, Missions in North America Science: Inorganic Chemistry, Compounds and Mixtures 6 History: Education Science: Inorganic Chemistry, Solids, Liquids, Gases ## 18 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The American and French revolutions, though superficial espousing similar goals, proceeded in very different directions because their foundational belief systems were quite distinct. Foundational beliefs determine the behavior of people in crisis and their underlying objectives. America's founding fathers developed a new kind of government and constitution, a democratic republic that was different from any previous form of government. The primary purposes of the Constitution included protecting against autocratic power and limiting the infringement of the federal government on the freedom of the individual and the state governments. The power of the federal government has grown primarily during crisis periods (wars, civil war, disasters and the Great Depression), when people wanted the government to intervene or provide solutions. Chemical reactions and chemical compounds are the basic building blocks of life. God designed an entire system of chemical bonding which enables the energy-transfer systems of life to work. The properties of the water molecule alone are crucial to the proper weather patterns, and the functioning of the smallest cell. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible American Revolution American Government (Constitution) French Revolution (Contrast with American Revolution) Psalm 76-150 Science Chemistry II Chemical Bonding Reactions Chemical vs. Physical Changes Acids, Bases, PH, Salts, Soaps **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: French and Indian Wars Science: Chemistry continued, Physical Changes in Matter, Endothermic, Exothermic, Sublimation 2 History: Causes of War Science: Chemistry, Chemical Changes in Matter, Bonding 3 History: Early War and Independence Science: Chemistry, Properties of Matter, Extensive Properties of Weight and Volume, Intensive Propeties of Temperature and Density 4 History: Late War, Confederation Science: Chemistry, Physical Properties (Color, Hardness, Solubility, Density, Melting Point, Freezing Point, Boiling Point 5 History: French Revolution Science: Chemistry, Chemical Properties, Chemical Reactions, Decomposition 6 History: US Constitution Science: Chemistry, Radioactivity and Nuclear Reactions ## 19 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** By the beginning of the 19th century, the impact of western expansionism and worldwide colonialism has hit every continent, including all of Africa, the Americas, and even Australia and New Zealand. Colonialism created nations out of formerly warring tribes or principalities, unfortunately sometimes cutting people groups between nations. However, colonialism promoted a level of peace, trade, and cooperation unprecedented in many areas, which led to populations beginning to boom. The successful American Revolution sparked democratic revolutions first in France, then all over Europe, where popular uprisings challenged autocratic "divine right" to rule and demanded representation with varied success, feeding into the thinking of Karl Marx (1818-1883). South America also saw an explosion of independence movements under Latin leaders like Simon Bolivar, leading to the modern independent nations of Latin America. Throughout history, the church has spread the gospel primarily in two ways: Informally, through people who have moved to or been captured by non-Christian people groups, and formally, through special teams or structures set up along side the church specifically focused on mission work, which have had the most success. Until 1789 virtually all spreading of the Gospel worldwide was being done by Roman Catholic orders (with the one exception of the extensive Nestorian mission movement that was halted then largely eclipse by Islamic invasions). Then a rural Baptist cobbler in England, William Carey, triggered the explosion of Protestant mission societies by writing a booklet full of statistics promoting the idea that God expects Christians to _plan_ for world evangelization, and by moving to India himself. In the next 50 years, dozens of Protestant mission societies were founded reaching out to accessible coastal areas, in the first of three Protestant mission eras. An amazing series of events lead to America being able to purchase the entire Louisiana Territory from France, under Napoleon, for a mere $15 million dollars. Americans soon believed that God was giving them the continent from sea to sea. The faith that God was with them led pioneers and missionaries westward, leading to both friendship and conflict with Native American populations. Diseases and alcohol that came with traders and pioneers became the downfall of the tribal peoples. Isaac Newton, a committed Christian who wrote more volumes of theological reflection and speculation than he did scientific, conclusively proved that the Creator God used mathematical models when designing the physical forces of the universe. All of creation, both life and non-life teach us about God's nature and power. When we understand and work in conjunction with the natural laws God has instituted, humans can do amazing things. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Europe and the US, 1789-1860 Napoleon European Nationalism Early Protestant Missions William Carey Adoniram Judson The Second Great Awakening Reform Movements Slavery British and American Abolitionism The Westward Expansion Science Energy Forces and Motion Simple Machines **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: The Aftermath of the French Revolution, Napeleon's Rise to Power, The Rise and Fall of the French Empire, The Congress of Vienna, Nationalist Uprisings Science: N/A for units 19-24 2 History: The Ratification of the Constitution, The Federalist Papers, The Bill of Rights, The Louisiana Purchase, The Lewis and Clark Expedition, The War of 1812 3 History: British Abolition of Slave Trade and Slavery, William Wilberforce, John Newton, The Oxford Movement 4 History: The Second Great Awakening, Finney: Life, Words, and Deeds, Revival Meetings, New Denominations, Voluntary Societies, Temperance and Other Reform Movements, American Abolitionism, Major Figures: Finney, Garrison, Tappan, Motives, Tactics, Connections with Other Movements 5 History: Westward Expansion, The Treatment of the Native Americans, Sequoyah, The Trail of Tears, The Mexican War, The California Gold Rush 6 History: The Great Wave of Immigration to the US, The Development of the US Government, The Romantic Movement, Marx's Communist Manifesto ## 20 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The Industrial Revolution brought fundamental changes to the Western world, greatly increasing wealth and standards of living, including health, cleanliness and comfort. However, the rapid growth of the population in cities and factory towns created congested living and child labor problems, which humanitarian and public systems struggled to keep up with. Karl Marx wrote his _Communist Manifesto_ in 1848 proposing a revolutionary solution. From the time of Catherine the Great in the late 18th century, Russian Czars swung between authoritarian traditionalism and attempts at modernizing their country and their countrymen swung between revolutions and acquiescence. Through allies in defeating Napoleon, when Russia tries to take the Crimea (north of the Black Sea) from the flagging Ottoman Turks, they are crushed by the British and the French who intervene in one more "balance of power" war in Europe. Revolutionary dissent in Russia grows through the Crimean war, a disastrous war against Japan in the East, and eventually WWI, when Lenin and the Communists gained the upper hand. After French revolution in 1789 had demonstrated that the "divine rule" of kings could be challenged and overthrown, "the will of the people" became the revolutionary rallying cry. There followed a series of 19th century democratic revolutions across Europe, not all violent, which became the true partners of the industrial revolution, together raising the freedom, power and wealth of the West above any civilization in world history. In countries that had experienced the Evangelical Awakening of the 18th century, principally England and the United States, major moral reform movements and other revivals took place growing in 19th century. These 19th century revivals (sometimes called the "Second Great Awakening" in the U.S.) created a great variety of humanitarian societies aimed at helping the poor, sick and suffering. As a result, conditions improved, democratization moved forward non-violently, and the attraction of Communist revolutionary promises waned in these highly industrialized areas. While the Mexican-American war won the U.S. vast territory for little bloodshed or cash (in 1848), it was unpopular because the abolitionists feared that slavery would be extended across the new territory, and slave states feared the delicate balance in the Senate would be disrupted if the new areas were NOT slave states. Only a few months after the war, Californian's struck gold, and entered the nation as a state, voting to prohibit slavery. As the slave issue comes to a crisis, Southern states talked about seceding from the union. Now that it was firmly established that the mysteries of nature could be figured out, Newton's experiments with light were only one example among those of many western scientists, rapidly expanding scientific inquiry. Science remained international and public in character, using the common language of Latin. An increasingly materialistic worldview rapidly took hold in the West, where all aspects of nature, even the electromagnetic spectrum (X-rays, radio waves, etc.) and magnetism and electricity, were harnessed to extend human powers in dramatic ways. So scientific discovery fueled the Industrial Revolution. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible The Nonwestern World, 1789-1914 Latin American Revolutions Bolivar Modernization: China, Japan, and the Middle East The Global History of Slavery Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossions Science Heat Sound Light Electromagnetic Waves (Radio, Microwave) Properties of Waves Heat Radiation and Expansion Hot Air Balloons **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Africa, Geographical Handicaps to Development, Muslim and Christian Missionaries, African People Groups, Bantu, Zulu 2 History: The Global History of Slavery, The African Slave Trade 3 History: Early European Colonialism in Africa, The Partition of the Continent, Motives for Colonization, Reasons for European Dominance 4 History: China, The Opium War, Hudson Taylor, Occupation by France and Britain, Occupation by Russia and Japan, Famines and Revolts, The Fall of Manchus 5 History: Japan, Commodore Perry, The Overthrow of the Shogun, Industrialization and Modernization, Conquests of Asia and the Pacific 6 History: The Middle East, French Conquests, British Conquests, Italian Conquests, The Greek War of Independence, The Crimean War, Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim, The Young Turk Revolution, The Balkan Wars ## 21 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** Slavery, once rampant in classical Europe and still prevalent in Muslim areas, spread to the New World in spite of Papal bans on slavery and slave trading. After many of the native Americans died off due to small pox and exposure to other diseases, and after the introduction of labor-intensive sugar cane plantations, slaves were increasingly purchased from African tribes (who sold their enemies). William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament in England, and other Christians succeeding in achieving a ban on the slave trade in 1807 and the abolishment of slavery in 1833. England, at great national expense, enforced their policies in international waters and all their territories. The "2nd Great Awakening," as the revival of the early 18th century is sometimes called, led to the founding of multiple Christian "societies" that promoted peace, helped prostitutes gain salable skills, printed Bibles, and encouraged temperance then abstinence from alcoholic beverages. American Christians also fomented for the abolishment of slavery at all levels, through journals, newspapers, conventions and societies. However, unlike England, the economy of some southern states was entrenched in slavery particularly after Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin (to remove seeds from cotton) made cotton picking by slaves big business. When the Southern states felt that abolition of slavery could be forced on them, some of them decided to exercise their original state right to resign from the union. Abraham Lincoln decided to preserve the union of the states even through war. Only after much soul searching did he eventually proclaim the freedom of all slaves in the states that had rebelled. The abolishment of slavery, which has virtually extended worldwide, would have never happened apart from the intense moral conviction and diligent long-term effort of Christians who wanted to see God's highest desires fulfilled on earth. Christians "lose their salt" when they shrink from engaging people and society in serious consideration of truth. Magnetism and electricity are prime examples of the mathematical order and amazing properties that God has built into nature. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible Europe and the US, 1860-1914 The American Civil War Reconstruction The Industrial Revolution and Its Effects The Victorian Era Secularization The Student Volunteer Movement 1-2 Thessalonians 1-2 Timothy Titus Science Magnetism Electricity **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Precursors to the Civil War, Slavery Debates, Free and Slave States and Compromises, Violence, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Election of Lincoln, Secession, Slavery or States' Rights 2 History: The Civil War, Major Figures of the Union and Confederacy, Major Campaigns, Battles, and Events 3 History: The Industrial Revolution, Geographic Distribution, Inventions and Technology, Changes in Economy, Changes in Society 4 History: The Rise of European Nationalism, The Nation-State, Types of Government, Bismarck and Cavour, The Triple Alliance, The Triple Entente 5 History: The Victorian Era, Literature, Art, Architecture, Fashion, Secularization, Social Sciences, Higher Criticism, Darwin 6 History: The Student Volunteer Movement, Moody, Moot, Studd, Speer, Zwemer, Jones, Christian Reform Movements, The Salvation Army, Elizabeth Fry, The Azusa Street Revival, Pentecostalism ## 22 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The second era of Protestant missions is birthed when God gives the burden to a few men, like Hudson Taylor, to preach the gospel inland, in the forgotten interior regions of the world. Persevering against daunting odds, many new mission agencies, now mostly interdenominational, push into the interior regions of China and Africa. A third new distinctive is the emphasis Hudson Taylor and others put on wearing native dress and living with the people. After the American Civil War killed off 2/3 of marriage-aged men in the Southern states, and 1/3 in the Northern states, single women formed mission training schools (the famous women's colleges) and became a huge force in worldwide missions. The disparity between the number of men and women also fueled reform of rights for women (inheritance and voting), which had first been championed by Christian women who fought for abolition and temperance before the Civil War. However, a constitutional amendment to guarantee the vote to women was not approved until after WWI. Another major revival broke out under the influence of D.L.Moody, who like Finney and others before him, preached on both sides of the Atlantic. City-wide prayer meetings, the Y.M.C.A (Young Men's Christian Association) and YWCA, Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, and Vacation Bible Schools all begin during the latter part of the 19th century. On college campuses, students were fighting the rise of atheistic Darwinism, but at a Moody conference at Mt. Hermon in 1886, the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions was born, taking college campuses by storm. Under the influence of John R. Mott, one of the outstanding leaders in Christian history, and others, America takes the lead in world evangelization sending thousands of new missionaries overseas. When slavery was demolished, though problems for black Americans continued, Americans thought war was a thing of the past. The last half of the 19th century was relatively peaceful, and populations boomed on both sides of the Atlantic. In the early 20th century, the devastation of WWI, combined with the international flu epidemic, resulted in millions of deaths and started to dim the triumphal "theory of progress" that had encouraged Christians and non-Christians alike to believe the West was ushering in a new era when we would see "alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears." Darwin's rule of "survival of the fittest" seems to be taken on wholeheartedly by the industrial community, where billion dollar corporations ride on technology and industry, such as Carnegie Steel Company run by Andrew Carnegie and Standard Oil Company run by John D. Rockefeller. Laws prohibiting one company from owning corporations in many states were circumvented by creating a group of trustees that exercised authority over all of them. These "trusts" created monopolies and ran competitors out of business. The resulting problems gave rise to anti-trust legislation (largely ineffective), unions of workers, as well as Marxist and socialist reformers, arguing for government control of all industry, ironically a different form of monopoly. There is an incredible increase in technological know-how and inventions during this period. Technology greatly improves communication through personal telephones and radio communications. All aspects of life are impacted, everything from advances in farming (like the McCormick reaper), to advances in transportation (air travel and personal automobiles), to advances in architecture, (bridge design and skyscrapers), etc.. All of these, while making some rich, did eventually make the quality of life better even for the poor in the cities and countryside, and populations continue to increase. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible The World, 1914-1939 World War I, Aftermath, Partition The Bolshevik Revolution Stalinism The 20s and 30s The Great Depression The Rise of Fascism Philemon Hebrews James Science Inventions and Technology I Prehistory to 1950 Complex Machins Structures **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: World War I, The Opening, The Combatants, American Involvement, Types of Warfare 2 History: World War I, The Major Phases and Campaigns, The Treaty of Versailles, Wilson's Fourteen Points, The League of Nations, The Partition of Europe, The Partition of Africa, The Beginning of Decolonization 3 History: The Bolshevik Revolution, Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, The Ideology, The Civil War, Stalinism, The Middle East, The Partition of the Ottoman Empire, The Wahhabi Movement, Modernization, Ibn Saud, Kemal, Pahlavi 4 History: China, The Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-skek, The Communist Party, Mao Zedong, The Civil War, The Long March, The Japanese Invasion, Gladys Aylward, Cameron Townsend 5 History: The Twenties, The US Economic Boom, The Roaring Twenties, Jazz and Swing, The European Economic Depression, The Great Depression, The Stock Market Crash, The Dust Bowl, The Worldwide Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, Prohibition, Reform Movements, Progressivism, Labor Unions, Industrial Regulation, Campaigns against Poverty, Prostitution, Pollution, Feminism, Women's Suffrage, The 19th Amendment, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois 6 History: Philosophy, Art, and Culture, Pessimism, "The Lost Generation", Modernism, Existentialism, Nihilism, Naturalism, Surrealism, Dada, The Absurd ## 23 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** The British came out of the Crimean war as victors against Russia and protectors of the Turks, and Britain began to extend its influence into the Middle East, as well as continuing its influence over India. After WWI, the European victors partitioned up the remaining Ottoman Empire, having already established colonial control of African Islamic areas. Likewise, the Americans had taken control of the Philippines, the Dutch of Indonesia, and the Russians of Central Asia, barely leaving Iran and Afghanistan as relatively independent Islamic states. The colonization of their countries engendered more resentment in the already demoralized and economically underdeveloped Islamic civilization. Communism took hold in Russia, and the Germans saw Hitler as a savior from the troubles and humiliations they experienced after WWI. The atrocities of WWII demonstrated the end consequences of applying Darwin's survival of the fittest to political and social realities. However, God used what Satan intended for evil, in orchestrating the killing of 6 million Jews, for their good by an amazing sequence of events that resulted in the formation of the modern state of Israel. Kemal Ataturk won a secular state in Turkey. The Reza Shah in Iran tried to do the same, but was overthrown by communist and Islamic fundamentalist Shi'ite forces, the latter gaining control of the country. The Wahhabi ibn-Saud family of Arabia gained control of Saudi Arabia only to have the moral energy of the Wahhabi movement undermined by the discovery of oil and ensuing riches. Islamic states and India received independence after WWII, national boundaries became fixed (often cutting through tribal areas) and the Indian Muslims were given their own separate states of West and East Pakistan (now Pakistan and Bangladesh). Colonial powers had the effect of producing a national identity and introducing some modernization, railroads, hospitals, etc. and they left new nations behind when their control receded after WWII. The new nations struggled to stabilize, often succumbing to military coups. However, churches planted by missionaries during the colonial era, continue to grow and spread. Inventions continued to proliferate in the west, with many technologies honed in the war becoming widespread. Rockets provided access to the moon and intercontinental deployment of nuclear warheads. Computers and eventually internet access changed the nature of global communication. Globalization of culture and products became irreversible. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible The World, 1939-1960 Nazism The Holocaust World War II Decolonization of the Third World Indian Independence Gandhi NATO UN Warsaw Pact Cold War 1-2 Peter 1-3 John Jude Science Inventions and Technology II 1950 to Present Airplanes and Rocketry Computers / Electronics Engineering Machins and Engines **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: Nazism in Germany, Mein Kampf, Nationalism, Aryan Supremacy, Eugenics, Anti-Semitism, Propaganda, The German Church, The Confessing Church, The Barmen Declaration, Barth, Bonhoeffer, Corrie Ten Boom, The Opening of World War II, Blitzkrieg, German Expansion and Conquests, Appeasement, Isolationism, Soviet Expanision, the Non-Aggression Pact, The Entrace of Western Pact, The Entrace of Western Europe, Germany Attacks the USSR, US Involvement, US Entrace 2 History: World War II, Major Figures of the Axis and Allies, The War in Europe, The War in the Pacific 3 History: Massecres and Atrocities, The German Holocaust, Japanese Massacres of Civilians and Torture of Prisoners, Allied Bombing of Civilians, Internment of Japanese Americans, The Aftermath of the War, Effects on European, American and Asian Economies, The Occupation and Partition of Germany, The Nuremberg Trials, The Marshall Plan 4 History: The Early Cold War, The Warsaw Pact, The Iron Curtain, East Ermany, The Berlin Wall, Decolonization of the Third World, The Modern State of Israel, Herzl, Zionism, Balfour Declaration, Founding in 1948, Wars with Arabs, Confflict with Palestinians 5 History: The Indian Independence Movement, Mountbatten, Gandhi, Nehru, Jinna, Ambedkar, Partition, Hindu-Muslim Conflict, The Indo-Pakistani War, Mother Teresa 6 History: China, Mao Defeats Chiang, Founding of PRC and Taiwan, Chinese-Soviet Relations ## 24 Weekly Plan **I. The Big Idea** Having seen the world and suffered many hardships in WWII, many returning servicemen re-evaluated their commitment to be willing to suffer for reaching out to unreached people with the gospel. They become the founders of more new mission agencies, incorporating new technologies they learned to use in the war, for example, MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) and FEBC (Far Eastern Broadcasting Company). When Cameron Townsend noticed that many tribal peoples have never had the gospel presented to them in their own languages, he started an international Bible Translation organization. However, he also catalyzed the 3rd Era of Protestant Missions, with its new emphasis on overlooked unreached people groups. Many new agencies were born focusing on unreached people groups, and planting churches became the goal, not just evangelizing individuals. A "cold war" developed between the world's two greatest nuclear powers, the USA and the USSR, when the USSR kept all the countries it invaded during WWII, including the eastern half of Germany. After WWII, communists aggressively took over several countries. The U.S. succeeded in preventing the total take over of the Korean Peninsula, but failed at keeping communism out of Cuba, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Millions of people died in the USSR, China and Cambodia due to violence and agricultural destabilization in "cultural revolutions," demonstrating the ruthlessness of atheistic communism. As the world became increasingly a global community, those countries using democracy and free-market capitalism surged ahead in quality of life and economic stability. Countries using communist/socialist or totalitarian centrally-controlled politics and economies lagged behind in both productivity and personal freedom and initiative. This demonstrated that giving people power to influence their future, both political and economic, was not only feasible but also preferable. Nevertheless, freedom also was also clearly dependent on honesty, cooperation and self-reliance. Countries steeped in corruption sabotaged their own attempts at implementing democratic reforms. Fearing a decrease in quality of life due to their populations booming, but ever more focusing on sexual pleasure, the West and then most other countries turned to legalized abortion. Between the passing of Roe vs. Wade in **__**__, which legalized abortion in the U.S. and the year 2005, 45 million babies were legally aborted in the United States alone. This slaughter of the innocent was inexcusable because various forms of birth control were effective, widely available, and inexpensive. Sexually transmitted disease reached epidemic proportions, with AIDS becoming a leading killer, particularly in parts of Africa. In the 20th century South Korea and Africa, south of the Sahel, become predominantly Christian. In spite of years of oppression and persecution, the Chinese Christians survived and grew, reaching and astounding 70,000,000 by the end of the millennium, with the vision to send 100,000 missionaries. Likewise, the number of Protestants in Latin America grew from a small number at the end of the 19th century to over N/A, and by the year 2000, three out of every four Christians were now in non-Western countries. Christianity is now truly a global religion, and the remaining unreached people groups (largely Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist) are receiving missionaries from many non-Western countries. After the re-establishment of the state of Israel, and the amazing recovery of Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jewish people, both in fulfillment of biblical prophecies, many become convinced that we are in the last days before the return of Christ. The biblical passages concerning the spirit of people during the last days seems to be coming to pass, so the church needs to become more grounded on scripture and able to distinguish false prophets which are due to proliferate in the last days. Once the gospel has been preached to all peoples, then the end will come. **II. The Big Picture** History / Bible The World, 1960-Present The Cold War continued Arms Buildup Space Race Vietnam Fall of Soviet Union The 50s and 60s Civil Rights Movement The Growth of the Nonwestern Church Revelations Prophecies of Last Days Science Ecology II: Conservation of Resources and Global Impact Natural Resources Fossil Fuels Renewable Energy Pollution Global Warming **III. Weekly Plan** 1 History: The Cold War, US "Containment" Strategy, US Domestic Anti-Communist Paranoia, Intervention by Both Powers in Third World, The Cuban Revolution, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, The Cuban Missile Crisis 2 History: The Cold War, The US-Soviet Arms Buildup, The Space Race and Space Exploration, The Vietnam War, The Second Vatican Council 3 History: The Fifties, Affluence, The Beat Generation, The Sixties, Rock Music, The Counterculture Youth Movement, The Jesus Movement, The Civil Rights Movement, Segregation, Martin Luther King Jr., Nonviolent marches and Protests, Other Civil Rights Leaders 4 History: Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer, People Movements, Growth of Nonwestern Church, The Fall of the USSR 5 History: Wars in Africa, Rwandan Genocide, Apartheid in South Africa and Its Abolition, The Middle East, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Ayatollah Khomeini, The Iranian Hostage Crisis, The Iran-Iraq War, The Discovery of Oil, OPEC, 1973 Oil Embargo, The Gulf War 6 History: China after Mao, Deng Xiaoping, Opening of Chinese Economy, The Tianenmen Square Massacre, The Rise of the Asian Tigers, Important Inventions of the Last 50 Years, The Computer / Internet Revolution # Prepare: Unit Introductions ## 1 The Beginning of Time A Brief History of Cosmology In the 1960s, an explosive new theory (that the universe and time itself had a beginning) rocked the scientific community, blasting the conventional understanding of cosmology (that time and the universe were, more or less, eternal and constant). Actually, there had been significant theoretical evidence of this view for at least forty years before, but scientists at that time were confident the universe was in a “steady state” and was in essence, eternal. As usual, it takes an awful lot of evidence to overturn a reigning paradigm, to change a fundamental worldview assumption. This particular worldview assumption was so strong that when Einstein’s field equations first predicted an impermanent universe in 1917, he actually modified his theory by introducing a term called “lambda” (Greek letter) or “the cosmological constant.” He introduced this “fudge factor” (which in essence ascribed energy, mass and weight to the vacuum of nothingness) solely to ensure his equations produced a scientifically acceptable static universe. By the 1960s, however, Hubble’s telescopes (first the one Hubble constructed on Mt. Wilson in California, and later the one named after him and launched into space) were pouring out new astronomical data. Galaxies (millions of them! each with millions of stars!) now sprung into view. And the evidence became conclusive: The universe is not static, rather the galaxies are flying apart at an ever accelerating speed (more accurately, the space in between the galaxies is rapidly expanding at an increasing rate — like dots on an expanding balloon). Einstein should not have bowed to contemporary scientific theory! Had he stuck to his original equations, he would have predicted the exploding universe decades before scientists could observe it. The idea that the universe had a beginning, supported by the new “Big Bang” theory, was hardly new. For thousands of years people had believed the world – indeed the entire universe – had a beginning. It was more than a little surprising for scientists to discover the book of Genesis, in the Bible, had it right all the time! Beyond simply providing evidence for a “beginning” to the universe, the mathematics of the Big Bang theory further unveiled the exquisite calibration in place, precisely allowing for the existence of the cosmos and life (as we know it). A whole series of numbers, from the relative masses of protons and neutrons to the force of gravity, are exactly the numbers required for existence. [1] However, the riddle deepens. The slightest deviation from any one of these precariously calibrated numbers would have resulted in no universe ever coming into existence in the first place or, if things deviated at this point, the rapid destruction of everything. [2] The Big Bang model of the universe does leave some riddles unexplained, for example: The over-all homogeneity of the universe (this is not what the Big Bang predicts, but it is what we observe) The missing “dark matter” (a form of matter not yet discovered that supposedly accounts for some 97% of the mass of the universe) A missing “sea of neutrinos” the Big Bang predicts (yet undiscovered) An undiscovered “dark energy” of a new form that should add 2/3 more energy to the universe than the amount we can observe All these missing pieces — giant missing pieces — are necessary for current cosmological theory to hold true. Both the “inflationary” model of the early universe and the newer “bouncing universe” model (where “Big Bangs” are interspersed with “Big Crunches”) are attempts to solve these riddles produced by the Big Bang theory. Each, however, adds new problems of its own. Scientists still have not been able to come up with a scientific/mathematical “theory of everything” that adequately explains all we know about the macro and micro aspects of the universe. [3] The Bible’s Theory of Everything Amazingly enough, the same ancient document that “predicted” the universe as having a beginning also clearly spells out a reason for all things – not a mathematical theory of everything, but an explanation for all of reality. Most simply put, the explanation goes as follows: 1) God creates 2) Evil corrupts 3) God redeems Each of these statements refers to two components: all of nature, and God’s relationship with humankind. God creates the entire universe, and God creates a being in His own image (man) and establishes a relationship with him. Evil corrupts both the good creation of God and the relationship between God and His people. God sets out to redeem both His fallen creation, as well as His relationship with His fallen creatures. Point \#1: God Creates The Bible does not start out with a long explanation of who God is, but “God” (by whatever name He is given in a particular language), becomes quickly defined by what He does. “God” creates. He creates all things — the heavens, the earth, light, matter, and all forms of life. And everything He creates is good, and beautiful and perfect. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” (Romans 1:20) The Bible speaks of two facets of God’s revealed nature available to all of mankind. We often refer to these together as general revelation. First, all human beings can see His power and divine nature in what He has created. Second, all humans receive from God a conscience, which guides them toward God and warns them against wrongdoing (see Romans 2:14-16). Based on these two general revelations of Himself, God has said all men and women are “without excuse” when they exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve created things rather than the Creator (Romans 1:20). Nevertheless, God does not merely leave us with general revelation of Himself. He also establishes a personal relationship with mankind, and speaks directly to him. We see in the Garden of Eden He speaks with the first man, Adam, giving him guidance. And God cares for his needs by making him a wife, Eve. When God reveals Himself and His plans directly to people, mostly through His Word but occasionally through dreams, visions or commands, this is special revelation. God establishes a relationship directly with people. Point \#2: Evil corrupts Now comes the second part of the “explanation of everything” — Satan, evil, and the corruption of all God created and all He says to us. The very first exposure we have to Satan is in the book of Genesis. He appears as a serpent and deliberately confuses Eve about what God has commanded her. God gives a good and clear command and Satan questions it, giving it a burdensome spin, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). Then Eve further distorts God’s command by adding the idea she should not even touch the fruit (Genesis 3:2). As soon as God communicates with people, even to this day, Satan tries to deceive them by corrupting the understanding of what God is saying. By the end of Genesis 3, we find God’s good creation corrupted. His relationship with man is corrupted. All of nature is corrupted. Evil is not a new creation, but like Satan himself, it is a perversion and corruption of the beautiful things God creates, and the good patterns God has established. By Genesis 6, we see the whole earth is corrupt in the sight of God and filled with violence. “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.’” (Genesis 6:11-13, NASB) What has become violent? All flesh. Humans have become violent. Animals have become violent. And God purposes “…to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth will perish.” (Genesis 6:17, NASB). Satan’s deception in Genesis 3 marks a declaration of war—a war on God’s Kingdom, a battle for all His Creation. First Eve chooses, then Adam, to disobey God. In so doing, they now have entered man into the great cosmic conflict, played out across time. The conflict between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan defines human history from the Garden of Eden until today. The reality of this conflict has touched every man, woman, and child on earth—every day of their lives—for all of history. Life is war! Point \#3: God Redeems The “explanation of everything” would not be complete without the third point: God sets out to redeem His relationship with human beings, and to redeem His creation. What does it mean to “redeem?” It means God will pay a great price to buy back or reclaim and then restore that which was His in the beginning. And in the end, not just we humans, but all of creation will be set free from corruption, as it says in Romans 8:21-22 (NASB), “…creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Here we see God plans to redeem both His relationship with human beings and all of His creation. How is God going to accomplish this? The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ destroys the power of sin and death. But the story does not start with Jesus. Throughout history, God chooses the families of people whose hearts are fixed on Him to be His conduit of redemption. From the Garden of Eden until today, faithful men and their families have stepped forward to believe the promises of God and obey Him. God has used them for His purposes, to help carry forward His redemption plan. Before God sends the flood to destroy everything “in which is the breath of life,” God chooses to save a specific faithful man and his family, a man named Noah who is righteous before him, “…the only blameless man living on earth at that time. He consistently followed God’s will and enjoyed a close relationship with Him.” (Genesis 6:9 NLT). Have you ever wondered what might have happened if Noah had not obeyed God? If he had said, “Build a boat THAT big, are you crazy? There is not enough water in the world to float a boat that big! How will I build this thing all by myself?” If Noah had not believed God when He revealed His plans to destroy every living creature on the face of the earth? Thankfully, Noah believes God. So when he is about 500 years old, he sets out to build a boat three stories (45 feet) high, 450 feet long, and 75 feet wide. It takes him about 100 years of diligent hard work, and he probably does not get much help outside his family. Because of his faith in God and His word, God saves Noah and his whole family, as well as all the animals God sent with them. But “All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all kinds of small animals, and all the people. Everything died that breathed and lived on dry land. Every living thing on the earth was wiped out—people, animals both large and small, and birds. They were all destroyed, and only Noah was left alive, along with those who were with him in the boat.” (Genesis 7:21-23, NLT) God uses an obedient, faithful family to save both themselves and His creatures. God’s Plan of Redemption The whole rest of the Bible unravels for us the story of God’s plan of redemption. Just as through the sin of Adam evil comes to the whole world, so God is planning through His one perfect Son to redeem the whole world — all the families of the earth. After the flood, God begins by making a covenant with Noah and his family. He says to Noah and his sons, as he said to Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” and He gives them dominion over the creatures of the earth (Genesis 9:1-2). Now God warns them He will hold all people accountable for shedding the blood of a fellow person, and interestingly, He says He will “…demand an accounting from every animal…” for killing as well (Genesis 9:5, NLT). However, God also now says people may eat animals, not just plants, for food (Genesis 9:3). God says to Noah and his sons, “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you… every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood…” (Genesis 9:9-11) God sets the rainbow as the sign of His “everlasting covenant” between Him and all life on earth. Through the life of Noah, God reveals foundational elements of His character: God will only tolerate the evil of people and nature for so long before He intervenes to curb their destruction of one another. God is able to save and preserve the righteous from judgment while punishing the ungodly. As II Peter 2 verses 5 and 9 explain, “…if he [God] did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness and seven others…then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment…” God selects not just Noah but his whole family as a means of preserving His purposes on earth. God does not carry out His will independently of a relationship with and the obedience of people, and in particular, faithful families. God reveals His plans to Noah. God is both willing and able to communicate His specific plans to people who fix their hearts on Him. God makes covenants with His people. They carry His purposes forward, able to count upon His everlasting promises. You will continue to study the unfolding of God’s great plan to redeem the earth and creation in Unit 2. Right now, let us take some time to explore God’s creation more deeply, particularly the creation of the universe (matter), life, and mankind. Questions and Answers: What about Evolution? In the middle of the 19th century, Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for explaining the evolution of life on our planet. This was a great boon to atheists (who had long proposed life somehow evolved by chance, yet lacked the mechanism necessary for supporting such a claim). The mechanism Darwin proposed was “survival of the fittest,” the theory that in any situation, the animals least suited for that environment will die off and the fittest survive, slowly and gradually developing (evolving) into new and different species of animals. While it is easily observable that animals inappropriate to a particular changing climate do die off, Darwin himself said further study would need undertaking to see if, by small mutations and natural selection, species could change into entirely different types of species. Since then, an immense amount of research and effort has gone toward trying to prove Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. With each discovery, however, the theory has seemed less and less able to explain the evidence. Problem \#1: The Evidence of the Fossil Record All over the world fossils have been unearthed, but they have revealed a curious picture contradictory to Darwin’s theory. Each fossil layer has shown an explosion of new life forms with no apparent transition forms from previous types of animals. For example, when birds appeared in the layers, their wings and feathers were fully and delicately formed to perfection; no “halfway wings” have been found. Even the archaeopteryx, one of the most ancient birds ever discovered, had many reptilian features like teeth, but still had fully formed wings and feathers like modern birds. There has been no discovery of animals with transitional forms of feathers, which are complex in both their form of adhesion to the body and in their structure, nor is there even genetic and chemical similarity between reptile scales and bird feathers. [4] More surprising still is this amazing fact: some species have survived to this day (from even very early appearances in the fossil record) with little or no apparent changes in them. That is right! The modern alligator, modern sharks, and many other so-called “living fossils,” have not changed since they first appeared in the fossil record with the dinosaurs. So new kinds of animals appeared suddenly and old kinds of animals stayed the same, or died out suddenly. This was virtually the opposite of what Darwin predicted. Although scientists are scrambling to put forward new theories that preserve the idea that life has evolved, current data does not support it. Problem \#2: The Complexity of the Cell To make things worse for Darwin’s theory, we now know significantly more about life on the microscopic level than was known in his time. What first seemed like a simple cell (with a cell wall, plasma, and a nucleus), we now know to be a highly complex “city” with factories, machines, energy generators and waste eliminators! Purely random processes do not result in the kind of highly complex interdependent systems seen in a single cell. Even the DNA molecule (which encodes these cellular systems) is so complex that random generation is exceedingly improbable. The DNA molecule from one cell alone contains more detailed information than an entire library full of books. [5] What about Intelligent Design? Driving the Intelligent Design movement is a group of scientists seeking to prove we can infer “intelligent design” (and therefore, a designer) from the existence of highly complex patterns carrying specific information. These two factors, complex patterns and highly specific information, when combined reduce probability to zero that random process alone could generate such patterns. Do genetic mutations lead to evolution? There is yet another nail in the coffin of Darwin’s theory: scientists now know what actually happens during a genetic mutation. Mutations, unlike Darwin predicted, simply destroy or scramble parts of the DNA code (not producing any new information). If you scramble the letters of a sentence in a book, this random action does not generate new information. Instead, information is lost. So it is with the mutation process. The animal produced through mutation may not even show any change, since remaining healthy genes override most mutations. However, when mutations are significant enough to show in the developing animal, they always produce a less functional (rather than more-functional) form. Extra fingers or extra wings come out unusable, lacking muscles or other key components needed to be fully functional. Rarely, as in the human mutation called “sickle-cell anemia,” (where red blood cells are deformed) can the animal derive a benefit. However, while sickle-cell anemia protects those carrying it from the malaria parasite (benefit), it also kills 25% of those who get it. Carriers of the mutation are only more “fit” to survive in areas where malaria kills normal humans faster than the anemia kills them. Mutations do not provide a mechanism whereby new forms of an animal (or plant) can appear. What about the light moths that changed to dark moths when coal smoke darkened London? This is not an example of a mutation since both light and dark moths existed in the original population. All species can express a variety of characteristics. People, for example, can be blonde or brunette, have blue eyes or brown. Dogs can be big or small, with long hair or short. Just as people can select out certain characteristics of dogs in order to get a breed like poodle, so climate or environmental changes can make it more beneficial to have one variety of species than another. But this is not a mutation. If all of one variety of a species die out, such as all hairy elephants, for example, this diminishes the variations available to that species; it is no longer possible to breed a hairy elephant. If all humans with red-hair genes die out, it is no longer be possible to have a redheaded child. Options are not gained through this process; rather, options are lost. What about drug resistant bacteria? This is another example where there are no new species being formed. Rather, some varieties of the bacteria—varieties that already exist—have some characteristic that renders them immune to the drug used. All forms of the bacteria susceptible to the drug die out while the non-susceptible forms proliferate. It is a case of survival of the fittest, but not the generation of new species. Recent discovery reveals other organisms, like the parasite that causes malaria, able to manufacture a variety of surface proteins. When the body learns to recognize one, and begins to kill off the invader, the parasites switch to a “new” protein, giving them the appearance of being a new kind of invader. Some malarial parasites can manufacture over 60 different kinds of surface proteins in succession which enable them to evade the immune system and protein-specific drugs. Only once the body recognizes and attacks all know varieties is the microbe wiped out. Nevertheless, none of these processes create a new species. Many, many entire animal species are permanently lost through extinction. Many varieties of current species are permanently lost through extinction. Evolution predicts more and more varieties developing, while in reality we have less and less varieties remaining. Available scientific data from fossil records shows new, fully designed plants and animals appearing abruptly, then many of them dying out, while others survive until today. This data makes sense if God created each kind of animal and plant separately, just as Genesis states. But Satan is busy destroying the animals and plants, just as he is trying to destroy all things God has made. This is the picture that best fits the available scientific data. Where do the dinosaurs fit into this whole picture? The fossil record shows there once were giant reptiles called dinosaurs (terrible lizards). Although you do not hear about them as much, there also used to be giant ferns as tall as modern trees, and giant insects (like dragonflies with wings three feet long). Apparently, the whole earth was warm and humid with a tropical climate, even in the now Polar Regions. This is hard for scientists to explain. So, what happened to the dinosaurs and all the other giant life forms? Some Christians once suggested the world was all tropical before the flood — that perhaps there was once a cloud layer creating a “greenhouse effect” and producing a temperate climate over all the earth. They supposed this cloud “broke” at the time of the flood, when rain poured from the sky (and waters “burst forth” from beneath the surface of the earth). This flood would have destroyed the dinosaurs, and any infant dinosaurs (that might have been brought on the ark) would not have been able to survive in the colder climate that followed the flood. This “canopy theory,” however, and even the global flood, do not have sufficient scientific research behind them to merit any scientific validity at this point. The most popular theory among the general public today is that the world of the dinosaurs was destroyed by a huge comet colliding with earth, in turn changing earth’s climate (perhaps also tilting the earth on its axis) —-a theory which would also help explain remains of tropical vegetation in Polar Regions. Was the flood universal or local? There are Bible-believing Christians answering on both sides of this question. What does the text tell us? In Genesis 6:13 and 17, God states, “I am going to put an end to all people…I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth…I am going to bring flood waters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.” However, this does not include water-dwelling animals, for earlier it lists “…men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air…” (v. 7). Later it says in Genesis 7:4, “…I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” But this also must not include water creatures since Genesis 7:21-23 says, “Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left and those with Him in the ark.” Now “everything on earth” sounds universal, and the author repeats it, seemingly to ensure we get it right. Still, here are the questions we must answer: 1) Could this refer, in the eyes of the writer, to the whole known earth, but not the area outside the domain of mankind? 2) How might two of all the types of creatures — on the whole earth — fit on the ark, even perhaps dinosaurs? 3) Was there enough water to cover all the high mountains, even Mount Everest to a depth of around 20 feet, or is it biblically accurate to assume this refers to all the known mountains in the Mesopotamian area? First, let’s look at what the Bible actually reports: the rain went on for 40 days and 40 nights. Furthermore, Genesis 7:24 indicated waters continued to flood the earth for 150 days. In Genesis 8:1-2, God “remembered” Noah and the animals, and the springs of the deep closed along with the floodgates of heaven and the rain, and the water began to recede. For 150 more days, the waters receeded. 150 days of flooding, 150 days of receding makes 300 days, until (on the first day of the 10th month) the tops of the mountains became visible. (Perhaps this means the tops of Mt Ararat, which could have been visible from the ark, not the tops of the “highest mountains.”) After 40 more days, Noah made a window in the ark and sent out a raven and a dove, but the dove came back because the water still had not receded from the surface of the earth. He waited 14 more days, sending out a dove twice more, before he could look out and see that there was dry land. By this time it was 354 days since the rains started, Noah was 601 years old, and the “water had dried up from the earth.” However, it was not until the 27th day of the second month of the new year (about 57 days later) that the earth was dry enough for them to leave the ark along with the creatures. The ark had not settled in a valley, but on the Mountains of Ararat. Can we conclude anything from this description about the extent of the flood? Clearly this flood was hugely destructive. Even if this flood did not cover the entire earth, but only the entire “known” earth, we know it was an enormous flood. The asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs, creating the Gulf of Mexico as its crater, is said to have darkened the entire earth for a year or more, killing off most species of life. Such cataclysmic events are not unthinkable, even in secular arenas. More and more scientists are thinking the earth has had several life destroying events, though the Bible refers to only one during the human era. At the very least, such “wipe the slate clean” events make evolution even more improbable than ever; could they also confirm God’s covenantal care for Mankind during these last several thousand years? What about the age of the earth? There is currently a raging and acrimonious argument about the age of the earth among Bible-believing Christians. To understand better the positions of each, it is helpful to examine carefully the following issues. The significance of the Fall in understanding Genesis 1-3. The Young Earth Theory proponents suggest the Bible clearly teaches that death of all life entered the world through the sin of Adam. This makes a “quick creation” imperative, since it requires all living things to have been free from death from the point of their Creation until the Fall. And a quick creation seems represented in the six literal “days” specified in Genesis. The Old Earth Theory proponents suggest Adam’s sin only brought spiritual death to mankind, not death to all of the rest of life (which would have previously been subjected to physical death, including death of mankind). The “days” specified in Genesis can be understood as God’s days (not man’s days), and therefore not limited to 24 earthly hours. The former point out God hated the violence into which life degenerated after the Fall, and therefore He could not have created a world filled with violence as part of His good plan. The latter say God created animals to be both herbivorous and carnivorous (in spite of the fact Genesis states God gave the plants to the animals to eat), and so it is only the violence of man against man that offended God. What do the two theories have in common? Both seek to defend the honor of God and the Bible. Young Earth proponents try to defend the honor of God and the Bible by standing on a very literal reading of Genesis 1 and attributing all destruction to Satan. Old Earth proponents try to defend the honor of God and the Bible by demonstrating the Bible predicts and agrees with current scientific data including age dating, showing among all the ancient documents, only the Bible is accurate and true. Both leave open-ended the time involved in the creation of the universe. Within both theories, the first verse of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,…the earth was without form and void…” allows the creation of the universe and the planet earth to occur in an unspecified time, outside the controversial six-day period, which instead focuses on forming a livable planet with life. However, some Young Earth proponents view that statement as more of an overview introducing the coming 6-day creation of all things, and so all of the universe is created in the 6-day period. It is also very important to note both agree on the crucial doctrines of God as the creator, Satan as the cause of mankind falling captive to sin, and salvation as coming through Christ’s death and by grace alone. And both theories reject the idea that God used random evolution as a means of forming life on earth. What about Christians in the scientific community? There is a large organization of scientists who are Christian, the American Scientific Affiliation. This organization takes no official position on the age of the earth, while heartily affirming belief in creation in some form as foundational to an understanding of life. These scientists contend it is unnecessary to promote a Young Earth fiat view of creation in order to believe in creation and their website has articles affirming various positions on the subject of Creation. Because the media deride and attack Young Earth creationism, some feel it brings disrepute to the Christian movement. Old Earth creationists feel their Young Earth counterparts make needless quasi-scientific speculations and questionable biblical interpretations that require phenomena like a recent creation or a global flood. [6] While there is a growing number of scientists willing to explore the scientific implications of, and make testable predictions based on, a young earth model, the advent of the Intelligent Design movement has helped deflect the issue of the age of the earth and unite Christian scientists under a common banner that attacks the roots of Darwinian theory, the evolution of the species. Are there any other theories or options? For years, some have proposed varieties of the “gap” theory. This theory suggests that millions of years passed either between verses one and two of Genesis 1, or before verse one. Some suggest that God created the universe and the earth (including the fall of Satan) before the book of Genesis begins recording, and that the first chapter of Genesis refers to a re-creation rather than the original creation. This theory is promoted by perhaps the most well-known conservative Bible commentary of the 20th century. [7] “… ‘created’ does not refer to God’s activity in bringing the universe into being ex nihilo (out of nothing), but His refashioning the earth and its sidereal heavens at a much later geological history. The original earth created ex nihilo was brought into being by the hand of God before sin entered God’s moral universe, (Ezk 28:13-14, Isa 14:12) and was designed to be the habitation of God’s sinless angelic creatures (Job 28:4, 7; cf Isa 45:18)… The pristine sinless earth was evidently the place where sin began in God’s hitherto sinless universe in connection with the revolt of Satan and his angels (Isa 14:12-14; Ezk 28:13, 15-17)… putting the ‘gap’ not in [Genesis] 1:2 but before 1:1.” This theory perhaps allows for aspects of both the Young Earth and Old Earth theories to be correct interpretations. Nevertheless, before the modern scientific era produced information that could not be reconciled with the older interpretations of Genesis, the common belief among most Christians was that the earth was young. Still, many Bible scholars, including people like Augustine, did not assume the “days” of Genesis had to refer to literal 24-hour days. What support is there for an Old Earth theory of creation? Essentially all current scientific information confirms the Old Earth view of creation, simply because adherents to this theory accept current scientific explanations of dating. The age of the universe, for example, seems well-proven at the present time and they see no reason to doubt it. Likewise, they accept all dating techniques used on fossils as valid and trustworthy. So the primary areas of argument for Old Earth creationists are: 1) To show God can work within the secular scientific paradigm that already affirms the awesomeness of the natural world, and on the other side, 2) To show one can interpret the Bible with traditional hermeneutics in a way consistent with an “old” earth. The primary function of Old Earth creationist books is to show how amazingly the conclusions science is coming to mesh with biblical accounts of creation, and to explain how the Genesis account can integrate with the scientific data as it is currently interpreted (including support of the Big Bang theory). They also demonstrate how that does not have to imply a naturalistic cause, nor the lack of God’s continuing involvement. Some theorists point to the discontinuity of species in the fossil record as an indication God created each species separately, over a long period of time. Others allow that species did derive one from another (evolve) with God’s help, possibly even that mankind evolved from some form of pre-human ape, which God then breathed a soul into at the time of Adam. This is a form of creationism referred to as theistic evolution. Old Earth creationists have various explanations for the long period of death of plant and animal life that would necessarily precede Adam. Some assume death of most forms of life is natural and part of God’s plan. Others claim the death of life forms began at some point with the fall of Satan (when He was thrown down to the earth), which preceded all that happens in the Garden of Eden, or even in all the “days” of Genesis’ creation account. As an apologetic to skeptics, Old Earth creationism asserts the Bible can be trusted and does not propose a ridiculously young earth, overcoming the “need” to interpret Genesis (and the Bible) as a historical or scientific account by suggesting it utilizes a literary form. How can Young Earth proponents reject the overwhelming evidence compiled by the scientists, particularly regarding “billions of years of life?” Primarily, Young Earth scientists reject the various dating techniques used for fossils. Fossils cannot be dated directly; we determine their age by dating bits of volcanic rock imbedded in the same sedimentary layer that quickly buried the animal originally. (Fossils only form if the sediment buries the animal suddenly, as in a flood; otherwise, the animal deteriorates before it can fossilize.) In flash floods today, these scientists argue, the objects buried are not necessarily the same age as the bits of volcanic rock found in the loose dirt and sand that covers them. Therefore, why would we assume differently for “ancient” fossils? Young Earth scientists ask, “Unless an organism dies and is buried during a volcanic eruption, how can the volcanic rocks be used to date it?” They also point out that when other scientists use the same dating methods to date volcanic rocks for which the age is known (from the historical record, such as rocks from Mt. St. Helens or other known eruptions in Hawaii or Pompeii), the results can come out millions of years off from actual dates. These findings would suggest that the assumptions being made about the presumed starting ratio of decaying elements is inaccurate. Creationists who promote a Young Earth interpretation of Scripture also currently challenge the reigning paradigm that the fossil layers formed, one at a time, over millions of years. They point out some “polystrate” fossils (such as trees) actually “cut through” multiple layers of sedimentation, showing layers of various types can be laid down very quickly (since the whole tree would have had to be buried at once in order to fossilize the way it did). Geologists generally concede the sediment must have quickly buried these trees (some as tall as 40 feet), but are not willing to extrapolate from that evidence the possible conclusion that other deep geological layers could also have formed in this fashion (i.e. multiple layers at one time). Pointing out that many geological layers display no visible erosion between the layers, Young Earth scientists argue it would be impossible for no erosion to take place if indeed millions of years had gone by. They also point to places where several layers (with significantly different degrees of hardness), supposedly laid down millions of years apart from each other, are all folded and wrinkled in smooth conformity with one other. This type of folding could only have happened if all the layers were still soft when the folding took place, otherwise some would have cracked much differently than others. Each of these questions deserves addressing. While the Old Earth explanation can be more useful in leading non-Christians to consider the Bible and its claims as true, the Young Earth explanation claims to hold more tightly to some crucial doctrines about Creation and the Fall. And by stepping outside the reigning paradigm, it raises intriguing questions about disregarded anomalies in the current picture. Does it make a difference which theories I believe? As followers of Jesus it is important to respect the faith of others even if we disagree with their conclusions. Few Christians would go so far as to say it is a matter of salvation whether one believes in a literal six-day creation, or a longer period of time. All creationists, both “young” and “old” earth, agree God is the one who created the heavens, the earth, and each kind of life in it. It is furthermore possible to disprove the viability of the Theory of Evolution without having to determine the age of the earth, as the Intelligent Design movement demonstrates (many scientists in this movement are agnostic, or believers holding to an Old Earth theory of creation). In the end, atheists will not become believers because someone disproves their “pet theory” – Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. They will only become believers by coming face to face with Jesus Christ, and developing a relationship with the living God through Him. To that end may we labor diligently! Endnotes [1] Hugh Ross, noted Christian astronomer, writes, “Paul Davies [astronomer] moved from promoting atheism in 1983 to conceding in 1984 that ‘the laws [of physics] seem themselves to be a product of exceedingly ingenious design,’ to testifying in his 1988 book The Cosmic Blueprint that ‘there is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. The impression of design is overwhelming.’ … [Nevertheless] in spite of all this evidence for design, some non-theists claim that our existence is simply testimony to the fact that the extremely likely did in fact take place by chance. In other words, we would not be here to report the event, unless the event did in fact take place … [However] there is a total lack of analogy in the world of observed natural processes. We do not see the spontaneous generation of anything highly complex and fine-tuned.” Hugh Ross is saying that while the probability of so many factors being so carefully tuned by chance is infinitesimally small, some people still try to argue for designer-less creation by saying, “Of course life (as we know it) would not exist if the numbers are not just right. But we are only here to observe it because they are right; therefore, we can only observe ‘right’ numbers.” However, Ross explains, the universe does not have any other examples of nature self-organizing into complex, finely tuned systems, so there is no reason to believe the cosmos itself would do such a thing. If nature were capable of self-organization through random processes, we would see it happening even today. (Hugh Ross quoted from Morland, J.P., ed. The Creation Hypothesis. Downer’s Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1994.) [2] Understanding this, it is highly improbable (if not impossible) the universe has been walking this exceedingly thin tightrope for some 13 billion years. [3] Physicists have been trying to develop a single theory: a “Theory of Everything” (TOE) that would somehow combine the paradigms defining both the Theory of Relativity (that time and space are relative to an observer’s velocity and position) and Quantum Theory. Problems arise because General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have very different descriptions of the universe. To date, attempts to combine the two theories into one system have been unsuccessful, yet our universe cannot be functioning on two incompatible paradigms. [4] There are, however, scale-like structures on birds, called “scutes” which, if certain inhibitors are suppressed (while the bird is developing), grow into feathers instead, indicating that these scutes are a genetic form of feathers, not the other way around, nor a form of reptilian scales. [5] Richard Dawkins, champion of evolutionary theory, argues that a chimpanzee could type the works of Shakespeare on a keyboard, randomly, given enough time (see The Blind Watchmaker, pg. 47). What he neglects to clarify is that this would only work on a computer keyboard that systematically identified and eliminated wrong letters in comparison with a pre-existing memory bank of Shakespeare’s work. An ape would only produce garbage on a typewriter with no organized memory, regardless of how much time you gave it. Even a computer would not help, if there were no works of Shakespeare in its memory to compare to in order to eliminate “wrong guess” letters. [6] Old Earth proponents interpret the flood as a local flood of the “known” world (the Mesopotamian plain, or perhaps even all of the Middle East). [7] Unger, Merrill F. Unger’s Bible Handbook. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1967. This work, by Dallas Theological Seminary Bible scholar Merrill Unger (Th.D., Ph.D.), has gone through some 24 editions. Physicists have been trying to develop a single theory: a “Theory of Everything” (TOE) that would somehow combine the paradigms defining both the Theory of Relativity (that time and space are relative to an observer’s velocity and position) and Quantum Theory. Problems arise because General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have very different descriptions of the universe. To date, attempts to combine the two theories into one system have been unsuccessful, yet our universe cannot be functioning on two incompatible paradigms. ## 2 God’s Plan Unfolds The War to Take Back Creation In the first unit of year one, you studied the Bible’s theory of all of reality. You saw how God created a beautiful perfect universe, with an earth teeming with incredible creatures and how God created man in his own image. But something had already gone terribly wrong! As the story goes, one of God’s highest angels had become jealous of God and had decided to usurp God’s position. Satan challenged God’s angels to rebel with him against God, managing to persuade a third of the angels to follow him instead. God banished Satan and his fallen angels from heaven and they took up residence on the earth. There Satan deceived Eve and then Adam to disobey God, hoping to add mankind to his ranks of followers. Since that time, a battle rages in the spiritual and earthly realms with mankind in the thick of it. The Bible tells the history of this war. Satan is doing everything in his power to corrupt and distort everything that God made, especially the people designed to be in close relationship with Him. The plants and animals, indeed all of creation, is “groaning” as it says in Romans 8:22, waiting to “be liberated from its bondage to decay” (v. 21). The plants and animals are being assaulted every minute by disease, parasites, and various forms of decay, dragged down to death. We humans are also groaning as we wait for our bodies to be redeemed from the decay that assails us. Is this all an elaborate myth? Why shouldn’t we believe the assertions of atheistic naturalism that God does not exist, Satan does not exist, and nature and life have been going on their self-destructive ways for billions of years? Since science is touted as the foundation of naturalism, it’s important to consider whether science itself supports a naturalistic explanation of reality? Some reasons it does not were covered in the Introduction to Year 1 Unit 1. In this unit you will be studying DNA and cells, and will learn that what science is revealing about them also defies a naturalistic explanation. First, the more we learn about life on the detailed level, the more it becomes clear that it is, even on the microscopic level, an extremely complex interdependent system. It is chemically impossible for the DNA molecule to evolve through random processes. The DNA needs at least 75 pre-existing proteins in order to be formed; however, these complex proteins are assembled using the DNA as a code. If the basic building blocks of these proteins, amino acids, are generated in a random process, both “right hand” and “left hand” forms are produced (mirror image molecules), and both longer and shorter forms develop. Yet the proteins that in the DNA of life can only use one form of these amino acids, short, left-handed amino acids. If just one longer or right-handed amino acid is inserted into the protein chain it cannot function. In a famous experiment, two scientists, Urey and Miller, were able to generate some amino acids with methane and ammonia gases in a spark chamber. However, these amino acids were not the building blocks of DNA but a random collection of amino acids (and sugars and a few other things) that would be dangerous to a developing DNA protein instead of helpful. The correct formation of the proteins is controlled by the DNA molecule, but the DNA molecule cannot be formed without pre-existing correctly-formed protein molecules. (Brown, 2001, p.63) To make it even more complicated, all living cells use left-handed amino acids to synthesize their proteins, but right-handed ribose or D-deoxyribose to synthesize nucleotides or nucleic acids. In both cases, even ONE molecule with the wrong orientation makes the whole thing dysfunctional. In addition, there are about 2000 enzymes which form a complicated mutually-dependent system with the DNA. Dr Fred Hoyle, an agnostic scientist, calculated that the probability of random generation of all the enzymes was about one part in 10 to the 40,000th power (a one followed by 40,000 zeros). The whole universe has about 10 to the 80th power atoms, for comparison. (Brown, 2001, p. 62) When the theory of evolution was first being developed, no one knew about DNA or the incredible mechanisms required to form it. Nor did they realize that apart from the protection of the cellular environment, the DNA codes for life forms rapidly disintegrate. The cell itself is an exceedingly complicated “city” of micro-machines and micro-factories. Living cells also contain an intricate systems of chemical buffers and barriers that keep acids and bases apart as well as other chemicals that would otherwise react with each other. How could the barriers “evolve” before the chemicals they were separating reacted with each other? The evolution of the simplest single cell is fraught with thousands of chicken-and-egg-type problems. But the self-assembly impossibilities become immeasurably greater when we look at large organs. One human brain contains over 10 to the 14th power electrical connections, more than all the electrical connections made by humans in all the electrical appliances on earth added together! Random evolution of exceedingly specific complex systems has been shown to be mathematically impossible. However, in nature there is the added problem that normal environmental conditions quickly destroy any random progress that could theoretically be made at each step in the process. For example, in normal extra-cellular environments proteins are disassembled into amino acids before they can even become parts of enzymes or the complex DNA. Secondly, on the macro level, science has discovered a universe where everything rapidly decays to the lowest and least organized energy level (the Second Law of Thermodynamics), so where did all the organization come from in the beginning? Our universe does not randomly gravitate toward high energy and high complexity, quite the opposite. Life forms, with their incredibly complex organization down to the simplest protein molecule, are not improving and proliferating. Earth is, in fact, experiencing rapid and widespread extinction of species after species. Life is fighting life. Mankind is destroying life through wars and through innovations that have unexpected consequences. Life is dying off at an ever more alarming rate and no new species are developing to replace them. Even hardcore evolutionists do not hold out hope that a new explosion of life forms will suddenly evolve by some unknown mechanism in the wake of some global disaster (though they assure us that this is what has happened in the past). If balls always roll down hill, it takes something outside of the normal processes to put a ball at the top of the hill. If life and the universe are rapidly decaying, then it was not the currently known natural processes that brought them to their high point before decay took over. Atheism, not theism, is being undermined by the testimony of nature. Instead of supporting atheism, science appears to reveal two things: 1) Random processes do not produce intelligent information systems, neither do less-than-random “survival of the fittest” mechanisms, which eliminate options but do not create new information. Simply put, it takes intelligence to create information systems. (Therefore, some incredibly creative intelligence must have made the intricate beautiful systems and life as we know it–it can’t be a mindless impersonal force, since those are neither intelligent nor creative.); 2) Everything is being dragged down by decay and life has become violently destructive of itself. While this scientific fact in no way proves that a malevolent intelligence is behind this process, it certainly does not rule it out as a “myth.” Nevertheless, our faith is not built on science or what the creation reveals to us about the nature of God, but primarily on those things God has revealed to us directly, through His word, through His Son, and through His Spirit. The Bible clarifies that the free will of human beings is so completely corrupted that bashing their brothers and taking the best for themselves comes naturally, while loving their brothers is difficult if not impossible. Life is war. Not primarily between man and man or animal and animal, but primarily between God and Satan, good and evil. All of nature will be redeemed too What does this mean? If the whole universe is in an irreversible downward spiral, something both science and the Bible seem to agree on, what does the future hold? It has been popular in recent years for Christians to talk about God rescuing the true believers out of the dying world, with little thought for the rest of His creation. However, the view of the early church, and the view presented in the Bible, is that ALL of creation, the entire cosmos, became subject to evil and destruction in the Fall, but that ALL will be redeemed, (See Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, Random House, 1991, pp. 306-7). This viewpoint has been eclipsed since the time of the Enlightenment and during the current secular age, and over time Christians have increasingly been led to believe that all the destructiveness in nature is normal and natural – therefore part of God’s plan. The idea that God is going to annihilate the present cosmos, instead of redeeming it, allows Satan to win a great victory This perspective concludes that all of God’s creation apart from mankind is condemned to oblivion. On the contrary, in Romans 8 Paul says instead that all of creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay. Indeed, one of the “works of the Devil” that Jesus came to destroy was the Fall of nature. In Acts 3:21, Peter says that Jesus “must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His prophets.” And in Colossians 1:19-20, Paul also makes clear that God’s redemption is universal: “for God was please to have all of His fullness to dwell in Him [Jesus], and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” In their book, The Drama of Scripture, (Baker Academic, 2004), Bartholomew and Goheen use these verses, pointing out: “This comprehensive scope of God’s redemptive work means, for example, that the nonhuman creation forming the context for human life will be restored to what God intended for it all along.” (pg. 213). The carnivorous animals will return to eating grass, the way God created them in Genesis; “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox,” Isaiah 65:25. In Isaiah 11:6-9, Isaiah goes on to say that animal violence will cease: “They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” But, if a good God exists, why doesn’t He just make everything right again, right now, not later? The Bible teaches that God doesn’t take away the free will of his creations. His creations always have the option to choose to disobey Him. God did not destroy Satan and his angels, nor did He destroy all of fallen mankind, not even by changing one small aspect of what He created them to be… independent beings, able to act either with His will or to rebel. At least not yet. There will come a day of reckoning once all the families of the earth have had a chance to be reconciled to God, as Jesus said, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole earth as a testimony to all the peoples, and then the end will come,” (Matthew 24:14). And as Peter says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting any one to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare,” (II Peter 3: 9-10). So how is God working out His plan? You have already studied how God selected out one family, the family of Noah, who remained faithful to Him and became the means for the salvation of His creatures. In this unit you will begin to see God’s purposes working out through His covenants with families generation after generation, over hundreds of years. The Bible reveals to us how God has been working out a plan, ever since the Fall of Adam and Eve, to re-establish his relationship with mankind and defeat the works of Satan. The key to understanding the plan of God is to see that one of the main ways He works is through establishing covenants with specific people and their families to bring about His purposes. When God called Abram, somewhere around 2100 years before Christ, for example, (Genesis 12: 1-3), He made a covenant with him and his family, promising to bless him AND to make him a blessing to all the families of the earth. God re-established the covenant with Isaac, then with Jacob (Israel). The covenant has two purposes: 1) to establish a people of God from whence the Messiah, the true Savior of mankind, will come, and 2) to create a people who will be a witness to the nations of the nature and truth of the Creator God, if not through their own behavior then through God’s dealings with them. The history recorded in the Bible reveals not only how God was working with the nation of Israel, but how God was working with other people groups as well. When God promised Abram a son and later changed his name to Abraham (father of many nations), He also warned him that his descendants would be enslaved in another country for 400 years. It would be only after that when they would return to claim the land that God has promised him. God stated that the reason Abraham’s descendants had to wait was that “ the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached full measure.” (Genesis 15:16) He would not destroy the people that were inhabiting the land he will give to Abraham’s descendants until their sin has reached “full measure.” This passage reveals to us that God is a just God who is watching and judging all the nations of the earth. It may seem a bit “mean” that the descendants of Abraham had to suffer in Egypt for 430 years\* (c.1876-1446BC) before being allowed to take the “promised land” simply because the people there were not evil enough yet[J1] . However, like always, God had other purposes to work out as well. In Egypt, a relatively protected environment where they were settled and food was plentiful, the nation of Israel grew from one large extended family, to nearly 2 million people. They did not suffer the whole time, but only in the latter period. We can see that God was actually building Abraham’s descendants into a large nation with a clear common identity during this period. God was also accomplishing other purposes during the four centuries that the children of Abraham were in Egypt and during the Exodus. He gave the people of Egypt a chance to turn from their many gods to Him. When God delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, He used plagues that directly challenged the gods of the Egyptians, and made sure that He received the glory for delivering His people. The dramatic display of God’s power during the exodus may have even been influential on the later beliefs of Akhenaten (c. 1364-1347BC), the pharoah who repudiated all the gods of Egypt and created a new capital to promote the belief in only one God, represented as the sun. The nation of Israel and the Jewish faith were established during the time in Egypt, especially by the Passover deliverance that foreshadowed the atoning death of Christ. During the period in the wilderness, the laws were given, the tabernacle was built, and the people learned to follow the Lord at all costs. At every stage in their history, the Bible reveals how God was working in and through the children of Abraham, and also how He was exercising justice and revealing Himself to other nations. Questions and Answers: Could the Israelites really have grown to over a million people while in Egypt? Genesis 46:27 records that only 70 people from the house of Jacob came to settle in Egypt during the time of Joseph. But then Exodus 12:37-41 points out that “the sons of Israel ….about 600,000 men, aside from children, and a mixed multitude with them” left Egypt at the end of 430 years. That would mean about 600,000 Israelite men, plus an equal number of women, and very conservative guess, of the same number of children, all descended from the 70 who had arrived. This would be at least 1.8 million people, not counting the “mixed multitude” of Egyptians who went with them. Is that even possible? A simple application of mathematics can give an answer. The current population growth rate in Egypt is about 3.5% per year. If a growth rate of 3.5% per year is calculated for the original 70 descendants of Israel for 430 years, there would have been 186 million people at the end of the period! If a more likely growth rate of 2.5% per year is used, the number still ends up nearly 3 million. Because this is an exponential growth rate curve, after 215 years there were still only 14,149 descendants of Israel in Egypt— a number small enough to still not cause much alarm. But in the second half of this period, the number would jump to 2,859,961 people, continuing at the same growth rate. No wonder the pharaoh ordered the killing of all the male Israelite babies! Why do we think Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible? At the end of the fifth book of the Bible, in Deuteronomy 31: 24, it says, “ After Moses finished writing a book the words of this law from beginning to end, he gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord: ‘ Take this book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God. There it will remain as a witness against you. For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die…’” In verse 10, Moses had already commanded the priests to read the book he had written down to all the people, men, women, children, and aliens every seven years when they got together for the canceling of debts at the Feast of the Tabernacles. The first public reading of the entire book of the Law written down by Moses is recorded in Joshua 8:34-35, when the nation of Israel reconsecrated itself to the Lord after they lost the battle at Ai due to the sin of Achan. “There is not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the aliens who lived among them,” (Joshua 8:35). The books of Moses, also known at the Torah or the Pentateuch because it has 5 books, were always written on one long scroll until the 2nd century before Christ. There are about 2 dozen Old Testament and one dozen New Testament references to these books being authored by Moses, including 8 sayings by Jesus. Scholars have also noted that there are a number of loan words in the books of Moses from the Egyptian language which point to an author educated in Egypt. See J.W. Hayford, “Hayford’s Bible Handbook,” Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN, (1995). Ancient Jewish and Christian writers, such as Ecclesiasticus, Josephus, Philo, and Origen were essentially in full agreement that the Pentateuch was written solely by Moses. The Mishnah and the Talmud also confirm this. Tradition during the first millennium of Christian history agrees with this belief. (R.K. Harrison, “Introduction to the Old Testament,” Page 497 [cited in R.B. Dillard & T. Longman III, “An Introduction to the Old Testament,” Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, (1994) Page 39]) For a recent scholarly book that demolishes the critics of the Mosaic origin of the Torah and uses the latest archeological and extra biblical historical documents to prove the authenticity and age of the Old Testament, please see K.A. Kitchen’s On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2006)“ Can we trust the history that Moses wrote down in the first five books of the Bible? The book of Genesis covers many thousands of years, and obviously much of what Moses wrote down had been passed down orally and potentially in some written form until his day. Oral history is common in many cultures, but the Hebrews lived among some of the oldest cultures with writing traditions and could have preserved many accounts in written forms as well. Additionally, if we accept the account of the longer age of mankind before and immediately after the flood interesting facts appear. Amazing longevity, once considered impossible, has become plausible since with recent discoveries in the cloning field of mechanisms in our bodies that predetermine when the body cells will stop regenerating. When you look at the age of the people who lived in before and just after the flood, it becomes clear that it would have been possible to pass accurate history down through the generations, which overlapped significantly. For example, Seth, the son of Adam, lives for 912 years. Adam dies 14 years before Noah is born. However, when Seth dies, Noah is already 84 years old. Noah himself lives 950 years, and is 502 years old when his son Shem is born. Methuselah, the great great great great great grandson of Adam (seven generations down) overlaps with the life of Adam for 243 years, and with the life of Noah 600 years and 98 years with the life of Shem. Shem is 98 years old at the time of the flood but lives 600 years, so his life overlaps with Abraham’s for 150 years.. So Adam’s son Seth would have known Noah who could have passed information to Abraham through his son Shem. Since Abraham was already fairly advanced in age when he left most of his family, he probably brought the stories and genealogies from the first 11 chapters of Genesis with him. The rest of Genesis consists of detailed accounts of his family, which could easily have been preserved by his descendents in Egypt. Levi, the grandfather of Moses (through his mother) is 33 years old when Isaac (Levi’s grandfather) dies. At that point, people are dying much more quickly, and it is only three generations before Moses is born Moses,. who writes down the first 5 books of the Bible (known as the Pentateuch, the Torah, or the “Books of Moses”), could have easily accessed accurate and complete genealogical information of his ancestors. Note: Some people have used the genealogies of Genesis to try to come up with an exact date for the creation of Adam and then extrapolate from that to the date of the Creation of the world and the age of the earth. However, the position taken by almost all evangelical and fundamentalist Christian scholars, seen in such books as Charles Hodge’s 1871 Systematic Theology, Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Zondervan, 1982) and notes in the very conservative New Scofield Reference Bible, is that the Bible itself never attempts to use the genealogies as a time clock or form of chronology of creation. Over 100 attempts through the centuries to do so, by various Jewish and Christian scholars, has failed produced a definitive date. Why shouldn’t the Old Testament stories be considered fictionalized legends, like the writings of Homer? An interesting comparison of the literary style of mythology and the style of the Bible is made in the book Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, by Erich Auerbach. This scholarly book points out that there are many distinctions between the way “history” is written and stories are written that are intended to entertain. For example, in stories the “stage” is often set giving the feel through describing in detail the food, clothing, smells, setting and surroundings. In God’s encounter with Abraham we are given none of that. We do not know where Abraham is, what he looks like, what God looks like or how He appeared, what Abraham’s posture is, or anything that would draw us into the story. Only the bare bones, clearly without elaboration, of what happened is recorded. When Isaac is being taken to be sacrificed, the author has done nothing to awaken any emotional allegiance to Isaac. “this is not a characterization of Isaac…he may be handsome or ugly, intelligent or stupid, tall or short, pleasant or unpleasant—we are not told.” (Auerbach, 8). Homer, in contrast, uses descriptive adjectives and digressions to draw the reader into the drama of the story, establishing emotional connection and suspense. Stories are elaborated for entertainment, the Bible is matter-of-fact, the reporting style of a historical account. Secondly, even epic texts that are stories, as opposed to histories, are written in a “perpetual foreground” mode, that is to say, the story and events take place with little or no reference to unrelated background events that could intrude on the story. Historical narratives, on the other hand, Auerbach argues, are “fraught with background.” Other events and peoples come into play, illustrating that much is happening that is being left out. Also the characters are more multi-layered in historical narratives. They struggle with “entangled and stratified human relationships” (Auerbach, 10) which are often unsolved but impact briefly described choices. By contrast, the Homeric characters, while described much more fully and with more eloquent language, are comparatively simple characters. Thirdly, legends hang in a timeless limbo, while the historical narratives of the Bible establish themselves in time and assert themselves as truth. Though perhaps based on some historical events, Homer’s fabricated reality is meant to captivate and draw people into another place, where delight in physical existence reigns, complete with battles, passions, banquets, palaces, and athletic contests. Instead, the Bible makes a claim to historical, moral and spiritual reality in a matter-of-fact but exclusive way. “It is all very different in Biblical stories. Their aim is not to bewitch the senses, and if nevertheless they produce lively sensory effects, it is only because of the moral, religious, and psychological phenomena, which are their sole concern, are made concrete in the sensible matter of life. But their religious intent involves an absolute claim to historical truth…..The Biblical narrator was obliged to write exactly what his belief in the truth of the tradition… demanded of him—his freedom in creative or representative imagination was severely limited…What he produced, then, was not primarily oriented toward “realism”…it was oriented toward truth…Indeed we must go even further. The Bible’s claim to truth is not only far more urgent than Homer’s, it is tyrannical—It excludes other claims. The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be a historically true reality—it insists that it is the only real world, …The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels….If the text of the Biblical narrative, then, is so greatly in need of interpretation based on its own content, its claim to absolute authority forces it still further in the same direction. Far from seeking, like Homer, merely to make us forget our own reality for a few hours, it seeks to overcome our reality; we are to fit our own life into its world, feel ourselves to be elements in its structure of universal history…The Old Testament [unlike Homer] presents universal history; it begins with the beginning of time, with the creation of the world, and will end with the Last Days, the fulfilling of the Covenant, with which the world will come to an end. Everything else in the world can only be conceived as an element in this sequence; into it everything that is known about the world, or at least everything that touches upon the history of the Jews, must be fitted as an ingredient of the divine plan.” (Auerbach, 11-13) Lastly, Auerbach points out that it is easy to distinguish historical from legendary literature because their structure is quite different. Legendary stories are composed in a way that unresolved and uncertain themes are eliminated. Things run far too smoothly compared to “real life.” Legends progress straightforwardly, and the continuity of the plot is built on by events and descriptions. Historical accounts show more confusion, hesitation, groping for direction, difficult and unsolvable situations, and complex and conflicting motivations. In the lives of Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, simplified as they are, the complexity of their situations, their struggles with multiple motivations, and the confluence of conflicting powers and cross-purposes are obvious. There is no peaceful, idyllic realm; even domestic relationships are fraught with jealousy, quarrels over flocks and wells, enmity over inheritance, and broken promises, all with lasting consequences. The historical narratives of the Bible were not set down as legends or myths, but as historical fact revealing ultimate truth and reality—a reality in which God is a key player. What about the evolutionary view of history? In brief, the evolutionary view of history states that since man evolved from apes, then also mankind began as primitive creatures unable to speak, and making crude tools, slowly evolving into complex intelligent beings with vast civilizations. A lot of student textbooks teach this view, although it has long since ceased to be archeologically viable. As it turns out, the earliest men discovered also show signs of modern levels of intelligence and amazing skills. For example, “ice age” people have been discovered with intricately woven patterned cloth and carved bones with harvest-related calendars inscribed on them. Cave paintings, upon scrutiny, turn out to be hard to reproduce in size and accuracy even with today’s scaffolding, paints and electric cave lighting. There are several examples of constructions by what should have been more primitive peoples (if mankind’s civilizations are evolving) that provided sophisticated astronomical observations, from constructions by Native Americans in North, Central and South America, to Stonehenge, in England, to structures made by ancient Egyptians. Some ancient accomplishments are so incredibly advanced, beyond even our current abilities, that some have resorted to proposing that UFO’s and outer space aliens must have come down and taught mankind these skills. The more ancient peoples are studied, the more amazing their achievements appear, in everything from stone-moving to record-keeping to weaponry. Ancient civilizations built some of their greatest and hardest-to-copy marvels at the beginning of their existence. In fact, most civilizations seem to start out at a high level of achievement and then rapidly or slowly disintegrate. None of these facts agree with an evolutionary interpretation of history. They do, however, agree with the Bible, which list the existence of cities as early as the time of Cain. Most scientists agree today that homo sapiens were incredibly intelligent and innovative from the moment of their arrival, a date that is set variously between 30,000 and 11,000 years ago. \* From website: www.lamblion.com The three older sources are The Septuagint (the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek in about 280 BC), the writings of Josephus (who quotes the verse in his First Century AD writings, stating that he is quoting from Temple documents), and The Samaritan Version of the Torah (which dates from the 2nd Century AD). The Septuagint version reads as follows: “And the sojourning of the children of Israel, that is which they sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, was four hundred and thirty years.” Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (Chapter XV:2) puts it this way: “They [the Israelites] left Egypt in the month of Xanthiens, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month; four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years only after Jacob removed into Egypt.” ## 3 Mankind Walks Away from God [quote incident from the book] Bruce Olsen, in his book _Bruchko_, tells the time that a crisis arose in one of the villages of the Amazon tribe he lived among. Some of his native friends went out and dug a big hole in the ground and started to yell into the hole. After a while, he asked them what they were doing. They answered that they were trying to contact the most high God whom the tribe had lost contact with many generations before by being disobedient. They were hoping that the hole in the ground would make their voices loud enough to be heard by the high god. They felt great distress at having lost contact with the only God who could help them. The Far Reaches of the Earth You have been studying about God’s relationship with Israel, but what about all the other peoples in the earth? If God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendents, what about everyone else? The Bible lists families that descended from the three sons of Noah: Japheth, Ham and Shem. At first they all speak a common language, and set about building a city with a great tower so that they can make a name for themselves. But God is not pleased and so He confuses their languages so that they are scattered over the whole earth. They rapidly spread out to Africa, Europe, India, China and even the islands of the Pacific like Japan and New Zealand, eventually even getting over into the American continent. The covenant that God made with Noah goes with them; He promised “every living creature on earth” that never again would He destroy the earth with a flood (Genesis 9:11-12). After the flood, Shem lived another 500 years, and was able to tell his children and their descendents, even Abraham, about God, the creation of the world and the flood. But what about all the people that were scattered to the far reaches of the earth? They retain vague memories of the flood, with flood stories told in many people groups all over the earth. They also retain ideas of a creator God, some clearer and some cloudier. Theories of the Origin of Religion Just as there are two theories of man, that he evolved from apes or that he was created separately, and two theories of civilization, that it evolved from cave people over thousands of years or that man created civilizations from the beginning, there are also two theories of religion. The evolutionary theory of religion, also based on the evolutionary theory of life, asserts that since animals have no religion at all, early humans must have ascended through pre-language gestures and fear of the unknown to develop a belief in a fearful, mysterious force. This fear of the dark and unknown “evolved” into fear of spirits (known as animism) and then fear of many gods, the polytheism seen in ancient Greek mythology, for example. Later these beliefs evolve into the one Creator-God of monotheistic Judaism and the philosophical atheism of Buddhism or the secular atheism of the modern era. The Bible presents a different theory of religion, that people groups have lost or suppressed their former knowledge of God; a theory which is actually being increasingly validated by secular research. The Bible teaches that in the beginning mankind knew about God, and many actually knew God. But through their giving in to evil desires and corruption, people increasingly lost their knowledge of God and their minds became darkened. As Paul puts it: The wrath of God Is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities---his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts…. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. Romans 1: 18-28 Secular anthropologists and missionaries alike are finding that most cultures have a memory of a “high god” who has either gone away, or who has been left by the people, at some point in the long-ago past. Many cultures actually mourn their loss of contact with the Most High God. God in China China has one of the most isolated and longest running civilizations in the world. Its non-alphabetic writing system first began to appear about 2500BC and its first city was established about the time of Abraham(2100-2000BC). The Xia dynasty lasted from 1994-1523BC (when the children of Israel were in Egypt), followed by the more famous Shang Dynasty (1523-1027BC). The Zhou Dynasty lasted an amazing 800 years (from 1027-221) though from 770BC on it controlled only the eastern part of China. Confucius (Kong Qui or Kong Fizi, “master Kong”), China’s most famous and lastingly influential philosopher and a contemporary of Buddha and Socrates, lived from 551-479BC. At the same time lived Lao Tzu (or Laozi, “old master”), the founder of Taoism or Daoism, which defines “Tao” as the ultimate truth and source of everything in the universe, an impersonal force. Shortly afterward, Mozi (470-391BC) founded the Mohist school of philosophy emphasizing universal love and economic communism for its members. All of these schools of philosophy, like the philosophy of Buddha which made its way into China later, initially emphasized the role of man and “natural law” or the balance of nature with little reference to the supernatural or to God. However, in China, the belief in the “Lord of Heaven,” Shang-Ti, predates the later beliefs of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. The _Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics_ (vol. 6, p.272) according to Don Richardson in his book _Eternity in Their Hearts_, notes that the first religious reference in Chinese history, dated to around 2500 years before Christ, refers to Shang-Ti alone as the object of their worship. By 1000 years before Christ, the Zhou dynasty had so emphasized the holiness of Shang-Ti, that only the emperor was allowed to worship him, and then only once a year (Richardson, 63). Once Shang-Ti was no longer available to the masses, the Chinese people turned to various godless philosophies, but eventually practiced them in an form that gave them a sense of power over spiritual forces. Confucianism, a philosophy that emphasized right behavior and veneration of ancestors and those above you in social order, eventually became a ritualized form of worship of spirits where ancestors were expected to provide protection and help in exchange for veneration. Daoism became a form of magic and mysticism that attempts to achieve control over life’s problems. Buddhism came into China as a godless philosophy that emphasized right thinking and overcoming suffering through meditation and emotional distancing; however, in China, Buddha himself was soon made into a god, as were multiple other “Buddhas” or those who had reached enlightenment. In each case, God became first distance, then non-existent, then the people began to worship and manipulate spirits and gods. In China the common pattern is revealed. People, starting with Eve, refuse the knowledge of God given them and turn instead to their own ways. Thinking themselves wise, they come up with their own plans, plans to build high towers, plans to make their own name great, plans to become wise in their own eyes, inventing their own philosophies and answers to life’s problems. Instead of worshipping God, the creator of all things, they worship things that God created, or, worse yet, things that they themselves have created. Nevertheless, even the symbolic Chinese writing seems to have preserved some of the ancient knowledge handed down. For example: [insert examples from book on Chinese orthography] It wasn’t until the coming of Christian missionaries centuries later that the Lord of Heaven, Shang-Ti, or God of all, (a term some believe came from the same source as “El Shaddai”), was worshipped again by the common people. Amazingly, though all the foreign missionaries in China were kicked out by the Communists after the revolution in 1947, and the Chinese believers were killed or imprisoned and the churches were closed or destroyed, today some 10% of the population of China (or 90 million people) are followers of Jesus. God in Korea In Korea, there was also an ancient belief in one supreme God. When they arrived in the 19th century, the Protestant missionaries were surprised that the people recognized the God of whom they were speaking as “Hannonim,” the most high God the Koreans had little remaining knowledge about. The apostle Paul says that “In the past God [Theos in Greek] let all peoples go their own way. Yet He has not left Himself without a testimony,” Acts 15: 16-17. Not only has God left them General Revelation (the testimony of nature and of their consciences that all peoples have of God’s character), but they also have a residual testimony, knowledge of God that has been suppressed but not obliterated. Richardson recounts: “Koreans by the thousands listened to the Protestants with awe. Here were men and women who knew ever so much more about the true God than even their own king who paid homage to him yearly on a sacred island in the river near Pyongyang, the capital of Korea…One of their own Tan’gun traditions affirmed that Hananim had a son who desired to live among men… soon momentous response to the gospel began to shake Korea,” (Richardson, 68-69). While in 1900 there were very few Korean Christians, today 30% of the population of South Korea are followers of Jesus Christ! God in India At the time of Abraham, there was already a successful civilization in the Indus River valley, and area much larger than all of Mesopotamia. They cultivated specific grains, produced highly decorated pottery following the same procedure used by rural people today, and the people of India worship millions of gods, supposedly incarnations, or avatars, of one of the few principle gods. Yet all of this spirit world, indeed, all of our own earthly world as well, is considered an illusion or “maya.” The Hindu religion has only the vaguest idea of a most high God, an impersonal, unknowable reality referred to as Brahman. Two other religions developed in India about the same time as Socrates lived in Greece and Confucius in China. Mahavira (“the Great Hero,” 540-468BC) started an ideology of salvation through severe asceticism, called Jainism. He denied the existence both of a creator god, and of a world soul, and eventually starved himself to death as a sign of self-mastery. With a complete ban on taking of life, because of a strong belief in reincarnation, only the most reclusive and self-denying can achieve salvation. Siddartha Gautama (563-483BC), the founder of Buddhism, suggested a more moderate path to gain release from reincarnation and the effects of your karma (or moral actions). Also known as “Buddha” (“the Enlightened One”), he predicted that there would come a great prophet that would follow him, called the Lord of Mercy. Like Jainism, Buddhism rejected the Vedic rituals of Hinduism and the caste system. Buddha presented “the middle way” and an eight-fold path to enlightenment. All of these religions sought peace through right behavior, while practiced in Hinduism as worship of gods/spirits or in Buddhism as worship of buddhas/bodhissatvas (enlightened ones that help people attain enlightenment). Today Buddhism is widespread in Southeast Asia, where they sent many missionaries, but is virtually eclipsed in India itself where it was partially absorbed by Hinduism and Muslim invasions destroyed the rest. In areas of India that had not yet been overrun by Hinduism and Buddhism, such as the north eastern Naga area, near Burma, many tribes, such as the Mizo, had remaining stories of how their forefathers knew the most high God but have lost knowledge of Him and have lost the book He gave them. Some say the book was written on animal hides, but was eaten by dogs. This memory of a lost book is even more amazing since these people groups did not have any alphabet or way to read and write. These tribal peoples immediately responded to the gospel when it was introduced, and are largely Christian tribes today. Also, the outcastes of India, who were so low as to not even be in the lowest of the castes in the caste system, were never allowed to enter the Hindu temples or to practice the Hindu rituals. As a result, they were very open to the gospel and most of the millions of Christians in southern India today were former outcastes. God in Burma (Myanmar) Many of the people groups in Burma, now called Myanmar, a country east of India, have legends that say their people once had a written book of God that they have lost. The Karen tribe in Burma, for example, knew of a most high God called Y’wa, who called them to repent from their sins and turn from evil and idols, but they had been tempted away from that God by “Mu-kaw-lee” who had gotten the first women to eat a forbidden fruit and persuade her husband to do the same. Sound familiar? The Karen further believed that a “white brother” would one day come and give them back the book they had lost that would tell them the way back to truth and to Y’wa. Other tribes in the Burma, Thailand and western China area also had similar myths about a lost book of truth: the Kachin, the Lahu, the Wa, the Shan, the Palaung, the Kui, and the Lisu. As far as we know, there was no written record of what God had done at the time of the tower of Babel or even at the time of Abraham. The Bible seems to indicate that its first 5 books were not written down until the quite late time of Moses (around 1400BC). So, if these people were scattered at the time of the tower of Babel, where do they get their legends about a lost book about God in cultures that had no books? Perhaps God had directly revealed the idea to seekers in these cultures so that they will recognize His word when it makes its way to them. Perhaps they had some exposure to dispersed Jewish peoples who told them of a book they themselves had lost contact with, and the truth of the most high God contained in it. In either case, there is no doubt that God had prepared them with this expectation so that they were eager and ready to accept the teaching of the Bible when it arrived with the Protestant missionaries in the 19th century. God in the Promised Land In the book of Judges, God continues to work with the people of Israel through individuals whom He calls. First notice that the Israelites did not drive out the former peoples of the land, as they had been told to do. As a result, the Lord says He will no longer drive the people out before them, but allow them to become a thorn in the flesh of the Israelites (Judges 2: 3) and He will use them to test the Israelites (Judges 2: 22). The pattern is repeated that Israel does “evil in the eyes of the Lord” and then the Lord “gives them into the hands of” their enemies” then they cry out to the Lord. Then the Lord raises up people whom He talks to and on whom He puts His Spirit (prophets and judges) to help them get relief from their enemies. Nevertheless, the Israelites do not listen to the judges, and even if they become obedient to the Lord for a little while, they returned to ever more corrupt practices as soon as the judge dies. But when the story narrows down to Abraham, does that mean that God is no longer communicating to the other people groups with each their own language? Has God left them to themselves, and is only relating to the children of Israel now? Worldview observations from the science of this period? ## 4 God is Faithful to His Covenant Peoples of the Middle East How does the rejected God respond? God gives men over to the sinful desires of their hearts Doesn’t it surprise you? Why would people, who have a prophet of the Lord living among them, who can tell them what God wants -- why would they turn away to other things? Since the beginning, God has been trying to re-establish His relationship with His people, but almost no one is willing. In unit 3, you studied how the people groups of the earth purposely chose to walk away from their relationship with God. However, for 400 years Israel had a series of judges and prophets through whom they could know the will of God and be protected and blessed by Him if they were obedient. Why then, in I Samuel 8, do the people of Israel refuse to be led any longer by prophets of God and demand a king? Samuel feels like a failure, but God assures him, “it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their King. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking Me and serving other gods…” (I Samuel 8: 7-8). What important motivation could cause the God’s people, with His messengers, to reject Him as their leader? Even after Samuel gives them a long warning about all the suffering they will experience under the autocratic rule of a king, they still say, “NO. We want a king over us!” (v. 19). Why? Because “then we will be like all the other nations.” That’s it! They want to be like everyone else. They don’t want to be different. So what does God do? Does He say, “No! I have called you to BE DIFFERENT! To be a holy people, set apart for My purposes. To be My witness to the world.” Well, that is what He has been saying for over 1000 years to Abraham and his descendants, but now God says something different. God says, “OK.” God gives them over to their own desires. Remember what it says in the book of Romans: For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts. Romans 1: 18-28 This passage specifies that when people turn away from God, He gives them over to the sinful desires of their hearts, defined as “sexual impurity,” “shameful lusts (homosexuality),” and a “depraved mind—filled with evil, greed, depravity,…envy, murder, deceit, malice, being gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobeyers of parents, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” The people of Israel had repeatedly forsaken God and served other gods. Their hearts were far from Him. When they finally demanded a king, God allowed them to reject Him as their King. And He gave them what they wanted, a human king, even though He knew it would not be good for them. Still God is Faithful to His Covenant One might think, now that God has given the people of Israel over to their desire to be like everyone else, and to have a king, that He would leave them to fend for themselves. But instead God continued to be faithful to His promises to His people. He helped the new king, Saul, from the beginning, sending His Spirit upon him and helping him to be victorious in battle. And through Samuel, the Lord called His people back to Himself again, saying, “Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of His great name, the Lord will not reject His people, because the Lord was pleased to make you His own,” (I Samuel 12:21-22). Wow! God was PLEASED to make these unfaithful rebellious people “His own.” “For the sake of His great name…” as a testimony to Israel and the world of the kind of God He is, God continued to love and care for Israel and keep His covenant with them. From this point forward, in the nation of Israel, God allowed them to have kings, but He did not abdicate His commitment to them and He continued to speak to them through prophets that he raised up from among the people. Through the prophet Samuel, who originally anointed Saul as the first king of Israel, God also rejected Saul as king and removed His spirit and anointing from him. When the Lord told Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites, He meant they were to destroy everything and take no spoils whatsoever. This is the same kind of command that was given to Joshua and the people of Israel when they attacked Jericho---the whole nation was to be destroyed, as a severe judgement of God upon them for their sins, not even a coin was to be taken. But when Saul and the people spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites, along with the best of the sheep, oxen, lambs, and all that was good, they commited the same kind of sin Achan committed four centuries previously. Achan and his entire family were destroyed because of their disobedience to this command. What is the matter with King Saul? Has he forgotten his history? Has he not been reading the books of Moses and the book of Joshua so that he does not remember what God is like? In Proverbs it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but Saul had no wisdom because he feared the people more than he feared the Lord. When Samuel confronted him with his disobedience, first King Saul blamed others and justified his behavior: “…the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” (I Samuel 15:15) Then, when Samuel specifically confronted him with his disobedience of the Lord’s command, Saul said “but I HAVE obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me…but the people…” repeating his self-deceptive blaming of others. So Samuel said (v. 22-23) “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice…For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as King.” Only then did Saul say “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.” But it is too late. Still, Saul continued to worry about what the people would thing of him so he begged Samuel “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me so we can worship the Lord YOUR God.” Notice, that Saul refered to God as Samuel’s God now. Samuel returned with him to kill King Agag, as the Lord originally commanded, then never saw Saul again before he died. Saul continued to be king until his death, but he no longer had the council of the Lord to help him, God’s Spirit departed from Saul, and “the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel,” (I Samuel 15:35). Nevertheless, God still remains faithful to His covenant; God instructs Samuel to find and anoint David as the new king for Israel, “and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward,” (I Samuel 16:13). When David proves faithful to God, God promised him, through the prophet Nathan, “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father and he shall be My son…..and your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever,” (II Samuel 7:12-14). This prophecy is fulfilled first in Solomon, David’s second son with Bathsheba (the first died as a result of his sin). There is also a spiritual fulfillment of this prophecy in Jesus, a descendent of David, whose throne and dominion over His kingdom on earth will never end. What about God’s relationship with other people groups of the Middle East? Is God faithful to them as well? Is God just focusing on Israel and forgetting about the other nations? Or is He just punishing other nations, as He was when He ordered the destruction of the Amalekites by Israel, and only showing patience and mercy to Israel? Certainly not! God cares about the men, women, and children of all nations, and even the animals, and He sends dreams or messengers to speak to these people about Himself. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the book of Jonah. God speaks to Jonah and asks him to go to preach in the great city of Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian nation, one of the cruelest nations to ever rule the Middle East. The Assyrians were frightful people. Their leaders boasted of slaughtering their enemies and staining the mountains red with their blood, cutting off the heads of their warriors and sticking them on pillars, and burning their young men and women in fires. (Holman, pg. 387) These Semitic peoples had been growing in power over centuries (from 1750BC to 1000BC) raiding other peoples and spreading their control. They helped bring about the collapse of the Hittite Empire in 1200BC, along with the Sea Peoples, who invaded from the Mediterranean Sea. With their combined use of iron weapons, massive armies, and chariots, like the Hittites before them, they were to dominate the Middle East for the next 400 years. Under the Assyrians, Aramaic became the common language of even Israel through the time of Jesus and well into the modern era, still spoken in Syria. Somewhere around 775BC, God decides the Assyrians of Ninevah, the capital city, are so evil He is going to destroy them in about 40 days. But first, God says to Jonah, “Go to the great city of Ninevah and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” However, Jonah does not obey; instead, he gets on a ship going the opposite direction. Why did Jonah flee? Was he afraid the Assyrians would kill him if he preached against them? No. He was afraid that God would be merciful to them. When he preached to them and they repent, Jonah is angry because God relented and did not destroy them. Jonah said: “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity, “ (Jonah 4:2). Ninevah was a very large city, taking three days to visit it all (v.3:3), having an surrounding wall eight miles long, and more than 120,000 “people who cannot discern their right hand from their left” (v. 4:11, which some think refers to the number of small children alone). When Jonah warned them to repent or be destroyed, they “declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sack cloth,” (v. 3:5). But Jonah did not want them to be saved; he wanted them to be destroyed. He got a safe distance from the city and made a shelter for himself and waited to see what would happen to the city. He wanted to be there to witness what God would do to them. He would rather die than see Ninevah spared. But God taught Jonah a lesson by having a vine grow up which shades him, so he grows fond of it. Then God destroyed the vine by sending a worm to eat the root. Jonah was furious. God said: “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” and Jonah answered: “I do. I am angry enough to die.” God used Jonah’s care for the vine to say “You have been concerned about the vine…But Ninevah has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4: 9-11). Often we are like Jonah; we have no idea how much God cares about our enemies and the compassion he has towards them. In the generation after the repentance of Ninevah, the Assyrians regained their former power and became the main instrument of God’s judgement on the nations around Israel and Israel itself. Jonah appeared briefly in II Kings 14:25, showing that he lived during the reign of King Jeroboam II (792-753 BC), a king of the Northern Kingdom after Israel was split in two. If was during this same time that the prophet Amos was delivering God’s warning to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and to the surrounding nations that were soon to be overrun by the Assyrians. The emphasis of the book of Amos is consistently on the immoral treatment of these nations of other people. The transgressions of the neighboring nations were against “natural law” or the general revelation of God, things they themselves recognized as evil: selling populations into slavery, ripping open pregnant women, killing their brothers, and defiling graves. Israel and Judah are held to a higher standard, being denounced for rejecting God’s special revelation: despising the law of the Lord, lying, not taking care of the poor, sexual sins, causing the Nazarites to break their vows, etc. The book of Amos shows that God judges all the nations, but to those who have been given more truth, he expects a higher level of obedience. God said to them: “I despise your feast days and I do not savor your sacred assemblies…. But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a might stream,” (Amos 5:21, 24). The prophecies of Amos come to pass. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III came to power in 745 BC and took the Assyrian Empire to new heights, annexing Syria and Palestine as Assyrian provinces. His successor Shalmaneser V, beseiged the Northern Kingdom of Israel for three years, then conquered it and deported its people in 722 BC, never to return to their land again (II Kings 17). The Bible makes clear that God used the Assyrians to punish the rebellious people of Israel, who, unlike the Ninevites, did not repent when He warned them: “All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up out of Egypt… they worshipped the gods of other nations…The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right…The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and seers: ‘Turn from your evil ways. Observe My commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your fathers to obey and I delivered to you through my servants the prophets. But they would not listen and they were stiff-necked as their fathers who did not trust in the Lord their God… They imitated nations around them though the Lord had ordered them, ‘Do not do as they do,’ and they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do… They forsook all the commands of the Lord… they sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking Him to anger. So the Lord was angry with Israel and removed them from His presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God…the Lord removed them from His presence, as He had warned them through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are there still.” (II Kings 17: 4…23) Then an amazing thing happens! When the Israelites are deported, the Assyrians replaced them with people they have deported from other areas: Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim. But when the Lord sent lions to attack them, they appealed to the Assyrians for someone to come and teach them about the God of this land so that they can serve Him. So God arranged for them to hear about His love and commandments. The King of Assyria sent back one of the Israelite priest to live in Bethel and teach them how to worship the Lord. So they began to worship the Lord, but they also continued to serve the idols that they have brought with them. “They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods---“ (II Kings 17:33). These people became the “Samaritans” of the New Testament, who are not really Jews but worshipped the Lord with a mixture of pagan practices. God was faithful to forgive Ninevah when her people repented, but He was also faithful to punish her for her evil deeds. Although Ninevah was not destroyed in the 40 days that Jonah warned them about, when they continued in evil, the city was destroyed about 150 years later. First, the Assyrian King Sennacherib sent an army (in 701BC) which captured almost all of Judah, but was turned back from Jerusalem when he taunted the God of Israel. King Hezekiah beseeched the Lord, saying: “Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear;open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone.” God defended His name by causing Sennacharib to go off to fight someone else. Finally, the Assyrians were defeated, and their capital city of Ninevah is destroyed beyond resurrection, in the year 612BC, by the Medes, Babylonians (Chaldeans), and Scythians. The entire book of Nahum, in the Bible, is a prophecy concerning the judgment and destruction of the city of Ninevah. Ezekial also predicted the downfall of Ninevah (32:22-23), as did Zephaniah (2:13-15) and Zechariah (10:11). But notice, before He judges them through the invading Medes and Babylonians, God had not only used the Assyrians to bring judgment of the northern kingdom of Israel, but He had also used them to show the worthlessness of the gods of other nations, whom they “cast into the fire.” Then Ninevah itself was “cast into the fire.” She was pillaged, her massive walls broken down, her extensive libraries of Mesopotamian literature burned. In fact, her destruction was so complete, that the city was never rebuilt. It became covered over with sand and its location for many centuries was unknown. Some scholars even doubted the historical existence of that now mythical city. However, it was discovered again in 1845 AD by archeologists, one of the great finds of that century, complete with its massive libraries, hardened but not destroyed by the fires because they were written onto clay tablets! However, its written language, cuneiform, had long before been forgotten, so it took scholars many years before they could decipher the library of Ninevah. Messianic prophecies through the prophets like Isaiah (put here or in Unit 5?) Worldview observations from the science of this period? About Hebrew and the Aramaic language If you have seen the movie by Mel Gibson called _The Passion of the Christ_, it was filmed in the modern Aramaic language spoken by Middle Eastern Christians in places like Syria. It was filmed in this language, because even though Jesus knew Hebrew, the language spoken on the streets of Jerusalem and the surrounding country side, during the time of Jesus, was Aramaic. The Old Testament was written entirely in Hebrew except for Genesis 31:47, Ezra 4:8-6:18, Jeremiah 10:11, and Daniel 2:4-7:28. When Daniel and the Jewish people were in Babylon, they spoke Aramaic to each other. Hebrew was not the spoken language of the Jews for over 2000 years when it was introduced back into the schools of the newly established state of Israel after W.W. II. It helped to unify the Jewish people, who had immigrated to Israel from many counties and spoke many languages, and now, after 50 years, most Israelis speak Hebrew as their first language. Assyrian and Babylonian were Eastern Semitic languages and were written in script called cuneiform, formed by a sharp stick in clay. Each of the different symbols represented syllables instead of sounds, as they do in English, Greek, Latin, Phoenician and Hebrew. Biblical Aramaic came from the Northern Semitic language group of the Middle East, and was written from left to right in the same alphabet as Hebrew (one borrowed from the Phoenicians). Hebrew came from a different branch of the Semitic language groups, Northwestern Semitic, in the same family with Phoenician. The Phoenicians were Semitic Canaanites. (Semitic refers to those people groups that descended from Noah’s son Shem.) The Phoenician alphabet had symbols only for the consonants, an idea copied by the Hebrews, Aramaens and later the Arabs. The Southern Semitic language later evolved into Arabic, with its own sound-based (phonetic) script. The Greeks also adapted their phonetic script from the Phoenicians, adding in symbols for the vowels sounds, an idea that spread to the Romans and then all of Europe. The Romans borrowed from the Phoenician/Greek script for their script for Latin, and we borrowed from the Latin script to get our alphabet. Thanks to these written languages, we know a lot about the ancient world, both from the Bible and from other surviving texts. ​ ## 5 God is in Control As our studies reached the end of Unit 4, the Assyrian Empire suddenly collapsed. Who would have thought that the once mighty Assyrian Empire would disappear from the pages of history almost overnight! Or that the large city of Ninevah, with its massive walls and extensive libraries preserving Mesopotamian literature, would be completely destroyed! Ninevah was wiped out in 612BC by Persian tribes (from modern Iran), called the Medes, Scythian tribes from the central Asia, and a Semitic tribe from lower Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq and Kuwait) called the Chaldeans or Babylonians. After destroying Ninevah, the Chaldeans/Babylonians rapidly began to take over the territories formerly controlled by the Assyrian Empire. King Josiah, one of the few very godly kings of Judah, led the kingdom of Judah to repentance and lived to see the destruction of Ninevah. After the fall of Ninevah, King Josiah tried to prevent the Egyptians from aiding the remaining Assyrians in their fight against the advancing Babylonians, and died in the attempt (608BC). Babylon overran the remaining southern kingdom of Judah in 605BC, giving them no relief from the oppression they had experienced under the Assyrians. Instead the Babylonian forces tightened control as they marched through repeatedly,to fight battle after battle with Egypt until they conquered her. God destroys the Kingdom of Judah Written during this time period, Habakkuk cried out, “How long Oh Lord must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ but You do not save? Why do You make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” (v. 2-3). God told Habakkuk that He was sending Babylon to conquer Judah, but Habakkuk did not understand why an evil nation would be used to judge evil. Nevertheless, God revealed that His judgments would come to pass at the appointed time, and that “the righteous shall live by faith.” God tells Habakkuk that Babylon will also be judged for their sins at the appointed time. As He had warned, God carried out His judgment on Judah in spite of their repentance under King Josiah, because of the sins they had committed earlier, including the sacrificing of their own children under the reign of Manassah. II Kings 24:2-4 points out that God was not willing to pardon this shedding of innocent blood. The siege and destruction of Jerusalem was revealed to Ezekiel (ch. 4-5), who had already been taken to Babylon with the first wave of exiles. God had him act out the fact that two thirds of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem would perish, and the remaining one third be deported to Babylon. God’s judgment was to be so severe that the people would even resort to eating their own dead family members in an attempt to survive. God’s glory departed from the Temple, which was polluted by the secret idolatry of the elders and people (Ezekiel 9-11). Though in Ezekiel 12:22 the Israelites tell the prophet Ezekiel that they don’t expect to ever see the fulfillment of the doom he is predicting, he assures them the days are very near. By the time Ezekiel 24 was written, Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon were destroyed (January, 588 BC), and her few remaining people were scattered or brought to Babylon. The Bible has many passages that deal with the period when the Jews were exiled to Babylon. The book of Zephaniah was written earlier, during the reign of Josiah, however, its prophecies refer to the period after the book of Habbakuk, predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah to Babylon. Other biblical passages that deal with the time of the Babylonian exile are Isaiah 40-66, Jeremiah (who lived from the time of Josiah through the Babylonian exile), Lamentations, Ezekiel (written approximately 593-571BC), Daniel and Esther (the latter three taking place in Babylon). How God speaks to Nebuchadnezzer Although the Chaldeans were Semitic peoples who had moved into the area of Ancient Babylon, they resurrected all the old Babylonian laws, customs and even the Babylonian god Marduk, faithfully copying ancient Babylonian texts. Nebuchadnezzer, warrior son of the conquering king, restored the glory of Babylon, making it one of the most dazzling cities of its era. The Babylonians plundered Jerusalem and took many of the finest articles and treasures out of the temple, along with exiling many of the captives to Babylon in 605 BC. A young man named Daniel, was among them. In the second year of his reign, King Nebuchadnezzer had a troubling dream. He offered rich rewards to any wise man who could tell him what he had dreamed (death if they failed). Of course, no one wanted to take him up on that offer! Instead his wise men protested that no man could know what another man dreamt. So the king ordered that ALL the wise men and diviners be put to death! Daniel and his friends prayed that God would tell them the dream, and its interpretation, so that they could be spared. God revealed himself to Nebuchadnezzer by enabling Daniel to tell him his dream, and to bring its explanation. His dream is an amazingly accurate prophecy of future history. A statue made of a gold head, silver chest, bronze belly, iron legs, and feet of iron and clay represents successive empires. Nebuchadnezzer’s empire is the gold head, and if one looks at what follows in history, his empire is replaced by the Persians (silver), who are conquered by the Greeks (bronze). The Greeks are replaced by the Romans (iron), and then Roman Empire becomes divided (the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, or clay and iron). Most people today identify the rock that crushes the statue and grows into a mountain as symbolic of the kingdom of God on earth, or the church, which becomes an ever growing and undefeatable reality. Because Daniel is able to interpret his dream, Nebuchadnezzer praises the Lord as the sovereign God. However, as was common during this period, other gods continued to be worshipped, and eventually the King made himself a god as well. Nebuchadnezzer built a great gold statue of himself and required everyone to bow down to it. God then revealed himself in two more ways to Nebuchadnezzer. First, God protected Daniel’s friends, when Nebuchadnezzer threw them into the furnace for not bowing to His statue., Then God humbled Nebuchadnezzer by causing him to become temporarily insane, and then delivered him the insanity. In both cases Nebuchadnezzar ended up praising God publicly. For the entire time Daniel is in Babylon, perhaps around 80 years, God used him to bring his truth to the leaders of the Babylonian and then Persian empires. Daniel was called in to read supernatural handwriting on the wall by vice-regent (King under the Emperor) Belshazzar. Daniel reminds him that his forefather Nebuchadnezzer was humbled by God for his pride and that he should have known better than to defy the living God by using the Jewish Temple vessels at his party. Belshazzar was killed that very night, when God gave the Babylonian empire over to the invading Persians. As Cyrus the Persian took over the Babylonian Empire, God continued to work through the rulers It is amazing how God used the emperors to communicate truth about Himself to many people groups during this time period and how God continually preserved Daniel’s position of influence with the new leaders as a means to do this. Under the Persian ruler Darius (successor of Cyrus the Persian), Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den but was not eaten, which resulted in Darius issuing a decree to his whole empire that God was the sovereign Lord of the universe. “King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land: ‘May you prosper greatly! I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed and his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of lions.” Daniel 6: 25-28. So, through the testimony and faith of Daniel, and his influence on some of the most powerful rulers of his century, people groups over a vast area heard about the God of Daniel, the God of the whole earth. [ Inset: The Book of Daniel The book Daniel wrote has such accurate prophecies of the future that in the third century AD a pagan scholar Porphyry proposed that it had been written during the Maccabean period, around 175 BC. This theory was ably discredited by Jerome, 347-400AD, (who translated the Bible into Latin, called the Latin Vulgate), but was resurrected by modern liberal scholars. However, when the book of Daniel was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, clearly already an ancient book by the time they were buried, its authenticity was confirmed. Daniel, inchapters 7-12, recorded his own visions and their interpretations, which he had received during the historical period covered earlier in the book of Daniel. Many of these prophecies were fulfilled during the later rule of Alexander the Great, and others referred to the coming Messiah and the end times. What Daniel made clear in his book was that God is in control of the destiny of the Jewish people and of all the other peoples of the earth. The book of Daniel shows that God clearly has goals for history and is working out the establishment of His everlasting kingdom. Daniel reminded believers not to lose faith and hope, because God was and is working out His purposes in spite of the powers on earth. ] Zoroastrianism At the same time as Nebuchadnezzer was deporting the Jews in mass to Babylon, and using people like Daniel and his friends in the king’s court, Zoroastrianism was becoming the religion of the elite of Babylon. When Daniel helped interpret dreams for the leaders of the Babylonian Empire and the following Persian Empire, he significantly affected their worldview. Some scholars believe Zoroastrianism, the religion of Persia, developed before the Jews arrived in Babylon and influenced the Jewish beliefs. However, most scholars believe that Zoroastrianism developed in the 6th century BC, around the time the Jews were in Babylon, and it is possible that Zarathurstra (Zoroaster) was influenced by the Jewish beliefs and by the events recorded in the book of Daniel. This traditional date for the time of Zoroaster was set during the time of Alexander the Great’s conquest of that area (330 BC) when the priest of Zoroaster refused to reset their calendars, claiming that their calendars must start with the life of Zoraster, which they calculated as “258 years before Alexander” (which would be 588 BC). Recent scholars have insisted that either Zoroaster lived in a rural area, or he must of lived earlier, since the sacred writings he is supposed to have written do not talk about the empires of that era. Other interesting and influential religious philosophers who are thought to have lived in the 6th century BC are Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) in India, Pythagorus in Greece, and Lao Tzu and Confucius in China. Zarathustra taught that the universe was a battle ground between a great good creator God (Ahura Mazda) and an almost equally powerful evil god (Ahriman). Those who assisted the God of light and goodness would be rewarded with a bodily resurrection and life in paradise after the final triumph of good over evil. Zarathustra proclaimed that a deliverer (messiah) would appear near the end of the world, and after finally defeating the evil god, Ahriman and his supporters would be cast into a hell of flames. Sound familiar? Altars with ever burning fires on them came to represent the light and burning purifying power of the good God, Ahura Mazda. How the civilizations of Greece fit in with the biblical timeline. The Minoan civilization , thrived on the island of Crete and neighboring areas from around 2200-1450 BC.. It was almost completely wiped out by a huge tidal wave in 1450BC following a volcanic eruption on another island. Some scholars even attribute the plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea to the aftereffects of this massive eruption. On the island of Crete, the sea was pulled back from the shore to almost a mile before the tidal wave hit, inundating the island up to a mile inland. The surviving Minoans were easily conquered by a new people group, the Mycenaeans. The Mycenaeans were Greek-speaking Europeans from the Balkan peninsula that took over strategic locations in the Mediterranean after the demise of the Minoans. Their civilization first appeared around 1550 BC, but gained power from 1400-1150BC. The Mycenaean civilization most closely aligned with period of the Judges in the Bible, which extended from the death of Joshua to the beginning of the reign of King Saul (most commonly believed to be 1400 BC to 1050BC, though some put it from 1250-1050BC). The battle of Troy, recorded in the legendary tales of Homer written down 400 years later, is believed to have taken place around 1220BC. Both the Mycenaeans and the Hebrews were influenced by the successful traders of purple dye, Semitic Canaanites called “Phoenicians” by the Greeks, meaning “red men” or “purple people”. The Phoenicians (approximately 1500-330BC) planted colonies all around the Mediterranean to facilitate their trading, and also spread the idea of using an alphabet. Some people believe that the “Philistines,” referred to numerous times in the Old Testament, were the same people as those the Greeks called the Phoenicians. However, others believe it is more likely that the Phoenicians lived north of Israel, with their primary cities on the coast being Tyre and Sidon, and that the Philistines were non-Semitic peoples from the Aegean or Crete, who settled on the southern coast of Judah, perhaps Minoan refugees. The Mycenaean civilization collapsed around 1150BC under the assault of the “Sea Peoples,” a mysterious alliance of marauding tribes that attack Egypt and seem to have wiped out the Hittite Empire (in central Turkey) during the same period. The Sea Peoples sailed up rivers and wiped out cities apparently coming to destroy, not to form an empire or to settle. Some modern scholars think that they may have been aligned with Troy and sparked the legendary Trojan War. This Greek period.known as the Hellenic Age after Helen of Troy, was followed by a “Dark” age of chaos for the next 300-500 years. Cultural progress stagnated, populations declined, and the people forgot how to read their own writing. The Kings of Israel reigned during the period of time (approximately 1000-600BC) that the Greeks were in their “Dark Ages.” During the later period, between 800BC and 500BC, sometimes referred to as the “Archaic Age” of Greece, the Greek city-states were developing, notably Sparta and Athens. Greek colonies became firmly established in an area they called Ionia along the coast of Anatolia (Asia Minor, today called Turkey), as well as around the Black Sea, in North Africa and as far as Spain. The Persians came to the height of their power after they returned the Jewish exiles to their homeland around 539 BC. They began to challenge the Greek control over the Western parts of Anatolia (Asia Minor), and engaged in successive battles to take over the Greeks. After Darius the Great was defeated at the Battle of Marathon (490), his successor, Xerxes (reigning from 496-465BC) gathered an army of over 150,000 men and 600 ships to conquer Greece in the spring of 480BC. With some ingenious and,innovative ship building, and strategic naval tactics, the Greeks beat the odds. The Persians were defeated in the battles of Thermopylae, Artemisium and Salamis. Their miraculous triumph over the seemingly invincible Persian Empire, recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus (485-425) catapulted the Greeks into their Classical Age. Socrates lived from around 469-400BC, as did Thucydides, the Greek historian of the Peloponnesian War. Plato and the Greek play writers, like Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Euripides, all lived in the 5th century BC, and were contemporaries with Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi and Joel (which will be studied in unit 6 even though they overlap with Greece’s Classical Age). Esther, who protected the Jews who had been left behind in Babylon when the others returned to their land, was a queen of Persia during the time of Xerxes, whose Persian name was Ahasuerus. The book of Esther shows that God was faithful to protect those Israelites that chose to remain in Babylon instead of returning to their land. However, the book of Esther never actually mentions the name of God directly and was the only Old Testament book that did not appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. A Word About The Evolution of the Species When you are studying the animal kingdom, you will encounter the standard assumptions made by evolutionary thinking, including speculative “trees” showing how some species of animals developed from other species of animals. This macro-evolutionary scenario is usually attributed to the power of natural selection. Natural selection is the process by which natural processes or environments determine which animals survive. Those animals which are best suited, or best “fit,” to live in that particular environment will be more likely to survive than those that are less suited. Hence the phrase “survival of the fittest.” Darwin noticed that on islands that were dryer where seeds were harder, that seed-eating finches had harder beaks. The finches with harder beaks were the ones that could survive in that environment, and finches with weaker beaks died out. Did the finches “evolve” to have harder beaks? No, because the original population had finches with softer as well as harder beaks, and the environment merely eliminated some of them. Evolution implies that changes were made to a species that improve its chances of survival, eventually leading to an entirely new species. However, natural selection does not yield any genetic changes, since nature can only select from the options already available in the gene pool. Genetic information starts out with a lot of options, and the environmental selection process eliminates some of them. No new information or options are generated in this process. Therefore, natural selection or “survival of the fittest” merely kills off some forms of that animal or plant instead of producing new types. Humans do much more rigorous gene selection all the time in the selective breeding of animals, such as dogs, or selective combining of gene characteristics in plants, such as roses. After centuries of selective processes, we have been able to isolate the varieties of dogs into subgroups with strikingly different characteristics and sizes. Nevertheless they are all still the same species and can still be interbred. No new species has developed. Plants have proved more of a challenge to get to change in significant ways, with variations of roses, tulips, or lilies only going a short distance from their relatives. Thousand of years of selectively planting only the largest corn kernels, and hybridizing and even lately artificially gene-splicing corn with other species, has still only resulted in another form of corn. In other words, the idea that animal or plant species have evolved or derived one from another has never been demonstrated. There is no known natural process (or even unnatural process through the intervention of mankind) that changes one species into another or adds on distinctly new characteristics (like wings or scales etc). In the fossil record, species are as distinct from one another as they are today, with no sign of gradually changing from one form to another. There are a few odd species that seem to be neither here nor there when talking about animal kingdoms, like the platypus for example, that has characteristics of mammals but lays eggs. However, these strange species, neither those currently alive nor those in the fossil record, bridge the gap between any other known species. For more information on the failure to prove macro-evolution, see books like Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by Michael Denton, Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils by Marvin Lubenow, and Bone of Contention: Is Evolution True? by Silvia Baker. ​ ## 6 God Sets the Stage for the Messiah How does God orchestrate the return of His people to Judah? When it is time for the people of Israel to return from their exile, which the prophets predicted would last for 70 years, God arranged for a change of regimes in Babylon. The Jews and the Priests of Marduk in Babylon at this time, helped Cyrus the Persian overthrow the Chaldean rulers of Babylon. In gratitude, Cyrus issued a decree in 539 BC that all the people groups who had been removed from their homelands could return to where they had come from. This edict included the Jews, whom he also instructed to rebuild their temple and he sent back with them the articles that the Chaldean ruler Nebuchadnezzer had taken from their temple. This decree is recorded in the beginning of the book of Ezra: “This is what Cyrus the King of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him in Judah. Anyone of his people among you, may his God be with him, and let him go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord…” The book of Ezra lists all the exiles from Judah who returned to Jerusalem, and lists the 5,400 articles of gold and silver (which had been taken originally from the temple in Jerusalem) that were sent back with the people. The Jews who returned to Jerusalem as a result of Cyrus’s edict, set about rebuilding their lives. However, they did not begin rebuilding the temple even through Cyrus himself commanded them to do so. After about 15 years, in the second year of the reign of the third king of Persia, Darius the Great (around 520 BC), God raised up the prophet Haggai to motivate the people to fear Him and rebuild the temple as He has ordained. The people complained that the time was not right to rebuild the temple, however God shamed them by pointing out that they were building luxurious homes for themselves while His house was still in ruins. Zerubabbel, the grandson of the last king of Judah, Jehoiakin, descendent of David, was the governer of Judah at this time, and, hearing the message of Haggai, he led the people to obey the Lord. Thus God renewed the covenant He made with the people of Israel when they left Egypt, and promised to shake the nations and bring the “desired of all nations” (which some believe refers to the Messiah), filling the new temple with more glory than the old temple. This prophecy was fulfilled when the temple of Zerubabbel (built from 520-515BC) was completely remodeled and made glorious by King Herod starting in the year 19BC and continuing until around 64AD shortly before Emperor Nero executed Peter and Paul. A few years after its completion, in 70AD, this temple was completely destroyed by the Romans putting down a Jewish uprising. Since that time there has been no Jewish temple in Jerusalem. The state of Israel cannot rebuild the temple because the Muslims built a sacred shrine, the Dome of the Rock, on the temple platform. This was the temple visited by Jesus on many occasions. Upon the death of Jesus, the curtain dividing the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was torn in two. Some people believe that a rebuilding of the temple will be a sign of Jesus’ imminent return. Others believe that since the death of Christ we, the church, the fellowship of believers, have become the temple of the living God in whom God’s glory is revealed and where His spirit dwells (I Cor. 3:16-17, II Cor. 6:16). The book of Ezra recorded how God amazingly helped with the rebuilding of the temple. The people, who moved into the land of Israel while the Jewish people were deported, were alarmed by the rebuilding of the temple. They first tried to “help” them (perhaps hoping not to be pushed out of the land?). Then they harassed them and finally wrote to Darius the Great, (who ruled from 521 to 486 BC), the king of Persia for his intervention. He looked up in the archives and confirmed that Cyrus had instructed the Jews to rebuild their temple, so Darius issueed a new decree forcing the local governors to not only financially support the rebuilding of the temple, as Cyrus had originally authorized, but also to put to death and destroy the house of anyone who tried to stop them from building it! [This is the same Darius, King of Persia, mentioned earlier who marched a huge army of over 100,000 men across present-day Turkey, and down the Greek peninsula to try to conquer the Greeks, but were defeated by a much smaller number of Greeks at the Battle of Marathon in 490BC.] The Prophecies The prophecies recorded in the last books of the Old Testament are not easy to interpret. Though the Persians were fighting the Greeks during this period, the land of Palestine experienced a a time of peace. The Jews were thus protected as they rebuilt their temple, Jerusalem and the walls of Jerusalem (see Nehemiah). This is a possible fulfillment of the peaceful period prophesied in Isaiah 40-66. The book of Zechariah prophecies that many of the Gentile peoples will seek the Almighty God, with the ratio of Gentiles to Jews being 10 to 1 as they go to worship in Jerusalem (Zech. 8), and peoples from all nations will worship there (Zech. 14). Some think this was already being fulfilled in the time of Zechariah, when the peace allowed the neighboring peoples to go to Jerusalem. However, others believe these prophecies refer primarily to events fulfilled in our day with the re-establishment of the state of Israel. Perhaps, they say, the verses in Zechariah Chapter 12:10-14 refer to the Jewish people eventually coming to recognized Jesus “the one they have pierced” as the Messiah. Could the two thirds of the Israelites to be killed and the one third refined by fire in Chapter 13 be referring to the Holocaust? Are the people coming from the east and the west in Chapter 8:7-8 those who have returned to Israel in the last century? Malachi affirms that in spite of ongoing apostasy on the part of the Jewish people, God will be faithful and will spare the righteous. Between Genesis 3:15 and Malachi 4:5-6 there are some 124 passages that are considered “messianic prophecies” that have specific fulfillment in the New Testament. Many of these are actually quoted or alluded to by New Testament authors. If one only counts passages that are specifically referring to a future King or savior in their original context, the primary messianic prophecies are found these passages: II Samuel 7, I Chronicles 17, Psalms 2, 72, 89, 110, 132, and Isaiah 2:2-5, 9:1-7 and 11:1-10. Nonetheless, by the time of Jesus, many passages were being interpreted as predictions related to the coming messiah. What most Jews, including the disciples of Jesus, expected was a descendent of David who would set up a kingdom freeing the Jewish people from the Romans or any other foreign power. The Intertestamental Period From 400BC to after the death of Christ, no new biblical literature was written. This period is called the “inter-testamental period” and coincided with the rise of the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome. It is not as easy during this period to confidently say what God was or was not doing, since we do not have any scriptures that explain it to us. However, this does not mean God was any less active, nor that He did not continue to carry out His purposes and His promises. In fact, we can confidently assume that He continuedto influence and orchestrate the affairs of men, in the same ways in which He was recorded doing so in the Old Testament, up to the present day. During their time in Babylon, the Jews had shifted their focus of worship from the temple to the study of the word of God. This emphasis continued during the inter-testamental period, with the Jews figuring out which books to include in their “canon” of holy scriptures. One of the most crucial things that happened in the inter-testamental period was the translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek by Hebrew scholars in Alexandria. The Septuagint and Apocrypha Under Ptolemy II, a Pharaoh of Egypt (285-247BC), a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures was done in Alexandria by 72 Hebrew scholars, called the Septuagint (from the word meaning “70”). As more and more Jews had moved out around the Greek-speaking world, and were being educated in Greek, they needed a Greek version of the scriptures. This translation spread the word of God far and wide, since Greek had become the most widely read language in the Western world. The Septuagint was the “Bible” of the early Greek-speaking Christian church, before the gospels and the letters of Paul and others were copied widely. Over 80 percent of the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament are taken from the Septuagint translation. Having both a Hebrew and Greek version of the Jewish scriptures enables us today to make more accurate translations of the Old Testament, since we know how Hebrew Jewish scholars of that day were interpreting the Hebrew words when they translated them into Greek. Some of the writings that were translated as a part of the Septuagint (such as the books of Maccabees and Tobit) were not included in the canon of the Hebrew scriptures which was finally closed by Jewish scholars around 100 AD. Those extra books became known as the Apocrypha, and fell into disuse among the Jews. When Jerome translated the Latin Vulgate (common Latin language) Bible in the third century AD, he included these books designated as “apocryphal” and labeled them as non-canonical but neither heretical nor authoritative. Later Roman Catholic and various branches of the Orthodox churches included different ones of these apocryphal books in their canon, calling them “deuterocanonical” books, or “books added later to the canon,” but they did not all choose the same books. The Protestants decided to copy the canon established by the Jews, and do not include these books, considering them useful but not inspired by God. There are no quotations from the Apocrypha in the New Testament writings, suggesting that the early believers did not consider them scripture. Nevertheless, the earliest printings of the King James Authorized Bible (1611) copied the Catholics and included the Apocryphal books scattered among the canonical books. The British and Foreign Bible Society excluded the Apocrypha from their editions after 1827, as the Protestant Reformed traditions (e.g. Luther’s German Bible) had done all along. The role of Alexander the Great in God’s purposes Alexander was the son of a Greek-speaking military leader from the area north of Greece, in the Balkan Peninsula, known as Macedonia. Aristotle, who trained under Plato in Athens, was Alexander’s tutor. Alexander’s father brutally consolidated the Greek city-states under his power before he was assassinated, leaving Alexander to rule when he was only twenty, in the year 336BC. After asserting his power, Alexander set off to conquer Persia, his father’s dream, in 334BC. Alexander led a smashing series of victories in Asia Minor, using brilliant strategy and famous formations with shields (phalanxes) and 18-foot-long pikes. He captured the family of Darius III, who had fled eastward, leaving his family behind. Alexander marched southward ending the centuries of Phoenician rule, taking their impregnable island city of Tyre by dismantling the city on the shore and building a causeway out to the island fortress. This amazing feat fulfilled Old Testament prophecies against Tyre given centuries before. Alexander swept down the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and took control of Egypt with lightning speed. The shocked Egyptians responded by proclaiming Alexander a divine man, the son of their supreme god. By this time Alexander had married the daughter of Darius III, whom he had captured. Leaving some of his men to control Egypt, Alexander proceeded back up through Damascus (Syria) to Mesopotamia, where he met the rallied Persian forces and defeated Darius III a second time. Claiming the right to rule Persia, Alexander then took Babylon and marched on to burn the Persian capital of Persepolis. He continued through present day Iran and Afghanistan, picking up another wife in Bactria (the famous Roxanne) and conquering central Asia. With his men exhausted from the long distances and succession of battles, Alexander was defeated for the first time on the other side of the Indus River (in Pakistan today). After ten years of continual war, his men demanded that they be allowed return home. So Alexander turned westward, but the trip back along the Persian Gulf proved disastrous, and more than half of his men died in the desert. By 323BC Alexander was back in Babylon, where he suddenly died just before the age of thirty three, some think of alcohol abuse, others think from poisoning. There is little doubt that Alexander was weakened by a near fatal injury in India, malaria, and his travels, and some believed he contracted typhoid or some other disease, as he seems to have been ill for at least a week before attending his last party. Because he had left no plans to rule his vast territory, after Alexander died fighting broke out among his men that continued in one form or another for the next twenty years. By the end of the century, in 300BC, the empire was roughly divided as follows: Greece and Macedonia were ruled by the Antigonids, the family of Antigonus I; Asia Minor, Syria and Persia eastward were ruled by the Seleucids, the family of Seleucus I; and Palestine, Egypt and Lybia were ruled by the Ptolomies, the family of Ptolomy I, the thirty-first dynasty in Egypt which continued until the death of Cleopatra in the year 30BC. The Seleucids almost immediately lost the Indus Valley, when it was taken by Chandragupta Maurya in 304 BC, an Indian prince of only 20 years old who conquered the Nanda Empire, which had lost its land in modern day Pakistan to the Greeks. The Parthians of Iran revolted in 248 BC and took Mesopotamia by 141 BC. However, in 198 BC, after the battle of Panion, the Seleucids succeeded in taking Palestine away from the Ptolomies, though it would become a thorn in their side. The Mauryan dynasty of India When Alexander’s conquests in India quickly collapsed after his death, Chandragupta Maurya established a kingdom from modern day Bangladesh west through modern day Pakistan, an empire that was expanded by his sons Bindusara and Ashoka. Ashoka (c.272-232 BC) became the greatest of the Mauryan emperors, extending control over the whole Indian sub-continent except for the far south. Ashoka, eventually revolted by the bloodshed of war, repented and became a champion of non-violence. He converted to Buddhism, putting up monuments acknowledging his errors. These monuments, written in various languages and scripts, showed that his civilization had both ongoing contact with the west, and a widespread level of Indian literacy. Reinforcing moral behavior, Ashoka also established “dharma” (righteousness) officials to insure just treatment of the poor and sponsored the sending of many Buddhist missionaries. He is beloved in the memory of India as the ideal king, though his empire fell apart soon after his death. Nevertheless, largely as a result of his impetus, Buddhism continued to spread throughout southeast Asia, and China and Japan. However, Buddhism in India was absorbed back into the conglomeration of beliefs referred to as Hinduism after his death. The Greek legacy Alexander the Great was in power for barely more than ten years. However, by conquering such a large area, much of which remained under Greek control for a couple centuries, he managed to spread the Greek language and culture far and wide. With Greek rulers, the entire area from Greece to the edges of India became a single political, economic and cultural unit for the next two centuries. Art forms as far east as India took on the realism typical of Greek classic art with flowing draped garments and naturalistic muscles. Trade flourished, with Koine, or “common” Greek, becoming the trade language and eclipsing Aramaic as the last trade language. The Greek value for educating even the middle classes became widespread, and the Jews began to educate many of their young men to read and write in Hebrew as well as Greek. The use of Greek as a written trade language spread over the entire Mediterranean area, even as far as Persia, and enabled the word of God to spread very rapidly once it was translated into Greek in Alexandria. God had prepared a way for His word to be understood by a vast number of people over a wide geographic area. The relatively peaceful 200 years under Hellenistic rule enabled the Jewish people to move out of Palestine. They set up synagogues in many cities around the Mediterranean and throughout the east, even into India. It is to these far-flung Jewish diaspora communities that the apostle Paul, Thomas, and others would travel to spread the news of Jesus after the resurrection. Hellenistic Religions and Philosophies The Greeks and Romans shared a pantheon, meaning all or many gods, with different names but similar functions. For example, the chief god in Greek was called Zeus, called Jupiter in Latin by the Romans. In addition to many gods, the Greeks and Romans also consulted oracles who would divine the future for them, the most famous being the oracle at Delphi which great leaders consulted for political decisions. There were also many “mystery religions” which had spread from Egypt and the east, where only initiates could know the secret rituals involved. These religions sometimes involved sexual orgies or fertility dramas. They tended to have strong community bonds missing from the general worship of the pantheon, although most members of a mystery religion continued to worship the gods as well. Two Greek philosophies started to spread during the Hellenistic era (the word “hellen” is the word the Greeks used for themselves). Epicurus of Athens (342-271) promoted seeking happiness through reason. Epicureans were atheists with an entirely materialistic view of the world, and defined happiness as “ataraxia”, meaning to be without pain, trouble or responsibility. They advised withdrawing from the world, from marriage and children, to focus solely on one’s own freedom from trouble. The Stoics were established by Zeno of Citium (335-263BC), who himself had been trained as a Cynic. Like the Epicureans, they sought happiness, but believed there was a divine guiding principle in nature called the word (logos) or fire. To be happy in life required living a virtuous life in keeping with the natural law or logos. The wise should seek apatheia, that is freedom from passion, which was seen as the source of folly and evil. Both of these philosophies have some similarities to Buddhism in their godless emphasis on right living and withdrawal from the world or passion. Though most of the Greek people continued in the worship of the various gods, both of these philosophies influenced Greek society by encouraging a form of fatalism. This fatalism enabled people to accept the move from democracy to totalitarian rule, which came first with the rise of Alexander and later under the Roman Empire. The Rise of the Roman Republic Ironically, as Greek culture spread out, the brightest and best of the Greek people were pulled to new centers of wealth and culture in distant places, like Damascus, Syria and Alexandria, Egypt. This “brain-drain” left Greece itself a political and cultural backwater, and as early as 146BC it was conquered by the rising Roman Republic. Virgil’s Aeneid describes the ancestors of the Romans as refugees from the Trojan War, although other scholars believe that Italy was colonized by the Sea Peoples who had ravaged the Western Mediterranean. In the fourth century BC, Greek colonies were established in Italy, bringing the Greeks and the Italians into continuous contact with each other. The Roman Republic, centering around the city-state of Rome, began around 500 BC and in 450 the basic documents of the complex republican government were written down, a combination of democracy and oligarchy (rule of an elite). A man’s right to vote depended on having served in the military, and the amount of political power a man had was to be proportional to the stake he had in the survival of the state (i.e. the wealthy, called patricians, had more power). The common people, called plebeians, were represented by men called tribunes, who spoke for the tribes and had veto power. Conflict within Italy and with the Celtic peoples of Gaul (France) convinced the Romans of the importance of military power. The Senate, and the all-powerful consuls (like prime ministers) that they elected two at a time for a one-year term, were made up of the upper-class patricians. There was a constant struggle for power between the plebeians, which included all the regular soldiers, and the patricians of the senate. Finally in 287BC, the plebeians managed to get a law passed that made the decisions of the plebeian assembly binding on all Romans without the approval of the patrician Senate. In 195 BC there was an interesting incident reported by the historian Livy (59BC-17AD) Women, who had no vote, rose up in mass protest to repeal a law forbidding them the possession of more than an ounce of gold, the wearing of multi-colored garments and riding in carriages except on feast days. The leaders protested that if women were allowed to overturn one rule they would soon be uncontrollable. Livy quotes one consul, Marcus Porcius Cato, as saying “It is complete liberty, or, rather, if we wish to speak the truth, complete license that they desire… If they win this, what will they not attempt?.. even with all these bonds you can scarcely control them… The moment they begin to be your equals, they will be your superiors.” However, the women persisted, and the law was repealed, showing the power of public opinion, even non-voters, in a democracy. In the Roman Republic, the average Italian men were increasingly used for soldiers, as their land was taken over by the wealthy Roman aristocrats, who turned to the use of slaves captured in war to work the increasingly large plantations. The retiring soldiers found themselves landless and unable to support themselves. These Italians increasingly pushed for land reform and for the right to become Roman citizens. Two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, were elected tribunes and tried to reform the situation. Both were killed, Tiberius in 133BC by mobs of senators, who threw him and 300 of his supporters into the Tiber River, and Gaius in 121 who, along with 3000 of his supporters, was killed without trial on the orders of a hostile consul. The tension continued to build between the oligarchy of the Senate and Consuls, and the power of the tribunes and military leaders. Finally in 88BC the Italians were allowed to become Roman citizens. Military leaders became increasingly powerful, the most famous being Pompey, Julius Caesar and Crassus, who formed the first triumvirate in 62BC. Pompey had been given dictatorship power in 67BC (imperium) for three years to use his army to clear the Mediterranean of pirates. However, when he tried to get land given to his army veterans, the Senators, fearful of losing their economic power, refused. Yet, in turn, the Senate asked him for protection from the increasingly powerful military leader Julius Caesar. Caesar “crossed the Rubicon” River with his legions in 49 BC, thereby sparking a civil war, which he won in 45BC. His assassination in 44 resulted in thirteen more years of civil war resulting the victory of Octavian (Julius’ grandnephew and heir, soon to be Augustus Caesar), and two of Julius’s former generals, Marc Antony and Lepidus. The Italian war veterans never did get their land… at least not in Italy. Some were bought off by being given land in distant provinces now under Roman control. As Roman soldiers and citizens increasingly settled down forming towns in the outlying provinces, however, the Roman Republic, turning into empire, was to gain a new kind of strength. The Depravity of Roman Culture We tend to think of the Greek and Roman cultures as refined and moral, partly because of their beautiful and peaceful looking statues, because of their philosophers who advocated study and valued decency , and because of their advances in the systematic study of mathematics (Pythagoras and Euclid), engineering (Archimedes) and medicine (Hippocrates). Aristotle (384-322), perhaps the most famous and multi-competent of the Greek philosopher/scientists, was a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. Indeed, the upper-class Romans used Greek tutors to educate their children quite often, and their sons were expected to be bilingual in Latin and Greek (the language of the educated). Nevertheless, the Romans put a much higher value on the military, which became a primary means to obtain power in the Roman world. The dark side of the Greek and Roman societies can be seen in their attitudes toward manual labor, their treatment of women and of slaves, and their brutal treatment of those who opposed them. One of the duties of the armies of Rome was to bring back a steady supply of slaves, which were used in Italy for both domestic and field labor purposes. The slaves were not allowed to marry or bear children so that their population would not become indigenous. The influx of slaves soon made doing ones own work a sign of low status, and even poorer gentry would have personal slaves, though they could barely afford to feed them. Women had a very low status during this time. They were not only unable to vote but were kept under the control of husbands, fathers or male relatives. It was both legal and culturally acceptable to dispose of female babies through exposure or dumping the newborns into the sewage system. By the time of Augustus Caesar, the shortage of women was becoming severe, and girls were being married off even before puberty. Far from being exalted in the Roman religion, as some have claimed, the status of goddesses like Athena, in Athens, Diana, in Ephesus of Asia Minor, or Cybele, the mother goddess of Asia Minor, etc., did not bring good treatment to the average women. Even the women involved in the temple worship were used as prostitutes and not free to leave or marry. Long before the time of Jesus, the Romans had already begun crucifying people. During one rebellion alone, the roads outside of Jerusalem were lined for miles with crucified men. There were three slave revolts in Italy itself during the period of the Roman Republic, known as the “three servile wars.” The most successful and famous of these was the last one (73-72 BC), led by a former slave/gladiator named Spartacus. After breaking out of a gladiator training prison, he collected some 70,000 slaves and almost succeeded in escaping northward over the alps (where many of the German-background slaves originated from). Eventually all but about 11,000 were killed in battle, 5000 escaped and 6000 were crucified along the road outside of Rome known as the Via Appia. Crassus, one of the military leaders that finally put down the uprising, left the bodies to rot on the crosses, and may have left them there as skeletons for many years to serve as a permanent warning against insurrection. The Jewish People during the Intertestamental Period After Alexander the Great died, Palestine ended up under the control of the Ptolemies, who also ruled Egypt. Many Jewish people then resettled in Alexandria, the new Greek city of Egypt. However, the Jews in Jerusalem had more in common with the Aramaic-speaking Syrians who were ruled by the Seleucid Greek family. In 198 BC, when Antiochus III the Great, the Seleucid leader, won Palestine in the battle of Panion (Panium), Roman rule was but a decade away. By 188 BC, he was forced to sign a treaty with Rome and send his son Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who was destined to become an infamous figure in Jewish history, as a hostage to Rome. When Antiochus IV came to the throne of Palestine in 175 BC, after some murderous intrigue, he began selling the role of High Priest of Jerusalem to the highest bidder, even though he had no power to appoint the high priest. He tore down the walls of Jerusalem in order to build a fortress there, and plundered the temple for loot he could sell to pay for his war expenses against the Ptolomies (who were still trying to regain Palestine). Throughly Hellenized by his time in Rome and Greece, he sought to make Jerusalem a Greek city. He ordered that God had to be called “Zeus Olympius” in the temple, and that the Jews must sacrifice a swine to Zeus Olympius in their various towns. This edict was the last straw, and a Jew named Mattathias and his five sons led a revolt that became known as the Maccabean Revolt (after one of his sons, Judas the Maccabee, meaning “the hammer” who became the leader after his father died). Starting a guerrilla-style war, the Maccabees were joined by the Hasidim (or “pious one”) and attacked Jews that were cooperating and the Syrian forces of Antiochus IV. By 164 AD Judas had won a truce with the Seleucid Syrians, and he tore down the profaned altar in the temple, building a new one, and rededicating it with a festival of lights – a festival that has been celebrated ever since as Hanukkah (the feast of Dedication) by the Jewish people. Though the struggle with Seleucid rulers of Syria was far from over, after Judas was killed in battle, his brother Jonathan was able to negotiate more and more independence for Judea, and eventually was appointed high priest of the temple by the next Seleucid ruler (in 152 BC). While solidifying Jewish control of Jerusalem, this move also ironically confirmed the right of the Gentile King to appoint the Jewish high priest. Jonathan was killed in 142 BC by the next Seleucid ruler. Nevertheless, the Maccabees had succeeded in establishing a sense of Jewish nationhood and had established the precedent of a new level of religious and political autonomy for the Jews. Most importantly, they revived a commitment to the Law and the Temple, which shows up in the New Testament when Jesus, Stephen and Paul are all accused of two things, speaking against the temple and against the Jewish laws or of violating the Law. The Hasidim became the Law-focused Pharisees of Jesus’ day and the Essenes, who hid the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, the Seleucid Syrians stopped trying to force the Jews to become Greek. The Maccabean era was also filled with apocalyptic speculation and many writings later deemed apocryphal, and the people began to expect the arrival of a messiah following this period of tribulation. The descendants of the Maccabees, through the brother named Simon, became the Hasmonean rulers of Judea from 142 BC-63 BC. They served as priests as well as military and political leaders, and were even granted the right to mint their own coins. Eventually these rulers extended their power to cover all the area formerly controlled by King David. By the time of the third Hasmonean ruler, Judas Aristobulus, they had begun to use the title “King” though they were not descendants from David. Judas Aristobulus is known for starving his mother to death, and then being poisoned by his wife within the year. His wife then married his brother Alexander Jannaeus, the next Hasmonean king. As they were increasingly opposed by the Pharisees, a civil war broke out in which some 50,000 Jews were killed (including both sides). Finally, the Pharisees turned to the Syrian Seleucid king to help them fight against their own king Alexander, the fourth Hasmonean ruler, descendant of the Maccabees. As the ultimate irony, Alexander crucified 800 hundred of his own people, Pharisees, in retaliation and killed their families in front of them while they hung on the crosses. Fifteen years later, when the Roman General Pompey gained control over Syria (64 BC), by which time the Jews were very willing to end the Hasmonean dynasty. A half-Jew, half-Idumean (non-Jews who had been forced to convert when they were overrun by the early Hasmoneans) named Antipater, who worked first for Pompey and later for Julius Caesar, was made Procurator of Judea. One of his sons, Herod, was made governer of Galilee, but, after his father’s death, ended up in a power struggle with the remaining Hasmoneans. In 40 BC Herod fled to Rome, where he got himself appointed the King of Judea. With Roman military support, he returned,invaded and captured Jerusalem. He sought to mend offenses with the Jews, who despised him by now, by marrying a descendent of the Hasmoneans and putting in another as high priest. Instead, he became increasingly suspicious of intrigue on the part of his own family and eventually put to death his wife, her brother, and three of his own sons. Even his magnificent reconstruction of the 2nd temple, begun around 19 BC, did not win him the favor of the Jewish people. After he died, in 4 BC, probably the year Jesus was born, another revolt broke out in Judea. Varus, the Roman governer of Syria, stepped in to put down the revolt, crucifying 2000 Jewish rebels. In the light of the difficulties and turmoil leading up to the time when Jesus lived, it is no surprise that the great hope of His disciples and others was that He would establish an earthly kingdom of unending peace. ​ ## 7 The Rise of Christianity The growth of Christianity is an amazing story. Growing from a handful of people at the time of Jesus’ death, by the end of the third century AD nearly 30% of the people in the Roman Empire were Christians. Starting as a small group of fearful disciples, it has spread in the last 2000 years to incorporate over 2 billion people, 1/3 of the world’s population. Three out of four Christians are no longer Westerners, though Europe and America were the center of Christianity for centuries. While Christianity has been hard hit in post-enlightenment, atheistic Western Europe, it has been growing faster than the world’s population overall. The Pentecostal branch of Christianity, begun in the early 1900’s, is growing so fast that by the year 2025, there will be over 1 billion Pentacostal Christians alone! (see Philip Jenkins book, The Next Christendom) The truly remarkable thing is not the splitting and spreading, at exponential rates, of Christian institutions, often at odds with each other and even Christ’s teachings, but rather the growing worldwide allegiance to the person of Jesus Christ, a verifiable historical figure. Who was this Jesus? How could He command passionate, life-sacrificing allegiance of people from such a vast variety of people groups, cultures, and languages? How is it that He continues to build His everlasting kingdom through powerless but passionate people? Empires rise and fall, leaders come and go, civilizations build and disintegrate, but steadily, quietly, and faithfully, Jesus has been establishing His unseen kingdom on earth. The God of the Bible consistently affirms that He is actively taking back the earth and the people He created from their enslavement to the kingdom of darkness. History has a beginning and an end, and the most crucial point in God’s plan to redeem the world is the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of His incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Setting of Jesus’ birth By the time Jesus was born, two thousand years had passed since the calling of Abraham, one thousand years since forms of Hinduism first developed, five centuries since Zoroaster (Zarathustra), Confucius, and Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) lived. The short-lived empire of Alexander had been eclipsed by a new empire, Rome. Palestine, long in the crossroads of trade routes and the paths of armies marching through to conquer bigger civilizations, was a cauldron of rebellion and intrigue at the time Jesus was born. Herod the Great, the non-Jew on the Jewish throne, was the king of Judea. He was quick to murder even his own children if he felt they threatened his power. Hardly the peaceful countryside we see in the movies about Jesus! The Palestine Jesus was born into had foreign Roman troops permanently stationed there because they were regularly needed to stamp out Jewish unrest and to control the Jewish factions that would even attack each other. The Various Jewish Sects during Jesus’ Lifetime When Jesus was growing up in Nazareth, he was most likely exposed to the turbulent political and theological climate of His day. There were primarily four philosophical factions among the Jewish people, according to Josephus, a Jewish historian from the first century: the Pharisees, the Sadduces, the Essenes and the Zealots. The Pharisees The Pharisees, who are mentioned the most often in the Gospels, grew out of the Hasidim or “pure ones.” The Hasidim had joined in the guerrilla warfare of the Maccabees (a Jewish family) against the Syrian-Greek rulers over Palestine. They had been enraged by the Syrian-Greek (Seleucid) ruler who had commanded the Jews to offer a swine sacrifice on their altars and to call their God “Zeus Olympias.” They also saw their allegiance to Jewish traditions and the Torah being undermined by the Hellenizing influence of the Greek culture flooding in. Believing both in resurrection and angels, the Pharisees followed the Law scrupulously and added oral traditions to the Law with legalistic fervor. They seemed very interested in Jesus possibly being the Messiah, but were denounced by Him as hypocrites. Probably the most famous Pharisee teacher is Hillel the Elder, who lived during the time of Herod the Great and the early life of Jesus, probably teaching from 30 BC to 10 AD. He is famous for having said, “What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go study it.” This statement is actually the passive flip side of Jesus’ proactive summation of the whole Law as He stated it to a teacher of the Law (Mark 12:30-31): “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and will all your mind, and will all your strength… and Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5 in the first part and Leviticus 19:18 in the second part. Buddha is also reputed to have stated the passive form of this command: “Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do to you.” While many try to equate these three statements by the Pharisee leader Hillel, Jesus and Buddha, it is important to realize that there is a significant difference between not harming others and loving them. Jesus goes even farther, saying “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. If you love those who love you what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that?” Matthew 5:43-47. Do you see how Jesus was challenging those like the Pharisees who thought they were righteous? He was saying: your standards for yourself are pitifully low, even the pagans do what you are doing! Not only did the Pharisees of Jesus’ day think they were the most righteous god-fearing people around, most of the people around them would have agreed. How shocking it must have been for the average man to hear Jesus say, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 5:20. The Sadducees The Sadducees were the second major Jewish philosophical faction at the time of Jesus. The name of this group derives from a priest of David called Zadok (II Samuel 15:24-37). The Zadokites were the ruling priestly family from the time of Solomon through the intertestimental period and the revolt of the Maccabees. Some of the Zadokite priests left Jerusalem and joined the Essene community (see below). Since they left no literature, we know the Sadducees primarily through what the New Testament says about them and writings of the opposing Pharisees. The aristocratic Sadducees were conservative in their economic, political and religious views. They were leaders in the society that had every thing to gain by keeping society stable. Not believing in either the resurrection or angels, they accepted only the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses) as scripture, disregarding the Prophets or the Writings (Psalms, etc.). Both Pharisees and Sadducees were in religious leadership roles during the time of Jesus. In Acts 23, the apostle Paul was called to give an account before the Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish judicial body in Jerusalem which had earlier tried Jesus). Paul, “knowing that some of them Sadducees and some of them were Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.’” Paul thereby causes a violent dispute to erupt between the two parties in the Sanhedrin. The disagreement was so violent they almost tear him apart and the Roman soldiers have to rescue him. The Essenes The Essenes were a group that split off of the Pharisees and withdrew into the desert, establishing a community at Qumran about 130 BC under the leadership of “the teacher of righteousness.” Related Essene communities lived in camps and villages elsewhere. They believed in three different messiahs, “the prophet,” the “messiah of Aaron,” a priestly teacher of the Law, and “the messiah of Israel,” a political victor. They believed that revelation from God was a two-stage process, the “raz” or mystery and the “pesher” or interpretation. These stages meant that the prophets did not fully understand the meaning of what they were writing. This perspective is similar to the perspective shown when the Old Testament is interpreted by the writers of the New Testament. The Essenes wrote or copied the “Dead Sea Scrolls” which were discovered hidden in caves by the Dead Sea in 1951 AD by a shepherd boy throwing rocks into small cave openings. The Qumran community was destroyed around 68AD, just before the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman army. The Zealots The fourth major Jewish faction, and by far the most violent, was the Zealots, also known as the “fourth philosophy.” In 6 AD, when Jesus would have been about 10 years old, Judas the Galilean led an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans in Galilee (where Jesus was growing up). After that failure, the Zealots were relatively peaceful until after Jesus’ death (around 30 AD). However, around 44 AD, the year that James the brother of Jesus was killed by fellow Jews, their terrorist activities increased. A famous subgroup of the Zealots, sometimes considered an independent sect, were the “Sicarii” (named after the daggers they carried) who would assassinate Jews cooperating with the Romans, by stabbing them in crowded situations then slip away. The Zealots and the Sicarii played a major part, during the most violent of the Jewish revolts against the Romans in AD 66-70. How Jesus’ life and ministry exhibits the ongoing redeeming purposes of God In Year 1, you studied the “history of the cosmos” from a biblical perspective. It came down to three basic points: 1) God creates/reveals, 2) Satan destroys/distorts, and 3) God redeems. We have been tracing the redemptive mission of God through the centuries up until this time; however, when God chose to enter the world as His Word incarnated in the Lord Jesus Christ, redemption moves to a whole new level. His kingdom was re-established on the earth and has been battering down the strongholds of Satan, the ruler of this world, ever since. Jesus was a descendent of King David, but other than that, he was simply a common man with no aristocratic connections. The men he called to leave their professions and follow him were likewise commoners. The fact that his life has grown to be by far the most influential life ever lived on this planet is truly amazing, and downright perplexing. He taught for barely three years, and after his death and resurrection, just a dozen male and a few female followers remained. His teachings show that he had both a profound respect for scripture (what today is called the “Old Testament”) and that he understood the depth of its meaning in ways that astounded those around him. He says, “do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 5:17-19). Then Jesus goes on to explain that the command “Do not murder” also means that to be angry with your brother will make you subject to judgment… so make peace quickly. Likewise, “not committing adultery” also means that lusting in your heart is evil. In the “Sermon on the Mount” Jesus explained to a stunned crowd, who hardly could live up to the Law as written, the depth of righteousness God expects from His people. Jesus was revealing to the world what God is like and what He thinks to an extent never revealed before. When we are confused about what God thinks or what He is like, we only need to look at Jesus and listen to what He says. But Jesus was not only the clearest revelation of who God is. He was also sent into the world to provide redemption for mankind. Jesus was a “new Adam,” who born without sin, would be tempted in every way. But, unlike Adam, Jesus obeyed God and did not sin. Thus when Jesus paid the price for sin, death, He was able to do so as a sacrifice on our behalf not His own. Paul explains: “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin… If the many died by the trespass of one man, how much more did God’s grace, and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to many…Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:12 ff). What does this mean? Through the Fall all of creation became distorted, and death entered the cosmos. But through the redeeming death and resurrection of Jesus, all things are being set right. In Christ, we can have our corrupted hearts renewed, we can become “a new creation.” It is hard to even imagine how amazing this is… that through no merit of our own, we can be made brand new, completely righteous. Not only can we start all over with a new life, we can do it without being a slave any more to the “sin nature” that has plagued mankind since the time of Adam. Our broken relationship with God is healed. “Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” Romans 8:8-9. In Jesus Christ we see God clearly and also have all relational barriers between Him and us removed. Wehave been made spiritually alive once more! Did Jesus think He was the Son of God? Although Jesus did not deny the title of “Messiah/the Christ” when it was given him by others, he never referred to himself by that name in the New Testament record. He also only twice referred to himself as the “Son of God.” The term he used most often of himself was the “Son of Man,” and consequently many take this to mean that he considered himself a mere man. However, in order to understand what is meant by these terms, we have to look at how they are used in the Old Testament and they would have been understood by the people he was speaking to at the time. The Son of God The “Son of God” is a title that is based on an Old Testament prophecy given by the prophet Nathan to King David. Nathan says to David in II Samuel 7:11-16 “The Lord declares to you [David] that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom…. I will be his father and he will be my son….Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me, your throne will be established forever.” This statement is a Messianic prophecy, as David’s kingdom only lasted several more generations. From that time on, the kings of Israel who were descendents of King David were called “the Son of God,” no doubt in hopes they would establish an eternal kingdom. However, when David’s earthly kingdom ended, the term “Son of God” came to refer to the coming Messiah (which means “Anointed One,” since kings were anointed). The Son of God in the Jewish context was believed to be a future successor of King David, a human king with divine destiny. In the original prophesy given by the prophet Nathan, God uses the phrase “I will be his father and he will be my son” to show the unique relationship he would have with the Messiah. But the term “Son of God” does not mean that God, like the Greek gods of Jesus’ day, came down and had sex with a woman, producing a half-god offspring with special powers. Some heretical branches of Christianity, like the Arians, interpreted the term “Son of God” in ways that made Jesus into a demi-god. Later you will see how the Muslims react against these heretical understandings of the term. The Son of Man The term Jesus uses most often for himself is “Son of Man.” The term “the Son of Man” is used in three prophetic books: Ezekial, Isaiah and Daniel. In these books, “the Son of Man” is an awesome figure, beyond human. That the Jewish leaders understood the significance of Jesus using the term for himself is clearly seen in passages like Matthew 26:63-65. Jesus had been arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin, the highest ruling body of the Jews. They accused him of having predicted he could destroy the temple. “Then the high priest said to him, ‘I charge you under the oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God,’ ‘Yes, it is as you say,’ Jesus replied.” In this passage, the high priest is asking if Jesus thinks he is the Messiah (“Christ” is the Greek word for “Messiah), equating that term with the term “Son of God.” Jesus says, “Yes.” However, to make clear that he is not about to set up an earthly kingdom, Jesus went on to say: ‘But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”’ At that point the high priest tore his clothes and said, ‘He has spoken blasphemy!…’ ” Jesus was claiming to be “the Son of Man” from the prophetic books, a term that left no question about His divine authority. Incredibly, Jesus was claiming that in the future he would come back in the clouds sitting at God’s right hand! The high priest immediately denounced him for having spoken blasphemy. Jesus was referring to a prophetic passage in Daniel 7:13-14, where Daniel records: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days [God] and was led into His presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” Jesus was claiming that he was this “son of man” who would be given authority over all peoples and have an everlasting kingdom. This claim was clearly understood by the priest who accused him of blasphemy. Therefore, those who claim that Jesus did not see himself as the divine savior of mankind are wrong. He clearly saw himself as the fulfillment of these Messianic prophecies. He also saw himself as the future judge of the whole earth. For example, Jesus taught the disciples earlier: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats…”(Matthew 25:31-32). Jesus was saying that God had given him the authority to be a heavenly king and judge the whole earth in the end times. The disciples found it hard to believe that the Messiah was not going to set up an earthly kingdom as they had hoped. It was even harder to believe that mighty the Son of Man, would have to suffer and die. They reacted with shock when Jesus said things like: “… the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. They will condemn him to death, and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life,” (Matthew 20:18-19). They could not believe that the great Son of Man would not go directly to his glorified state, but instead had to suffer. It made no sense to them. How could an everlasting kingdom be established if the Messiah died? The disciples did not realize that one of the roles of the Son of Man was to be the second Adam. They did not understand until later the need for a sacrifice, once for all of mankind. Jesus, while being sinless, took upon himself the payment for sin, namely death, and thereby freed mankind from the “law of sin and death” that had begun with the fall of Adam (see Romans 5). The disciples only began to understand this when Jesus rose from the dead. But though Jesus spoke to them for 40 days about the kingdom of heaven, they still expected him, as the Messiah they had waited for, to immediately vanquish the Romans and set up an earthly kingdom. In Acts 1:6 they ask him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” Instead he instructs them to be his witnesses to the whole world and rises up into the clouds. As they were staring intently in shock into the clouds, two angels appear to them and say, “Why are you standing here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven,”(Acts 1:11). The Disciples Carry On Just before Jesus ascended to heaven he made an astounding statement, especially considering He only had a small group of followers at that time. Echoing the passage in Daniel 7:13-14, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” (Matthew 28:18-20). ALL authority in heaven? ALL authority on earth, even? Of the eleven disciples that were there when this happened, it says in Matthew 28:17, “some doubted.” That makes sense! It is hard to believe that Jesus has all authority, even after all these centuries when the worship of Jesus has spread inexorably to most regions of the world. Jesus was saying not only that he has authority over all the angels and demons, but that he also has authority over all the powers on earth, the governing authorities, political, religious, and social. Therefore the disciples, and all of Jesus’ followers, could go now to all the nations (ethne, meaning families or people groups) of the earth bringing his message. Jesus has authority over anything their governments say, over all of their religious powers, over all of the laws, all the armies, all the cultural traditions. In addition, Jesus promised that he himself will go with them everywhere and throughout all time. As Jesus instructed them, the disciples remained in Jerusalem through the Pentecost, a Jewish festival commemorating the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai (50 days after the Passover, which first took place in Egypt before the exodus). Jewish people from all over the world came back to Jerusalem for the Passover and the Pentecost celebrations. God chose the day that the Law was given to the Jewish people to give the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus, the Law written on their hearts! When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in Acts 2, they began to speak in languages that they had not learned and many of the God-fearing Jews (and Jewish converts) “from every nation” staying in Jerusalem could understand their message. According to the second chapter of Acts, the people hearing Peter’s message had come from Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, Iraq, Palestine, Greece, Egypt, Libya, Italy, Crete, Cyprus, and Arabia, to name some of the places listed using their modern names. Peter gave them the wonderful message that they too could receive forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, going on to say, “This promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off—all whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:39). Peter did not preach a message of personal peace and happiness. Instead he knew that this was a fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. About three thousand believed that day. Now the Sadducees, who didn’t even believe in resurrection of the dead, where incensed that the disciples were preaching that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead, and promptly arrested Peter and John. At his trial before the Sanhedrin, a man that Peter had healed who had been a crippled beggar for many years, was able to witness on his behalf. As a result, the Sanhedrin, a the meeting of the Jewish rulers, elders and teachers of the Law (part Pharisee and part Sadducee), let them go. But they command Peter and John NOT to teach about Jesus anymore! However, not only did they continue to teach, they healed people all over Jerusalem, even Peter’s shadow healed the people it touched! As the movement rapidly grew, alarmed Jewish leaders arrested one of the first deacons, Stephen, on charges of undermining the Law of Moses and speaking against the temple, the two cornerstones of Judaism in that time period. Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin, recorded in Acts 7, reviewed the history of the patriarchs, upholding the importance of Moses, but accuses the Jewish leaders of being like the Jews in the time of Moses: “ You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you have received the law… but have not obeyed it.” They covered their ears and started yelling at the top of their voices. Dragging Stephen out of the city, they stoned him to death, while a young Pharisee named Saul held their cloaks. Stephen was the first recorded follower of Jesus to be martyred. The stoning of Stephen sparked a great persecution against believers in the city of Jerusalem. All the believers, except the apostles, fled Jerusalem, taking the message of Christ with them wherever they go. Saul followed after them, dragging them out of houses and putting them into prison. Nevertheless, the church began to grow rapidly, even started to spread into the non-Jewish areas like Samaria. The rise of the church and the inclusion of the Gentiles The church in Jerusalem formed after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Most of the 12 disciples stayed in Jerusalem which was the center of the growing movement called “the Way.” Initially, all the people becoming followers of Jesus were Jewish. And, when you read the presentations of the Gospel given by Stephen and others, they clearly believe Jesus to be the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham on behalf of their people. Later, Philip, one of the deacons, began preaching in non-Jewish areas. John and Peter followed up Philip’s work by preaching in many Samaritan villages. Philip won a well-to-do Ethiopian eunuch to the Lord, a treasurer of Candace, queen of Ethiopia (Acts 8:27). So, even at this early date, the church was beginning to spread into people groups that were honoring the Jewish God though they were not quite Jewish converts. However, until the time of Paul, faith in Jesus as the Messiah (in Greek, “the Christ”) had spread largely through the Jewish community, in essence forming another Jewish sect. Saul (later known by his Greek name Paul), a zealous Pharisee, was converted directly by Jesus, who appeared to him when he was taking a trip to Damascus, Syria, to persecute Jewish believers in Jesus in that city. Both Paul, in his letters, and his companion Luke, who wrote the gospel of that name, emphasized God’s plan to save both the Jews and the Greeks/gentiles (all non-Jews) through faith in Jesus the Messiah. At a famous meeting with the leaders of the Jerusalem church, called “the Jerusalem council”, the apostle Paul won the right for Gentile (all non-Jewish) converts to be exempted from Jewish religious requirements. They all agreed that salvation comes to people not through the keeping of any law, but through the righteousness given to us through the redemptive death and victorious resurrection of Jesus. Deciding to include the Gentiles was not a new idea to God, who throughout the entire Old Testament made His glory known to Gentile nations on many occasions and in many ways. When He made His covenant with Abraham, 2000 and some years earlier, He promised that all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. The apostles at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) used the predictions of scripture as well as the fact that God had sovereignly given the Holy Spirit to the Roman Centurion Cornelius’s family, to affirm what God was doing in Gentiles coming to faith. However, it was to become quite a shock to the Jewish believers as Gentiles began to respond in great numbers. The Jewish people were used to being shunned by the Gentiles or even persecuted by them. The Jews themselves never ate with or even entered the home of a Gentile person for fear of being defiled (as Peter is quick to point out when he first visits Cornelius). As a result, the decision made in Acts 15 to allow Gentiles to become believers in the Messiah of the Jews, without becoming Jews, being circumcised and keeping the Jewish dietary restrictions, was hotly contested for much of the rest of the New Testament. In fact, in the letter Paul wrote to the Galatians, he calls Gentile believers “bewitched” if they try to add to their salvation, given by grace, an outward righteousness by keeping the Jewish religious laws. Paul fought hard to keep the Gospel of grace pure by freeing the Gentile believers from the religious requirements of the Jews, but later the Gentile believers took his teachings too far and began to denounce the Jewish believers if they kept their own laws, a position Paul repeatedly rejected. Paul made clear that those who grew up circumcised should not become “uncircumcised” (throw off their Jewish religious requirements) and those who had grown up “uncircumcised” (not Jewish) should not become circumcised (Jewish). Paul taught that it was extremely important to understand that neither keeping nor rejecting the Jewish law was necessary for salvation. The Fate of the Early Jewish Followers of Jesus and the Writing of the Gospels In Jerusalem and Palestine, tensions continued to rise between the Romans and the Jewish sects. Many Jews believed that the time was ripe for the Messiah to appear and rescue them from the Romans. One of the reasons for believing this was the beautiful renovation being done to the Temple in Jerusalem. The second temple had been built originally in the time of Zerubbabel (515 BC), but was completely transformed into an extravagant new temple by King Herod starting a few years before Jesus’ birth. This was the temple that Jesus was dedicated in as a baby, and visited with his parents when he was twelve, staying behind in Jerusalem when his parents left for Nazareth. Jesus preached in this temple, largely completed by c. 25. In Luke 21:1-24, Jesus predicted that it would be completely destroyed. His prediction came to pass in 70 AD. Since none of the New Testament books refer to the actual horror of the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, though Jesus predicts it, it is probable that they were all written previous to this event. Paul mostly wrote his letters in the decade around 50 AD, and was most likely executed in Rome around 64 AD, during the reign of Nero. When war between the Romans and the Jews broke out in 66 AD, some of the early Christians were no doubt trapped in Jerusalem with the other Jewish citizens and refugees. However, much of the church of Jerusalem had already been scattered to other places by previous persecution from the Jews. James the brother of John had been killed early on, around 44 AD, under the reign of Herod Agrippa I (see Acts 12:2). James, the brother of Jesus, who had become a leader of the Jerusalem church, but was stoned by other Jews around 62 AD, which caused further scattering of the Jerusalem believers. Perhaps God allowed the persecution to scatter the Jewish believers precisely because those who remained were surely killed during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The center of the Jewish church moved to the town of Pella, east of the Jordan. Those who maintained the belief that Jesus was in fact “God with us” were called Nazarenes, a name (Nisrani) still common in the Arab world today for Christians. Other Jewish believers, known as Ebionites, began to teach that the divine spirit of “the Christ” or Messiah, descended on Jesus when he was baptised and left before he was crucified, though they also believed in his resurrection. They seem to have strictly kept the Jewish law and respected only Matthew’s gospel. Matthew’s gospel was probably written initially in Hebrew, c.40 or 50AD, and translated into Aramaic and Greek according to most ancient church fathers (including Papias, Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome), as well as ancient Arabic, Persian, and Syrian versions. Recent scholarship by Carsten Thiede, studying the style of the ancient Hebrew fragments of Matthew, confirm this dating and theory. Some also note that not just Thomas but Bartholomew made it all the way to India, the latter bringing the Hebrew version of Matthew with him, encountered by a later missionary Pantaneaus in c. 180 and some copies were brought back. In any case, all the early church fathers agree that Matthew’s gospel was written first for the Jewish believers, Mark’s gospel was written soon after, dictated by Peter or after his death, Luke’s gospel was written for a Gentile audience, and refers to the previous two, and John’s gospel was written last and takes a different approach. All of the gospel writers contain some similar material that was probably oral traditions they had remembered among themselves, though some scholars feel there must have been a small written collection of Jesus’s sayings that has been lost, and have called it “Q.” The Jewish rebellion of 66-70, when Jerusalem was destroyed, and the later Bar Kokhba rebellion of 132-135 when the Jews were kicked out of Palestine, resulted in such a decimation of the Jewish people that many scholars think that it also dealt the death blow to the Jewish church, and that from that point the church was largely Gentile.. However, it appears that believers continued in Jewish circles for another couple centuries or more in the diaspora around the Mediterranean and archeology has found most Christian meeting places in the Jewish sections of towns into the 3rd century. The Jewish-Christian community in India hung on and received an influx of some 400 Palestinian/Syrian Jewish Christians in the year 345, by most accounts. They called themselves Knanaites, leading most to believe they came from Canaan (Palestine/Israel). This date makes sense, as during that time Jews were forced to decide if they were Jews or Christians, in Constantine’s Roman Empire, with “Jewish believers in Christ” not being an option. Also, Christians in Persia came under persecution during this time period, so many believers farther east fled the region. In any case, the Jewish believers who arrived in India used the Aramaic/Syrian language, which continues to be used to some degree to this day in some Indian Christian denominations. One denomination continues under the authority of the Syrian Orthodox (the Malankara Church). The native Christians that descended from Hindus that Thomas had won to Christ became known as Mar Thoma (St Thomas) Christians. The Great Revolt of 66-70 AD There were many causes for the disastrous Jewish revolt in 66-70 AD that ended in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Hostility between the Jewish people, trying to maintain their separate worship and identity, and the Hellenized Romans had been continually growing since before the time of Christ. Anti-Semitic literature multiplied during this period, Greeks arguing that the Mosaic laws made the Jews enemies of the Greeks, and Egyptians arguing that the Jews had no real claim on Palestine. As emperor worship spread throughout the Roman Empire, Roman-Jewish relations rapidly deteriorated. The perpetually insolvent Greek-background rulers that Rome put over Palestine didn’t help, as they regularly raided the Temple treasury for revenue, inflaming Jewish hatred of their overlords. Greek intellectuals whipped up hostility between the Romans and the Jews as well. Finally the Emperor Claudius issued an edict supporting Jewish rights to religious freedom. But the edict also warned them to respect the religion of others,adding that if the Jews proved intolerant, he would treat them as people who spread “a general plague throughout the world.” There is no doubt that the rapidly growing Christian sect, still perceived as a form of Judaism, only increased tensions, and threatened the unique status the Jews had in the empire as the only ones exempted from emperor worship. Fear of this disruption may have been part of the motivation behind the Judaizers in the New Testament who sought to get the Christians to follow all of the Jewish law. As it says in Galatians 6:12, “Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.” Here we see that the Jewish believers did not want to get caught up in the persecution that was about to explode on the Greek believers. After Emperor Claudius died, perhaps murdered, his nephew and adoptive son Nero became emperor at age 17, the youngest emperor yet. Nero had already married Claudius’ daughter Octavia, when she was only 11 years old, and he was soon looking elsewhere for sexual liaisons. After a series of scandalous love affairs and a drunken lifestyle, Nero divorced Octavia for infertility, and she died shortly after at the age of 20. A couple of years later, in 64 AD, a massive fire burned down much of Rome and Nero chose to deflect blame from himself by attributing the fire to the new sect called the “Christians.” The following is recorded by Tacitus (his Annals XV.44), a Roman historian of the period (notice the anti-Christian sentiment): And so, to get rid of this rumor [that he himself had started the fire], Nero set up as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Nero’s scapegoats (the Christians) were the perfect choice because it temporarily relieved pressure of the various rumors going around Rome…Christus, from whom their name is derived, was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Checked for a moment, this pernicious superstition again broke out, not only in Judea, the source of the evil, but even in Rome…. Accordingly, arrest was first made of those who confessed; then, on their evidence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as because of [their] hatred for the human race. Besides being put to death they were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clothed in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open his grounds for the display, and was putting on a show in the circus, where he mingled with the people in the dress of charioteer or drove about in his chariot. All this gave rise to a feeling of pity, even towards men whose guilt merited the most exemplary punishment; for it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good but to gratify the cruelty of an individual. It is probable that both Paul, who had been under house arrest in Rome for a couple years, and Peter were executed in Rome around this time, 64AD. The antipathy toward the growing Christian sect only worsened the general feeling toward Judea and the Jews as well. Also in the year 64, the last constructions on Herod’s temple were completed, possibly triggering a renewed sense of patriotism among the Jews, and sparking an expectation of the coming of a military messiah. Then an anti-Jewish pogrom broke out in the towns of Judea in 66 AD, causing many Jews to flee into Jerusalem, some attacking the Roman garrison there and massacring the soldiers. As the radical Jews, mostly middle and lower class, took over Jerusalem, they also turned on the aristocratic and merchant Jews who had cooperated with the Romans. They burned the Temple archives so that all records of their debts would be destroyed. While four Roman legions marched toward Jerusalem to put down the rebellion, the Jewish factions, barricaded inside, began to fight each other. The Zealots held the Antonia and the Temple; the Sicarii ran the upper city; and other militant Jewish factions, each with their own apocalyptic view of how things should go, held the rest. Most of the citizens and recently arrived refugees were held captive as much by the factions inside the walls as by the Romans outside the walls. The Jewish factions raided and burned each other’s food stores, increasing the starvation problem. If they tried to sneak out of the city, Jews were killed by other Jews, who saw them as deserters. General Vespasian laid siege to Jerusalem from 66 to 69AD, when he was called back to Rome to become the next emperor. The siege was taken over by his son Titus, 29, who with 60,000 men and the latest siege equipment was finally able to take the city. The Romans had to fight every step of the way, finally taking the temple, burning and dismantling it stone by stone. It took another month to take Herod’s citadel. Titus took the captured surviving Jewish leaders back to Rome for his triumphal procession, commemorated by an arch that stands to this day, with the captured menorah from the Temple carved into the stone. He also took the Temple curtain that enclosed the Holy of Holies and a copy of the scriptures, but they have been lost. The leaders were executed in Rome’s Forum. The people of Jerusalem were massacred, sold as slaves, and died in the arenas of the empire. The walls of Jerusalem were turned to rubble. The victorious Titus became the next emperor of Rome. A few more Jewish strongholds were soon taken, the last and most famous being Herod’s great fortress of Masada, towering 1,300 feet above the desert floor, and reachable only by a winding path. The fort had been taken from the Romans in 66 AD by the son of Judah the Galilean, founder of the Zealots. The Romans finally built a huge dirt ramp to breach the walls in 72 AD, only to find that the leaders had persuaded the defenders to commit suicide. Only 2 women and 5 children escaped by hiding; 960 people died. It would seem this was the end of Judea, but there was to be one more massive uprising before the Jewish people were driven from their own land for almost two thousand years. The Last of the Jewish Rebellions The last of the Jewish rebellions took place during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. He banned circumcision, which he considered a form of self-mutilation, giving the death penalty to those who refused to comply. He also set about to build a new pagan city on the ruins of Jerusalem, and a temple to Jupiter, the Roman chief god, on the Temple Mount (the remaining platform that Herod had constructed to rebuild and extend the temple of Zerubbabel). Understandably, the Jews were incensed! This time not just the Jews in Jerusalem but the whole population rose up in protest (132 AD), and even some Gentiles, possibly Christians, joined with them. The Romans eventually had 12 legions in Judea fighting against guerrilla warfare, systematically splitting up, isolating, and forcing pockets of resistance to surrender. Jerusalem, lacking walls, was indefensible, thus the Jews held various fortresses and hid out in tunnels. The most famous leader of this rebellion was Simon bar Kokhba (meaning “the star”) who some believed to be the fulfillment of the prophecy in Numbers “there shall come a star out of Jacob.” Jewish sources say that one of the greatest scholars of that period, Akiva ben Joseph (c. 50-135 AD) declared bar Kokhba to be the Messiah. However, in 1952, many letters were discovered in a cave, written in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, signed by bar Kokhba, who called himself Koseva. He does not refer to himself as the Messiah, but as a prince (Nasi), and appears to be a practical, harsh, nationalist leader. He gained control of a fairly large area and even minted his own coins. The last stronghold fell in 135 AD. The Romans destroyed in all 55 forts, 985 towns, and all villages and settlements that had put up resistance. A Roman historian recorded that 580,000 Jews died fighting and many more by starvation, fire, and massacre. A Jewish slave could be bought for less than the cost of a horse. The entire land was laid waste. Emperor Hadrian built a massive new city on the ruins of Jerusalem, called Aelia Capitalina, filled it with Greek-speaking Gentiles, and pronounced the death penalty for any Jews who entered it. This last catastrophic rebellion essentially terminated the existence of the Jewish nation in Palestine until the modern era. How Christianity Spread in the Roman Empire Christians remained members of the synagogues of Judea into the second century, but around 110 AD they were being decidedly identified not just as another Jewish sect, but as heretics by Jewish religious leaders, like the very influential Raban Gamaliel. The early Christian writer and apologist, Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 AD) reported that Christian communities in Palestine, along with Greek communities, were massacred by the followers of Simon bar Kokhba during his rebellion. However, in the previous century the Jews had spread throughout the Roman Empire and Persia and as far as India. In many of the Western cities over 10 percent of the population was Jewish. Some historians think that Alexandria, Egypt was 40% Jewish at one point. Paul and others had spread the Christian faith rapidly from synagogue to synagogue as far as Rome. They won Jews, and also many of the Greek “god fearers” that hung out in the back of the synagogues, who had never been fully accepted by the Jewish community. During this period the number of Christians grew rapidly and steadily, spreading quickly primarily through the middle or merchant classes in the urban centers. It spread along Roman trade routes, and the Galatian Christians of Asia Minor seem to have spread the gospel as far as Galicia (in Northern Spain), Gaul (now France), and all the way to what later became the Celtic (pronounced “keltic”) Christian movement of Ireland. The area from northern Greece across Southern Europe is still called the “Celtic Belt,”the word stemming originally from “Galatia.” Meanwhile, the Jewish communities, devastated both numerically and emotionally by the loss of Palestine withdrew into itself, focusing increasingly and solely on the Torah. Commenting extensively on the Torah, they developed a detailed system of moral and community law which was to hold them together through centuries of dispersion. The priesthood and Jewish nationalism was replaced by an emphasis on teachers, rabbis, and congregations and synagogues. They established a canon for the Jewish scriptures. Passover could no longer focus on the temple, but was reaffirmed as a core Jewish festival in the home. Jewish militarism was eschewed. The Rise of Christian Heresies and Apologists Around 144 AD, a man named Marcion proposed the idea that the God of the Old Testament was a lesser and inferior god and that the Christians had obscured the gospel by mixing it with Judaism. Christ, he claimed, came to proclaim a new God of Love and deliverance from the god of the Septuagint (the Old Testament Hebrew scriptures in Greek), whom he called Demiurge. He threw out the Old Testament and picked only what he liked from the gospels and the letters of Paul and others that were beginning to be recognized as a “New Testament” scriptures. He called his followers into independent churches where everyone, even those married, practiced celibacy. Many of Marcion’s beliefs were influenced by “gnostic” thought. Gnosticism was a general movement that permeated many of the churches. It incorporated the Greek ideas that matter, and the body, were evil, while the spirit, from a different realm, was good. “Salvation” was achieved through special knowledge (“gnosis” in Greek) revealed only to special insiders. Christ was often considered to be fully a god but not at all human, because to be human would be to take on evil matter. Some considered him an illusion. Salvation was to be freed from contaminated matter. Gnostic beliefs were not systematic or organized, and neither were the gnostics themselves. Some groups believed that the body could engage in as much corrupt behavior as it wanted to without corrupting the completely distinct soul. Others believed that everyone should engage in extreme asceticism in an attempt to conquer corrupt fleshly desires. Some remained in existing churches, spreading their heretical beliefs. In the books of John (I, II, and III) he teaches against gnostic beliefs and influences in the church. Other gnostic groups set up their own churches and communities, and developed their own preferred “gospels.” Christian apologists rose up to combat the developing heresies and to uphold the importance of both the Jewish and the Christian scriptures. These apologists not only defended the Christian faith against attackers, who were almost entirely Greeks, they also went on the offensive and attacked Greek pagan beliefs and philosophies. They poured scorn on the immorality of Greek mythological gods. Many of the apologists had turned to Christianity after trying and being dissatisfied with various Greek philosophical systems, and they pointed out inconsistencies in Plato’s writings and others, immoral conduct of philosophers, and lack of agreement among philosophers. Tertullian of Carthage argued that “reason,” the source of truth in philosophy, was an insufficient and false guide. Truth was to be found in the revelation of God in Christ. They upheld the ancient Jewish scriptures and origins of the faith, arguing that the very antiquity of the prophecies and their subsequent fulfillment in Christ, was sure proof of the truth of Christian belief. The apologists also based their apologetic on the moral transformation that took place in the followers of Christ, repeatedly contrasting the factions and immoral sexual behavior of the pagan society with that of believers. They emphasized that believers from many different backgrounds and cultures were able to have peaceful fellowship with each other. This multi-ethnic fellowship was especially important in the urban areas of the Roman Empire where many tribes and ethnic backgrounds were often represented. Persecution by the Roman Government Turns to Patronage Some of the apologists, such as Justin Martyr, wrote open letters to the emperor of Rome in an attempt to demonstrate that, though they did not worship the emperor, Christians were, in fact, model citizens of great benefit to the state. Nevertheless, persecution by the Roman government was chronic and persistent, occasionally flaring up into round-ups of believers who were tortured and/or killed. Christianity was officially outlawed with the threat of the death penalty from the time of Emperor Trajan (reigned 98-117 AD), although Christians could be spared if they recanted. Ten major outbreaks of persecutions happened between the time of Nero (64 AD) to the time of Emperor Diocletian in the early 4th century, just before Constantine. Before the year 250 AD, persecutions were primarily local and did not therefore result in a large loss of life overall. However as Christianity was increasingly seen as a threat to the whole Empire, persecutions became Empire-wide in an attempt to stamp out Christianity completely. Some of the noblest and best of the Roman Emperors, and there were not many in that category, opposed Christianity, including Hadrian (r. 117-138 AD) and Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 AD). In 202 AD, Emperor Septimus Severus issued an edict forbidding conversion to Christianity or Judaism, resulting in persecutions particularly in North Africa, where Origen’s father was killed. Origen, spared because his mother hid his clothes so he could not follow after his father, became one of the leaders of the church in the next generation. People were rewarded for turning in Christians by being given the possessions of the ones found guilty, a practice that made convictions spread like wildfire. When Emperor Decius came to power in 249 AD, he decided to improve things in Rome by making sure the gods were getting enough attention. The plight of the Christians took a decided turn for the worse. Decius not only required everyone to sacrifice to the gods, he required a certificate be issued to prove compliance. Some Christians complied, some refused and were imprisoned or killed, some bought false certificates of completion on the black market, and some escaped to the wilderness. Though Decius was killed in battle in 251 AD, his successor Gallus revived the requirement to sacrifice when a plague broke out, accusing those who did not sacrifice as being responsible, calling them “atheists.” Both of these persecutions mainly served to eliminate from the church the weak or luke-warm believers, who recanted. The strong remained, as not a large percentage of believers were actually martyred. However in 257 AD, under Emperor Valerian (r. 253-260), the bishops and leaders of the church were singled out for persecution, and Christians were threatened with the death penalty if they even attended a Christian gathering or visited a Christian cemetery. Apparently, in order to continue to meet legally, some Christians had organized themselves into burial associations. In 258 AD, Valerian added that all Christians in high places or imperial households should be banished or sold as slaves. Though these edicts cut the core leadership of the church, Valerian was captured by the Persians in 260AD, disappearing from history, and his son Gallienus, reversed the policy. Gallienus gave a period of tolerance for the Christians for the next generation and Christians actually began to build churches and copies of the scriptures multiplied. The last major persecution of Christians broke out when Emperor Diocletian issued a series of edicts between 303AD and 304 AD requiring the demolishing of churches, burning of scriptures, and demoting of Christians in power, followed by exile or torture and death. Sometimes there was wholesale slaughter. Because the Roman army was still largely non-Christian, for in the early centuries Christians were pacifists, the soldiers even surrounded a Christian town in Asia Minor and burned all the inhabitants. Nevertheless, it was a Roman General, Constantine who turned things around when he marched on Rome with his troops in 312 AD. Constantine was raised by a Christian mother. However, he did not consider the faith himself until he saw a vision of the cross in the heavens with the words, “conquer by this,” and made a standard with the sign of the cross and the Chi Rho (Greek letters for Christ). The next day Constantine won a decisive victory. Constantine met with Licinius (who became eastern Emperor) at Milan, Italy, and they issued an edict extending tolerance to all Christians. Once in power, Constantine did not persecute the pagans, or make Christianity a state religion, but had both the symbol of the cross and pagan symbols on his coins. Eventually Constantine became more and more favorable toward Christianity, but not all of this was helpful. He began by eliminating taxes for the Christian clergy, as had always been the case for pagan priests and priests of other religions with official status with the Empire. Rich men began to flood into clerical posts, eventually requiring a new edict limiting ordination only to those who were relatively poor. Contributions to the church were allowed, including the willing of your possessions upon death. Bishops or clergy could preside over the legal freeing of slaves. Constantine also paid for the building and enlarging of churches and built many churches in Byzantium, when he changed it to his new headquarters and renamed it Constantinople. He also eventually forbade the repair of ruined temples or the erection of new images of the gods. His patronage of the church caused many men to seek ordination for the political power and stipend from the state which it provided. Records show that some men were even baptized the day they were ordained, and others had even relatively young sons declared bishops. This patronage actually had a negative effect on the church. As Constantine slowly withdrew state support of paganism, it collapsed far quicker than would have been expected, with almost no pagan sites still in use by the end of the 4th century. Historians speculate that paganism was already burdened by the ever increasing number of gods flowing in from various parts of the Empire, and the pressure added by making the Emperors into gods themselves. What ever the reason, nominal pagans now began flooding into the church becoming nominal Christians. And it did not turn out to be healthy for the development of Christianity. In 380, the Emperor Theodosius officially banned all religions other than Nicene Christianity in his realm, causing more influx of semi-Christianized pagans into the churches. The Council of Nicaea In 325 AD, soon after his rise to power, Constantine called the first “ecumenical” council, the famous Council of Nicaea, paying for major Christian leaders from all over the Empire to attend a meeting in Nicaea (a town in current Turkey) to come to doctrinal clarity. He was hoping to bring unity to the Christian church over a number of issues, which would also strengthen his empire. Several issues needed to be discussed. The primary concern at the time was the teachings of a very charismatic new leader called Arius, who attended with some of his disciples to present his case. Other smaller issues included: how to treat Christians that had renounced Christ under persecution or worshipped the emperor and now wanted to return to the church; how bishops were chosen and consecrated; guidelines and discipline for immoral clergy, etc. Over three hundred bishops came, most of them from the eastern end of the Empire, reportedly one from Persia and one from the Goths. Hundreds of lesser clergy and lay people also showed up. No sooner had the council been opened by Constantine himself, than a violent controversy broke out between those who supported Arius and those who opposed him. The ones who opposed Arius were led by a young but persuasive Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. In the first two centuries the church fought primarily against Gnostic heresies, which denied both the humanity of Christ and that He had any physical body (which they considered evil).During the 3rd century a man named Sabellius had argued that since there was only one God, there was no “Trinity” per se (a term the early church fathers had coined to explain God the Father, Son and Spirit), and that God merely appeared in one or another of the three forms. Now, at the beginning of the 4th century, Arius was taking the polar opposite position, arguing that only God the Father was the true God, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were lesser gods, created by Him in the beginning. The Greek passion for finding truth through philosophical discussion and logical debate, called dialectics, colored much of the apologetics during these centuries. And, it just so happened, Arius was a master of dialectics, who wove persuasive arguments (often in song) on the basis of logic that moved increasingly away from revealed biblical truth without referencing back for corrections. Starting with the term “Son of God” (see inset) Arius argued that “sons” have to be born and are lesser than “fathers”, therefore Jesus must have been “born” as a god at some point in time and was lesser than the Father, or high God. In the end, the council soundly rejected Arius’s views, adopting then modifying a creed brought by Eusebius of Caesarea that had been used for generations at his episcopate. It read, in the main body: We believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Word [Logos] of God, God from God, light from light, life from life, the only-begotten Son, first-born of all creatures, begotten of the Father before all ages, by whom also all things were made; who for our salvation was made flesh and dwelt among men; and who suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the Father and shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We believe also in one Holy Spirit. The council proceeded to make some clarifying changes to this old creed, changing the word Logos to Son, adding that Jesus “is of the substance (ousias) of the Father,” and that He was “begotten, not made, of one substance (homoousion) with the Father.” God from God and life from life was replaced with “true God from true God” to avoid any confusion about God creating Jesus. They also added “was made man” to insure that the creed didn’t lean in the other direction of gnosticism, which didn’t believe in his humanity. Arius and four of his disciples were the only ones at the council to reject the new creed. Arius and his teachings were condemned (“anathematized”) along with anyone who would teach that “there was a time when he [the Son of God] was not.” Then Arius was exiled with his followers and Constantine ordered Arius’ writings to be burned. However, Arianism was far from crushed as many of the Germanic peoples, north of the Roman Empire, had become Arian Christians by this time. After Constantine died, one of his sons eventually came to power who favored Arianism, partially because the Arians wanted the state to have control over the church while those supporting the Nicene Creed wanted the church to be independent of the government. Arian bishops were reinstated by the Emperor and anti-Arian bishops, including Athanasius, were exiled. Things went back and forth with bishops of one leaning or the other being recalled or exiled, depending on the theological leanings of the emperors. One emperor, Julian “the Apostate”, even tried to reintroduce paganism, remonstrating with the pagans that the Christians took care of their poor and widows as well as their own. However, as mentioned, by the time of Emperor Theodosius (380AD), orthodoxy won the day. He called a second ecumenical counsel in 381 AD in Constantinople which reaffirmed the interpretations of the first council. He then proceeded to make “orthodox” Christianity the only legal religion in the Roman Empire. Was there ever a peaceful moment in church history? The answer is probably “no.” In the next unit we will see how the church spread east, why it broke off from the Western church, along with other branches, and how God was glorified anyway. Two Unhelpful Paradigm Shifts in Christianity During the 4th century, two very unhelpful paradigm shifts were solidified within Western Christianity, both of which we have not shaken off to this day. The first was the institutionalization of the church. For the first 300 years Christianity was a fast growing movement where there was coordination and cooperation between different areas. However, since it was not associated with worldly power structures, there was not an authoritarian structure. Each congregation or grouping of congregations was affiliated with leaders or elders, usually raised up from among their own people, sometimes appointed by traveling apostolic teams. Most congregations (churches) consisted of extended households of believers, who received teaching together and visited other households of believers. But when the Emperor Constantine called for, paid for, and opened in person, the Council of Nicaea, he added the weight of the Emperor to the decisions that were made at the council. After this event, the Roman Emperors, mostly ruling from Constantinople, increasingly saw themselves as the ultimate authority in church affairs. They could appoint bishops, exile bishops, and, from their perspective, generally intervene whenever they wanted.. Although the church leaders were aware of and resisted this slide, they also enjoyed the new freedom from persecution and the patronage of the emperor. Increasingly bishops and patriarchs (the bishops of the most important centers of the church, which had higher statuses) were forced to either cater to the Emperor or to be banished. At times, bishops would lobby with the emperor to get other bishops denounced in bald-faced power struggles that had little to do with the theological nuances that were blamed. Bishops from more distant areas, like Nestorius from Syria, were more likely to be denounced as heretics and ostracized, which led, in turn, to Christian communities more distant from Constantinople breaking off relations with the Roman church and trying to stay outside of its control. The second major paradigm shift that solidified during the 4th century was a change in the definition of what it meant to be a “Christian.” This much more subtle shift turned “Christians” from followers of Jesus Christ into people who believed in certain doctrines as defined for them by the institutional church and participated in its traditions and ceremonies. Initially, when Jesus called people to become His followers, he clearly stated “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 7:21. Faith involved a relationship of commitment to person of Jesus Christ as our redeemer not to an institution. And Jesus said that faith was expressed by a life transformed through obedience to His will. As Paul says in Romans 12, to those having recognized who Christ is: “Therefore I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” This perspective, that life in Christ means an outworking of His life and character in us as we obey Him, continues to be seen in the writings of the 2nd and 3rd century Christian apologists as well. Justin Martyr (100-165 AD) defends the validity of the Christian faith not merely by the logic of truth, but by the transformation it works in the life of those who believe. Other early apologists, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian, echoed the same emphasis on the importance of the “new birth” that results in new character. Rodney Stark quotes several primary sources from that period to this effect and states that, “Pagan and Christian writers were unanimous not only that Christian scripture stressed love and charity as the central duties of faith, but that these were sustained in everyday behavior.” (The Rise of Christianity, pg. 86). Dionysius writes during a great epidemic of 260AD, “most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love… headless of danger, they took care of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed from this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease… The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, …presbyters, deacons, and laymen… in every way the equal of martyrdom… The heathen behaved in the very opposite way… they pushed sufferers away and fled from their dearest…” (quoted in Stark:82). Also, quoted in Stark is the description by a non-Christian Pontianus, of the teachings of Carthage’s bishop Cyprian, around 250 AD: “…he [Cyprian] proceeds to add that there is nothing remarkable in cherishing merely our own people… but that one might become perfect who should do something more than heathen men or publicans, one who, overcoming evil with good and practicing a merciful kindness like that of God, should love his enemies as well…” (Stark: 87) This view of what it meant to be a Christian began to change drastically during the time of Constantine. In the 4th century, partially as a result of the councils that focused on “right doctrine,” to be a “Christian” increasingly meant primarily two things: 1) believing the “right” things, as defined by the church councils, and 2) not deviating from the doctrinal perspective of the institutional church. Intellectual belief in propositional truth had subtly replaced relational and transformational faith in the person of Jesus, The Truth. Of course, all the way throughout the history of Christianity there continue to be people who emphasize the latter instead of merely the former. However, beginning in this era, it was now possible to be an immoral person but a “Christian” by simply believing the right dogma and being committed to the institutional church, or being born into a Christian family. Why Christians were persecuted first in the West, then in the East? As long as Rome was busy condemning the Christians and occasionally rounding them up, torturing and killing them, the Persians in the East saw no reason to think the Christians were a threat to them. But once Constantine began to make Christians a respected majority in the West, the age-old rivalries between Persia and Rome made the Persians suspect that the Christians in the East would be only too willing to help Rome extend its territory. Many Christians had found refuge from the persecutions of Rome by moving eastward. As you will see in the next unit, as Christianity spread eastward, the Christians were treated pretty well until the Roman Empire started to patronize Christians… when they were suddenly perceived as potential traitors and spies between the two great rivals of Rome and Persia. So as Christians were embraced in the West, the East responded by beginning a massive persecution of those of the Christian faith. The Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission From the times of Noah and Abraham, God had been using godly families to carry on His purpose to bless all the families on earth. That God-ordained pattern continues to this day. Some suggest that all this changed at the time of Christ when the responsibility for carrying out God’s covenant with the families of the earth shifted from families to churches, some going so far to suggest that the church now replaces the birth families in God’s plan—the church being the family of God. It is true that when Jesus came, he modeled a team structure through which his kingdom would be spread throughout the world. But Jesus’s band of disciples, sometimes called the “Apostolic Band,” were all from Galilee except for Judas Iscariot, and included three sets of brothers. The disciples were men selected by Jesus whom he called away from their former professions to become messengers of the good news. They were supported mostly by the generosity of others. But, contrary to the assertions of many, Jesus did not call his disciples to leave their families behind. Even in those days, when travel was difficult, they did not usually stay single. Paul argues in I Cor 9:5,12 that these traveling apostles had the right to be married, to take their wives along with them, and be supported by the churches, saying, “Don’t we have a right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas?…If others have this right of support from you, don’t we all the more? But we do not use this right.” The disciples had been commanded by Jesus to “go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” –making disciples of all nations (clans/family groups), baptizing and teaching them everything he had commanded them. This pattern of an “apostolic band” (apostle meaning “sent one”) was picked up by the apostle Paul and others, like the married couple Priscilla and Aquilla, who became traveling teachers establishing churches in many locations. Jesus’ disciples established another structure, loosely based on the synagogues of that time called the “church.” The word translated “church” in the New Testament is the Greek word “ekklesia” which means a “gathering of people;”therefore, it is not a building or a place, but a group of people. The word is therefore distinct from the words temple, a place for worshipping God or gods, or mosque. The “church” in the New Testament is used for different things: a believing extended family, plus friends, in a particular household; a synagogue; the believers in a particular town or city, which probably includes many households or house churches; and the believers in the whole area or the whole world. Those who were reached by Paul were encouraged to “remain in the situation God called him to” meaning, in the context, in the culture God had called him to (circumcised or uncircumcised), in the station (slave or free) and in the marital situation (married or single) I Cor. 7:24. They are encouraged to do this for the sake of the gospel spreading in their situation, to their unbelieving spouse or master. Yet this is not a “rule” and Paul himself encourages some men (or couples like Priscilla and Aquilla) to leave their homes and join his traveling apostolic team (the term “apostolic” in Greek becomes “missionary” in Latin). And on his apostolic team, members are encouraged not to cling to their own culture but take on whatever culture is necessary to win others. Paul says, “ to the Jews, I became like a Jew, to win the Jews… To those not having the law, I became like one not having the Law to win those not having the law…I have become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the Gospel…”I Cor. 9:20-23. So we see that the plan of God is to use godly families, or singles, to reach out to and bless the families of the whole earth. Thus believers can either be on missionary outreach teams that go into other areas where there are no believers, or, they can be the basis for fellowship groupings and outreach in their own cultures. The “church” multiplies, grows and spreads the gospel through its own context, and the “apostolic band” wins families to the Lord in unreached areas, thereby establishing churches in distant places and distinct cultural contexts. In the former, families remain in their cultural context; in the latter, families or singles are uprooted from their normal surroundings and professions to preach the gospel in distant places. Unless specifically called to an apostolic, that is, cross-cultural team, it does not seem that scripture warrants the leaving of your family (even if you are a slave, note I Cor 7), in order to join a new family, the family of God. Instead, God expects each believer to become a conduit of the grace of God into their family of origin, a light on the stand that lights up the whole household. And when Jesus sent his disciples out, even in their own province, they went two by two, not alone. It appears from scripture that God, in Jesus, calls people to be apostles. The church sometimes confirmed this calling, but had no direct authority over the apostolic band, though they held some “councils” with each other. The apostolic band had some authority over the churches they planted, “appointing elders” and rebuking, but the church itself engaged in the care, teaching, and discipline of its own people under the authority of its elders. We do not need to restrict ourselves doing only what we see the New Testament doing, if they do not specifically teach these forms. But we do need to remember the goal of the Great Commission, as first given to Abraham: that all the families/clans (ethne) of the earth will be blessed. Q and A: Who decided what would be included in the New Testament? By the second century AD, the Jewish leaders had already decided for themselves what their authoritative books were, and their judgments were accepted by the Christians. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the most verified ancient Jewish writings, already had wide confirmation before the birth of Christ. However, who would decide if any other books or letters should be added to these already ancient scriptures? There were three things that pushed the early church into identifying which writings were authoritative for them and which were not. The first was their desire to hear directly from the original apostles, the second was the need to combat heresies that were arising, along with many other writings, some “forged” in the name of apostles, and the third was the waves of persecutions that often involved burning scripture. They realized people needed to know what writings to use to judge the others, and to know what scriptures to relinquish first and what to hide on pain of death. As pointed out above, writings of the early church fathers from the first century already identified only 4 authoritative gospels: Matthew, which was considered the first one written, by the apostle Matthew; Mark, written second and considered to be Mark writing down the testimony of the apostle Peter; Luke, written by Paul’s traveling companion; and John, written the last, by the apostle John, who lived the longest. Many early church fathers listed four gospels, usually in the above order, which was considered the historical order in which they were written. Justin Martyr called them “memoirs of the apostles.” The word “authoritative” comes from the same root as the word “author,” meaning that these were writings where the author had been authenticated. People wanted to hear from those who knew Jesus directly or knew those who knew him. Those early church “fathers” who were close friends of the apostles include: Ignatius of Antioch (lived approximately AD 49-110, when he was torn apart by lions in the Roman coliseum), who was a disciple of Paul and Barnabas, and Polycarp of Smyrna (AD 69-155, burned at the stake), a devoted disciple of the apostle John. These men, in turn, discipled Theophilus of Antioch (AD 115-181), and Justin Martyr (AD100-165, beheaded), who went on to disciple Tatian the Assyrian and Irenaeus. Early on the early church fathers decided that the only writings that should be considered scripture were those written by one of the original apostles who knew Jesus personally, which included James the Just, the half-brother of Jesus, Jude who identifies himself as the brother of James (making him also Jesus’ half-brother), and Paul who had a direct vision of Jesus. Even the Letter of Barnabas, which contains no deviant theology, was cut from the list of acceptable writings, because of questionable authorship. Before the year 200AD, Irenaeus had already listed 21 books that were authoritative, of the later 27 that ended up in the New Testament. However, he quoted from all the books except Hebrews, II Peter and III John. A Latin manuscript, called the Muratorian Canon, from around 170-210 AD includes all the current books except Hebrews, James, I/II Peter, I John, and III John. To this day no one is exactly sure who wrote the book of Hebrews, which, unlike most of the letters, does not specify the author. Some attribute the book to Paul, but as early as the time of Origen, in the third century, the author was listed as “unknown.” It contains a unique discussion of the spiritual nature of the Jewish practices and sacrifices, with many references to the tabernacle, leading scholars to believe it was written around 63 AD, before the temple was destroyed, otherwise that would have been alluded to. However, it also presents Jesus as the eternal “high priest” connecting us to God, an earthly function that ceased to exist after the temple was destroyed. Some attribute it to Paul because it echoes his balanced concern that Greek believers not be made into Jewish converts while asserting the ongoing significance of the Jewish faith for Jewish believers. While the current “canon” was NOT established at the Council of Nicaea in 325AD, as some have stated, Eusebius, Constantine’s historian, does list in his writings all the current books of the New Testament, but mentions that James, II Peter, II/III John, and Jude are “disputed.” It wasn’t until 367AD that Athanasius, who had been present at the Council of Nicaea, listed the 27 books of the New Testament that we have in our Bibles today. He also was the first person to use the word “canon” to apply to this collection as the definitive and only authoritative “inspired” books of the New Testament. This “canon” is agreed upon by the Council of Carthage in 397AD and officially “closed.” What about the “Gnostic Gospels”? Some would claim that the church belated and purposefully eliminated the so-called Gnostic Gospels because they didn’t support Christ’s claim to divinity. This is false on two accounts. First, the “gnostic gospels” (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Gospel of Philip, etc.), all refer, in their name or text, to being secret gospels or writings ( over 50 in all) offering secret or special knowledge (gnosis) or hidden insight. Some of these writings were specifically attacked by early (c.180) church fathers when attacking the heresies of those falsely promising knowledge. They were left out of the canon, and were considered NOT to be authoritative from the earliest days. That is to say, they were always considered to be written by some one other than they claimed to be written by, and not connected to the original disciples or Jesus Christ. Secondly, these writings do NOT portray Jesus as merely human, as some assert, in fact, in good gnostic tradition, they try to eliminate his human-ness since the gnostics considered the “flesh” to be evil. He is, among other things, portrayed as a spirit that enters Jesus’ body at his baptism only to leave before the crucifixion. Jesus is also seen as one who brings enlightenment in a world of illusion (similar to Hindu thought), with no reference to sin or atonement. Other gnostic writings promote the idea that God is within our selves, popular today. The consistent theme in Gnostic writings is the need for special insider knowledge and inner illumination, in contrast with the simple straightforward message the writers of the New Testament purport to preach, accessible to all men, slaves or free, women and men, educated or not. Numerous gnostic writings were rediscovered in Nag Hammadi, in the Egyptian desert, in 1945. New school (i.e. modern) gnostics claim these books were suppressed by the institutional church in the days of Constantine. However, the gnostic heresies were openly being put down centuries before Constantine’s time, (when the Arian heresy was the major threat, which saw Jesus as a lesser god created before mankind), indeed some of the New Testament books themselves condemned getting involved in controversies about special knowledge. Irenaeus, in his second century major work, called Against Heresies, already eliminated all but the four gospels as trustworthy. For a fascinating analysis of how early Christianity survived, apart from sheer miracles, see Rodney Stark’s book The Rise of Christianity. ​ ## 8 The Gospel Moves East In the second unit of year two, the K12Together Curriculum focus switches to the East. The East becomes increasingly exposed to the West during the period from the time of Alexander the Great to the rise of Islam, through both military invasions and the opening of trade routes extending as far as China. But goods were not the only thing moving along the trade routes eastward, so was the gospel. There is little doubt that the Christian message spread east very early, for it was spreading along Jewish lines and there was a significant population of Jews remaining in the area of Babylon from centuries earlier. Jewish Christians were already in Damascus (the same city as modern Damascus in Syria) during the time of Paul. Jewish believers were also scattered eastward in greater numbers after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. Tradition states that the missionary Addai, originally from Caesarea Philippi in Judea, was the one who led the kingdom of Osrhoene, with its capital city of Edessa (near ancient Ninevah), faith in Jesus Christ. The converts, according to Eusebius, were from Jewish and pagan backgrounds. Their 2nd century hymns, recently discovered and called the Odes of Solomon, show a heavy Jewish influence and doctrinal agreement with later orthodoxy. In the year 201AD, the king of Edessa, Agbar (one of many generations of kings by the same name), became a Christian and prohibited the popular pagan ritual of castrating oneself as a sacrifice to the mother goddess Tar’ata. Those who did so would have their hand cut off. When Christians were being persecuted by the Roman authorities in the West, they were able to find sanctuary in the East. As early as the year 200 AD, the Christians in the East start moving out of their homes and into public Christian buildings. The move to meeting in dedicated public Christian buildings did not happen for over 100 years later in the Roman governed areas. The Armenian Church One of the most amazing conversion stories is the mass conversion of the Armenian people that took place sometime in the 3rd century. Gregory “the Illuminator” left his wife and two sons in Cappadocia (eastern Turkey) to go east to convert Armenia (in the southern Caucasus) because of a burden that the Lord had given both he and his wife. Gregory suffered severe persecution and 13 years of imprisonment in Armenia. However, when the King of Armenia, Tiridates III suffered a bout of insanity, Gregory was called on and restored his sanity. Subsequently, the king encouraged Gregory to convert the whole nation to Christianity, making Armenia the first officially Christian nation. First Gregory, then his son and descendants, become the religious leaders of Armenia, and one grandson was martyred while preaching as a missionary to the Albanians. \ The Armenians, a people group that has been through massacres and continual scattering throughout the world, have remained Christian to this day. Unlike many of the Eastern Christians, who read the bible in the foreign languages of Greek or Syriac, the Armenians were one of the earliest illiterate people groups to devise an alphabet for their language and translate the Bible into their own language. The Ethiopian Church In the late third and early fourth century Christianity also spread south to Ethiopia, this time in a most unexpected way. An Egyptian ship passing through the Red Sea was attacked by people from the area west of the Red Sea, called Axum. All the people on the ship were massacred except for two young boys who happened to be Christians. These teenage boys somehow became slaves to the ruler of Axum and eventually won his family to faith in Christ. Over a couple decades, they were able to win the entire area to Christ. Although there was extensive Jewish influence in Ethiopian for many generations, and some date the arrival of Jewish faith in Christ to the Ethiopian eunuch who spoke to Philip in the Book of Acts, most historians consider these events as the beginning of the Ethiopian Church, which survives to this day. Early Churches Refuse Roman Control Once the western church became closely associated with the Roman Emperor, these churches repudiated control over their areas by the Roman church, even though their first bishops had been consecrated by patriarchs in Alexandria or Antioch or bishops in Turkey. One of the ways to break off relations with the Roman church was to reject some conclusions of one of the Emperor-sponsor councils, most of which the more distant churches did not get to attend. The Egyptian church (known now as the Coptic Church), the Armenian church, the Ethiopian church and much of the Syrian church all took a doctrinal position known as Monophysitism, The Monophysite churches refused to accept the western understanding of the fully-human/fully divine nature of Christ, instead arguing that Jesus had one divine nature indwelling a human body (like God’s spirit in the Temple), in such a way that the human was transformed into the divine. Their leaders were thus excommunicated by the Roman church leaders; however, as a result they were able to maintain their ecclesiastical and political independence by this means. The Nestorian Churches The churches under Persian control decided to take a third position on the nature of Christ, distancing themselves both from the Roman Empire and the geographic “buffer” regions of the Monophysite churches. Nestorius and other leaders of these churches, known as Nestorian Christians, took the position that the eternal divine Logos dwelt in the human man Jesus. Because they were not willing to call Mary “God-bearer” or “mother of God”, but only “Christ-bearer” or “mother of Christ,” they were denounced as heretical by the 4th and oddest of all the Ecumenical councils, called in Ephesus (in today’s Turkey) in the year 431 AD. When the bishops from Syria arrived late, Cyril, a particularly ruthless patriarch from Alexandria, Egypt, started the council without them, excommunicating Nestorius. They inaccurately accused Nestorius of saying the Jesus was two persons in one body, instead of two natures in one person, as they believed. When John of Antioch arrived with 40 Syrian bishops, they called a counter-council and excommunicated Cyril. The emperor decided to accept the judgment of both councils, exiling both sides from Roman territories (though Cyril bankrupted the Alexandrian churches to bribe his way out of exile). Nestorius was banished to a monastery in first Syria then Arabia for the rest of his life, from where he wrote many works, which attempted to clarify his position, to no avail. Some of these works were discovered in 1889 in Syria, and clearly reveal that he fully believed in the divinity of Christ, did not believe Christ was “adopted” as a son of God but fully human, and did not deny the unity of Christ’s person (the most enduring charge against him in the West). When dying he wrote: “Earthly things have little interest for me. I have died to the world and live for Him. As for Nestorius [himself]—let him be anathema! And would God that all men by anathematizing me might attain reconciliation with God…” (Moffett, 175). Meanwhile, bishops that defended Nestorius sought refuge in the Persian Empire, which was willing to put up with Christians as long as they were being persecuted by the Roman Empire. Being “heretical” in the west had its advantages in the east. While the churches in the West remained largely focused on disputing doctrinal issues, the Nestorian churches started to spread the Gospel all the way to China. The Nestorian Church Spreads Eastward In the first century BC the Greek rulers of Persia (modern day Iran, parts of Afghanistan and Iraq) left over from the conquests of Alexander the Great, were displaced by the relatively barbaric Parthians who moved into the area. Their loose nomadic ways, with little religious identity, enabled Christianity to spread in the early centuries into Persia. Their capital Seleucia-Ctesiphon, on the Tigris River north of old Babylon and south of modern Baghdad, became the center of Eastern (Nestorian) Christianity. This city lay between the Tigris and Euphrates where they came closest together, and caravans came through from China, India and the West. The Parthians were conquered by the Sassanids in 224 AD who ruled with an iron fist the land from Syria to Afghanistan, and from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea. Christians were only sporadically and mildly persecuted in Persia until Constantine accepted Christianity in the west (313 AD, Edict of Milan). At that time Shapur II began a merciless forty year persecution of the Christians in the East, and as a fanatical Zoroastrian, added in Jews and other religious minorities too. Shapur II reigned an extremely long time (70 years) for that era and was ruthless with his enemies as well. After the Nestorian controversy (431AD), the Persian Christians were treated better, and finally had their own council in 486 AD where they affirmed their belief in the Trinity and the two natures of Christ (fully human, fully divine, unlike the Monophysites)., There were some differences in practice that reflect a Semitic background instead of a Greek background, for instance they allowed married men to become priests, unacceptable in the West, primarily because of pre-Christian Greek standards of piety. The Persian Christians formed their own School of Nisibis, which had strict statutes, including celibacy while a student there, hard work to pay for their education, and not being allowed to go into Roman territory (possibly to avoid being considered traitors to Persia). While in the school they studied the scriptures and were taught a decidedly missionary theology, which perhaps accounts for the resulting rapid spread of Nestorian Christianity eastward. In fact, the Nestorian Church, no longer associated with Rome, probably outnumbered the Roman Church for the next couple centuries, until well after the invasions of Islam in the 7th century. If Nestorian Christianity was so widespread, why did the Nestorian church slowly disappear when Islam took over? One of the key factors in this extinction was the lack of translated scriptures. The Bible remained in Greek and Syriac, thus inaccessible to all but scholars. The same thing is true for the churches of North Africa who also, with the exception of the Coptic (Egyptian) church, did not have their own translations of the Bible and were forced to learn Latin in order to read the scriptures. This fact tended to make the faith of the common people, though fervent, not discerning enough to stand against the similar teachings of Islam. India 1-600 AD The gospel had been moving eastward from the first century. One of the earliest missionaries to a distant area was the Apostle Thomas, who is said to have reached India in the first century. Though he probably initially spoke to displaced Jewish communities and synagogues, there are many tales of his generosity in helping the poor, and a grave exists where he was reportedly martyred by Hindu holy men. The Mar Thoma church in India traces its origin back to the preaching of the Apostle Thomas. From the first century they had portions of the Old and New Testament in Hebrew and in Syriac. The word “Mar” comes from the Malayalam Indian language word for “The Way,” which was the name early Jewish believers in the book of Acts used for themselves. Whether or not this church began in a Jewish diaspora community living in India is unknown, but it was firmly established in the Indian community, and was going strong when Catholic missionaries showed up in the 1500s. The Mar Thoma believers refused Catholic pressure to adopt Latin masses, the veneration of Mary and other Catholic saints, and the belief in transubstantiation. Other stories about the Apostle Thomas in India were considered merely legends until recently. For example, there is a story about a King called Gundaphar, whose money Thomas took to build him a palace, then instead distributed the money to the poor, saying he had used it to build him a palace in heaven. There was no record of a King by this name in India, so the story was dismissed. However, in the last two centuries cashes of ancient coins with the name of King Gundaphar on them have been discovered in various sites in India and Pakistan, lending historical strength to this story. (For more details see: A History of Christianity in Asia: Beginnings to 1500, by Samuel Moffet. Also, a good resource for Church History time lines and information is www.christianity.com/churchhistory/) By the time Christianity arrived, India already had two major religions: Hinduism and Buddhism. Hinduism is not a cohesive religion either institutionally or in terms of beliefs or practice. It is more of a collection of beliefs that entered India very early on, often blending with local beliefs. Buddhism began as a reformation of Hindu beliefs about the 6th century BC, and increasingly grew, eventually spreading beyond India and virtually dying out in its birthplace. The founder of Buddhism, Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) was a man who turned away from his wife and family, to contemplate the plight of humanity and suffering. He came to the point where he decided that the path to the tranquility of Nirvana was through disengagement. His original teachings were more of a philosophy than a religion because they did not deal with supernatural beings but primarily a way of thinking and living. Buddhism was significantly influenced by Greek incursions to the East, beginning with Alexander the Great’s campaigns in the 4th century BC up through the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD. While this influence is the most clear in what is called Greco-Buddhist art forms (gaining prominence during the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in what is modern day Afghanistan, 230-130 BC), some believe that the eventual break between the more philosophical forms of Buddhism and the newer more mystic forms Buddhism was partially due to the influx of Greek and later Christian influence. For example, by the first century AD many Buddhists began to assert that Buddha had been an earthly manifestation of a divine spirit, through whose help salvation could be achieved (reflecting some aspects of Christian teaching). Some accounts say that a council of those wanting to revise Buddhism met in Kashmir (far northern India today).. There they developed the basic doctrines of Mahayana (Great Vehicle) Buddhism, with a pantheon of saints called bodhisattva, who delayed their own ascension to Nirvana in order to help humans on their own path to Nirvana. Buddhists from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) refused to attend the meeting and affirmed their more traditional Buddhism, which became known as Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) also known as Theravada (Doctrine of the Elders). Mahayana Buddhism spread throughout China, eclipsing Confucianism as the most prominent faith. Theravada Buddhism spread through other southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Myanmar. Both forms of Buddhism in practice incorporate a number of polytheistic and animistic elements, in what could be called “folk Buddhism.” Buddhism however did not thrive in India, its birthplace, which reverted to various forms of Hinduism. During the reign of the Guptas in India of the 2nd century AD, Buddha was increasingly associated with Hindu gods, even as Buddhism was increasingly a religion of the ruling class alone. However, the Guptas themselves promoted Hinduism, which got a new infusion of organization with the codifying of religious behavior in the Dharma Shastras during this time period. Indian scholarship took off with great advances in mathematics using decimals, zero, pi, negative numbers and quadratic equations. The Arabs later picked up these advances, passing them along with the term “al gebra” to the West. Great Indian oral literature, like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were written down, as well as ancient Indian mythology. The Guptas held poetry competitions to see who could compose the cleverest poem, praising ones full of riddles, puns and elaborate double meanings. Gupta playwrights were outstanding, as seen by works that survive to this day. Having picked up realism from the Greek influence, Indian sculpture of this period, both Buddhist and Hindu, is carved with magnificent detail. Hinduism had eclipsed Buddhism in India by the time the Gupta dynasty ended, just before 500 AD as the invasion of the Caucasian “White Huns” descended from central Asia. India disintegrated once again into small warring kingdoms. China 1-600 AD The history of China during this period mirrors the history of the Roman Empire. The Han dynasty struggled with increasingly weak rulers until the death of the last uncontested Han emperor, Lingdi, in 189AD. With barbarians descending from the north, peasants took refuge in the fortified estates of large landowners. This resultedin a feudal system not unlike that which developed in the west at the beginning of the 9th century as the Vikings began their pillaging. . The economy and trade almost ground to a halt after the collapse of the last Han-pretender in 220 AD, marking the beginning of almost 400 years of chaos and fighting. Though there were regional attempts to restore China to one dynasty, chaos only increased as the Huns entered and sacked cities in northern China in 311, fully 100 years before descending upon Europe. During this period, Confucianism, an organized ethical code and philosophy based on harmony between rulers and subjects, was not sufficient to provide people with a sense of security. Taoism (or Daoism), although begun over seven centuries earlier, became popular as a religion that combined magic, priests, and faith-healers. It promised long-life and immortality by following “the Way” or Dao, which included mediation, reading writings of Laozi (Lao Tzu), special diets and breathing exercises designed to nurture internal gods, use of drugs, communicating with nature, and doing good deeds. They sought potions for eternal life, dabbling in chemistry and alchemy. Daoism’s emphasis on nature also gave rise to the beautiful “mountain and water” landscape paintings of classical Chinese painting. It became popular for learned men to retire from society to engage in philosophical speculation, discussions, and dietary manipulations. A combination of political chaos, religious withdrawal from society, and natural disasters (droughts, famines, etc.) paved the way for barbarians to move progressively into China during the 4th century. A collection of 5 different types of barbarians from both what is now Tibet and what is now Mongolia, pushed south into former Han territory. The northern Chinese aristocracy escaped to the southern part of China, where they quickly took over the economy and governmental systems, setting up a dynastic oligarchy controlled with carefully kept geneologies. These estates were run by the great families, who each tried to outdo one another by sponsoring artists, dancers, scholars, musicians, and especially poets. The arts flourished during this time, even the hosts would challenge guests to supply the best endings to poems, abiding by standard rules thus bringing about a codification to Chinese poetry.. The philosophical and metaphysical discussions of Daoism began to be replaced by a new philosophy, Buddhism. The Mahayana form of Buddhism reached China as early as the first century AD, brought by Buddhist missionary monks and merchants. It did not spread at first, in part because its emphasis on distancing oneself from life and passion ran counter to the Chinese love of beauty and ritual. Also, the Buddhist emphasis on celibacy conflicted with the deeply ingrained Chinese respect for family lineage and ancestors. However, slowly it began to be seen as less “foreign”. It gained ground during the 4th century when, using the Daoist emphasis on discussion, “pure-conversation” or qingtan, the upper classes began to discuss Buddhism and upper class gentlemen , began embracing the monastic life, adapting Buddhism as they went. Upper class women, especially widows and concubines of princes who died, turned to Buddhism, becoming nuns. By 420 AD there were some 24,000 Buddhist monks in southern China. Chaos continued to some degree throughout the 4th and 5th centuries in the government, with rulers rarely lasting more than 5 or 6 years before they were assassinated,often by their own family or trusted military. In 502 AD the Emperor Wu came to power (founder of the Liang dynasty), who undermined the tight oligarchy by decreeing in 509 that “all those with talent may advance along the road to success.” Wu was a zealous Buddhist who tried to subvert Daoism by closing their temples and abolishing their priesthood. He banned wine and meat at his tables and forbade the sacrifice of any animals. Meanwhile, in the area north of the Yangtze River, there were multiple little kingdoms ruled by various barbarians lords who were constantly shifting alliances. Buddhism began to make headway in the north, where secure walled unallied monasteries were used as the banking system, and people fleeing from the chaos often become monks, gaining a peaceful environment. At the end of the 4th century, a Tibetan ruler in North China sponsored the translating of over 98 Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures into Chinese by an amazing half-Indian monk named Kumarajiva. Witty and not at all celibate, Kumarajiva tirelessly translated the scriptures and, though the original Sanskrit versions have been lost, 52 of the Chinese translations still exist. Buddhism began to spread rapidly in the north during this time. Soon the practice arose of assigning criminals to work off their crimes as slaves in Buddhist monasteries, where they did much of the manual labor, thereby greatly increasing the productivity of the monasteries. Many converted to Buddhism. Around 490 AD Buddhas were carved into river cliffs in the north, some up to 160 feet tall, inspired by similar Buddhas carved in Central Asia and India, where Chinese pilgrims would laboriously travel. Near the northern capital of Louyang, Buddhists carved Buddhas for 300 years, reaching over 100,000 Buddhas carved into the rock. In spite of these centuries of division between the north and the south of China, they were united by the use of the Chinese pictographic writing, which could be read regardless of difference in language all over the north and the south. A poem written in the south could be read in the north; and an imperial decree could be read over 1000 miles away. These different regions were also increasingly united by the Buddhist religion. In 589 AD a new leader, Yang Jian (Emperor Wen or Wendi), of both barbarian and Chinese ancestry, managed finally to reunite the north and the south, using, among other things, the Buddhist religion to consolidate his new empire, the Sui dynasty. He ruthlessly razed the entire city of Jiankang, which had stood for 300 years as a capital in the south. Burning its libraries, public buildings, palaces and temples, Yang Jian had his troups plow whatever was left of the city into farmland. His son, Yangdi, took on massive construction projects, including a Grand Canal (over 130 feet wide and 900 miles long) between Beijing and Hangzhou to connect the North China plain and Yellow River with the Yangtze River and valley. He intended to use this canal to maintain his power over the large area and used used it for troop transport and ostentatious imperial cruises. However unexpected, the canal also proved to be an exceptional commercial help, allowing some 40,000 trading boats to carry rice north from the south. Consistently ruthless, Yangdi, did not care how many peasants died in his giant forced labor endeavors, including a massive effort to repair the Great Wall in 607, when as many as 50% of all workers died. Christianity in Medieval China Rumors have been afloat for many centuries that the apostle Thomas, who is said to have been killed in India, actually managed to make it all the way to China with the Good News. Recent excavations in China have turned up Christian symbols and stories from the Bible from the first century. However, the earliest significant proof of Christianity reaching China was the discovery of the Nestorian monument. With large characters under a cross announcing “A Monument Commemorating the Propagation of the Ta-ch’in (Syrian) Luminous Religion in China”, this monument from 781 AD tells of the arrival of a Nestorian missionary in the Chinese capital in 635 AD. Unlike in Europe, where the gospel spread from the fading Roman empire out toward the barbarians, the destabilized Chinese empire had barbarians pouring in, the gospel being carried through the same channels. Nestorian monks, traveling along the Silk Road, made their way to China.In 551 AD two such monks brought silk worms hidden in a bamboo tubeback to the Emperor Justinian, in Constantinople, a verifiable proof of Nestorian contact with China. By this time, many of the Central Asian peoples, Turks and Bactrians, had become at least nominally Christian. According to the Nestorian monument, inscribed in stone, the missionary Alopen brought the “true sutras” (scriptures) with him to China, and they were translated for the Imperial Library. It says His Majesty “investigated ‘the Way’ in his own forbidden apartments, and being deeply convinced of its correctness and truth, he gave special orders for its propagation…” In the year 638 AD the first Christian church was constructed in the capital on orders from the Emperor himself, although he also sponsored construction of Buddhist and Taoist temples, as well. When the grandson, Kao-tsung, of the original emperor to have received Christianity came to the throne, he (according to the monument) established “illustrious monasteries” in every prefecture, or about 358 monasteries. However, when he took a second wife Wu Hou, the young “widow” concubine of his own father, her clever and ruthless control of him began to undermine freedom of religion. For example, she killed her first son and blamedit on the queen, who was subsequently left to die after her hands and feet were cut off. When the emperor died she took control, deposing her two sons from the throne, one after the other. Wu Hou avidly promoted Buddhism, took a Buddhist monk as a lover, and became hailed as a reincarnation of the Buddhist messiah, Maitreya Buddha. She made Buddhism the state religions in 691 AD and persecution of Christians began soon afterward. There had been an increase of the Christian faith in China in 636 BC when many of the ruling Persians escaped to China after the Arab Islamic invasion.. By 751 AD, Muslims and Chinese forces clashed in what is now Kirghistan, ending China’s age old dominance of Central Asia. For the next 500 years Chinese military power in Central Asia declined and Arab Islamic forces conquered. While Central Asia was being conquered by Islamic forces, Christianity continued its non-military growth in China—between 712 and 781 making its greatest strides forward yet. Nevertheless, during the next 200 years,Chinese leaders returned to a xenophobic perspective. Hence, Christianity and other foreign religions from the West, including Manichaeism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and even Buddhism experienced bouts of severe persecution, and many monks and nuns were killed or forced out of the country. It took more than 400 years for Buddhism to regain its former strength in China. However, by the time the Jesuits arrived in China the 16th century, there was no sign of any remaining Christian community there. Comparative Religions: Have you ever heard it said that all the religions are just different expressions of the same thing? That all the great religious teachers basically agree? These statements aren’t even vaguely true! Perhaps the best way to bring this out is to look at the following questions: What are their goals? Nothing distinguishes religions from each other more clearly than their goals. In the philosophical forms of Buddhism, the follower uses various attitudes and techniques to empty oneself of passions of all types, to reach peace through disengagement. In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhivattvas are sought out or even worshipped for the spiritual help they provide toward the same peaceful nothingness of Nirvana. Bodhivattvas are people, though not historically specified, that have reached Nirvana or become “Buddhas” before, but have put off their enjoyment thereof to help other humans reach Nirvana. In Buddhism there is no real “god” per se, no eternal life. Reincarnation, sometimes as many as 500 lives in Hinayana Buddhism, are required to master the emotional or spiritual distancing needed to reach the unconscious-peace of Nirvana. In Islam, which you will study about in the next unit, the believer tries to submit himself to the standards and laws of a righteous God, in hopes of obtaining His mercy on Judgment Day. Folk Islam, a mixture of official Islamic beliefs and animism, makes use of amulets and some occult practices, and tries to enlist the help of dead Muslim saints, historical people whose tombs are available, in obtaining God’s favor, help, or forgiveness. Though Muslims believe in the God of Abraham, they do not think there is any way to actually know this omnipotent holy God personally, either now or in heaven. The goal in Islam is to submit yourself to God in hopes that He will mercifully grant you access to paradise when Jesus the Messiah (Isa al Massih) returns to judge humanity on Judgment Day. Judaism acknowledges that Abraham and many other men and women have had personal relationships with the Creator God. They seek this relationship through the study of God’s word, wrestling with His truths, and through obedience (at various levels of strictness, depending on the branch of Judaism) to the laws and traditions of Judaism. Some branches of Judaism believe in the resurrection of the dead and eternal life in heaven, and others do not. Christianity’s goal is a loving personal eternal relationship with a living personal holy God, which can only be obtained through the substitutionary death of Jesus the Christ (Messiah) and a relationship with God through Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. This relationship is not earned at some point in the future by good works, but available by grace NOW through Christ. Folk Christianity, like folk Islam, focuses instead on obtaining God’s help, favor, or forgiveness by trying to use dead Christian saints as mediators. At one point in history, the Catholic Church even taught that the holiness and merits of saints, or even Christ himself, could be obtained by humans to improve their godliness through the purchase of “indulgences,” a teaching it has since rejected. In its “works” forms, Christianity resembles the other monotheistic religions (like Judaism and Islam), which through reverence and personal effort seek to please a righteous God. What are their means of achieving their goals? Self-effort is common to all religions except Christianity’s emphasis on salvation by grace. Nevertheless, the KIND of self-effort still varies significantly. They are all attempts to somehow make oneself a better person or to gain help from God or a god: appeasement, self-abasement, mind-drugging through chemicals or through ritual spinning or mind-emptying meditation, doing good works or serving the poor, giving large contributions, paying for feasts, repenting with self-flagellation. Christianity is the only religion where God himself pays the price to purify and make holy the person. Therefore some accuse Christians of having a confidence of salvation that leads to living as they please. Instead Christ says that we will recognize those that are “abiding in Him” by the fruit that grows out of their lives, which comes as a result of the Holy Spirit living in them. Those who know God can be recognized by those whose lives show the “fruit of the Spirit” written about in Galatians 5: 22-23, (e.g. love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control) and who are able to keep God’s commands cheerfully and from the heart because of their love for Him. Have religious beliefs caused most of the wars in history? No, in fact, in each unit it is a good exercise to make a note of any war that was primarily a religious war. You will quickly find that almost all the wars in history have been power-struggles to control territory and resources (wealth). Often people groups with the same religious persuasion fight each other for centuries if not millennia. The Muslim wars of conquest, while superficially religious in nature, were very similar to expansions of previous empires that gained ascendancy, whether Greek or Persian or Roman. As soon as vast territories became aligned with Islam, there developed wars between Muslim rulers (Arabs, Persian, Turks, etc). Similarly, when vast areas became aligned with Christianity, wars broke out between people groups that were both at least nominally Christian over issues of power and resources unrelated to faith. Why does it matter what people believe as long as they treat each other well? This question rightly points out how important it is that people love each other and do not hurt each other over religious questions. It wrongly assumes that belief is a matter of personal conviction and there is no truth that actually exists outside of a person’s opinion. However, science has clearly demonstrated that there is much to be gained by realizing that the universe exists independently of our understanding of it, and the closer our understanding comes to correspond with the reality out there, the better we are able to live in a healthy and effective way. Just because science has chosen to only work in the realm of the material reality, that does not mean that a spiritual reality does not also exist independent of our personal opinions. In fact, close to 90% of the world’s population believes that the spirit world does indeed exist. The Bible is a 4000 plus year record of man’s interactions with one supreme righteous spirit being, called God in English, as well as lesser spirit beings, some evil (angels and demons). The Bible’s emphasis on the historical record is unique. The scriptures of other religions are for the most part non-historical by their own admission, but in their own way reveal human perspectives regarding spirit powers and realities. The Bible and the Quran both describe a righteous omnipotent creator God, who reveals truth about Himself to humanity, recorded by the prophets. Both of these traditions claim that the capricious, violent or immoral gods of polytheistic worldviews, and described in their scriptures or mythologies, are fallen spirit beings of limited power (namely demons). In animism, these lesser spirits are thought to indwell animals, plants, locations and people, and interact with mankind, while the greater creator spirit is seen as distant. In pantheistic worldviews, the spirit realm is seen to be impersonal and pervasive (indwelling all of reality). Is something still true if surrounded by error? This is a topic worth discussing with your students. The simple answer is “yes.” Things discovered by science may be true in some regards and not in others, and be refined by more discoveries later. The later discoveries both prove that which was true and reveal that which was in error. Because reality and truth exist apart from our understanding and experiencing of it, then at any point our understanding may be partially accurate and partially wrong. This is also true in the realm of the spirit. God and the whole spirit realm exist apart from our ability to perceive or understand them. The Bible is an accumulation of revelations from God to human beings about Himself and the spirit realm, and a record of their interactions with Him. These revelations can help us to gain discernment so we can recognize what is true even when it is surrounded by error. We can also learn significantly about God by studying what those who have gone before have learned, including those who have lived since biblical times. Likewise, studying what scientists have learned over the centuries gives us a better understanding of the physical world than if we had to discover everything ourselves. In conclusion: During this period of time, faith in Jesus Christ spread eastward. ​ ## 9 Fall of Rome and the Rise of Islam AD 400 – 800 Rome is Weakened (recap 200 AD to 400 AD) For a couple hundred years, Rome managed to hold the barbarians behind the two great rivers that cut across Europe, the Rhine and the Danube—not that all was well in Rome during that period. Rome, in a constant state of war, often found itself fighting both internal and external wars with the restless peoples under their control. For example, Marcus Aurelius, one of the best emperors of the late 2nd century spent the last 14 years of his reign continually fighting the Germans, only to die from a plague in 180 AD. It had also not been uncommon for civil wars to erupt between regional generals competing to take over the throne when the last emperor died. There few good emperors in the 3rd century and many military coups and assassinated rulers. The praetorian guard (special forces to guard the Emperor) even once sold the office of emperor to the highest bidder, in this case Didiuus Julianus, who paid each guard a sum equal to six time his normal annual salary only to be promptly killed by the opposition. In the 50 years from 235 AD to 285 AD more than 20 different emperors met their demise, elevated to power by their armies only to be swiftly done away with for whatever reason. Rome was exhausting its resources fighting Sassanian Persia in the East and barbarian tribes in the North. Both emperors and generals found themselves with fewer men increasingly demanding higher salaries, and always more than willing to assassinate anyone who refused their demands. By the mid 3rd century, more and more barbarians were crossing the river frontiers and settling down, especially the Franks in Gaul (now France) and the Alemanni to the north of Italy. At the same time, the Roman economy was collapsing as the value of money plummeted. The population was declining, as men were lost in the constant warfare, and plagues decreased the number of common folk and slaves, who did most of the hard labor. In the latter centuries, as much as 30% of the population of what is now Italy was slaves. With a collapsing infrastructure, the Roman government increasingly permitted their armies to seize the food, clothing and wagons they needed from the local populations, triggering massive instability and unrest. Peasants abandoned their fields for the relative safety of walled cities. Their fields returned to wilderness, and famines followed. When Diocletian took control in 284 AD, he set himself up as the supreme emperor (called the Augustus) over the eastern part of the empire, established Maximian as the Augustus over the western empire. Each had a sub ruler called a Caesar whom they adopted as sons which ruled over part of their territories. The army grew to 500,000 men, with many more of them cavalry than before. Diocletian revised and expanded the tax system, tried to freeze prices (promoting a black market), created smaller provinces consisting of 12 dioceses each, and generally used harsh measures to restore order. On February 23, 303 AD, he decide the rising number of Christians were a threat to the stability of Rome. Beginning with burning a church visible from his palace, Diocletian instituted the most organized and widespread persecution of Christians in Roman history and ordered all copies of scripture to be publicly burned. His adopted son and intended successor Galerius subsequently issued the death penalty for anyone who did not worship the pagan gods. This edict led to the death of some high court men and women, including Diocletian’s own wife and daughter. Six years later in 311, as Galerius, now supreme emperor of the eastern empire, lay dying , he revoked the persecution and asked Christians to pray for him, but the frenzied persecutions sweeping through the Empire could not be stopped for almost two decades. The Roman Empire Joins Forces with the Church Constantine, son of Maximian’s adopted son and heir Constantius, rose to power over the western part of the empire in 312 after staging attacking Rome with the troops under his control, gaining victory after a vision which persuaded him to fight under the standard of the cross. His mother, Helena, was a devout Christian, later canonized. After gaining control of the western empire, Constantine met with Galerius’ successor, Licinius, in 313 and together they issued the Edict of Milan, which granted freedom of religion to the Christians. However, persecution continued in the east in Licinius’ territory until Constantine gained full control in 324. Both Christians and pagans blessed Constantine when he dedicated the new city capital of Constantinople on May 11, 330 AD. Constantine, as you discussed in Unit 1, quickly started funneling government monies that used to go to pagan priest into the hands of Christian leaders. He used these funds to call councils, pay for transportation, give salaries to leaders, pay for construction of Christian places of worship, etc. Though intended for good, Constantine had little insight into the negative impact his policies would have on the development of the Church. He even sent a letter to the emperor in Persia, asking him to treat the Christians in his area well, a request that back-fired, as the Persians did not want to treat kindly any possible friends of Rome. In spite of Constantine’s patronage of Christianity, he did not finance missionaries therefore the gospel spread into the barbarian tribes largely through informal means. One Cappadocian (from central Turkey) named Ulfila, who had been captured and raised among the Visigoths, returned to Rome, trained as a bishop, then went back as a missionary to the Visigoths. He accomplished the amazing task of using a modified Greek alphabet to translate the Bible (omitting war-inspiring passages) into the Gothic language. Though Ulfila was evicted by angry Goth leaders in 348 AD, the gospel, in an Arian form, began to spread throughout the Goths, Vandals and Burgundians. (Those influenced by Arius taught that Jesus was God’s only Son, by which they meant a divine being created from nothing before the material world, the Word of God, through whom all else was created. This theology was denounced by the Nicene Council, convened by Constantine in 325 AD.) Meanwhile, the Roman army was increasingly using German tribesmen as mercenaries, and the Roman soldiers eventually adopted the hide trousers of the northern tribesmen. Wholesale barbarian invasion of Roman territories was precipitated by the invasion of the Central Asian Huns from the East. The Huns were fierce, illiterate warriors who lived, ate and even slept on their horses. Their reputation for cruelty sent people fleeing upon their approach. Soon the Visigoths pleaded to be allowed over the Danube River to escape the Huns. In 378, the eastern emperor Valens allowed 200,000 Visigoths to cross over the frozen river in exchange for their weapons, though there was little he could have done to prevent them.. The Visigoths were given terrible land, almost no provisions, and began to starve. Within two years they were forced to forage from the surrounding areas, raiding villages for food and clothes. So Valens decided to attack them, but he and two thirds of his elite eastern forces were annihilated. Valens was succeeded by Emperor Theodosius, who solved the situation by giving the Visigoths better land in Northern Greece in exchange for their aid in keeping other barbarians from crossing the Danube River. Theodosius, a devout Christian, made Christianity the “state religion” of the Roman Empire, banning paganism in 385AD. His dedication to the church was so complete, that when Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, required his public penance (after he ordered the massacring of 7000 citizens in Thessalonica for revolting), Theodosius appeared in church in penance clothing and publicly begged forgiveness…to everyone’s astonishment. However, having Christianity as the ONLY legal religion turned control of the Christian faith into a matter for the government, and made people who dissented from Christianity, or held to a non-official doctrinal position, not just heretics but traitors as well. Not surprisingly, within one year of Theodosius’ pronouncement, the first Christians in history were put to death in an ostensibly Christian government’s court. A Spanish priest Priscillian and six of his companions were beheaded in Treves, in the first application of the Theodosian law against heretics. Both Bishop Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours strongly protested the execution, preferring that the Church, not the state, handle cases of heresy (where heretical priests or bishops were normally excommunicated not killed). Nevertheless, this case set a precedent for death due to heresy, which became especially severe in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition over one thousand years later. The Barbarians Gain the Upper Hand Although an Emperor ruled in Contantinople for another 1000 years, until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 AD, by the beginning of the 5th Century it was becoming harder and harder for the Western Roman Empire to hold together. Rome was sacked for the first time by the Gauls in 390 AD. When Emperor Theodosius died in 395 AD, his two sons, Arcadius (16) and Honorius (10) were made emperors of the eastern and western empires respectively. Honorius hid out in Ravena, Italy, while his general Stilicho (a Vandal himself) held off the Goths. But when barely 21 years old, Honorius, had Stilicho executed, in fear of his growing power, the Visigoths rushed into Italy under their capable leader Alaric. Laying siege to Rome, the Visigoths were bought off with the immense sum of 5000 pounds of gold and 30,000 pounds of silver! Two years later, in 410 AD, Alaric and the Visigoths came back, this time sacking Rome of all movable treasures, but leaving the churches untouched and the buildings and people intact (largely because of their Aryan Christian beliefs). They captured the sister of Honorius, who Alaric’s successor Ataulf asked permission to marry. Honorius foolishly rejected the possible truce, and Ataulf married his sister anyway. Due to the falling Roman population, the emperors increasingly bribed one group of barbarians to help fight off another group of barbarians. To gain favor with Rome, the Visigoths helped to fight against the Vandals, who by this time had hacked and slaughtered their way through Gaul (France), and were now invading Spain (their name ever since being associated with wanton destruction). As a reward for their assistance, the Visigoths were allowed to settle in southern France. However, after they pushed the Vandals completely out of Spain into North Africa, they also settled down in Spain themselves. In 429 AD, most of the Vandals, some 80,000 persons,, were led by a crippled genius and former slave, Gaiseric, across the Straits of Gibralter. Here they began to take over some of the choice areas of the Roman Empire, with beautiful cities and fields of grain on which the city of Rome depended. They laid seige to Hippo, the home city of St. Augustine (see below). During the yearlong siege Augustine died. In 439 AD Carthage was taken with hardly a soldier to defend it, and Gaiseric developed a large fleet of pirate ships with which to terrorize the Mediterranean. Soon he captured the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, expanding his attacks on Roman and Greek lands. Meanwhile, in northern Europe, the Huns had resurged under the leadership of a man named Attila. The Romans tried to maintain their control over Gaul (France) by actually employing Attila the Hun and his forces to fight the barbarians there. This turned out to be a “deal with the devil.” Soon he had taken to plundering the Balkans (443 AD), and had to be forestalled from attacking Constantinople by a yearly tribute. Roman mercenary Gothic troops were also sent to fight against him. Nevertheless, Atilla and his Huns mercilessly slaughtered monks and villagers, burned towns, and only relented when a plague broke out. In a bizarre fiasco worthy of a soap opera, the then western emperor Valentinian III’s sister, Honoria, sent her ring to Attila requesting a rescue from an unwanted wedding. Taking it as a proposal of marriage, Attila demanded half of the Western Empire. When his request was denied, he attacked Gaul (451 AD). On the side of the Huns were fighting a variety of Germanic tribes, including Ostrogoths, Gepids, Thuringians, Sciri, Rugians, and Heruli. Likewise, the Roman forces who oppose them were also made up of any barbarians that the Roman general Aetius could pull together: Franks, Saxons, Burgundians, Celts, and his former enemies the Visigoths. In the ensuing protracted battle, about 130 miles south of Paris, no one won, and Attila eventually withdrew temporarily. After the death of the western Roman Emperor Valentinian III in 455 AD, there was a quick succession of weak and ineffectual rulers, as different men tried to usurp the role of emperor. The last emperor in the west, ironically called Romulus Augustulus (after the founder of Rome and the most famous Caesar) was deposed by a Frankish barbarian general named Odoacer in 476 AD. How the Roman church takes on the organization of the Roman Empire and takes over some of its functions When the armies of Attila the Hun returned, they crossed into northern Italy (451 AD), threatening to attack Rome itself. Fearing a coup, Emperor Valentinian III had order the murder of his general, Aetius, leaving the troops in disarray, so there was virtually no imperial army left to fight off the Huns. Instead, Pope Leo I (who was in office from 440-461 AD) rode out to meet with Attila, somehow persuading him to leave the city of Rome alone. This event highlighted the failing power of the Roman state in contrast to the rising power of the Roman Church. Pope Leo I, one of the few to be called “the Great,” insisted that by Christ’s decree Peter was the “rock” on which the church was to be built. Therefore the church, like Peter, specifically the Pope as Peter’s successor, could make judgments that would be valid in heaven. He said that the other patriarchs, including the one in Constantinople, were of a second position to the patriarch of Rome, to be called the Pope (all these terms mean “father”). The western emperor Valentinian III, at Leo’s request, issued an edict commanding all bishops, patriarchs and metropolitans in all branches of Christianity to obey the “bishop of Rome,” the pope, on the basis that he had the “primacy of St. Peter.” Of course, many branches of Christianity were already far from the reaches of either the Roman Empire or the Roman Church, and, if they got the news at all, could easily disregard it. The Eastern Orthodox church had not yet split off officially, but the divide between Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking congregations, and differences in practice, were already significant. The church exercised it power through the same “diocese” districts created by the Roman Empire under the reign of Diocletian. As the empire lost more and more control, the Roman church began to take over many of the functions in society originally provided by the government, including social welfare, contractual arrangements, law and order, etc. In fact, many of the church officials, such as bishops, were selected from educated aristocratic families, in a way similar to how government officials had been given posts previously. They stood for the old order, one of relative stability and justice compared to the chaotic times at hand. Power also passed into the hands of local feudal lords, but bishops also quite commonly had their own armies and bore arms, not unlike feudal lords themselves. While the Roman-background Christians easily accepted a Christian church structure that mimicked the Roman Empire, the barbarians were use to a diffusion of power, both politically and religiously. As they converted to Christianity, they increasingly resented the hierarchical structure. Already, the Celtic church, the eastern Nestorian, Syrian, Armenian churches, and the Greek Orthodox and Egyptian churches were either rebelling against, or resisting attempts to extend, Roman Catholic control. In the end, the Celtic church, which was steeped in Latin, had a similar structure, and had helped re-establish Christianity in the waning Roman world, officially joined the Roman Catholic Church at the Synod of Whitby in the 5th century. However, the other branches of the church continued to develop independently, and break into branches by language and by choice of theological distinctions. For example, when the Greeks adopted the orthodox position on the nature of Christ (fully human, fully divine, insisting that therefore Mary was the Mother of God), the Persians, their long time enemies, chose the Nestorian position on the dual nature of Christ (who insisted that Mary could not be called the Mother of God but only the Mother of Christ). The Armenians, geographically between the two, maintained their independence from both sides by adopting the Monophysite perspective, rejected by both the Greeks and the Persians (Christ has only one divine nature). On the one hand, the church, by taking over the role of the western empire, managed to hold civilization together; on the other hand, it mixed and substituted organizational unity of believers for what had previously been a unity of faith in the Cross and the resurrection. For centuries to follow, even into the present day, it is hard for some Christians to see Christianity as intrinsically distinct from its institutional ecclesiastical forms. St. Augustine Explains God’s Role in the Fall of Rome Until the time of Constantine, Christian writers unanimously took a pacifist position, condemning the taking of life in war. Jesus’ command to love ones enemies , and Jesus’ act of taking the sword from Peter when Peter cut off the ear of the soldier arresting Him, were used to show that Christians could not be involved in war. Indeed, some early Christian leaders, such as Origen of Alexandria, expected wars to cease when Christianity became widely accepted. Though some still served in the army, and early Christians believed that martyrdom was better than self-defense when faced with persecutions, whether by mobs or by officials—“neither flee nor provoke” wrote Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria. All this changed after Constantine and Theodosius. The right of a Christian government to use violence in war and the trial of heretics led to the need for individual Christians, submissive to that government, to kill in war and to pronounce and carry out the death penalty. As the Roman Empire was increasingly overrun by barbarians, the pacifism espoused by the Christians for the first three centuries came under question. One of the most influential writers in Christian history, St. Augustine, is credited with coming up with the philosophical arguments on the conditions under which war can be waged both justly and morally. Born in North Africa near Carthage (lived 354-430AD), Augustine was pulled into the faith after having wandered spiritually through hedonism (delight in pleasure, including becoming addicted to the gladiator games), Skepticism, Neoplatonism, and for nine years, Manichaeism. Augustine had a pagan father and a Christian mother, named Monica. Augustine became attracted to the Christian faith through the powerful sermons of Bishop Ambrose, when living in Milan. A brilliant rhetorician himself, Augustine was amazed at the clear truth and intellectual eloquence of Ambrose. He began to study the New Testament, which he had ignored since his youth. Dismayed at his own lack of control over his passions, one day Augustine was struck by Romans 13, where it said “Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy… but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.” Realizing that his hope was not in his own effort, but in “putting on” Jesus Christ, he found the peace he had been seeking. Augustine was to go back to North Africa and become one of the leading theologians of this period. Even as the Vandals were conquering Spain and North Africa, he pondered one of the major theological questions of this period: “Why is God allowing the barbarians to destroy the Roman Empire, especially now that it was finally on the side of Christianity?” The second question everyone was asking was “Is it right for Christians to resort to killing the barbarians to protect their land?” As mentioned, for the first three centuries Christians had been largely pacifists, and the governments waging wars were not identified with Christianity. Augustine wrote the book City of God to answer such questions. In it he argued that Rome was finally receiving the just payment for its centuries of bloodshed, idolatry, persecution of the Christians, and corruption at highest levels. He pointed out that every empire deserves destruction because of its lust for power and arrogance… and that all empires are eventually judged by God, as we see happening in the Old Testament. So, should Christians fight if the judgment against Rome was from God? Here Augustine took on the argument of Cicero, who said that war was legitimate only under the direction of the state, to accomplish justice, and to restore peace. The enemy must be treated in good faith, and prisoners respected. Augustine added two points to those of Cicero: that the motive for the war must be love (which is possible since the soul is eternal), and, for the war to be just, one side must be unjust. Nevertheless, he maintained that the clergy must never fight, and that civilians had no right to take matters into their own hands, only those in authority could determine when war was required. Because he saw it as loving to force heretics back into the church, his writings unfortunately were later used to justify the Inquisition. However, he strongly advocated pacifism in the lives of families and individuals. Nevertheless, Augustine said that the “city of God” and the “city of man,” that is, the kingdom of God as announced by Jesus and the evils of the world, would be inexorably mixed together until the return of Christ and the Judgment Day. Would this increasing mixture of the “church of faith” with a “church of power” wielding political influence be the downfall of Christianity? Augustine died in 430 AD during the Vandal siege of the city of Hippo, in North Africa before he could answer this question. The Rise of Monasticism Many more people joined the Christian church after Constantine legalized the faith. But later, when Theodosius made Christianity the only legal religion of the Empire, pagans were forced into the church even against their will on threat of persecution or death. This influx produced a flood of nominal Christians. By the end of the fifth century most of the people in the Roman Empire (both eastern and western) considered themselves Christians. Even the barbarian tribes overrunning Roman territories were Christians, though heretical Arian Christians. Everyone was being baptized. The churches had many clerics, paid by the government now, who were barely literate, hardly moral, and more interested in having a salaried position than in leading people closer to Christ. What it meant to BE a Christian was being quickly lost. Monasticism became a refuge for those seeking the total devotion to God that they valued in the martyrs of old. The first form of monasticism was the hermit, which initially developed when devout Christians and Christian leaders hid out in the deserts during the great persecutions at the end of the 3rd century. Some were followed by others and formed into small groups. Others withdrew into the desert thereby to flee passions and wage spiritual warfare against demons (who were thought to dwell in dry places) more effectively. The most famous of these early monks was Anthony, who was born into a rich Egyptian Christian family. In 270 AD, about the age of 20, he heard the story of the “rich young ruler” in the gospels and decided to give away all of his possessions. He became very ascetic and eventually withdrew to the desert where others lived in cave-like cells near him. Surviving until 356 AD (to an age of 105), he became increasingly ascetic, and was known for his radiant love of God, sharp mind, kindness to others, and cheerfulness. Especially in the areas farther east, where there was influence from Hinduism and Buddhism, solitary ascetic monks became at times very extreme and bizarre in their behavior –sitting on pillars, subsisting on grass, or engaging in repetitive behaviors. Such forms of extreme asceticism had existed for centuries in Hinduism, Buddhism, and to a lesser extent in some Greek sects of Cynics and Stoics, and did not come into Christianity from Judaism nor Zoroastrianism, both of which do not promote asceticism or celibacy. Some believe that the valuing of asceticism and celibacy gained ascendancy in Christianity after martyrdom ceased, and in reaction to the wealth and relaxation of morals that came with the influx of state monies and nominal believers after the time of Constantine. Almost as soon as Christianity became more popular and institutionalized, a larger movement began to develop among lay Christians, outside of the hierarchical church structure, made up of those dissatisfied with the worldliness and lack of attention to Christ’s teachings found in the churches. Men especially began to withdraw from the churches and society in orderto spend time meditating on the word of God, praying, and living a life of disciplined self-denial. Often they were looked on with suspicion and antagonism by the local church leaders and bishops, for they were outspoken about abuses within the church and seldom partook of the Eucharist (communion in the churches). By the end of the 5th century, this early form of monasticism had become so widespread and those who were practicing it had gained such a respected reputation, that it was increasingly regarded as the preferred pattern for the perfect Christian life. The most passionate Christian young people began to seek a monastic lifestyle, not just in the western Roman Catholic Church, but all the other branches of the church that were developing as well. In both the eastern Orthodox churches, and the western church, it eventually was seen as preferable for bishops, patriarchs or popes to be former monks. Monasticism developed into many varied forms, and served as a major source of vitality and renewal throughout the history of the church. However, monasticism from the beginning had a Greek dualistic taint, where the flesh/matter was seen as more corrupted than the spirit . Good works tended toward a legalistic achievement in self-purification, and therefore the initial tendency was to flee from the world instead of evangelizing non-believers. Also, celibacy, only seen as a Christian virtue initially, became a requirement for religious perfection. (As early as 305 celibacy was recommended for all clergy though it did not become established until much later, and then only in the Roman Catholic Church, not the Greek or other non-Latin churches.) It was unfortunate that an unforeseen result of monasticism was that monastics were seen as “Regular Christians” (i.e. those following a set of rules, or “regula”) while leaving everyone else as “Secular Christians” of whom a great deal less devotion to Christ was expected..” Nevertheless, the rise of monastisim had many benefits to society. Monks would often distribute all of their possessions to the poor when taking their vows, focus on study of scripture and the copying and preservation of scriptures, provide spiritual counsel to those who came to them for advice, and, later, devote themselves to service, education, and missionary work. Indeed from the 6th century on, almost all intentional missionaries were monks or nuns. The Development of Communal Monasticism The first man to develop the community form of monasticism was an Egyptian named Pachomius, who probably knew Anthony. He developed a walled monastic community system (c.320), holding 24-40 monks, sleeping three to a small cell. Each house had a common meeting room, and within the walled enclosure there was also a church, dining area, library, kitchen, bakery, storerooms, workshops, and infirmary. All of the walled monasteries were under the authority of one superior-general (who would appoint his own successor). The superior-general would visit each monastery, appoint a head monk and set their community rules. Rules included regular prayer times, uniforms, codes of conduct, rules for Eucharist, days of reconciliation, Bible literacy and memorization, compulsory manual labor, and two vegetarian meals a day with no wine. Also required were two community fasts a week, strict obedience to those with great seniority, chastity, and poverty. Among the things forbidden were gossip and non-profitable discussions. There was a three-year probationary period for new members, and each monastery had 200-300 members. By the time of Pachomius’s death, there were some 3000 monks, and his sister Mary had formed a female nunnery, under the same superior-general (though the monks and nuns never met each other). The idea of establishing communities of high commitment believers under a common rule or regular began to spread. After visiting Egypt and seeing the monasteries there, Basil and his sister Macrina formed a monastery and a nunnery in Asia Minor, what is Turkey today. These communities became influential because Basil wrote down two monastic rules, The Longer Rules and The Shorter Rules. His rules were practical and focused on growing in Christ as a community, studying the scriptures and diligent work. Property was held in common. When Basil reluctantly became a bishop, he tried to establish the monasteries as a valid form within the church, as until now they had largely been separate. His monastic rules were to influence many developing monastic movements in the future, including the most famous and influential of all, the Benedictine, which we will meet in a minute. In the west, the two most famous early (mid 4th century) monastics were Martin of Tours (in what is modern France) and Jerome (in Italy). Both lived at the same time as Ambrose of Milan, Augustine, and Basil. Martin is remembered for his amazing humility, joy, witness of Christ, and ability to bring reconciliation, impacting all of France for centuries. Jerome was a diligent and gifted scholar, master of languages, eloquent advocate of monasticism for both men and women, and volatile. Jerome is famous for having translated the Bible from the Greek and Hebrew into Latin—not the first attempt, but an excellent scholarly and eloquent version that became the standard for the Roman Catholic Church from then on, known as the Latin Vulgate (meaning vernacular, revised slightly in the 16th century). Augustine, who was mentioned earlier, himself lived in a monastic community, and there are Augustinian communities to this day. St Patrick, the Gospel and the Celtic missionaries The first monastic communities to initiate an organized missionary effort were from Ireland. A fascinating story, it all began shortly after the year 400 AD, when a young British boy was captured by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. Around 16 years old, he was a slave for the next 6 years, during which time his prayers evolved from pleas for food and warmth to conversations with God, filling his days and nights with prayer. Then one night he had a dream telling him to go to the distant shore, 200 miles away, where a ship would carry him home. He ran away, traveling by night to avoid detection. On arriving and discovering a ship, he was not allowed on board. At the last minute, they relented and let him on; however, the ship was blown off course and he ended up in a strange land, probably Gaul (France) where he studied at a monastery. He eventually made his way home, where his family was shocked and overjoyed to see him alive. Soon Patrick began to have repeated dreams of the Irish calling him to come back. At first the church refused to send him as a missionary to the Irish, sending another man instead, who was appalled by their paganism and quickly left. Finally, Patrick was consecrated to work as a bishop in Ireland, and he took some men and returned there (around 432AD, making him about 48 years old). Patrick had an amazing ministry in Ireland, facing down chieftans and pagan priests, even armed forces, with boldness but also with an understanding of the Irish language and Irish ways. He soon was baptizing thousands and ordaining clergy, setting up monasteries and teaching them to read and write in Latin and Greek, along with the help of others. In his writings, such as The Confessions of St. Patrick, Patrick is revealed as full-heartedly in love with Jesus, humble and gracious but determined and persevering. He lived in Ireland until his death in 461 AD (at about 78 years old). By that time, Ireland had become a predominantly Christian nation. The Christianity of Ireland, known as Celtic Christianity (since it did not join the Roman Catholic church for another couple hundred years), was unique and extremely influential all across northern Europe because of its missionary passion. Unlike the church-centered Christianity of Rome, the center of Celtic Christianity was the monastery, and the most powerful people were the abbots (heads of the monasteries) not the bishops. The monasteries were not only centers of learning and pious living, they also preserved much of Christianity’s written literature, particularly the Bible, during a time of relative chaos closer to Rome. (For a complete account of their amazing achievements, read the book How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Cahill.) While Christianity was growing in Ireland, England, like the rest of Roman Europe, was being taken over by non-Christian barbarians. The Angles and the Saxons, tribes uprooted by the advance of the Huns, crossed the English channel and pushed the original, nominally Christian inhabitants of England into Wales, the most western part of the British island. However, Celtic missionaries began establishing monasteries among the savage Picts of Scotland who were so dangerous the Romans had built Hadrien’s wall to keep them out of southern England instead of trying to conquer them. From 500 to 950 AD, the Celtic monasteries also sent missionaries into parts of England, to all the islands, to France, Italy, and almost all of northern Europe. Some of the most famous Celtic missionaries were Columba, Aiden, Cuthbert, and Columban (Columbanus), Gall (Gallen) and Willibrord (these last three working on the continent). Everywhere they went, they established monastic communities before churches. When a Celtic monastery got large enough, it would send out 13 of its members (like Christ and the 12 apostles) to begin a new monastery in an unreached area. The Celtic missionaries were well known for their diligence, gentleness, and willingness to preach in the local languages to the poor out in rural hamlets and villages, rough and dangerous people of whom they had no fear. Everywhere they took the scriptures. Some of their most beautifully illuminated manuscripts, like the famous Book of Kells, survive to this day. The Celtic monasteries did such a good job of preserving the Scriptures and writings of the early centuries, that when Charlemagne, (ruled in France from 771-814 AD) sought for a scholar to teach his people and children Latin and the scriptures, he sent over to England for help, not to Rome or Constantinople. The Celtic missionaries were responsible for the winning of most of Western Europe to Christ, their influence lasting up to the new wave of barbarians, the Vikings, which arrived around 800. Boniface (680-754 AD), converted himself by the Celtic missionaries who came to his native England, was one of the most famous missionaries to go to the quasi-Christian German and French tribal peoples. He is famous for chopping down the sacred oak of Thor in Hesse, and building a chapel with the wood. When there was no reprisal from the god Thor, the people finally gave up their syncretistic allegiance to their old gods. (for more on this era read A History of Christian Missions by Stephen Neill). After Boniface helped to bring renewal to the churches in France, as well as Bavaria and Thuringia (in modern Germany), he returned to the Frisians (modern Belgium) where he converted thousands before being killed in 754 AD. Boniface was remembered as a humble but brilliant man, who knew scripture exceedingly well, and was very brave and gifted as a leader and administrator. Benedict and the Rules While Patrick was winning Ireland to faith in Christ, the founder of the most famous chain of monasteries was growing up in Italy. Benedict, perhaps the most famous monk in Christian history, was born in Nursia, northeast of Rome, in 480 AD. When sent off to study in Rome, he hated school and was disgusted by the poor morals and love of entertainment of the day. In his late teens he left Roman society and took up the life of a hermit. Soon people were seeking his advice, or bringing their sons to be trained by him. Twelve monasteries arose near him, each started with 12 monks and a superior, the same number chosen by the Celts. Benedict’s twin sister also founded a convent near him. At almost 50 years of age, Benedict destroyed a temple to Apollo, building a monastery on the spot, at Monte Cassino. Never taking any title, he died around 542 AD. What makes Benedict so famous is the fact that, building on the “regula” or rules of life developed by other monasteries, he wrote a set of rules for any monastery that was to be a genius of order and moderation. More than any other, it has stood the test of centuries and is still in use today. The monastery was to be ruled by an abbot (which means “father”), chosen by the monks. It was to support itself completely through agriculture and workshops where goods would be produced. All possessions became group property upon admission (or had to be given to the poor), and the decision to join became irrevocable after a one-year trail period called a novitiate. Like the Celtic monks, Benedict did not encourage excessive asceticism but considered work, including manual labor, a thing honoring to God along with religious duties. Simple but adequate meals and reasonable fasting times were promoted. Idleness was considered an “enemy of the soul” so all twenty four hours were filled with periods of work, sleep, a service every 3 hours, meals, etc. Monks were given work in keeping with their talents. There were also times for group worship and for private prayers and devotions and reading. During meals, good readers would take turns reading from religious books or scripture. The monks were to refrain from unedifying conversations and contact with the outside world, except in the role of priest or when providing hospitality. Benedict’s rule was promoted by Pope Gregory in the 7th century and Charlemagne in the 8th, soon becoming widespread. Nevertheless, each monastery was independent of every other, and there was no overall organization that tied them together or enforced the rule. Their focus was on their own Christian community, centers of peace in a chaotic world, and their means of extending the gospel was primarily through recruiting members. Some mission work was done through new monasteries being established in unreached areas, but they did not have the same mission zeal or motivation as the Celtic missionaries who actively sought to win whole communities wherever they went. Gregory the Great While the monks retreated from society, preserving Latin and religious texts in their scriptoriums, the Roman government continued to disintegrate. Soon Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals held large parts of Southern Europe under their power. The secular clergy, the priests, bishops, cardinals and popes, began to take over many of the functions that the Roman government used to perform, eventually becoming as powerful as the political powers in Europe. As their power in society increased, church officials were more likely to be corrupt–even the Catholic Church acknowledges that most of the popes were not particularly good people. However, Gregory I, one of the few called the Great, was exceptional and was even canonized (made into a saint). He became pope by popular acclamation at the age of 50, in 590 AD and held the office for only 14 years before dying. Coming from a wealthy and educated Roman family, so devout that three of his father’s sister were nuns (and two became saints), Gregory used all his inherited wealth to establish and endow six monasteries, most in Sicily. He also turned his family’s estate in Rome into a monastery. After becoming pope, Gregory called himself “servus servorum Dei”, meaning “servant of the servants of God.” He had amazing administrative gifts and, once Pope, set about to reform the Roman church by instituting strict moral discipline among the clergy, getting rid of unworthy clergy or abbots. He also sent out missionaries to distant places, like England. After reforming the liturgy of the church, he promoted a type of singing in the church, soon known as “Gregorian chants,” still sung to this day. In 597, Pope Gregory sent a mission of forty monks to England, headed by Augustine (of Kent). He gave instructions not to destroy pagan temples, but to cleanse them and use them for churches. Idols were to be destroyed, but pagan festivals were to be turned into Christian feast days, honoring various Christian saints. This mission was extremely successful, and soon met up with Christians in the more northern part who were being converted by the Celtic missionaries. As there was discrepancy between the two forms of Christianity, especially on calendar issues like the date of Easter, a Synod was called in 664 at Whitby to decide, and the king, whose wife was a Roman Christian, decided that the Celtic church should join the Roman Catholic church. Gregory also defended the preeminence of the Pope, as Patriarch of Rome and Peter’s successor, over the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Patriarchs of the east never had to take over the civil functions of the empire, as did the Pope in the west; as a result, they remained subservient to the eastern Emperor and never developed the practical organized leaders that came to characterize the Catholic Church governed from Rome. The Byzantine Empire After the collapse of the western Roman Empire, the eastern part continued for another 1000 years, and is now commonly called the Byzantine Empire (after the original name for the city of Constantinople, which was Byzantium). Its chief language became Greek instead of the Latin of the west. In 518 AD, a 66 year old former peasant became the Emperor in Constantinople, Justin I. It was his successor, his nephew Justinian I, that was to become the most amazing emperor of the 6th century, since other civilizations in India and China were in decline at this point. Justinian was deeply religious, very intelligent and hard working. He reigned for 38 years, from 527 AD until his death in his eighties in 565 AD. Also a commoner, Justinian’s wife, Theodora, was an equally amazing empress. Although accused of having a shady past, Theodora was devoted to Justinian, beautiful, charming, able and upright. She had laws instituted which made it illegal to sell girls into prostitution, and set up a special convent for those escaping from it. She loved beauty, and encouraged Justinian to build not just extensive fortifications, roads and bridges, but also beautiful cathedrals, the most famous of which is the Hagia Sophia (Saint Wisdom), an outstanding example of the use of domes to create a huge pillar-less interior space. They also built palaces, monasteries, churches and public buildings, like baths. The art of the Byzantine Empire of this period was stunning, particularly the marvelous mosaics, many of which have survived to the present day. Justinian tried to heal the old breach between the Monophysites and the Orthodox, while repudiating Arianism (which held that Christ was a created lesser god). He, after much controversy, finally called the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553 AD), which met in Constantinople and affirmed a slightly Monophysite interpretation to the unchanged Creed of Chalcedon. However, the Pope at the time, Vigilus, refused to come or affirm the decisions of the council until Emperor Justinian banished him. Finally Vigilus agreed, and the decision applied to the whole Catholic church. However, peace between the Monophysite Christians and Orthodox/Catholic Christians was not restored, as Justinian had hoped. Outlying areas, jealous to uphold their independence from the Roman church, namely Armenian, Syria, Ethiopia, and Egypt (all Monophysite) refused the “compromise,” as did the westernmost regions like Gaul (anti-monophysite). In fact, a youth from an educated and wealthy family in Syria named Jacob Baradaeus, led a great revival and expansion of the Monophysite church from 542-578 AD, from Syria to Mesopotamia to Egypt. He walked around on foot, in rough clothes. Nevertheless, he is said to have consecrated hundreds of thousands of new priests, eighty-nine bishops and two patriarchs! A large wing of the Monophysites are named Jacobites to this day. There has never been much unity or organization between the many and varied branches of Monophysite Christianity, who remained split along ethnic lines for the most part. These groups were not accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as true Christians until the year 2000AD! (This is the same year they healed the 1000 year-old breach with the Greek Orthodox Church, and relented on the 500 year old refusal to accept Protestants as fellow Christians.) Justinian also tried to stamp out remaining remnants of paganism, and is responsible for finally closing the schools of philosophy in Athens. However, Justinian did not persecute pagans, allowing them freedom of their beliefs if they did not teach them to others. However, Justinian decreed the death penalty for Manichaeans, a Gnostic mix of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism taught by Mani, a 3rd century prophet from Persia who spoke and wrote holy books mostly in Syrian Aramaic. He also dealt harshly with other heretics like the Arians, but he was more lenient toward the Jews, merely regulating their worship. During the time of Justinian, barbarian tribes had gained the upper hand in the areas once under the domain of the western Roman Empire: the Vandals controlled North Africa, the Visigoths Spain, the Franks had Gaul and Italy was in the hands of the Ostrogoths. Britain had been overrun by the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. Justinian set out to reclaim control. His general Belisarius, with 18,000 troops, quickly took North Africa from the troubled Vandal rulers, weakened by corruption and revolt. Then he took back control of Rome from the Ostrogoths, only to get imperial forces into a protracted struggle that lasted over 20 years before the Ostrogoths came out the victors. The result was Italy had been decimated not liberated, with the years of war interrupting agriculture, causing death by starvation as well as massacre. By that time Justinian needed his forces in the East to fight off an aggressive Persia and he left depopulated Italy to its fate. Eventually, the tribe that had sided with the Roman/Byzantine army against the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, took over northern Italy. As the empire extended its control back over North Africa, the Berbers were won back from the Donatist heresy (from Roman times) and Arian heresy (brought in by the Vandal conquerors) to some extent. The tribes in Italy, Spain and Gaul (France) also slowly became Orthodox believers. Justinian also made sure that tribes in his territory, south of the Danube and over in the Caucasus, were won to Christianity. Perhaps the most lasting secular legacy of Justinian was the codification of systematic laws, sometimes called the Justinian Code. Justinian was barely emperor for two years before he established a number of judicial commissions to completely revise the now outdated Roman laws. These new laws, the famed Corpus Juris Civilus, became the model for the legal systems of almost all of the modern European nations. These laws also sought to reform the church, forbidding the sale of clerical offices, immorality, and indulgence in the theatre and horse-races, among other things. Giving bishops the responsibility to oversee public works, these laws also enforce the anti-gambling laws, and the laws requiring the raising abandoned babies as orphans (rather than leaving them to die, a common practice in pagan Roman and Greek culture). When Justinian finally died, in 565 AD, it was only five years before the birth of a man who was going to turn the world upside down, Mohammed. Rise of Islam As the empire of Persia, currently under control of the Sassanians (c.224-641), fought a long and debilitating no-win war with the Byzantine ( Eastern Roman) Empire for control of the Middle East, little did they realize that a new religion-based power was about to explode on the scene. In Mecca, a dusty Arab trading center on the western edge of the Arabian Peninsula, a middle-age caravan trader, named Muhammad ibn Abdulla (Mohammed son, or descendant, of Abdulla), began a journey into mystic contemplation that ended with a vision and a message to preach. Who could have guessed that his simple message of submission to the one supreme God of Abraham, the coming Judgment Day, and the need for charity to the poor, would shake and shape world politics until the present day, 1400 years later? The Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by his servant Hagar. When she had to flee out into the desert, rejected by Sarah when Isaac was born, she was badly in need of water. One day, so the now extra-biblical story goes, Ishmael dragged his heal through the sand and a well sprung up, giving birth to what became the town of Mecca. Later Abraham went to visit Hagar and her son, setting up the black meteoric rock as part of a shrine, known as the Ka’aba. Ishmael’s descendants spread south to the mountains of Yemen where a luxurious kingdom grew up in the 12,000 foot mountains, sometimes equated with the Queen of Sheba, who met with Solomon, because of the name of the city Saba. More rain and an impressive dam system built at their capital of Marib, around 750 BC, supplied their water needs for the next 1000 years. Access to the sea trade routes that went to India and the Far East brought in precious stones, silk and other textiles, spices, and other expensive trading cargo. On the dry coastal mountains of the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula grew another treasure: two kinds of small scrubby balsam trees that oozed precious resin, frankincense and myrrh, used widely in perfumes, ointments, cosmetics, and thrown on the fire in religious ceremonies or funeral pyres. Also descended from Ishmael were the not so fortunate Bedouin tribes of the interior. Living in tents made from the hair of the camel, burning its dung as fuel, drinking its milk, the Bedouin depended on their water-conserving animals. The camel also became the chosen beast of burden, able to go three days without water in blistering heat, carrying the treasures of the south by caravan up to the kingdoms of the Middle East. These tribes were divided by family lineage, and loyalty to clan was everything. Those who were not engaging in the caravan trade were busy raiding the caravans. Plundering was a way of life, and feuds were vindictive and generational, some celebrated in songs and legends to this day. The proud Bedouin looked down on the oasis dwellers, who never the less provided much appreciated dates, melons, apricots, oranges and other fruits and vegetables. Serving as market places and stops for caravans, most oasis settlements, like the large one at Mecca, where Mohammed lived, had alliances for protection with certain nomadic tribes. The Arabs before the rise of Islam were mostly animistic in their beliefs. They had many idols in places like the city of Mecca, a religious pilgrimage center, where Hubal was the chief god and there were some 360 other lesser gods, all enshrined in the Ka’aba, a place originally built to worship the God of Abraham. The people used amulets to guard against demons, called jinn. Tribal gods, holy caves or locations, stars and moon represented some of the benevolent spirits that helped to protect people. So, besides being a bustling caravan stop and market, one of the main sources of income for Mecca was idol worship and religious feasts. These festivals included drinking date wine (a fairly strong drink) and playing instruments. Music was popular, especially portable woodwind instruments, with over 32 versions of the lute, 28 of the recorder, and 22 of the oboe. Nevertheless, by the time of Mohammed, born in 570 AD, there were Jewish tribes also living in the area, as well as Christian tribes. Mohammed regularly heard stories told by both Christian and Jewish storytellers, actually spending some time with a Christian monk when his uncle took him to Syria at the age of twelve. Unfortunately, the Christian Arab tribes in Arabia were split both between the doctrinal disputes of the Nestorians vs. the orthodox, and also between the Monophysites and the orthodox. Some Christian tribes like the Ghassanids (Monophysite) and the Laikhmids (Nestorian) waged bitter feuds, supported by the western or eastern powers respectively, as pawns in a greater battle. The Jews had also won converts among the Arabs, even a handsome young Yemenese prince called Dhu Nuwas. He allied himself with Persia against Christian Byzantines, causing the neighboring Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, right across the Red Sea, to invade. The Ethiopian invasion crippled the Arabian economy. The great Marib dam was not repaired after the invasion, and broke, destroying local agriculture indefinitely. In the year 570 AD the Ethiopian forces marched on Mecca, using a baggage train of elephants, however Mecca was saved by a small pox epidemic, or birds pelting the elephants with coals from hell, depending on who you believe. Persia managed finally to throw out the Ethiopians, and Arabia remained under Persian Sassanid control until the rise of Islam. Mohammed was by all reports an intelligent and industrious youth, orphaned at a young age but taken in by relatives, who at the age of 25 was chosen by a rich widow named Khadija, age 40, to take on her caravan business. Soon the two were married, apparently a love match that bore six children, of which only the four daughters survived. Mohammed regularly retired to a cave on Mount Hira in a nearby desert to meditate and pray for long periods. He was disturbed by the greed, idolatry, immorality, and profiteering of Mecca, with its 360 idols. He was influenced by the Jews, Christians, and a devout Arab tribe called the Hanifs, who were monotheistic and ascetic. One night in the year 610 AD, Mohammed heard a voice (later determined by tradition to be the archangel Gabriel) commanding him to recite. Mohammed recited and memorized everything he was told to say. Upset, Mohammed asked his wife Khadija what to do. She called an elderly Christian cousin, who told Mohammed that he had experienced a true revelation from God, like the prophets of old. Over the next few months and years, Mohammed received many more revelations, warnings against idolatry, affirmation of the single God of Abraham, insistence on charity to the poor, and the importance of godly living. The word Islam means “submission to God” and a “Muslim” is one who submits to God. Mohammed’s first followers were his relatives, a slave he had freed, his cousin Ali, who had grown up with him, and a wealthy fellow merchant and friend Abu Bakr. Soon even some of the sons of the leading Quraysh clan were becoming passionate about his message. In 613 AD, three years after first receiving his messages, Mohammed began to preach in public. The powerful governors of Mecca began to feel threatened by Mohammed’s denouncement of idolatry, one of their main sources of income. They also disliked Mohammed’s message of giving two and one half percent of one’s surplus income, beyond family needs as “Zakat” (meaning “to purify”) to the poor. The leaders began to ridicule and harass Mohammed, some elders of his own Hashimite clan opposed him, and some of his followers fled to Ethiopia. When some tribes from a town 250 miles north became converted after hearing his message in Mecca, where they had traveled for religious worship, Mohammed fled north with Abu Bakr after Khadija’s death. This flight is called the hijra (or hegira in English), meaning “flight.” The Muslim calendar dates from this day. The northern town became known as“Medina” meaning “city,” for the city of the Prophet. Mohammed’s revelations from this period in Medina take on two different aspects. The one is an increased emphasis on matters of conduct: marriage, divorce, punishments for crimes, diet and hygiene. The other is an increasing antipathy to non-believers, particularly the Jews, as the Jewish tribes in the area rejected his message. His followers were busy memorizing all of his revelations, which were later gathered in oral and written fragments to compile the Quran. When that was done the revelations were put in order of length, with the exception of the opening prayer—the longest to the shortest, instead of chronological order, mixing the spiritually focused sections with the behaviorally focused, and more antagonistic sections. How Islam Becomes a Separate Religion Mohammed had apparently assumed that the Christians and the Jews would both welcome him as another prophet of the one true God. He did not think he was starting a new religion but recalling people to the original faith in the one God of Abraham. In the Quran it says: Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation [people of the book] otherwise than in a most friendly manner…say ‘We believe in that which has been bestowed on us from on high, as well as that which has been bestowed on you; for our God and your God are one and the same, it is unto Him that we all surrender ourselves.” (Quran 29:46) Mohammed increasingly realized that, unlike his expectation, Jews and Christians did not agree with each other in their doctrine. The Quran clearly states that Jesus was born of a virgin by God’s power, was the “spirit from God,” and both miraculously healed and raised things to life. However, Mohammed rejected the idea that God would have had a “son,” thinking that implied (in a Greek polytheistic sense) that God had come down and had sex with a woman—something God, righteous and holy, would never have done. He also reacted against the use of figures, statues and pictures of saints, the virgin Mary and baby Jesus, seen among some Christians, which he considered another form of idolatry. His positions, which were sort of a compromise between the prevailing Jewish and Christian positions, did not bring the unity, however, and his messages were rejected by the Jews in Medina and most of the Christians as well. Like the Jews, the early Muslims prayed in a prostrated manner, toward Jerusalem, because of its significance in the life of Abraham, and other prophets, including Jesus. (It was common in this period for Christians also to pray five times a day.) When conflict escalated with the Jewish tribes, Mohammed banished one tribe and later massacred another, after repeated insurrections and conspiracy with the Meccan enemies in the battle recounted below. He sold the women and children as slaves. It was after this that Mohammed changed the direction the Muslims were to pray, making the new direction toward the city of Mecca. This event marks his break with the Jewish and Christian religions, the beginning of his assertions that they had lost their way, and that his message was returning people to the pure worship of the God of Abraham. The Quran says: Verily, as for those who have broken the unity of their faith and become sects—have nothing to do with them…Say: : “Behold, my Sustainer has guided me to a straight way through an ever-true faith—in the way of Abraham, who turned away from all that is false, and was not of those who ascribe divinity to aught beside Him.” Say: “Behold, my prayer and all my acts of worship, and my living and dying are for God alone.” (Quran 6:159, 161-2) Some therefore consider Islam, like Arianism, a heretical version of Christianity, where the deity of Christ is confused but his special role as messiah and unique powers are affirmed. In order to sustain themselves, the followers of Mohammed began to raid the caravans passing by from hostile Arab tribes on their way to Syria. At first the Muslims lost, but finally, when an especially rich caravan was returning to Mecca from Syria, guarded by 950 Quraysh warriors, Mohammed ambushed them with 300 men, promising that any who died would go directly to Paradise. Though they later discovered that most of the rich goods had been secretly sent by an alternate route, the victory brought them many camels, arms, and armor, along with prisoners who could be ransomed. This military victory shot Mohammed’s name to fame among the Bedouin who respected victorious warriors, and looked upon victory as a sign of spiritual power and favor (not unlike the semi-Christian barbarian tribal peoples of Europe of this period). Finally fed up, the Meccans deployed an army of 10,000 men to crush the Muslims in Medina. However, Mohammed took a tip from a Persian and had his followers dig a huge ditch around the town, which the Meccans found impossible to safely cross against enemy fire. Finally, running out of water and provisions, they were forced to retreat, and the Muslims won the “Battle of the Ditch.” Now many Bedouin tribes started to line up their allegiance with Mohammed. In 630 AD, Mohammed raised up 10,000 men to attack Mecca. The leaders of Mecca promptly surrendered and agreed to adopt Islam. In exchange, Mohammed treated them kindly, cleansed the city of all idols, but instituted a required Muslim hajj (or pilgrimage) to Mecca, which protected the prosperity of the city. The idols were removed and only the black rock of Abraham remained in the Ka’aba. Islam Takes on the World Islam soon became the one and only unifying force that could pull the Arab tribal peoples together, and with a new “ummah” or brotherhood of faith, they became a force to be reckoned with for the first time in history. Now in his sixties and dying, Mohammed turned to Abu Bakr, his old friend and father of his favorite wife Aisha, and appointedhim to be the new leader of public worship. However, when Mohammed died, Abu Bakr was not accepted by some as his successor. Tribes were used to choosing their leaders by consensus. Some followers felt that Ali, Mohammed’s cousin and the husband of Mohammed’s daughter Fatima, should be the next leader. Abu Bakr took the title caliph (Khalif), which means “successor,” beginning the first Islamic civil war to bring the defecting tribes back into the fold. After two years of bitter conflict, the Muslims were temporarily once again unified under one leader (in 634 AD)—-the caliph that followed Abu Bakr on his death, Khalid ibn al-Walid (known as the “sword of Allah”). Now, with a Machiavellian twist, the belligerent Arab tribes were encouraged to fight others instead of each other. Their camel and horse-back warfare was perfect for sweeping into and taking over sedentary populations, and they began to sweep over Mesopotamia and Palestine, reaching the city of Damascus by 635 AD and taking it after a six-month siege. Now they were fighting the Byzantines, but in the next year the Arabs mustered 25,000 troops which rode through a desert sandstorm to overwhelm the emperor’s brother Theodorus, killing him, and beating his troops soundly. By 637 AD the Muslim forces had taken Jerusalem. The Muslim invasion was humane compared to the Persian attack on Jerusalem in May of 614 AD, where they slaughtered a staggering 66,500 people, and took another 35,000 captive (mostly Christians), as well as taking the True Cross from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Continual war between the Byzantines and the Persians over Jerusalem and other areas left the Monophysite Christians of Syria and the Nestorian Christians of Persia unhappy with both. The Persians were cruel but the Christians were not thrilled to be under Byzantine control either, which tended to bring harsh measures if they did not conform to orthodox doctrine. Perhaps they saw this third power of Arab Islam as a chance to get out from under both Byzantine and Persian rule. By 637, the same year they took Jerusalem, the Muslim Arab forces overran the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. In spite of the years of military dominance of the Persians, the Arabs darted into attack unannounced, and ran circles around the Persian stationary troops. The Muslims gained control of Syria by 239, and conquered their way through the Iranian Plateau and modern Afghanistan, reaching India within a decade. The Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius, made his way back to Constantinople as his empire was eaten away. He died in his sixties, a broken man, in 641–a mere nine months before the fall of Alexandria, Egypt, one of the greatest jewels of the Christian Byzantine Empire, richer than Constantinople and a center of Greek learning, known for its huge library. Ironically, as the Byzantine Empire crumbled, the church was still bitterly debating whether Christ had two natures or one, with the Egyptian Monophysites refusing to be reconciled with Constantinople. As a result these Monophysites also were glad to see the Muslim invaders take over. Finally, in 648 AD, Heraclius’s grandson, Emperor Constans II, issued a decree, called a Typos (or statement), forbidding anyone on threat of imprisonment or exile, to discuss the subject of the natures and wills of Christ anymore! Of course, the Pope and church officials in Rome rejected the idea that the Byzantine Emperor could make such an edict, with resulting punishment. Therefore, they held a council in the West denouncing the Typos and the four eastern Patriarchs. Nineteen-year-old Constans II was furious, and ordered Pope Martin arrested. Brought all the way to Constantinople, the pope arrived so sick he had to be carried in on a litter. He was put on trial, in which he was confident and witty against exaggerated charges of treason. Then he was whipped in public and his death sentence was commuted to exile and hard labor in the Crimea (north of the Black Sea), where he died, ignored by even his friends, who were trying to mend relations with the Emperor. Many Christian Arab tribes, tired of inter-Christian doctrinal conflict, joined Islam to avoid conflict and because its five required pillars seemed relatively simple to follow. Oppressed by either the Persians or the Byzantines with high taxes, many Egyptians under Constantinople’s thumb, and other peoples under Persian rule, actually welcomed the Arabs as liberators. Umar, the new caliph in Medina, lightened people’s taxes everywhere, reducing them to the 2.5% Zabat for those who converted to Islam, and imposed a simple and consistent justice. Assassinated at the height of his power in 644 AD by a Persian slave, Umar is considered the greatest of the early caliphs. As he lay dying, he picked as his successor Uthman, an early follower of Mohammed and member of the powerful Umayyad aristocratic branch of the Quraysh tribe. As wealth from conquest poured in, the formerly ascetic caliphs began to funnel riches to their families, causing the next series of conflicts within Islam. Uthman was assassinated by rebelling Egyptian emissaries. Turning away from the Umayyad family, Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law and cousin, is chosen as the next caliph. If he had been accepted, perhaps the break between the Sunni and the Shi’a Muslims would have never solidified. But Aisha, the prophet’s widow and daughter of Abu Bakr, the first caliph, raised a hue and cry and proceeded to recruit an army in Iraq. Ali rushed to Iraq, winning the bloody civil war (the Battle of the Camel). However, a second civil war loomed as Uthman’s cousin Muawiya, in Damascus, accused Ali of never bringing Uthman’s assassins to justice. Muawiya had his warriors stick pages of the Koran to their spears and shout “Let God decide.” Ali agreed to arbitration rather than command an attack on the “word of God.” In 661 AD, Ali became the third caliph in a row to be assassinated. He was the last of the caliphs who was a personal friend of Mohammed and one of the original believers. After Ali’s death, Muawiya decided he should be the next caliph. When an opposing party puts forth Ali’s son Hassan for the next caliph, Muawiya craftily buys him off with a luxurious life in a harem in Medina, where he supposedly married and divorced some ninety women before his death at 45 years of age. The Umayyad Dynasty An extremely capable politician, Muawiya (also spelled Muawiyyah) began the Umayyad heredity dynasty from the capital of Damascus, which ruled for the next 100 years. From 650 to 680, he constructed the first Muslim navy, sunk the Byzantine Empire’s navy, preventing them from retaking Alexandria, and twice tried to take over Constantinople. The Arab ships were more maneuverable with their lateen sails that allowed them to tack, sailing into the wind, while the Byzantine ships still had to row when they faced a wind. However, Constantinople’s secret weapon, “Greek fire,” (an extremely flammable combination of chemicals that would ignite even on water) enabled them to finally stave off the Muslim advance. Meanwhile, Muawiya also sent Muslim troops westward, where they took over North Africa. The Byzantine Emperor Constans II responded by sailing to Rome (July of 664) to garner support. He ended up stripping the city of all metal, including statues, ornaments and metal roofing, to use to make weapons, but the ships of cargo he’d gathered were later captured by Arabs and sold in Egypt! As Constans ineffectively tried to stave off the take over of Sicily by the Arabs, he was assassinated by conspiring officers. The pope (Vitalian) put down the rebellion, enabling Constans’ son Constantine IV to become emperor at age 14. When Muawiya died (in 680 AD) there was a movement started to instate Ali’s second son Husain as the next caliph. There continued to be a strong faction of Muslims who believed that the descendents of the Prophet Mohammed should be the ones to rule Islam. Husain left Medina with a group of extended family, many of them descendants of Mohammed, and other followers, to go to Iraq where he hoped to gain more support. However, Muawiya’s son Yazid I sent troops which massacred them all on the plain of Karbala outside of Kufah. Although this event is mourned by all Muslims, as the demise of most Mohammed’s descendants, the followers of Ali (Shiah i-Ali, known as Shi’a or Shi’ites) consider this a tragic turning point when politics overtook godliness as a primary force in Islam. For two and a half months each year during Muharram, the Shi’a Muslims mourn the martyrdom of Mohammed’s descendents, believing they died trying to preserve the purity of faith of Islam. After this event, Shi’a Muslims transferred their loyalty away from the Caliphs to a series of 12 Imams, the last of which disappeared and is expected to return on the Last Day with Jesus Christ (Isa al Massih). Muawiya’s son Yazid I continued to rule, starting the Umayyad dynasty. They used the Jews and the Christians, who were much more highly educated, and respected as “people of the Book,” as their scribes and accountants. Nevertheless, they charged them higher taxes, also a “head tax,” but exempted them from military service. Soon the Greek and Persian cultures began to spread into Islamic cultures, and Arabs, who had a high respect for the written word, developed scribes who studied and preserved ancient works, including the science and math of the Greeks. These works, translated into Arabic, sparked an intellectual awakening among the Arabs (who were increasingly literate because of their high respect for the Koran). Muawiya’s successors, the Umayyad dynasty, managed to extend the borders of Islam through central Asia to the edge of China and as far as the Indus Valley in India. At this point in time, the Muslim empire was larger than either the Roman or Persian had ever been. Byzantium and the Rise of Iconoclasm By 698 the Arabs had taken Carthage, the last Byzantine stronghold in North Africa. Later they entered Spain in 711 AD, but were stopped by Charles Martel from overrunning France at the Battle of Tours in 732. The last major assault on Constantinople was in March of 717, by the great Caliph Suleiman, who was met by the brilliant and devout Syrian-born soldier turned emperor, Leo III. He sent Greek fire in small boats among the anchored Arab ships, burning them up, while conducting a massive prayer walk to the waters, which he smote with a cross. The Muslims withdraw. With his empire struggling to survive under ineffective bureaucracy and a natural disaster (volcanic explosion and tidal wave in the Aegean Sea) in 726, Emperor Leo III decides that God is punishing the empire for idolatry. Perhaps influenced by the Muslim condemnation of imagery as idolatry, Leo III ordered the removal and destruction of all religious icons (such as statues) in the churches of Byzantium, starting the Iconoclast controversy and a new religious revolt. The monasteries and the Pope in Rome, as always resenting the Emperor assuming control over the church, opposed his edicts. The people, especially those in Greece and Italy, were incensed. Leo III sent soldiers who confiscated Papal lands. With Lombards also slowly taking over Italy, the popes of this period increasingly take over secular power, raising armies, negotiating treaties, and finally, in desperation take the historic step of appealing to the Franks for help against the Byzantines. The Muslim Abbasid empire Suddenly, in 750 AD, descendants of the Prophet’s uncle Abbas, known as the Abbassids, massacred the ruling Umayyad family at their family estate. They moved the capital away from Damascus and over to Baghdad, in Iraq. The only surviving Umayyad, Abd al-Rahman (meaning “slave of the Holy One”), fled to Spain, setting up a new dynasty there, ruling from the city of Cordoba. He brought with him a lot of the sophistication of the eastern Mediterranean, to the somewhat backward Christianized Visigoths, and the mixed Arab and Berber Muslim population. North Africa and Spain began to use Arabic as the new trade language, replacing Latin, and Spain began to see a renaissance of culture. Abd al-Rahman the III, as late as 929 AD re-asserted that his Umayyad dynasty ruling in Spain was the true leaders of the Muslim world. However, in the east, the Abbassids, siding with the formerly assassinated cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, Ali, set up an increasingly separate and oppositional dynasty of Muslim leaders. In the end, the western Umayyad caliphate developed into the branch of Islam known as the Sunnis, and the eastern Abbassid caliphate was known as the Shi’ites or Shi’a. Bloody from the beginning, the first Abbasid caliph al Shaffah (750-754) massacred all the Umayyads he could find. The second caliph, al Mansur (754-775) killed even his own Shi’a leaders when he felt threatened by them, and renounced the Shi’ite origins of the movement. He extended and consolidated his power by becoming a champion of Sunni orthodoxy. The third (775-785), al Mahdi (the “guided one”) was more peaceful and actually instituted full Islamic citizenship for converts for the first time. His reign, and the following one of Harun al Rashid (786-809) though increasingly Persian in terms of opulence and totalitarian rule, were times of great economic and cultural expansion. He even corresponded with his contemporary equivalent in the West, Charlemagne. The Abbassids in Baghdad also supported an amazing revival of learning and splendor. They had almost all of the Greek philosophical works translated into Arabic, which, in turn, spread all over the Muslim world, even to Spain. But by the 10th century, there is little doubt that the most amazing library in the world, with reportedly some 400,000 volumes, was not in Baghdad or Rome, but in Cordoba, Spain. Nevertheless, Muslim rule in the west began to crumble under ongoing warfare between different Muslim factions. Muslim Berber mercenaries brought up from North Africa by one side to help in the civil war, ended up sacking Cordoba in 1009 AD, causing as much damage as the barbarians had to Rome. The resulting splintering of Islamic rule paved the way, in the 11th century, for Christianized Vikings (called the Normans, after “northmen”) to take over parts of western Arab lands, like Sicily,and to conquer England in 1066 AD. Later, they were among those who turned their sights on Jerusalem and mustered efforts to take back part of the Arab Middle East in the first of several crusades to the Holy Land, but we will cover that story later. Inset: Slavery and Islam The Romans had an extensive slave population, used both for domestic purposes and manual labor, (getting the name “slave” from the same basis as the northern tribal peoples the Slavs), and Muslims also were used to having slaves. However, Mohammed had forbidden them from enslaving fellow Muslims, and now, as more and more of their conquered people became Muslims, they had to go farther and farther to get slaves, beginning to use Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Berbers and black Africans. The Vikings were ready to jump into the gap, raiding up the rivers of Europe to capture slaves, then sailing south on the rivers of Russia to sell valued white slaves (mostly women) to Muslim traders coming up from the south. Soon also the Arab slave buyers were crossing the Sahara to bring slaves from black Africa, where they were sold by their enemies (as happened later in the trans-Atlantic slave trade). By the time of the rise of Islam, slavery was diminishing rapidly in the Christian parts of Europe, although the Bible does not expressly forbid it. Inset: Is Allah a valid name for God? In English, the name for God really isn’t a personal name. It is a name that when capitalized means “The God” and when written with a small “g” can mean any god. The name “God” was derived from a European tribal name for a general god that had powers over other divine spirits. Likewise the name “Allah” really means “The God,”since the “al” prefix means “the” in Arabic, a contraction of al-elah, meaning “the god”. The oldest book in the Bible, the book of Job, essentially uses the term Allah for God in the Hebrew, sometimes written “Elah” in English books, the first letter is actually the Hebrew letter “aleph” or “a.” This book may have come from the area south of Israel, because the country of Oman, on the southern end of the Arabian penninsula, has the supposed tomb of Job. In any case, the term Allah has been used by Christians in the Middle East for the one true God since before the time of Jesus right up to the present day and is included in their translations of the Bible. Jesus himself spoke Aramaic, which uses the term Alaha for God, and probably used the term himself when he was speaking in Aramaic. Today Arabic speakers of all Abrahamic religions (Jews, Christians or Muslims) all use the name Allah for God. There is no doubt that Mohammed took the name Allah from the local Christians when he came to believe in “one and only god,”the God of Abraham. When Christianity moves into new cultures it has been common practice since Biblical times to adopt the local term for the “creator god” or “most high god” for God in translation and in practice. Even if the local people have some beliefs about that god which don’t fit with the Biblical God (like the Germanic tribes did about the term “god”), the Bible soon becomes the definer of who that True Highest God really is. For example, the name in the Greek New Testament for God, that gets translated “God” in English, is “Theos.” This is the same term that the Greeks of that period used for their most high god, which in English we refer to as Zeus. The writers of the New Testament chose to use this name instead of the Jewish Hebrew name for God. The Latin term for God, Deus, and the Spanish term, Dios, both derive from the Greek term, not the Hebrew, as well. When Moses asks God for His name, He replies, “tell them that ‘I AM that I AM’ sent you.” This is the crucial thing that we believe, that there is one and only God, creator of all things, and that He is involved in our lives and our world. People have used many names to refer to God throughout the centuries, even within the Bible itself. However, Hebrews 11: 6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” God understands the hears of men when they are calling out to Him in Spirit and Truth, in any language. So, whether we call on the name of Allah,Yahweh, Jehovah, Theos, Deus, Dios, or God, the Lord responds if we are honestly and earnestly seeking after Him. Jesus the Christ, whose English name we get from the Greek, also had a Hebrew version of his name Joshua the Messiah (in English). His name in Arabic is Isa al’Massih. What does the Qur’an teach about Jesus? Jesus is mentioned over 90 times in the Quran. The attitude is one of respect. The key passage that says most of the things repeated about Jesus in the Qur’an is Surah 3 (Al-‘Imran) verses 41-56. This long passage covers the following points: Mary was chosen by God, God gave her great tidings of a Word from Him, whose name would be Christ Jesus (Isa al Massih), God will teach Jesus the Book and Wisdom and the Law and the Gospel. He will do miracles, heal the blind, and raise the dead. Jesus came to attest to the Law and to make lawful to them part of what was before forbidden. He says “I have come to you with a sign from your Lord so fear God and obey me. It is God Who is my Lord and your Lord; then worship Him, this is a Way that is straight.” When Jesus found unbelief on their part, he said, “Who will be my helpers to the work of God?” The Disciples said, “We are God’s helpers, we believe in God, and you bear witness that we are Muslims (i.e. submitted to God). Our Lord, we believe what you have revealed and we follow the Messenger, then write us down among those who bear witness.” Behold God said, “O Jesus! I will take you and raise you to myself and clear you of falsehoods… I will make those who follow you superior to those who reject faith on the Day of Resurrection…” And in Surah 19: 30-34 (Maryam) Jesus says: “I am indeed a servant of God: He has given me revelation, and I am a prophet; and He has made me blessed wheresoever I live and has enjoined upon me prayer and charity as long as I live. He has made me kind to my mother and not overbearing or miserable; So Peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life again.” Such was Jesus the son of Mary: It is a statement of Truth about which they vainly dispute. The Qur’an does say on more than one occasion that God does not have a son (nor would have relations with a woman) because he merely has to say something and it is done, or to say something “Be” and it is. This implies an Arian view of Jesus that he came into being at some point by God’s command, but it also says that Jesus is a Word and Spirit from God, and it considers God’s word to be eternal and unchangeable. Similarly, in the Qur’an Jesus says that he never asked people to worship himself and his mother instead of God but always told them to worship only God. In the historical context, the Councils held in Turkey had declared Mary’s title to be “Mother of God” but the eastern Nestorian Christians protested that she should only be called the “Mother of the Christ” or of Jesus. Mohammed seems to have been influenced by this controversy, and reacting against the Christian practice of worshipping statues of Mary and baby Jesus. What Islam copied from early Christianity The five pillars of Islam (fasting, saying prayers, giving to the poor, and saying the statement of faith, and going on a pilgrimage to Mecca) were all picked up from the practices of Christians at that time period, which in turn overlapped a lot with Jewish practices. We see as early as the book of Daniel the practice of praying toward Jerusalem at regular intervals. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were common to both religions, with the Jews trying to make it there for Passover, and the Christians for Easter or other events. The Muslims started out praying toward Jerusalem too, and changed that practice only after Mohammed’s message was rejected by the Jews and Christians and he conquered his home town of Mecca. All the way through the Qur’an the consistent message is that the Qur’anic message is meant to confirm not replace or over throw the messages that God has sent previously through the Old Testament prophets and through Jesus. The rejection of Jews and Christians is expressed in the form of rejecting those that do not believe their own scriptures and lie about what they say. There is no reference condemning the scriptures themselves, and many references that say Muslims should consult them and make no difference between the earlier prophets and the later ones. Also, at least 5 times it is written there that the Word of God cannot be changed because God protects it, so the common Muslim saying that the Bible has been corrupted is not supported by the Qur’an which only says that some Jews and Christians lie with their tongues about what it says. Why did Islam stamp out Christianity in so many areas, but not others? Unfortunately in North Africa Christianity had been primarily a religion of the city educated and Greek-influenced people. When the Arabs moved in wholesale, many of the Christians fled across the Mediterranean to Italy and Sicily, leaving the remaining population leaderless. The majority of Christians there, already demoralized by the Donatist controversy and the Arian Vandal invasion, converted to Islam. The areas that were overrun by the Muslims which had the Bible translated into their own languages, like Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, continued to have a sizable Christian population, which remains to this day. However, in the areas like North Africa and Persia, that were reading Bibles in languages not native to them (Latin and Greek for N. Africa, and Greek and Syriac for Persia), the Christian church dwindled away within a several generations. Many converted to Islam because it came announcing the fulfilling or final prophesy for the two monotheistic faiths of Judaism and Christianity, and these local populations had insufficient teaching to evaluate its claims. Others found it easier to side with the ruling powers. Some were tired of the doctrinal debates and lack of clarity in Christianity and were drawn to the simplicity of Islam. Still others were slowly won over by the relative kindness of their Muslim overlords, and the incentives provided by the Muslim leaders (such as lower taxes) for those who converted. Conversion was, and still is, always a one-way street. People were allowed to convert to Islam, but children of Muslim parents were not allowed to change their religion to something else, not even back to the original faith of their parents. Apostasy from Islam was punishable by death almost everywhere. In Muslim areas, not only were Muslims not allowed to convert to Christianity, but neither was anyone else. Christian churches could be turned into mosques, but Christians were not allowed to build any new churches. Perhaps following the precedent set by the Zoroastrian leaders that preceded them, in Persia Christians were required to wear distinct clothes or badges. The Christian communities were also treated as separate from the general people, and each community called a “melet” or “millet” was placed under a leader. If the community tried to stay in contact with Constantinople, they were suspect and would be denied a leader. These officially sanctioned, but carefully monitored, churches were somewhat similar to the state-sponsored “three self patriotic” churches allowed by the government in China under communism. This administrative system caused the churches to become extremely ingrown and static. They held on to the patterns of worship as they had been passed down to them, fearing any change would mean a loss of the way. They did not have much contact with the Christian churches in other areas or countries. The churches did not die quickly, but slowly dried up over centuries. A similar process took place in other areas, and as late as the 11th century there were still five bishops in North Africa. Most of the Christian communities in Arabia had died out by the 10th century. In places like Palestine and Syria, there were significant Christian populations still surviving until the formation of the state of Israel after World War II, which led to increased persecution of Christians and widespread immigration of the Christian populations to the west. The Armenian Christians, who had their own scriptures from early on and survive in Iran and other countries, were massacred so severely by the Turks in the early 20th century, that the vast majority of Armenians now live around the world in the Armenian diaspora. Charlemagne, the 8th Century Renaissance and Harun Al Rashid After nearly 100 years of consistent advance into Europe, in the latter part of the 8th century a balance of power was temporarily restored and the Muslims lived relatively peacefully with their Christian neighbors and Christian communities in their midst. Let’s go back to Europe to pick up the story line there. The barbarian tribes (Franks, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths and others) had begun the settle down permanently and increasingly give up their pagan gods and accept the Christian faith. In the western lands of Gaul (currently called France) the Franks settled down and a Frankish kingdom was founded by Clovis I in the 5th century. Influenced by his Christian wife, Clovis became a believer during his reign and led his people to faith as well. He founded what is know as the Merovingian dynasty. Initially large and influential, the the practice of splitting their territory between their sons weakened and fractured the realm. By the 8th century, it was not the king but the “Mayor of the Palace” that ran the kingdom— the Merovingian kings were mere figureheads. Charles “Martel,” meaning “the Hammer,” was the most famous Mayor of the Palace. He was the leader of the Franks who held off the Arab invasion at the famous Battle of Tours in 732 AD after they had crossed through the Pyrenees Mountains into what is now France. Charles was able to gain military supremacy because of the invention of the stirrup, which gave his mounted knights the ability to fight on horseback more easily without falling off. He expanded the Frankish kingdom northward, and being a devout Christian, first sponsored Boniface to go as a missionary to Germany in 722 AD. Charles Martel’s son, Pepin (the Short), was the first Frankish ruler to come to the aid of the Pope in Rome when called upon to help against the encroaching Lombards. He deposed the puppet Merovingian king Childric III, in 751, changing his own title from Mayor of the Palace to King, starting the Carolingian Dynasty. Pepin defeated the threatening Lombards not once but twice and helped thereby to gain the lands for Rome that became the Papal States. These lands the Lombards had originally taken from the Byzantine Empire, but the Emperor was not in any position to try to take them back from as far as Constantinople. The Carolingian Dynasty is named after Charles Martel’s grandson, Charlemagne. Charlemagne was a committed believer who tried to model his life on the life of King David. Charlemagne (meaning “Charles the Great” in French) was to become a military protector of the Pope and be crowned by him as the Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas day in the year 800 AD. This move would finalize the break between the church in the west and the Byzantine Empire, which still called and considered itself the only Roman Empire. Charlemagne had an amazing ability to inspire loyalty and thus heavily used and expanded the vassalage system. Those closest to him (officers, counts, church officials) were given lands and titles in exchange for a personal oaths of loyalty as a “vassals.” He then encouraged each of them to follow his example and develop their own network of vassals, forging a chain of loyalty extending down through society. Unfortunately, Charlemagne was the first person to use the military as a means to spread Christian faith. He was determined to extend both his political control as well as Christianity north of the Frisians into Saxon territory. Some missionaries had already been working among the Saxons, having come from England at the plea of Boniface and the Pope. However, because they associated Christianity with imperialism, they resisted. Tired of the constant border battles, Charlemagne finally used armed force to bring them under control and require their baptism. Though he divided the land up under bishops, and dispatched more of the ethnically-related Anglo-Saxon English as missionaries, there were uprisings which he put down with force. Charlemagne also moved people from these northern tribes into solidly Christian areas to help with their assimilation and conversion. Alcuin, the English scholar that resided in his court in France, protested Charlemagne’s use of force in spreading the gospel. He pleaded with Charlemagne to not require baptism, but allow the people to be taught about Christianity first, then baptized. He also did not think new converts should be required to tithe. In spite of the dubious technique, the Saxons did become firm believers, even if they eventually broke from Papal control during the Reformation. Bringing scholars like Alquin from England was part of Charlemagne’s scheme to educate his people – his efforts sparked a “renaissance” of faith, culture, learning, art, and architecture. Charlemagne brought talented artisans from all over, creating an imperial capital at Aachen that would match Ravena and Rome in Italy, which contained some of the most impressive structures of his century. Since Gaul (France) had never been much more than a rural Roman province, it reached a new level of grandeur by Charlemagne’s efforts. One amazing relationship was between Charlemagne and the distant ruler Harun al Rashid (Aaron the Just) in Baghdad. In Baghdad, the Abbasid rulers had built their capital with three concentric walls, reaching 90 feet in height, and with four impressive gateways. The power and creativity of the Abbasid dynasty reached its peak during the reign of Harun al Rashid, who ruled from 786 until after 800 AD. By his time the Abbasids had already extended their control over what is now Iran as well as Iraq. They developed an extensive trading network, and used the wealth to build fabulous palaces, mosques, schools and hospitals throughout their Empire. Living lavish and indulgent lives, the Abbasid rulers had extensive harems, giving rise to the tales of the Arabian Nights. During this time, the remaining grandson of Ali, Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, and his descendants became the religious leaders, known as Imam, while the Caliph was primarily the political leader. By this time, the use of paper and ink had spread from China, and Harun al Rashid, like Charlemagne, became a patron of scholars. A school of medicine was founded in Baghdad and poetry and literature flourished also. Charlemagne and Harun al Rashid corresponded, sharing their respective interests in learning and discoveries. In the Far East, the T’ang dynasty (617-906AD) helped supply Baghdad with luxuries like silk, peacocks, horses, drugs, slave-girls, and hydraulic engineers, among other things. One of the latest rages in China in the mid-700’s was a new drink, tea, which was welcomed eagerly by Muslim peoples as the Qur’an called intoxicating drinks “abominations to God.” Sharia law, Shi’ite and Sunni Islam Harun al Rashid sponsored a systematic codification of Islamic Imperial Law, partially copying the Byzantine Laws from Justinian Code but also Sharia law. He had also sponsored a systematic study of the laws given in the Qur’an, and had them written down. These laws were known as “Sharia” law, meaning “the Way/Path” or “ordained Way/Path.” Following the Qur’anic laws, as well as the Sunnah (detailed daily practices of the Prophet handed down by eyewitnesses) became the way to emulate the life of the Prophet Mohammed and thereby attain his attitude of full surrender to God. The ethos promoted by the Sharia, was egalitarian in nature, because all were considered equal before God, and because courtly life and political totalitarianism was condemned. The Sharia Law established, in keeping with the Qur’anic injunction “there is no compulsion in religion,” that no court or caliphate had the right to interfere in the beliefs of an individual, nor could any special religious leader come between the individual Muslim and God. Clergy or intermediaries were not needed between the individual Muslim and his worship of God. The caliphs (a title that means “commander of the faithful/believers”) were supposed to be elected in a simple democratic vote of the believers, but quickly became under the Umayyads and later Abbasids functionally family dynasties. The Sunni recognized the leadership of the caliphs in both political and religious realms, but the Shi’a looked to Imams, divinely chosen descendents of the blood line of the prophet Mohammed, for religious leadership, and believe a succession of 12 imams were infallible inheritors of Mohammed’s leadership. The Sharia was in essence a call for the return to religious purity and conservatism, and affirmed a rule of law that was above the power of kings. It sparked a reform movement that eventually got it into conflict with the caliphate. The caliphate, like the secular Christian leaders in the West, wanted control over both the political and religious affairs. A split began to develop between the aristocrats in power and the religious block. More civil wars between ethnic and political factions in their vast territory weakened the caliphate, which increasingly turned to captured Turkish slaves as the imperial bodyguard and Turkish mercenaries for the army. Eventually, these practices made a Turkish invasion and take over easy. The Shi’a and the Sunni branches of Islam consolidated during this period and biographies of the Prophet Mohammed (Sira) and compilations of his sayings (hadith) began to be written down. The Sunni tended to break more along political lines with the Shi’a Muslims than along doctrinal lines. The religiously devout of both the Shi’a, and the Sunni strove hard to live out the behavior of the Prophet, including kindness to animals and orphans, as well as polite and hospitable behavior. Islam has always been more about orthopraxy, or correct practice or behavior, than orthodoxy, or correct doctrines or beliefs. ​ ​ ## 10 The Vikings, Feudalism, and the Far East 800-1200 This period of time is often skipped over in the grades K through 12. However, it is significant in many ways, especially in understanding the violent tribal nature of Europe and the painstaking transformation that takes place as the Christian faith begins to take hold. This introduction is longer than most because information for young people on this period of time, both for Europe as well as Asia and the Far East, is difficult to come by. Just when Charlemagne had established a measure of peace and faith across western Europe, and as Christianity was spreading in the eastern part of Europe (as you will see below) a new invasion of barbarians took place. Sailing out from the far north of Scandinavia, the Vikings began pillaging the shorelines and waterways of Europe with a fierceness never attained the semi-Christian Arian tribes who had invaded Roman territory 400 years earlier. A new “dark age” settled upon Europe, as monks were massacred, their monasteries burned, and kingdoms were broken up into feudal states. Castles were increasingly built as people turned to them for protection from the savage “northmen.” From the coasts of Ireland in the west, to the rivers of Russia and the cities on the Black Sea in the east, no one was safe near water unless they had huge fortifications. However, just as the former barbarians were ultimately won to Christ in the wake of their invasions, so too the Vikings, who first heard the gospel from the women they kidnapped. These savages were ultimately won to Christ through their contact with their victims. The Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, barely hung on in the wake of Arab Islamic expansion and attacks from Vikings, Magyars, Bulgarians and others. The monastic movements which helped to preserve and revitalize faith in western Europe, were not significant in the east, and when Muslim armies overran large areas, in spite of their relatively good treatment of Christians (for their era), only those areas that had their own translations of scripture (such as Armenia), survived with their faith in tact. Meanwhile, in the Far East, the Chinese script and Buddhism spread to Japan and Korea, and Hinduism and Buddhism spread to South East Asia, as you will study later in this unit. The Vikings Who would have thought that out of the sea, long considered a barrier to invasion and a protection, would come an unsuspected terror originating beyond the horizon? On the east coast of England, a Celtic monastery had been set up at Lindisfarne, an island at high tide, which was the first seat of Christianity and mission base in England. It had stood safe for 150 years, but suddenly, on June 8 of 793 AD long low ships silently appeared, edging onto the shore. Savage men scrambled up the beach, spreading through the unwalled monastery, killing and hacking their way through doors, grabbing food, crucifixes, beautiful hand-copied manuscripts with jeweled covers, and monks themselves. Burning what remained, they disappeared back into the sea. No one is quite sure why the Vikings suddenly decided to focus less on trading and fighting each other and to turn to looting others, though some think it was due to advances in their ships that allowed them to navigate distances more safely—masts and sails, not merely oars for mobility, and better keels for stability. Others believe that the encroaching relatively wealthy Christian communities became both threatening and attractive to them. A third theory is that the rise and expansion of Islam in the 7th and 8th century brought eastern Vikings (called Rus) into contact with a market that yielded much coveted silver, in the form of Arab coins called dirhams. To obtain the silver, the Vikings needed things the Arabs wanted, which largely consisted initially of furs from their homelands, but later slaves—the most prized being the blond blue-eyed Slavs, and other Europeans, that the Vikings captured on their raids in Western Europe. The Arabs had a long tradition of being involved in the slave trade, but Islam prevented them from enslaving fellow Muslims. So as conquered peoples became Muslim, they increasingly needed new sources for their slaves. The Vikings were happy to oblige. Whatever the reason, raiding was a strategy that immediately paid off. They came back the summer of 794 and again in 795, this time devastating the Celtic monastery on the island of Iona, west of England, which had been established by St Columba. The monasteries, were instantly recognized as easy targets from the sea and were the first communities to be attacked. In five short years most of England’s and Ireland’s monasteries had been ruined. Then the Vikings turned to the continent. In 799 they took St. Philibert’s at the mouth of the Loire River, setting it up as a base of operations. Charlemagne was crowned Roman Emperor by the Pope on Christmas Day, 800 AD, in Rome. When Charlemagne died in the year 814, his kingdom was divided between his two sons, and control was quickly lost as invasions continued. By the end of the 840’s the Vikings had struck up the river deep into France, attacking Rouen, Nantes, Tours, Orleans, and even up the Seine River to Paris. In Nantes they murdered a bishop in front of the altar of the cathedral. They were known for glorying in bloodshed, and even took a drug to turn them into “berzerkers,” engaging in a killing spree. The Vikings, a term which was used to mean “raiders,” came from a variety of Scandinavian areas, each of which speak a different language. Norwegians concentrated on attacking the island areas, and even set up colonies as far away as Iceland and Greenland, even one unsuccessful settlement in the western hemisphere in what is now called Newfoundland. The Danes focused on attacking both sides of the English Channel (between England and the mainland), settling down in both England and France and along the Rhine River in what is now Germany. They also attacked Spain, sailing up the Guadalquivir River. By the 860s the Danish Vikings were also sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar and ravaging the coast of Muslim North Africa. Soon they were looting, burning, killing the men and carting off the women and children of towns in Italy as well. About the same time that the Norwegians and Danes were attacking Western Europe, the Swedes, who were less violent, sailed up the rivers farther east, like the Volga River, penetrated so deep into Russia that they passed by portage to other rivers and made it all the way down into the Black Sea. The Swedish Vikings, known as Rus, began setting up trading posts along the water routes of Russia, including Kiev on the Dnieper River. Around 860 AD they began attacking Constantinople, which they did, without success, for almost 100 years. They also sailed east on the Volga River, then south, making it across the Caspian Sea and as far as Baghdad. They were interested in silk, spices, and coins, which they melted down for jewelry. But, as already mentioned, what they traded for the coins were primarily human beings. Originally farmers and traders, the Vikings like the rest of Europe (before the coming of Christianity) had three main classes: the nobility, or ruling class, the freemen and the slaves. In Christian Europe, slaves had been replaced by serfs, who could not be bought and sold but were tied to their location for life. The Scandinavians slaves were called “thralls” (from which we get the word “enthralled” to mean made a slave of). Thralls could be bought, sold, or even killed by the owner, like animals. Almost everyone had slaves, who were either captured in raids or enslaved by getting into debt. There was even a law that required a farm with more than 12 cows and 2 horses to have three or more slaves. Although there were ways slaves could purchase their freedom, most of the freemen were born free. The Scandinavians had an interesting form of government. The free men were usually landowners who were met occasionally in assemblies called “Things,” where laws were made, committed to memory, and enforced. The laws covered everything from stealing and murder to property boundaries, but mainly dealt with blood feuds between families and clans. Feuds could only be stopped by large payments, or atonement, called “bot.” Weak babies or adulterous wives could be put to death by the man of the house. Women, however, could inherit property, divorce their husbands, and be in charge during the long months that their husbands were off raiding during the summer. The “Things” also would elect leaders, or tribal chiefs, who would in turn pick a regional king. The strongest king would rule over the other kings. However, it wasn’t until 885 that all of Norway was subdued by one king, Harald Fairhair, after 15 years of fighting, Denmark wasn’t unified until 985 (under Svein Forkbeard) and Sweden until 985 (under Olaf Skautkonung). The Vikings had an elaborate pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with stories of how the world began. They had gods of heaven and earth, stories of a heaven for warriors killed in battle called Valhalla, a land of the gods called Asgard, and Hel, the dark underground where people went who died of old age or sickness. They prepared elaborate burials, complete with ships, food, furnishings and their beautifully crafted metal jewelry, even sometimes the man’s wife or a concubine was killed to accompany him in death’s journey. Religious feasts were wild, with alcohol and many animals slaughtered. Sometimes humans were sacrificed. Sacred groves of trees were hung with corpses of dogs, horses, and men. Genealogies and myths, often as epic poems, were chanted at the feasts. Some of these were written down using 16 phonetic letters known as “runes,” which had some relationship to Latin and other European alphabets. The letters were simple, straight strokes that made them easier to carve into wood or stone, but harder to write on paper. Only after 1200 did the Scandinavians switch to an alphabet easier to write. Cyril and Methodius In the second half of the 9th century two brothers from the eastern branch of Christianity set out as missionaries to the Slavs, specifically the Moravians, in what was part of Bulgaria. Constantine (known later as Cyril) and his brother Methodius were sent to the Moravians by the Emperor Michael III (“the drunkard”) on the request of one of the Slavic princes, Rastislav, who had been won by some earlier German and Greek missionaries. Constantine (Cyril) the younger brother, had already been a missionary to the Jewish Khazars, and before leaving for Moravia, he devised an alphabet for the Slavonic language (Glagolitic, which later became Cyrillic) and began translating the Gospels into that language. They were welcomed by Rastislav, and Cyril and Methodius continued to translate the Bible and other key religious literature, like liturgy, into the Slavic language. It was the custom in eastern churches to hold their services in the vernacular (meaning local language). Western churches, however, believed only Hebrew, Greek and Latin (the languages in which the plaque on the cross of Christ had been written) were acceptable. As a result, Cyril and Methodius ran into problems with the German priests in Moravia. To settle the matter, Cyril and Methodius traveled to Rome in 868 to ask the Pope for permission to use the Slavic language. The Pope approved their request, thankful that Greek monks would recognize his authority and seek his permission. Nevertheless, Cyril died before returning and Methodius was soon imprisoned by German bishops in a German monastery and held for two and a half years until the Pope intervened on his behalf. Later the Roman church reversed its affirmation of the use of Slavonic language; however, by then Christianity was established enough in Bulgaria, that even the invasion from the east of the Magyars, pagan Mongolian peoples, did not dislodge it. The Bulgarians themselves, of Hunnish descent but speaking Slavonic, were converted largely through the pressure of their leader Boris, who was baptized around 864. Boris’s son Simeon, trained as a monk in Constantinople, led the Bulgarian Church to the stature of having its own patriarch, which crowned him as the “Tsar (Caesar) of all the Bulgarians.” The Bulgarian church was thus Orthodox in doctrine but independent in administration. It used,Slavonic, and the Cyrillic alphabet for written literature. This form of Christianity spread to other Slavic areas throughout the regions, including Russia. The Conversion of the Slavs By the end of the 9th century, Vikings (Swedes in this case) had become the masters of the local Slavic populations. Known as Varangians or Rus, they ruled from the Baltic all the way to Ukraine. However, they were not a significant percentage of the population and their descendants learned Slavic and forgot Swedish, being incorporated into Slavic soceity. Although from time to time the Emperors in Constantinople sent missionaries to the Russians, they did not meet with great success. Nor did the missionaries sent by Emperor Otto I of Germany in 950, though their mission had been requested by the leader of the Russians at that time, Olga, who ruled for her young son. Olga’s grandson, Vladimir after a period of promoting idolatry, took the decisive step to insure his people became Greek Orthodox Christians (having also considered the Judaism of the Khazars, and the Islam to the south, as well as Roman Christianity to the west). He may have chosen the Greek form of Christianity because it was at that time the most powerful and the closest. Byzantium was experiencing a resurgence of power and wealth. As part of his decision, Vladimir captured a Byzantine town and demanded the hand in marriage of a Byzantine princess (to add to his wives and concubines). Upon returning to Kiev, Vladimir ordered the destruction of all idols in the city and all the people to go down to the river to be baptized. He also began building churches, founding monasteries and sending out clergy to other towns. By the end of his reign (1015), Christianity had spread to most of the towns of Russia, south of the Volga River. Russian bishops were kept independent of control from Constantinople, eventually forming the Russian Orthodox Church. However, Christianity did little to penetrate the Slavic culture until the Bible was available in the Slavonic language. The people almost never attended the churches, the clergy sometimes could not even speak the local languages, and those who could had very little training. Bohemia came to Christ largely as a result of one very devout Christian leader named Vaclav (known as “good king Wencelas” in the west). He was martyred by his son Boleslav, who tried to put down the expansion of Christianity in his realm, but his grandson, Boleslav II, actively encouraged the spread of Christianity. By 999 Bohemia was considered a Christian kingdom. Boleslav II’s sister married the king of Poland, to the north, another group of Slavic peoples. The Polish king was baptized, and their son, Boleslaw Chrobry (“the brave”), who reigned from 992 to 1025, encouraged Christian missionaries to evangelize his people, and actually got three bishops established in Poland, giving his church some autonomy from Germany. After his death there was a backlash from the people, who burned churches, and drove out or killed the priests. It was a while before Christianity took root in Poland. The Vikings settle down and turn to Christianity in the west In the western part of Europe, the Vikings also set up bases from which to attack, these eventually growing into settlements. From these bases they would make forays inland to plunder churches for valuables and carry off people to sell into slavery. In places like Ireland, the Danish Vikings and the Norwegian Vikings began fighting each other over their settlements, resulting in a bloody feud which lasted from about 850 to 950. One witness recorded seeing Danish victors cooking their suppers in huge caldrons over fires of burning Norwegians. In England, closest to their homeland, the Danes shifted from raids to wars of conquest. In 867 they captured King Ella of Northumbria, and because he had strongly resisted, they subjected him to the torturous “blood-eagle sacrifice” death, where the lungs are pulled out of the living person, and left to flap like wings outside the body until the person dies. Soon the Danes controlled all of England except the southwest called Wessex, where King Alfred the Great, a scholarly and powerful Christian king ruled. He made a peace treaty with the Danes in 886, known as Danelaw, giving them most of England, and used the breather to build up a stronger army and even a navy. When the war resumed in 892, his forces were able to stave off the Vikings, until they gave up trying to conquer Wessex. In the meantime, King Alfred had persuaded one Viking leader to accept Christianity and be baptized, and had also encouraged the Christians in England to actively convert the Viking conquerors, which they did. The Danes also plundered France, sailing 100 miles up the Seine River with close to 400 ships to sack the city of Paris on Easter Sunday in 845 AD. King Charles the Bald, son of Charlemagne, finally bought them off with 7000 pounds of silver. The practice of paying off the Vikings became known as “Danish money” or Danegeld. The onslaughts only grew greater, and with settlements now in Europe, they were also year-round. Finally, in 911, King Charles gave a huge tract of land, called Normandy (Norman being a contraction of “Northman”) to the Danish leader Rollo, in exchange for Rollo swearing fealty to him and promising to fight off any other Vikings. Rollo also agreed to become a Christian, being baptized along with his men. They settled down, took French wives and eventually lost their own language and culture. Six generations later, in 1066 AD, Rollo’s descendent, William “the Conqueror”, took control of England from other descendants of Danish Vikings who had invaded England earlier. The Norwegians were busily settling Iceland, which by the 980’s had 60,000 inhabitants, a quarter of the population on the mainland. When Erik the Red was evicted from Norway for murdering in blood feuds he went to Iceland, where he continued his violent ways and was exiled for 3 years. During that time he sailed west, and staked out a place to live in what he called “Green land” hoping to attract settlers. Erik’s son Leif, having heard rumors of a much greener land to the southwest, by sailors who had gone off course, set out in 1001 and found Baffin Island, Labrador and finally Newfoundland (using today’s names). In 1009 he brought some 250 settlers back to Newfoundland to what they called Vinland. Apparently they were eventually forced to leave by problems with Native American tribes, and as a result, the “new world” remained undiscovered for another 500 years. Leif Erikson, unlike his father, was a Christian, and he helped bring Christian priests to Greenland and Iceland, which before long was largely Christian. Meanwhile, by the second half of the 10th century, the Scandinavians began to convert to Christianity in mass movements. They had been exposed to Christianity from the time they began to capture and bring back Christian women as slaves for concubines. After a period of time, Christian beliefs seem to have been added to their already existing pagan beliefs, in a syncretistic way, where crosses were used as amulets, for example. After the Danes had taken over England they seemed willing to accept missionaries from there, while they still refused missionaries from the Carolingian empire, which had taken the Saxons by force. Eventually, it was the rulers of the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes themselves, that brought their people into a more orthodox and informed understanding of Christianity. As early as 950, Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark, was baptized. But it wasn’t until the time of Canute, who ruled from 1019 to 1035, that the Danes were systematically taught the Christian faith. Olaf Tyggvason, after a very amazing series of events, became the ruler of Norway in 995 and set about to have all the Norwegians baptized, which he did both by persuasion and by force. Another Olaf, Olaf Haraldsson (or St. Olaf) became king by acclamation of the “things” (local assemblies) of Norway in 1015, after proving himself by fighting in England, France and Sweden. He imported priests from England to instruct the people in the faith, built churches, and outlawed paganism. He was killed in 1030 in an uprising of those who gained their income from pagan shrines (ironically helped by Canute, the Danish Christian ruler), thereby becoming a martyr and patron saint of Norway. The Magyars As the Vikings were attacking western and northern Europe, the Magyars were advancing from the east. Like the Vikings, they plundered then burned churches and monasteries on their way. In 955, Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in Germany haulted them at the Danube River from further incursions into Europe. Sixty years earlier, in 896, Byzantine Emperor Leo VI (see below) had used them to help put down the Bulgarians, who under Simeon (also spelled Symeon) were attacking his lands after a trade dispute. The Emperors own troops were still busy staving off the Arabs. The Magyars finally settled down, becoming what was later known as the Hungarians. Settling next to populations like the Bulghars, who were becoming believers, the Magyars began to be converted too. Similarly to the Slavic peoples, their conversion was greatly influenced by the royal family. In 973 envoys were sent to Emperor Otto I asking for German missionaries, and the king of the Magyars, Geisa, made baptism compulsory. Geisa’s son, Vajk, also called by his Christian name Stephen, preached directly to his subjects encouraging them to become believers. Stephen helped set up the church’s structure in his country, but when he died in 1038 there was a pagan backlash, as there had been in Poland. Nevertheless, Christianity was promoted by succeeding rulers and was well established by the end of the eleventh century. Summary: As you can see, the winning of the European tribal nations to Christianity was a difficult and long process. In areas where there were translations of scripture in the local languages, progress was faster and easier to sustain. In other areas, progress in one generation would be lost in the next, with a return to pagan beliefs. Mass conversions forced by leaders or outsiders were shallow at best. But, in spite of the drawbacks, there is little doubt that the Christian faith took root faster in these areas, particularly if missionaries and priests learned the local languages or came from among the people. By the 12th century peace and prosperity were gaining ground in eastern, now-Christian Europe. Peace did not last long, however, as the Mongols poured in from the east shortly after the beginning of the 13th century. How Byzantium Survived (800-1000) The Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium as it was later known, struggled to survive during this period, constantly under attack from all sides. It had been in a long decline since the time of Justinian. But its slide was halted, and then reversed, when Emperor Michael III (“the drunkard”) was assassinated in 867. Part of the plot, Basil “the Macedonian,” an unschooled peasant that Michael had added to the imperial guard after he calmed a rebellious horse, took over the throne, and started the 2nd most lasting dynasty in Byzantine history. This period has been called the “Macedonian Renaissance” after Basil and his descendents. Basil proved to be a good ruler, revising and implementing Justinian’s Code and instituting more just tax laws. The economy took a turn for the better and there was rebirth of art, as glorious new mosaics were made to replace those that had been smashed during the “iconoclastic controversy.” (From 730-787, there was a period when Byzantine Emperor Leo III tried to eliminate icons in Christian churches which he felt were being used by some as idols. Some feel he was influenced by the rise of iconoclastic Islam, but others point out that his arguments come from the Old Testament’s injunctions against graven images and his concern for syncretistic uses of Christian icons. The period ended when Leo III’s great-grandson was ousted from power by his own mother, Irene, who organized the 7th Eccumenical Council in Nicea to condemn iconoclasm, 787, and later declared herself Emperor, the first woman Roman Emperor.) While Byzantium held the Muslim Arabs at bay, it tried to expand its alliances in the North, and its protection against the Rus Vikings who were occasionally attacking Constantinople, by winning the neighboring Slavs to eastern Christianity. Basil was carefully grooming his oldest son Constantine to be his heir. However, when Constantine died at the age of 20, the next heir apparent was his other son Leo, who, at that point, had served three years in prison on charges of treachery. Basil could not accept the inevitable and served 7 more years as emperor before being gored to death by a stag on a hunting trip. Basil’ son Leo was crowned Emperor Leo VI and reigned well for 26 years. Despite his troubled youth, he became known as Leo the Wise because of his prolific writings and speeches. He continued the revision of the 60-volume Justinian code of Laws, now known as the Basilics, which later Napoleon, among other rulers of Europe, built their law systems on. However, Byzantium was being assaulted by Bulgars from the north while suffering major defeats with the Arabs. In 902, the last Byzantine hold on Sicily was lost, and in 904 Thessalonica, the richest city other than Constantinople in all of Byzantium was attacked, looted of all its treasures, and the people butchered. To keep Simeon the Bulgarian “tsar” from taking over Thessalonica, Emperor Leo VI gave the Bulgarians land all the way into southern Macedonia and Albania (modern Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Albania). Meanwhile Leo VI concentrated all his energies on rebuilding his navy and pushing back the Arab forces, retaking in subsequent years Cyprus and part of Syria. When a huge fleet of Viking (Russian) ships appeared at Constantinople, Leo bought them off with lucrative trade arrangements. In 911 the Arabs demolish the Byzantine fleet, first in a battle over Crete, then in the Aegean as the fleet tried to make it back to Constantinople. In 912 Leo VI died and there is a period of anarchy in the succession. The Bulgars tried to take advantage of the situation to overwhelm Constantinople. In 919 an Armenian peasant rescued the dynasty, Romanus Lecapenus married his daughter to Leo’s young son Constantine VII, only 14 years old, and assumed co-emperorship with him. Romanus faced down the Bulgarians, and then when Tsar Simeon died in 927, he made a peace treaty with Simeon’s son Peter which lasted for 40 years. Romanus, like Basil, helped the peasants, from whose lot he had come, by restricting how much land the rich could acquire from the poor. A mixed blessing, since some of the poor wanted to rid themselves of their non-profitable land. Nevertheless, Romanus knew that the economy and food supply ultimately depended on the small farmers. Romanus helped them out by building hospitals, funding extensive public works that could supplement their incomes, and providing food distributions during times of famine. When Romanus’ own sons kidnapped him and put him in a monastery, hoping to gain power for themselves, before his death, he delivered it all to Constantine VII. Constantine promptly had all Romanus’ sons condemned to monastic life. Constantine VII, a reluctant governor, loved literature, history and was an accomplished painter. Believing the past could guide the present, he had manuals researched and compiled on many subjects, from agriculture to military strategy. He had a biography written of his grandfather, Basil I, and geographies and knowledge of foreign lands turned into encyclopedic works. A new outburst of creative and beautiful artwork resulted, from literature to enameled jewelry to decorative arts, including mechanical animals that made sounds. Constantine was known for his amazingly generous gifts of gold and fine clothes to his vassals and was very popular as a result. When Constantine’s son, Romanus II died within three years of taking the throne, his sons were too small to take over. A few military leaders followed, which at least managed to keep the Arabs at bay. When the older of the two sons, Basil II (the great-great grandson of Basil), tried to regain control of the throne in 988, a general named Bardas Phocas collected a large army and approached Constantinople. Basil II, who had just suffered defeat at the hands of Bulgarians, appealed to the Russian leader Vladimir for help. By their agreement, Vladimir sent 6000 top-notch troops and agreed for his nation to become Christian in exchange for the hand in marriage of Basil II’s sister Anna. But after a resounding victory, Basil did not send his sister to Vladimir until the Russians advanced into the Crimean. The pact in the end turned out beneficial to Byzantium, to have a strong ally against the Bulgarians as well as others. Basil II turned on the aristocracy that had backed the rebellious general, Bardas Phocas, by issuing an edict that all land acquired by rich landowners in violation of the law set out by Romanus almost 70 year earlier, needed to be returned to the original poor owners without compensation. The rich were furious, but managed to sidestep the edict while Basil II was repeatedly dragged into wars with the Bulgarians on one side and the Arabs on the other. Finally, determined to end the Bulgarian problem, in the summer of 1014 Basil II managed to encircle and capture 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers. He had them divided into groups of 100, where in he blinded all but one man, who was left with one eye to lead the rest home. When Samuel, current Tsar of the Bulgarians, saw his men, he collapsed in dismay, and died two days later. Thus Basil II, known as the “Bulgar-slayer” regained all of the Balkan Peninsula for Byzantium. In spite of the decades of war, Basil II was kind in governing the Bulgars once he had conquered them. After also regaining territory from the Arabs, Basil II died in 1025, following an impressive 49 years as the emperor. Dying without a male heir, the empire passed to his brother Constantine, who was both old and an “absolute slave of gluttony and lust” given to gambling, partying and sloth. Unable to change his ways at this late date, he too soon died, leaving the empire to his two daughters. Anarchy once more descended on Byzantium as Basil’s dynasty comes to an end. The rise of Feudalism The 9th century and the first part of the 10th century were a time of relative chaos in Europe. With the waves of Viking invasions, feudalism developed rapidly as small kingdoms and local allegiances replaced the larger kingdoms, whose rulers could no longer maintain control. Castles were built for protection from raiders, as landowners put themselves under the protection of a local lord and his knights. Towns, vulnerable to attack, dwindled, and trade, no longer safe, dried up. Charlemagne had already been using a system of people under him swearing allegiance to him in exchange for titles and honor, parcels of land called “fiefs,” and protection during times of threat. These “vassals” in turn owed military service to their lord. The king was in essence the owner of all the land, which he could give out and take back at will. As the Viking invasions created chaos, more and more people aligned themselves with local lords for protection. Later, as the Vikings began to settle down, they were also enrolled as “vassals,” given land in exchange for protection against new Viking onslaughts. The church hits new depths and heights All through the history of the church, since it became institutionalized, there has been the “church of power” and the “church of faith.” Occasionally, they overlapped but usually the church of power was being corrupted by men who sought religious positions for the power they afforded, and the church of faith acted outside the power circles, or even sometimes in opposition to them. As the Vikings were leveling the monasteries and upsetting the balance of power farther north, Italian politics also became chaotic. The papacy sunk to its lowest level yet. Popes rarely lasted more than a few years during this time , and had become, for the most part, political pawns. In the early 10th century one especially notorious woman, Marozia, terrorized various popes, slept with others, and got rid of those who opposed her.. The institutional church was in no position to help the unstable situation. In the midst of what seemed the church’s blackest hour, God brought renewal, mostly through new monastic movements that sprang up repeatedly from 900 to 1300, some of which you will read about in the next unit. By the time the Vikings descended upon the Benedictine and Celtic monasteries, many of them had been corrupted by the practice of local nobles picking as abbots friends of theirs, even if they were married non-monks. With their monasteries in ruins and their lands overrun, one might have expected an end to the monastic movement. However, a new kind of monastic movement began at Cluny, in east-central France, in 910 AD. The Cluny movement reasserted strict following of the Benedictine Rule. Youths flocked to the monastery, which soon founded other monasteries under the same abbot. Most of the monks’ time was spent in worship and prayer, a departure from the work-intensive Benedictine and Celtic monasteries. The working of their fields was done by serfs or lay brothers, so that the monks could spend their time in devotional activities. They did not spend as much time studying either, and actually forbid or discouraged reading non-Christian authors of the classical age. Also unlike previous monasteries, which had all been separate and under the power of local lords, the Cluny monasteries were all tied together by leaders who were directly under the pope (who luckily was far away since they were so corrupt during this period). This structure gave them a great deal of autonomy, and created a “family” of monasteries that could hold each other accountable. Their enthusiasm for worship and prayer soon spread and many more Cluny monasteries were either established, or older Benedictine ones won over to the movement. By the beginning of the 12th century there were over 300 Cluny monasteries, which had a significant impact on the faith of Europe. But, as the Cluny monasteries became increasingly powerful, their spiritual fervor was waning. One of the more famous leaders influenced by the Cluny movement was Hildebrand, a man of uncompromising character who was elected the pope in 1073 and took the name Gregory VII. He started a wholesale reform of the church, deposing priests who had bought their offices, or who were married. He also decided to excommunicate anyone outside the church who tried to appoint clergy. This reform resulted in a famous standoff between Pope Gregory VII and the young Holy Roman Emperor in Germany, Henry VI, who wanted to preserve his right to appoint bishops in his territory. Bishops controlled not only the church but huge amounts of land and political power. When Henry VI appointed a bishop for Milan in 1075, Pope Gregory VII deposed the bishop. Henry retaliated by announcing that “Hildebrand” could no longer be pope. But the pope then excommunicated the Emperor and threatened to remove him and make someone else emperor. The pope had been crowning the Holy Roman Emperors since the time of Charlemagne. As his German princes began to vie for his position, Henry VI saw he needed to relent quickly. The pope made him stand barefoot in the snow for three days before allowing him to come in and repent for his actions. After returning to put down a civil war in Germany, Henry VI, excommunicated by Gregory a second time, picked a new pope, and took Rome by force in 1084. Appealing to Normans (Vikings) who had settled in southern Italy to help him, the pope was rescued, but not before the ever opportunistic Normans pillaged Rome. As a result, the Roman populace rejected Gregory, who died in exile. From this time on there was an uneasy struggle for power between the Roman church and the Germans that was to eventually came to a head in the Reformation (1517). The Far East 600-1200 Korea The Korean Peninsula offered a significant amount of protection and isolation for the Korean people, who have a language very distinct from those of neighboring countries. Because they share this distinct language, there is a strong sense of Korean nationality. The Korean Peninsula was unified in 676 AD by a dynasty known as Unified Silla. This kingdom built on the older Silla kingdom that began around 57BC. Unified Silla lasted into the 900s, though part of the north and part of Manchuria came under other rulers, known as Balhae, in the 8th century. Unifying the whole peninsula again, the Goryeo dynasty ruled from 918 to 1392. During these long periods of relative peace, Buddhism became the primary religion of Korea, and the arts, architecture, and culture of Korea flourished. Japan Japan consists of over 1000 islands of volcanic origin, only a little bigger than the British Isles, and with mountains as high as 12,389 feet! Only 16 percent of the land can be cultivated because of the rugged terrain, and many active volcanoes. Nevertheless, the climate changes are rather mild for Japan’s latitude because of being surrounded by oceans, and fresh water is plentiful inland. The people of Japan have lived there since thousands of years BC, and are typically Asian in appearance, with occasional waves of immigrants of Chinese or Mongol origin, except for the puzzling Ainu tribe on the northern island of Hokkaido, which are oddly Caucasian in appearance. The Shinto Religion The Shinto religion, which means “the way of the gods,” appeared in Japan around 300 AD, along with a new group of invaders that built elaborate burial mounds. These new leaders would found the “Sun Line” ruling dynasty that lasts into the modern era. In the Shinto religion, now inexorably tied to the ruling dynasty, all things “kami,” meaning “superior” as in more beautiful or even supernatural, are revered. Disease and death were considered contaminating, and salt was spread on the floor of a home where someone had died as a purifying agent. Some kami, or superior beings, were more powerful than others and were used for protection against others. In the Shinto religion, the sun goddess, Amaterasu, was the most powerful of all and the source of life in all things; there are many fables associated with Amaterasu and the other gods and goddesses. The Japanese emperors were deemed to be descendants of Amaterasu and in some ways were more like the highest priest than a secular ruler. In the Japanese government, a council of state was made up of the highest leaders or chieftains of each clan. Each family clan, or “uji,” worshipped a specific lesser god, and contained a number of subclans, or “be,” which each had a specialized skill or occupation that had to be carried out by subsequent generations. Eventually, only noble clans were involved in the government, and those clans would fight each other, each cultivating and backing a different descendent of the last emperor to be the next one, assassinating other contenders if necessary. Buddhism reaches Japan Buddhism first came to Japan via China and the Korean Peninsula in the 6th century. It resulted in conflict, including out and out fighting between those converted to Buddhism and those maintaining the old pantheon of gods espoused by the Shinto religion. It was promoted greatly by a crown prince, around 600 AD, who was called Shotoku (meaning “Sovereign Moral Power”) who had learned to read Chinese and read the Buddhist scriptures. An intellectual prodigy, he applied Buddhist principles to religious matters, Confucian principles to secular policy, and introduced the Confucian calendar and many other things from China. For several decades many bright young noble Japanese were sent on the perilous voyage to China where they studied for one to three decades before returning home as resident scholars. As often happened, Buddhism began to blend with the existing religion, however attention paid to the Great Buddha was still suspect. In 735, the great sun goddess, Amaterasu, still revered in Shinto Japan, was asked permission at one point, after a smallpox epidemic, for a great stature to Buddha to be erected. Apparently she gave her permission, and a 53 foot tall metal Buddha, using millions of pounds of copper, tin, lead and several hundred pounds of gold to cover it, was created in a huge hall to house it. Finished in 752, it was consecrated with 10,000 foreign Buddhists present, from as far as India. Chinese influence on Japan 600-800 Japan had always looked up to China and imported many of its cultural refinements, along with is legal system, social organization, and architecture, from the mainland. In 646, the Fujiwara clan dynasty became the power behind the throne after a coup putting a new royal family member, called Emperor Tenchi, in power. They displaced the old most powerful “uji” or clan called the Soga. They restructured Japanese government along Chinese lines in the “great transformation” called the Taika Reform. Under the guise of redistribution of lands, the royal family and its uji backers, the Fujiwara, consolidated power away from the warring uji (clans). The country was divided into precise districts for governance, census, and tax purposes. Though local leaders were chosen by the people, higher leaders almost invariably were appointed on the basis of family pedigree. There was a system of laws instituted with specified punishments, the worst being reserved for the “Eight Outrages”, which included things like treason, killing three or more members of the same family, defiling a shrine, or failing to provide for one’s parents. During this period Japan’s first pre-designed capital city (Nara) was planned and constructed, copying Changan, the capital of China at that time. It was carefully constructed on a grid, and included many Buddhist and a few Shinto temples. Learning boomed and in 760 an amazing book of poetry, called Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, was published. It contained some 4500 poems, most of them 31 syllable poems, which were easier to write in Chinese script and forerunners of more modern seventeen syllable “haiku” poetry. As the Buddhist became more powerful, more men with questionable motives became Buddhists. The monasteries became very rich, as the peasants were taxed but the rich monasteries were exempt. The Nara period came to an end when there was an infamous affair between an empress (Koken, 749-770) and a Buddhist monk (Dokyo) who tried to get himself declared emperor. It was centuries before a woman was allowed to be an emperor again, and in 784 the capital city Nara, with its strangling Buddhist connections, was abandoned for a new capital built thirty miles away called Heian-Kyo. The Heian Era: 800-1200 In spite of extensive Chinese influence, during the 400 years between 800 and 1200 Japan’s aristocracy developed their own refined aesthetic taste and cultural identity. As China’s Tang dynasty was dissolving into warring factions in the 9th century, Japan was protected from the trouble and developed its own political structure run by a number of aristocratic families who controlled everything. Buddhism had been introduced in the 6th century and, by now, its followers had gotten strong enough to contest the ruling powers. This period was known as the Heian era (meaning “peace” or “tranquility”). The Heian Japanese liked literature, and especially poetry. One famous scholar-philosopher and poet laureate of the 9th century was Michizane. When asked to write an essay for a civil service exam on “earth quakes,” he presented the theories of three philosophies: Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, to show his level of learning and expertise. He became the counselor of the emperor Uda, but when that emperor later abdicated, he was sent away under house arrest and died. Such was the respect for his poetry, however, that his reputation was later reinstated and he eventually became a Shinto god. On Michizane’s recommendation, Japan cut formal relations with China in 894, whose desire to keep Japan in a subject position was increasingly unacceptable. Japan did not renew relations with China for five centuries. Contact even with other parts of the Asian mainland ended in 926. During the Heian period, the power of the Fujiwara family behind the emperor’s throne increased, and they managed to get the emperors to marry their daughters generation after generation. By gaining tax-free parcels of land through special dispensations from various emperors, the Fujiwaras became the richest of all the aristocratic families. As the noble families gained more and more land grants, called shoen (provincial estates), the government had less and less revenue, and money and power flowed into the hands of the nobility. There were a few Confucian universities set up to train noble sons for civil service positions, which required passing five examinations. Eventually favoritism of particular family names, rather than ability, undermined the university system. Literacy develops in Japan The Japanese were illiterate until 400 AD, when a gift of a book in Chinese script from a grateful Korean ally (the Paekche) sparked a request for scholars to come and teach the Crown Prince of Japan to read the Chinese script (which is pictographic so can be read without learning Chinese if the meaning of the symbols is understood). However, Chinese and Japanese are very different languages, and it was not a good fit to write Japanese in with Chinese characters. The Japanese developed a handy phonetic script in the 9th century called kana: concise sets of syllables derived from the Chinese characters. Chinese characters, which run into the thousands, was still learned by male scholars, but the new kana script was soon read by both men and women, who quickly began to put down their thoughts in poems as well. Women even began to write prose accounts of their culture and times, such as Shonagon’s Pillow Book and Murasaki’s Tale of Genji, complex, elegant and revealing literature. The Tale of Genji, probably the world’s first novel written by a woman, had over 400 different characters and was 630,000 words long. The Japanese writings of the day began to depict the Japanese as more clever than their Chinese neighbors, contrasting “Chinese knowledge” with “Japanese sense.” Japanese society The Heian rulers referred to themselves as “dwellers among the clouds” and their world was a ordered, refined court with elegant ceremonies, where restraint was one of the principle virtues. Etiquette was elaborate and freighted with meaning. Color of dress, or paper even, was chosen with great and meaningful care. Men and women powdered their faces white, wore silk robes and perfume, putting great stake in their appearance. Women shaved their eyebrows, painted their teeth black, and wore their hair long and silky. They played board games and had horse races and archery championships, in addition to poetry competitions and love trysts. The ability to write calligraphy well was also considered a sign of ones noble character. The vast majority of the Japanese people were shut out of this exclusive genteel world. Known as “esemono” and “esebito”, meaning “doubtful creatures” they were considered barely human. Most of the peasants were serfs, bound to their small parcel of land and unable to move about or change their lot. Travelers had to have identification, which was hard to come by. Their huts were small and their diet was almost solely rice. Buddhism during the Heian Period Buddhism in Japan was established in two different sects in the ninth century. The Tendai sect preached a universal Buddha and salvation through meditation, good works, virtuous conduct and reading the Lotus Sutra scriptures. This version of Buddhism became the most widespread and powerful in Japan. The Shingon sect of Buddhism, founded by an accomplished Japanese Buddhist monk called Kukai, said that salvation could only be achieved through knowledge of the “true word” which the leader would pass on to one chosen disciple when on his death bed. This sect was related to a similar True Word sect in China. There were incantations and secret rituals that needed to be learned, focusing on three mysteries of the mind, speech and body. This form of Buddhism was popular with the Heian aristocrats. During the 10th century a new sect of Buddhism developed around the idea of a “pure land” Buddha Amida. Amida Buddha had promised salvation to the “pure land” paradise to intelligent beings. All that was required was faith in Amida Buddha, and invoking his name in a special prayer. The multiple reincarnations found in other forms of Buddhism were thereby circumvented. This simple and accessible faith became the most popular form of Buddhism among all classes in Japan. In all its forms, Japanese Buddhism absorbed the pre-existing Shinto beliefs by allowing the Shinto gods to be called manifestations of Buddhas. Shinto beliefs that death, illness and childbirth were forms of uncleanness persisted, as did amulets to ward off evil. Superstitious beliefs from Shintoism remained firmly entrenched, and Shinto priests were still used for exorcisms and controlling the spirit realm. Shinto spirits would guide even Buddhist priests. India, China, SE Asia 600-1200 China: The Tang dynasty controlled China from the 7th until half-way through the 8th century, reaching from Tibet in the west to Korea in the south, as far north as Mongolia and all the way south to the South China Sea. Buddhism had become ingrained in Chinese society, and for a while Nestorian Christianity was also growing. Scholars from the west were well received. Then internal revolts and tribal attacks from the North led to the breakup of China into forty semi-independent military states. Since there are available histories of China for young people, not much will be said here. However, we encourage you to seek out good books and websites to cover with your students. India: While the Tang were ruling in China, a son of one of the many petty kings in North India, named Harsha Vardhana, came of age. Starting in 606 AD, at the age of only sixteen, he began overcoming fellow overlords and, within only six years, created a new kingdom in North India. He eventually controlled the vast area from modern day Pakistan in the west, to modern day Bangladesh in the east. Unlike the Gupta Empire, which had decayed in the mid 6th century, which had decentralized its power, he kept a tight control, traveling continuously to check out local governments and fix problems. Also unlike the Guptas, he promoted Buddhism instead of Hinduism, and saved his own sister from the Hindu rite of “sati,” (throwing oneself on the funeral pier of a dead husband). Nevertheless, both Hindu and Buddhist learning expanded at this time. The Hindu mathematicians calculated a more accurate value for pi than even the ancient Greeks. They also made other advances in gravitational theory, even promoting and “atom” theory of the universe. Harsha is well-loved as a benevolent ruler in ancient India, known for such things as being generous with giving land grants to Brahmins and other officials when his treasury ran out. In the end, this undermined the integrity of his kingdom by making it financially impoverished. Trade routes to the west had been compromised by the Huns, and there was little source of new revenue. In the end, the Brahmins, the rulers of Hindu society, plotted against Harsha and had him murdered in 647. North India turned into a bloody battleground between different local kings, with none able to unite it. Meanwhile, in south India, on the Deccan Plateau and in Tamil Nadu, there was incessant warfare. By the 6th century there were three main kingdoms constantly fighting each other in hopes of gaining the upper hand: the Chalukyas, the Pallavas, and the Pandyas. Representing different people groups and languages, each had their area of control and means of gaining wealth, but nevertheless perpetually attacked each other. While the northern part of India spoke Indo-European (Aryan) languages, the southern spoke Dravidian languages. These southern groups adopted Hinduism and tried to construct proof of Aryan descent for themselves, the Pallavas even claimed the supreme deity Brahma as one of their ancestors. Hinduism and specifically the caste system, was able to make many different people groups, with a variety of social customs and gods, have a level of cohesiveness. Hinduism rapidly incorporated local gods into its pantheon, and Buddhism, once Buddha began to be worshipped, was absorbed the same way. Buddha became just another god of Hinduism. Those who were Brahmins began to eliminate others from the Hindu colleges, which had been set up by temples and had originally been open to anyone (in a copy of schools established by the Buddhists and the Jains). As a result, the Brahmin caste became the scholars and educators of society, reinforcing their own political and religious status. Southeast Asia: Meanwhile, a great Indonesian maritime kingdom was arising, called Srivijaya. Gaining control of the Malacca and Sunda straits in the 7th century, by which they governed trade between India and China, they maintained control well into the 13th century. They maintained good relations with China, their main source of tradable goods, even letting Chinese Buddhist monks come and set up large study centers on their islands. They also traded with Indonesian aboriginal tribes to keep them from pirating and to gain products like aromatic woods and beeswax for trade from the jungle. Using the Malaysian belief that those who rebelled against rulers would be struck down by the king’s curse, the Srivijayans quickly gained control by setting up fiefdoms on the Malay Peninsula. By 775 they had taken over more than 14 smaller Malaysian kingdoms. During the same period, the Khmers were establishing a powerful empire in what is now Cambodia at Angkor and the Javanese were building up their Sailendra dynasty. These people groups had also become Buddhist largely through Chinese trading influences. The Sailendras constructed a massive Buddhist temple in the center of their island at Borobudur. But the Javanese were to be won over to Hinduism and revert to pirating the trade between the Chinese and the Sumatran Srivijayans. While the Cambodian and Indonesian peoples were as greatly influenced by their Indian heritage as they were by their Chinese trading partners, Vietnam was always more in the Chinese orbit, like Korea and Japan. Many Chinese emperors even considered Vietnam a part of China. Vietnam was also greatly influenced by Confucianism, which did not significantly impact the rest of Southeast Asia. In southern Vietnam, however, the Champa kingdom remained bellicose and independent for 800 years. The Chams, who were considered subhuman by the Chinese and Northern Vietnamese, engaged in a lot of pirate raiding, and rode elephants into battle. However, they also harvested pearls, and distilled powerful drugs and incenses, which were highly sought. ​ ## 11 The Middle Ages The feudal system had been developed to restore some order to the chaos of Europe following the centuries of Viking raids. None of the previous barbarian invasions from the East, whether the Huns, Magyars, or Arabs from North Africa, had struck terror into the hearts of Europeans like the Viking raiders, who would suddenly appear silently out of nowhere and wreck havoc, departing quickly with many locals to be sold as slaves. Feudal relationships of allegiance had been forged for protection, and sometimes for controlling the Vikings themselves by making them allies against newer raiders. As the semi-Christianized Vikings settle down along waterways all over Europe, they bring a subdued version of their glorification of violence with them. This tendency to love fighting persisted, coming to the fore when Pope Urban I challenged them to stop fighting each other and go rescue Constantinople and the Holy Land from the Turks (the new barbarians attacking Persia and the Middle East). This misguided idea resulted in a series of disastrous crusades, only the first of which had any real victories whatsoever. However, by 1200 AD, peace has been largely restored, and a new “renaissance” is developing… the rise of the towns, capitalism, and the “invention of invention.” The “Black Death” struck in the mid-14th century, killing off a third of Europe’s population and killing off feudalism as well. With insufficient workers to keep people in serfdom, land owners had to strike better deals, and people had freedom to chose the best option. From that time to the present, no major invaders from outside have overrun Europe, and, in spite of internal wars, there has been a steady increase in progress and prosperity. Lords and Knights Power now resided with local lords, safe in their fortresses or castles, warring with neighboring lords, and offering protection at a price to their dependents. Protection in exchange for allegiance and service, the hallmarks of feudal society, began in 8th century France and had spread to most of Europe by the 12th century. Each lord had their knights, or mounted warriors, who often would function almost as mercenaries, earning their living by fighting or winning tournaments. Although bound to a liege lord, like the peasants, they had significantly higher status, and were eventually able to acquire wealth and even estates. Chivalry was the code of honor of the knights, an almost odd mixture between the Viking glorification of military heroism, and the Christian standard of kindness and protection of the vulnerable. In addition to military prowess, the good knight was expected to be courteous, fair, faithful, eloquent, good at chess and dancing, as well as kind to the poor and lowly. They were also supposed to be devoted in passionate romantic but chaste love to a highborn lady. Worshipped from afar with unrequited love, the knight was willing to die for this lady. This invention of “romance” became one of the main themes of the singing minstrels and troubadours, and was promoted by such famous women as Eleanor of Aquitaine, first the queen of France, then the wife of Henry II, King of England, and mother of Richard the Lionhearted, John Lackland, and others. She promoted the mystic of courtly love, literature, poetry and music. Kings and the Church If the lords supported him, usually was a king. In France and England, the eldest son would inherit the kingdom. In Germany, the noble lords themselves would elect the next king from the royal family, but during this time period, the local lords held almost absolute power over their lands. By aligning themselves with the church, the king “overlords” began to tip the balance of power in their direction. When Viking invasions ceased by the 12th century, peace and prosperity began to return. The kings collected taxes and built churches, and monasteries, and the church in turn supported the kings and the relative peace they brought. The church encouraged the King to take over the land of local evil or tyrannical lords. Thus the church and crown worked hand in hand, each to its own purposes: the church reminding the crown that its power was only given by heaven’s consent and was a sacred trust, and the crown benefiting from the reminder of the church to the peasants to obey their lords and overlords. As wealth poured back into the churches, beautiful new airy cathedrals began to be built, using “flying buttresses” to carry the weight of the stone outside the building, and having large windows of beautiful stained class supported by metal bracings. The first such “Gothic” building was the new abbey of St Denis, north of Paris, the genius of Abbot Suger, built from 1137 to 1144. Henry II of England In places like England, King Henry the II instituted a judicial system run by the king, not the local lords, based on the jury system used by his Norman \(Viking\) ancestors. But he wanted to extend the judicial authority over even the lesser clergy who currently would get as little punishment as a “defrocking” for a murder. To do this he decided to make a good friend of his, Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury \(in 1163\), even though he wasn’t even a priest. Quickly ordained, Becket took his new role to heart and began to defend the rights of the church to a separate authority structure outside of the civil monarchical government. After years of ongoing conflict over whether the state would have authority over the church and the clergy, Henry inadvertently caused Becket to be murdered by his own men by musing “who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” When Europe reacted in horror, Henry asked to be publicly flogged on the spot in the cathedral at Canterbury where Becket was slain. It was four more centuries before the independence of the church was challenged again, this time when Henry VIII broke relations with Rome and made himself the new head of the English church (Anglican). Frederick Barbarossa of Germany Over in Germany, Frederick Barbarossa (“the red beard”) became the “Holy Roman Emperor” in 1155, gaining both Charlemagne’s title and the eastern part of his empire. Frederick used harsh measures to quell rebellious nobles, tearing down their castles if necessary. He imposed a legal code and required all men between the ages of 18 and 70 to swear a yearly oath to keep the peace. The new peace resulted in a population boom, with the population of Germany more than doubling (from 4 million to 7 million) between 1100 and 1200. Frederick tried to help gain more farmland by invading Poland in 1157, taking up land that is now East Germany. Forests had to be razed and new farmlands developed, as people were no longer being killed in perpetual warfare. Frederick had his own run-ins with the church, when he led a number of campaigns between 1162 and 1170 to try to take over the city-states of Italy, razing Milan to the ground after a difficult victory (ancient Roman buildings, cathedral and all!) When the church elected a new pope he did not like, Alexander III, he forcefully took over the proceedings and set up his own pope, Victor IV, known as the “anti-pope.” The popes promptly excommunicated each other. Now the Italian cities, furious at the interference with the papal succession, put aside their differences and fought him as a united force. Frederick was forced to sign a peace treaty with the Italian states and the pope in 1183. While he was away, his German vassal lords had begun fighting again, and he had to rush home to restore peace. Nevertheless, when Frederick Barbarossa was tempted to join the First Crusade, and drowned in Turkey in 1095 crossing a river in full heavy armor on horseback, the German nobles consolidated their positions and no new Holy Roman Emperor was able to bring unity to Germany for hundreds of years. Power of the Pope The pope in Rome had claimed to have power over all Christians from the 5th century. However, most kings had not paid much attention to them regardless. Nevertheless, beginning in the 11th century, several things happened that gave the pope significantly more power. One was the monastic reform movements, first the Cluny reform, then the Cistercian reform. Both of these were directly under the pope, not local kings or lords. Secondly, in 1070, Pope Gregory VII reversed the tradition that allowed secular nobles to pick those who would become bishops in their territory. Although this move was not won soon or easily, eventually the pope had sole authority to choose all the cardinals and bishops everywhere. The church began to more effectively “defrock” or remove from the clergy, priests who were immoral or drunkards or unwilling to fulfill their duties. Thirdly, with the calling for the Crusades, the pope inspired many to break free from their political and feudal alliances and take on a war at their call. In 1123, Pope Calixtus II called a great council in Rome, summoning bishops from all over Europe. Held in the Lateran Palace in Rome, this “Lateran Council” was the first international church council in 250 years, one of three that century held to discuss church reform. They banned priests from having wives or concubines, forbade the selling of church property, and tightened control over selection of bishops and priests. (Many priests in northern Europe, Spain and Poland held on to their wives for many more generations, however.) At the council, the Cardinals’ roles were more clearly defined, including their advisory status to the pope and rules for their selection of the next pope when one died were clearly established for the first time. The chain of authority in the church international became clearly established, as the Cardinals elected a series of administratively gifted Popes. The Papal Curia was set up in the Lateran Palace, which employed an army of monks that came from various monasteries to become clerks and administrators of various kinds. The Apostolic Chamber of the Curia was like the accounting department, where, using abacus and tally sticks, collected gifts from far and wide were counted and recorded. The most lucrative source of income was the “St. Peter’s Pence” or one-penny tax on each Christian household. Another section of the Curia, called the Chancery, answered letters from all across Christendom, settling disputes, and helping distant monasteries or churches with problems. The rulings would then be dispatched through papal messengers on what was essentially a private papal postal service, where the pope had the largest stable of horses in the Western world at the time to carry his messengers. Inadvertently, the Chancery increasingly became sort of a higher level “court of last resort” that even commoners would appeal to if they felt they had been treated unjustly in local courts. This gave the church an additional kind of power over the secular authorities that was not initially intended, as those who refused to accept the judgements dispatched by the pope were usually arrested by local secular authorities. Eventually the secular rulers began to insist that people go through all the local courts first before appealing to Rome. So the Curia appointed judge delegates that would go around and hear cases locally. The popes had one of the most coherent codes of law in all of Europe, and the consistency of their judgements garnered the reformed Roman Church great respect. However, their laws had not always been so consistent. The mishmash of contradictory historical pronouncements were codified and systematized in the early 12th century by a rising generation of monastic legal scholars in the developing universities Bologna and Pavia. This new movement of “scholastics” was founded by people like Peter Abelard, who in 1121 published a system of dialectics called _Sic et Non_ (Yes and No), inspired by the Greek writings, which said to set contradictory statements side by side, compare them and chose the best. A Bolognese monk named Gratian used this method to sort through the canon law and published the results in the _Decretum_, which soon became sort of the legal textbook of the Church. It showed good judgment, valuing marriage while condemning adultery, valuing business while condemning usury. The inevitable result of all this organization was that the Pope and the Church hierarchy became increasingly involved in secular political issues. A perfect example of this Pope Innocent III who became Pope in 1198, the year of the 4th Crusade. He saw himself as above all earthly kings, and desired to promote peace on earth, ironically. He forced the kings of Sicily, Aragon (part of Spain), Hungary and England to acknowledge that they were papal fiefs (i.e. reigning only by his permission). When he got into a quarrel with King John of England (of Robin Hood fame), he encouraged King Philip II of France to attack England. The Fourth Crusade, along with succeeding Crusades, turned out to be a disaster, undermining faith in the Pope. The high-handed worldliness of Pope Innocent III (pope from 1198-1216\) helped promote break away reform movements like the Waldensians, and satires of the gospels like the _“Gospel According to the Mark of Silver”_ whose anonymous author said, “blessed are the wealthy, for theirs is the Court of Rome.” A number of worldly popes followed, undermining the trust the church had gained in the previous century. As their moral and spiritual authority was undermined, their worldly power declined as well. The Break Between the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic) Churches For many centuries the Pope in Rome had been claiming authority over all the other Patriarchs in the cities of the East (Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, etc.) who considered him an equal. Because these branches of the church had developed their customs in the cultural context without reverence to each other, there were many differences in minor things, such as: Western custom of monks shaving, with the Eastern tradition of them wearing beards (perhaps from the difference of Roman culture and Jewish); the Western tradition of celibate parish-level clergy, while they were married in the East (also comparable to Roman vs. Jewish values); or the use of unleavened bread for the eucharist in the West but leavened in the East (here the reverse). These issues, among many similar, though bitterly disputed, were only surface issues. The true problem lay in a difference in authority structure and culture. The Roman church had adopted the structure of the Roman Empire’s civil government. The Eastern church continued separate from the civil government structure, the Byzantine Empire, as we now call it, for another 1000 years. So the Patriarchs of the East both wanted to maintain distance from secular control in the East and from the religious control of the East. They also rightly looked down on the west as a now relatively uncivilized area. While both the Western and Eastern churches adopted both the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedon interpretation, the Eastern church, trying to become more unified with the Monophysite branches in Egypt, Ethiopia and Armenia, tended to emphasize primarily the divinity and power of Jesus. The Western church tended to emphasize his full humanity, and his death on the cross. In the 12th century, under the emphasis of Bernard of Clairvaux, devotion was increasingly put on the human incarnation of Jesus, making western Christianity more proactive and ethical in its emphasis on the Gospels. By contrast, Eastern Christianity was more mystical, rituals were more elaborate, and it was more mysterious rather than practical in its devotion. The rupture between the Eastern Greek-speaking and Western Latin-speaking churches took place over a couple centuries, becoming final sometime after 1350 AD. It first came to a head between 1049 and 1054, when Pope Leo IX was ruling in Rome, bringing in reforms and extending his control. At the same time Patriarch Cerularius was in Constantinople, another strong leader. He resented the Pope’s influence and condemnation of married parish clergy, so he closed churches affiliated with Rome, (i.e. those using the Latin rite instead of the Greek), in his territories. When the Pope retaliated by pointing out that some of the Patriarchs of Constantinople had been heretics (Arian) in the past, but all of the Popes had been orthodox in their beliefs, the Emperor of Byzantium forced Patriarch Cerularius to give a conciliatory reply. Pope Leo IX, however, would not be mollified and asserted the claim of the “See of Peter” (the Pope as the spiritual descendent of Peter) to rule all of the churches in all nations. He sent a delegation to Constantinople, who laid on the altar of the cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Saint or Holy Wisdom), a paper excommunicating Patriarch Cerularius. Cerularius responded by excommunicating the papal emissaries who had delivered the letter. The Patriarch of Antioch, Syria, tried to mediate between the two sides. There was no complete breech of relations, but the relationship was unstable enough that when Pope Urban II was asked by the Emperor in Constantinople for help in 1089, one of his major motivations in calling for the 1st Crusade was to bridge the gulf between the Western and Eastern churches. The behavior of the Crusaders, including replacing or adding Latin priests where there were Greek and occasionally sacking Greek Christian areas, even Constantinople in 1204 AD, only made things worse and created deeper resentment of the average person toward the Latin-using Roman church. Soon the average Greek person no longer wanted their churches to be under the authority of the Roman Pope. Throughout the 11th century various popes and Byzantine emperors tried to heal the breech to little avail. Western kings trying to set up kingdoms in the Middle East, Crete or Sicily, former Greek/Byzantine territory before the Muslim invasions, made things even worse. At the 14th Ecumenical Council in May of 1274, the Greek delegation agreed to all that the Pope required and it was announced that unity had been restored. When the majority of the constituency of the Byzantine churches did not assent to the decision, Byzantine Emperor Michael finally renounced the agreement. Later, as the Ottoman Turks (which you will study in the next unit) were attempting to take Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor John V, in 1369, again tried to heal the schism, but again his churches would not back him. In 1439 AD, one last attempt was made for reconciliation, then after that the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church no longer tried to repair their differences or meld their authority structures. The Cistercians and Bernard of Clairvaux Just as the Cluny, and various other monastic renewal movements from the 10th century were getting cold, a new zealous monastic movement appeared. Beginning in 1098, in the town of Citeaux in eastern France, the Cistercians movement began with a new commitment to poverty. They rejected the elaborate worship art of the Cluniacs, used simple clothing and food, cleared and tilled their own land, and replaced the long group services of the Cluniacs with more private prayer. The Cistercians also rejected the long-standing monastic practice of accepting children to be reared as monks. Instead, a boy had to be at least 16 years old, and make an adult decision of his own, in order to join. This practice led to a higher quality of monastic commitment. There was also more organization between monasteries than in the Cluny movement, with all the abbots coming together every year for maintaining fellowship, making laws and exercising discipline. Preferring desolate places, the Cistercians would take unusable mountains lands, swamps, and forests, clearing or draining them and making them useful. In 1115, Bernard of Clairvaux, established the 4th Cistercian house, bringing with him 30 friends, including 5 brothers. He became the most influential Christian in Western Europe of his generation. Loving Jesus passionately, Bernard wrote many poems, and we sing hymns that he wrote the words to even today, such as “Jesus the Very Thought of Thee” and “ Jesus, thou Joy of Loving Hearts.” Bernard was an eloquent and persuasive preacher, who won people to Christ, promoted the monastic life, argued against heretics and encouraged people to go on the 2nd Crusade. The Cistercians were exceedingly influential in spite of their remote locations, and soon many other monastic movements of lesser influence were springing up. Some, like the Carthusians, were more ascetic, almost hermits. Others, like the Augustinian Canons, were more focused on preaching outside the walls of the monastery. But they all had a tremendous renewing influence on the faith of people both inside and outside their walls. The Crusades: How They Started There have probably never been a series of wars more regrettable than the Crusades. Although the Middle East was hardly a place of peace, and various warring Muslim factions had changed the ruling powers numerous times over the centuries, Jerusalem was relatively unscathed by all of this, being a holy site for Muslims, Jews and Christians alike and have populations from all three groups. First taken by Muslim forces in 638, they had not demolished Christian shrines, like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher built by Constantine over the supposed location of Christ’s tomb. They let pilgrims of all three religions visit the city peacefully, benefiting from the commerce. Before the Crusades started, the Muslim world had once more degenerated into warring factions, this time between two dynasties who each saw themselves as the true successors of the Prophet: the Abbasids ruling from Baghdad and the Fatimids ruling from Cairo. The Abbasids represented the Sunni (“lawful”) branch of Islam, which traced its spiritual lineage to Abu Bakr, the Prophet Mohammed’s friend who took over after his death. The Fatimids were the leaders of the Shi’a (“faction”) which claimed spiritual descent from the Prophet’s relatives, through his daughter Fatima and her husband Ali. The Shi’a had picked up the idea of a sacred line of saviors or redeemers who, though hidden now, would be revealed in the future, some think by the returning Jesus Christ himself. The Abbasids had managed to win the Seljuk Turks who were invading their land to Sunni Islam, but not to prevent their taking over their entire empire by 1059, and with the religious fervor and little knowledge of new converts, the Seljuks began attacking Shi’ite and Christian areas. These enthusiastic and violent horse-back warriors advanced quickly. In the meantime, the somewhat decadent Fatimids had increasingly depended on Berber tribal mercenaries, and slaves bought from pagan Sudanese or captured in Armenian (Christian) Turkey. In 1060, their cobbled together forces turned on each other in a civil war that lasted 17 years, which ended with a dynasty of Muslim Armenian slaves now in power with a titular Fatimid caliph. When Fatimid power over Syria collapsed, Seljuk warlords took over various cities, with Jerusalem changing hands 3 times before being finally taken by the Seljuk Turks. By 1071 the Byzantine Emperor decide to intervene, or take advantage of the chaos, meeting the Seljuks with his Byzantine troops in Manzikert (Armenian). The Byzantine army was destroyed and the emperor was captured. The Seljuks, including and especially ferocious branch called the Danishmends (possible Viking descendents who had settled as far south as the Caspian Sea, intermarried and taken on the language of Turkmen) started rampaging through was had been Byzantine Asia Minor (Anatolia, or Turkey today). Calling their conquered territory the “Sultanate of Rum” (Rome) and declaring their independence from the Seljuk Sultan Baghdad, they set out to take over Constantinople. What a shock to Constantinople to have lost all of Asia Minor! Now, not only was the whole Byzantine Empire, or what was considered at the time the remaining Roman Empire, in danger, pilgrims to the Holy Land now were losing their lives trying to cross hostile Anatolia on the way to Jerusalem. So, in spite of the 1054 breach with the Roman church, the Emperor of Constantinople was force to beg the west for help, namely the most powerful person in the west, Pope Gregory VII. He was unable to help, and Emperor Alexius had to stave off the Turks until the next Pope, Urban II, agreed to help. He did not ask for help with the thought of retaking Jerusalem, which had been in Muslim hands for centuries, but in hopes of retaking Asia Minor, recently lost, whose Christians were now under Seljuk Turk control, and to protect Constantinople. Nevertheless, from the perspective of Pope Urban II in Rome, the way for pilgrims all the way to Jerusalem needed to be re-opened. Not only that, the knights of the small kingdoms of the West were constantly fighting each other, and what better way to bring peace to Europe than to give them a common enemy to fight? What’s more, perhaps regaining Byzantium’s land in the Middle East from Asia Minor, through Syria, to Jerusalem, would ensure that the Eastern Orthodox church would once more return to the fold of the western Roman Catholic Church. The Spanish fight against Muslims had already become a noble war of one religion against another, both thinking they were doing the work of God. Another factor was that the relative peace of Europe had resulted in a huge population boom, and insufficient food sources and recent crop failures had produced famines so severe that people were even eating their horses, expensive animals used primarily for plowing or by knights. More land seemed like an answer to this problem. So, on November 27, in the year 1095, Pope Urban II delivered a rousing call for the avenging of Christian pilgrims’ deaths and the redemption of the Holy Land. The assembly of knights, at Clermont in France, shouted in response “Deus lo volt!” (God wills it!). Marking their garments with large crosses, the knights delivered the Pope’s call to arms far and wide. The long-held Christian ideal of pacifism as a virtue had been steadily undermined by centuries of influence from warlike people who had become superficially Christian. The transformation began with Augustine’s pronouncement at the beginning of the 5th Century that war against the invading barbarians was justifiable for Christian kings, though until that point Christians had been pacifists. Now, for the first time, the Pope himself was calling for war and territorial acquisition, instead of playing his traditional role of condemning wars. Now the church itself threw its sanction behind the growing ideal of a Christian military hero, and even promised forgiveness of sins for those killed in battle. The Crusades: From Honor to Horror Inspired by the chance to gain honor and heaven in the adventure of a lifetime, even nobles and kings mortgaged their properties to raise armies and provisions for the long march east. The pope had called for a concerted military effort; what he got was a mass movement! Before the military forces could even get organized and set out, Peter the Hermit, a revered ascetic and outstanding preacher, enthusiastically preached the Crusade to the poor peasants. Slinging their belongings onto their backs, and their families into carts if they had them, thousand of peasants left their subsistence serfdom behind and set out on foot for Jerusalem. Becoming a motley moving mass of confusion, the Peasants’ Crusade (or People’s Crusade) set out from Cologne (in Germany) in 1096, and hadn’t gotten far before it started attacking Jewish people along their route, following the Rhine River to the Danube then across the Balkans to Constantinople. Part of the problem was lack of money and provisions, so that the people had to resort to pillaging for food and money wherever they could, and who better to attack than the Jews, who many saw in the same category as Muslims. If the Jews refused to convert, they were fair game, and thousands were massacred. Soon bishops were decrying the rampage and in areas ahead of the moving mass tried to protect the Jews by sending them away or giving them refuge in castles or cathedrals. By the time the Peasants’ Crusade got to Hungary, they were attacking even Christians and raiding farmlands for sustenance. When Emperor Alexius saw the some 70,000 peasants approaching Constantinople, he must have been dumbfounded. He quickly provided them with food, outside the walls of Constantinople, and then had them ferried across the Bosporus to Asia Minor, leaving them to make it to Jerusalem on their own. The peasants, unarmed, starving, and dying of thirst and disease, were massacred or enslaved by the Turks, with, ironically, only Peter the Hermit making it back to Constantinople. Meanwhile, all over Europe, military men were setting aside their differences and setting off for the Holy Land, some hoping to gain kingdoms of their own. These men were richer and paid for their food as they marched through lands, or took ships across the Mediterranean. Virtually all of the leaders of the first official crusade were Viking descendents. They arrived in separate batches coming along distinct routes to Constantinople, where Emperor Alexius craftily had each group swear homage to him and promise him all lands captured before going on. When Alexius himself sent his troops, but failed to take a lead in the venture himself, the Crusaders became resentful and felt little allegiance to him or Byzantium. However, these 40,000 troops, armed to the teeth with extremely powerful cross-bows and full-body chain-mail armor, easily crossed the Bosporus and the area where the Peasants Crusade had been massacred several months before. After a short seige, they took the city of Nicaea without much trouble, the capital of the Seljuk Turks (and city of the famous council run by Constantine 700 years earlier). The lightly armored but highly mobile Turkish mounted forces were not able to stop the Crusaders. However, as they marched across the parched plains and dry mountains in summer heat, they began to die. Helped by the native Armenian Christians in the Taurus mountain range, the Crusaders struggled south. But by the time they reached Antioch, jewel of Syria surrounded by great walls built by the Romans, most of their horses had died. Unable to breach the walls, lacking seige equipment, and unable to starve out the city, which was built over a river, the Crusaders began to starve themselves. As the various Muslim groups in Aleppo and Damascus came to Antioch’s aid at different times (refusing to fight with each other due to old animosities), the Crusaders barely held on. Finally, Baldwin, brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, marched eastward and was welcomed into the Armenian kingdom of Edessa, where King Thoros adopted him as a son. When Thoros was subsequently killed in a riot, Baldwin became the ruler of the first Crusader state of Edessa. Meanwhile, enthused by a vision had by a pilgrim (Peter Bartholomew) that the lance that pierced Christ’s side would be found and lead them to victory, the remaining Crusaders at Antioch managed a decisive victory against the combined armies of Damascus, Aleppo, nomadic Arabs, and Persian and Mesopotamian troops from Mosul (now in Iraq). Since the Emperor Alexius had not helped to take the city of Antioch, even when messengers had been sent to ask for help, then the city was not returned to Byzantine control, but became the kingdom of Bohemund the Norman. With the Seljuks Turks (Sunni Muslims) evicted from Antioch, the Fatimid (Shi’ites) of Egypt saw their chance, and quickly marched up to Jerusalem, and, after a six week siege, bribed the Seljuk rulers to deliver it into their hands. Meanwhile, the Crusaders in Antioch were dying of typhoid fever, including their charismatic bishop Adhemar, who had helped the leaders make united decisions. Eventually, on threat of mutiny by their soldiers, the Crusaders resumed their march toward Jerusalem, in January of 1099. With Raymond of Toulouse as their leader (Baldwin stayed in Edessa and Bohemond in Antioch), they marched south, where they were received well by Arabs who were happy to receive those who also saw the Seljuk Turks as their enemy. They marched along the coast passed Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and Acre, turning inland at Jaffa. After 6 months of marching, and three years since leaving home, they wept when they saw Jerusalem. Only one out of five was still alive. But, Jerusalem was a well fortified city with high walls, and the Crusaders had no siege equipment. The Fatimids were not about to give up their newly won city, and had even expelled all the Christians from inside the city walls to prevent treachery. They had also cunningly poisoned every well for miles outside of Jerusalem to prevent the Crusaders from staying nearby. Egypt sent a fleet to prevent any reinforcements from reaching the Crusaders, but an Italian ship managed to get to Jaffa’s port first, carrying what was needed to build huge stone-throwing catapults and siege towers that would aid in getting over the walls. In a dream the departed Bishop Adhemar told a Crusader, on July 6, that they would be victorious in 9 days if the Crusaders fasted and circled the city barefoot. They obeyed, staying at a distance beyond bowshot, praying, chanting psalms, and holding up relics. On July 14th and 15th, Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon attacked with siege towers and even Greek fire (whose secret recipe was later lost), managing to get over the walls and open the gates of Jerusalem. When the exhausted and starving Crusaders charged into the city, they slaughtered Muslims and Jews alike, creating a blood-bath, described by one Crusader as “horses wading in blood up to their knees, nay up to the bridle.” In the midst of their looting, they took time to weep with gratitude in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Crusader States Raymond of Toulouse, offered the crown of Jerusalem, refused to “be King in Christ’s Kingdom”, but Godfrey of Bouillon, whose brother already ruled Edessa, agreed to be a ruling “prince.” When the belated Egyptian ships and troops arrived, the Crusaders, still heady with victory, ambushed them at dawn and routed them completely, gaining many more riches. At this point, most of the Crusaders set out for home with their plundered goods, even Raymond left for Constantinople. Godfrey stayed on with a mere 300 knights and 300 soldiers to help him. When Godfrey got sick and died the following year, 1100, things look precarious. Meanwhile, Bohemund, the King of Antioch was captured in a campaign against the Danishmend Turks, and was succeeded by his nephew Tancred, who ruled ably. Reinforcements for the Crusade were called for by the next pope (Paschal), which Raymond of Toulouse joined, but it never got through Turkey and had to return to Constantinople. Jerusalem would have been easily recaptured except that the Muslim forces were more concerned with fighting each other (Sunni and Shia) than Christians, and so would make pacts with the various Christian rulers to fight each other instead of attacking the Christians. Baldwin, Geofrey’s brother and King of Edessa, finally came south to take over as King (not Prince) of Jerusalem, where he managed to rule successfully for 18 years, constantly reinforced by Crusaders arriving by ship from Italy (the land route through Turkey being too dangerous). He even took over one Palestinian city after another, as far north as Beirut and as far south as Aylah (now Eilat) on the Red Sea. Raymond of Toulouse had arrived and carved out his own kingdom, called Tripoli, between Antioch and the lands controlled by Jerusalem. So there were now 4 Crusader states: Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem and Tripoli, covering a distance of 600 miles, north to south, but sometimes only 10 miles east to west at its most narrow points. They were collectively called Outremer or “beyond the sea” in Europe, and controlled several important cities including Aleppo and Damascus. Since there were never more than a couple thousand Crusader nobles and knights in Outremer at any one time, they built impressive castles for protection, like had been developed in Europe, but now solely out of stone, since trees were scarce. But perhaps as many as 140,000 other Westerners, from many nations, settled down in the Crusaders states. They set up their own towns and governing system, and engaged in trade. Money from Europe was used to build elaborate western-style churches. Arab manuscripts, as well as Middle Eastern goods made their way west. Two military-religious orders developed, first to care for pilgrims to Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitalers of Saint John, and the Knights Templar. The Templars had largely a role of policing and protecting pilgrims and westerners, while the Hospitalers provided hospitality and cared for sick pilgrims. Knights from Europe seeking forgiveness would come and join these monastic orders, which became increasingly militaristic in the 12th century, supported by bequests from Europe and protectors of the Crusaders states. (The Knights Templar became so rich and internationally powerful, that it was disbanded by the Pope in 1312. Its property was given to the Hospitalers, or other crusading orders, like the Order of Christ in Portugal, of which Prince Henry the Navigator, who sent explorers around Africa, was a Grand Master.) The only comparable Muslim military-religious group was a religious cult called the Assassins, Shiites who primarily sought to assassinate Sunni leaders, but also collected tribute from others, except the Crusader orders, which would not pay. Finally, calling for a renewal of the “jihad” proclaimed by Mohammed against infidels, three Muslim leaders managed to gain a united following\: Zengi, his son Nur al-Din, and his general, Saladin. When Zengi took Edessa, the shock of the Europeans resulted in the 2nd crusade, which Bernard of Clairveux helped to promote. King Louis VII of France, and Conrad, the Holy Roman Emperor (of Germany) were persuaded to go. The purpose now was the rescue the Crusader states, not Constantinople. Taking the ill-advised land route across Asia Minor, they almost perished but managed to sail from Turkey to Palestine. By then Edessa was too hard to retake, so they decided to retake Damascus, though it was held by friendly Muslims. The Damascans decided to appeal to Nur al-Din (whose father had been killed by his own servants) for help against the Crusaders, even though he had been their enemy. After failing to take Damascus the 2nd Crusade fell apart, and Nur al-Din began to set his eyes on Jerusalem. He was a devout Sunni, unlike his nominally Sunni father, and set up schools all over to teach the faith, including the jihad against the foreigners, all known as “Franks.” But the Fatimid Shiites of Egypt were in disarray, and the Christian King Amalric of Jerusalem and Nur al-Din both saw an opportunity to possibly take Egypt. As the Christians and the Syrian Sunni Muslims attacked Egypt, the Egyptians finally sided with the Nur al-Din’s Kurdish general, giving him the right to rule, though he soon died leaving power to his nephew Saladin. Saladin was able to turn Egypt from Shiite to Sunni Islam, and became Nur al-Din’s viceroy, who then died in 1174, leaving Saladin as the sole leader of the Sunni forces when he became the “protector” of Nur al-Din’s son, still young. Though the Shiite Assassins tried twice to assassinate Saladin, they were unsuccessful. The Fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, and later Crusades Finally the Muslims were becoming united enough to oust the Christians, who were suffering set backs when King Amalric died suddenly, leaving only a 13 year old leperous son, Baldwin, to take his place. Though Baldwin managed courageously to fight off Saladin’s forces for a while, he soon died. Meanwhile, a renegade Frankish lord, named Reynald of Chatillon, repeatedly attacked Muslim trade caravans and even made an attempt at attacking the sacred city of Mecca itself by sailing down the Red Sea and going overland. Outraged, Saladin vowed to bring “crimson death to the blue-eyed enemy” and through a series of moves as wise as the counter moves of the Crusader forces were foolish, demolished the armies of Outremer and took the Crusader castles one by one, then Jerusalem itself. Although Saladin was generally kind to the people he captured, he demolished all the Christian churches built by the Crusaders, with their idolatrous images, but spared the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The 8000 Frankish Christian women and children of Jerusalem were given to the Muslim forces of Saladin who exalted in raping them. The shock of the fall of Jerusalem resulted in Pope Gregory the VIII calling for the 3rd Crusade in 1188. This Crusade was the first one financed by the colossal tax of 10 percent of all movable property of those not going on the Crusade. Three powerful kings set out: 67-year-old Frederick Barbarossa, emperor of Germany, as well as King Richard the Lion-hearted of England and King Phillip Augustus of France. Frederick took the dangerous overland route, this time fighting off the Byzantines in the Balkans, who feared the Muslim ire more than the Christians, as well as the Turks of Asia Minor successfully, then managed to drown (or die of a heart attack while crossing a swift river) before actually reaching Antioch. Richard and Phillip sailed to Outremer, taking Cyprus on the way from its Greek (Christian) ruler, and selling it to the Knights Templar. After a quarrel, Phillip went back to France, and began to attack Richard’s England in his absence, but Richard displayed outstanding military strategy and tactics in his battles against Saladin. Saladin showed amazing chivalry, sending Richard a new horse when he needed one, and sending Richard snow “to cool his brow” when he had a fever. As a standoff was reached, Richard offered his sister in marriage to Saladin’s brother, so that they could rule Muslims and Christians alike. Finally Richard and Saladin made a truce in 1192 that left Jerusalem in Muslim hands but with peaceful access by Christian pilgrims, and the Muslims agreed to let the Christians keep the cities on the coast still in their possession. While Richard was captured and held for a king’s ransom while traveling back through Europe, Saladin died of fever only 5 months after the truce had been agreed upon. Saladin was remembered positively in the West as well as the east, earning the highest level of Hell in Dante’s _The Divine Comedy_, along with other good men who had not heard of Christ. Unfortunately, Europe was not willing to leave good enough alone and let the now peaceful Jerusalem remain in Muslim hands. Frederick Barbarossa’s son Henry VI set out in 1197 to recapture Jerusalem, wisely traveling by sea, but died and his forces only managed to retake Beirut, Lebanon. In 1202 a Fourth Crusade was instigated that was an unmitigated disaster. It was called for by Pope Innocent III, and was suppose to sail to attack Egypt to attack the center of the Muslim power over the Holy Land. Caught up in Venetian intrigue, while waiting there for ships to be built for them, the Crusaders, to pay for the ships, ended up agreeing to help the son of a deposed Byzantine Emperor take Constantinople. Since the Byzantines had fought off Frederick Barbarossa’s Crusaders, the Crusaders did not feel any particular loyalty, and missed the Pope’s message forbidding them to attack Constantinople by a few days. After a series of unfortunate events in which the pretender to the throne was murdered in Constantinople in 1204, and taking the city from the sea, the Crusaders and Venetians spent three days sacking and burning Constantinople, churches and all! They then proceeded to divide up the Byzantine territories between them, putting Baldwin of Flanders on the imperial throne! The Pope, through horrified, acquiesed when a Latin Patriarch was put in charge of the Greek church, superficially reuniting the Eastern and Western churches, but in reality increasing the enmity of the Greek-speaking churches against the Western church. The Crusaders held onto power in Constantinople for 57 years, and held onto Greece until the 15th century! Any possible hope of reconciliation between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic church was ruined by this interlude. And Byzantine power was damaged so much that in less than two centuries it would fall to the next Turkish leaders (the Ottoman Turks) and never recover. But the ever enterprizing Venetians used the period to set up trading cities all the way into the Black Sea, pouring riches and ancient art from the east into Italy and becoming very wealthy, setting the stage for the later Renaissance. More crusades of varying strength continued through the 13th century. Frederick Barbarossa’s grandson, Frederick II, even was able to take back Jerusalem through diplomacy for a short while. The most notorious of the later crusades was the Children’s Crusade, which is at least in part legend. Around 1212 two teenage boys, one in France and one in Germany, apparently did each collect as many as 30,000 followers in aborted attempts to reach the Holy Land. Some say the French teens or peasants boarded 5 ships in Marsailles, of which two sank before out of sight, and the others made it to North Africa where the “Crusaders” were sold as slaves. The Germans lost many lives crossing the Alps, but went no further when the Mediterranean did not part as their leader had predicted but few actually made it back home. The Crusades had a lot of lasting consequences. The relationship between the western and eastern churches was permanently damaged, though some minority Christian groups were won back to the fold by the Franciscans and Dominicans (see below). The Crusader lands in the Middle East remained tenuously in Christian hands until the city of Acre was lost in 1291, but their presence did not result in the re-conversion of the people groups of that area to Christianity, nor were the Crusaders very good examples of the Christian faith. In fact, the most lasting effect of the Crusades on the Muslim Middle East was to help galvanize a formerly fractious Islam. While the Crusades brought increased unity to the Muslim peoples, it also resulted in trading wealth to Europe, particularly the cities of Italy. Francis of Assisi, Dominic and the Friars It may appear that evil was overtaking the church during the period of the Crusades, as Christians used non-Christian methods to accomplish non-biblical goals. But God was doing amazing things during the same period! Hundreds of thousands of Christians began to take their faith more seriously at all levels of society. The spiritual powerhouse that called so many to repentance and deeper commitment was a new monastic form which also produced the first orders to diligently set out to complete the Great Commission since the Celtic missionary monasteries that had been demolished by the Vikings. During the 11th and 12th centuries, many new monastic orders developed but most of them were either traditional in protecting their members from the world for community purposes or very ascetic and hermit-like. However, as towns began to grow up and populations began to concentrate in urban areas, new monastic forms began to develop that allowed the members more contact with the world. First, the order of Augustinian Canons, clergy following a rule set up by St Augustine in the 4th century, began to form into more monastic-like communities, but retained their ministry of preaching outside the walls. St. Bernard of Menthon established a monastic community which guided travelers through the treacherous passes of the Alps. After the Crusades were underway, an interesting order started called the Trinitarians, who ransomed Christians captured by the Muslims, with money or by exchanging themselves, as well as the surprising new military orders discussed above. But the most influential new monastic form, which led to amazing and widespread renewal in the church, was the movement called the mendicant friars, what Dr. Ralph Winter likes to call “monks on skateboards.” While retaining the monastic ideals of poverty, chastity, and obedience in community, the friars embodied the biblical injunction to live “in the world but not be of the world,” and instead of isolating themselves in monastic houses, traveled from place to place. By far, the most famous and widespread of all the mendicant orders, was started by Francis of Assisi, beloved of all Christians ever since because of his remarkable and joyful faith. After growing up as a reckless, indulged youth in a rich merchant family, Francis sallies off to war with a neighboring Italian city, in rich knightly regalia, only to be captured and imprisoned until he almost dies. Given time to reconsider the faith of his devout mother, he later finds it impossible to simply return to his former lifestyle. Francis becomes deathly ill again, and, when he recovers, begins to search for true life. Realizing that love of others, particularly the poor, is the answer, he ecstatically gives his father’s riches to the poor. As a result, his father disowns him, with Francis historically claiming God as his only true Father, and publicly removing his clothes and returning them to his father. In 1209, while rebuilding a small church, Francis heard the “call” to rebuild not just a stone church but The Church of God’s people, by traveling and preaching the Good News, trusting God to supply any need he had through others on a daily basis. Francis decides to take Jesus’ commands literally, and uses the verses+++++++++ as a pattern for his followers, sending them off barefooted, two by two, to preach. In 1210, Francis went to Rome, with 11 of his companions, to seek the Pope’s blessing. Pope Innocent III, one of the best popes in history, investigated their beliefs and practices carefully, and then gave them tentative approval on two conditions: First, that they elect a leader or superior, whose authority they would obey, and, second, that they preached only in areas where the bishop gave them permission to do so. Francis was elected the leader, and he named his order the Friars Minor, meaning the Lesser (or Humble) Brothers. They were known for their joyful singing, and Francis’ great love of nature permeates the hymns he wrote. However, Francis insisted on absolute poverty, not only of the individual friars, as was common in monasteries, but also of the group. No books, or buildings, or property, or nice clothing, or material possessions of any kind were allowed. This later cause friction in the group, and factions broke off from Francis’ regula after his early death, while others tried to remain closer to his teachings. Although preaching in the countryside, Franciscans encourage people to repent to a priest, give up immoral ways, love their neighbors and enemies, and support the church. The Franciscan order exploded, and soon thousands were joining. Within 3 years, in 1212, a teenage noble girl named Claire wanted to join the order, and Francis established the Poor Ladies (often called the Poor Claires) who lived in a more traditional enclosed monastery. Francis also established a Third Order, the Order of Penitents, which allowed married people to join, and retain modest amounts of property, while living for Christ. An early member of the third order was a princess, Elizabeth of Hungary. This was the first order for married people in the Catholic Church. By the end of the century, some estimate as many as 300,000 people had recommitted their lives to Christ as a result of the Franciscan orders, which was a sizable percentage of the population of central Europe. Francis of Assisi had a burning missionary passion from the beginning. He tried to preach to Muslims in first Spain then Morocco (but was prevented by sickness from the latter). Then he made it to Egypt with the so-called 5th Crusade where he was received well by a sultan, but apparently did not convert him. He did, however, managed to convert many of the Crusaders, whose violent behavior and loose morals shocked him, and they, in turn, took their evangelistic zeal back to North Europe and spread revival. As Francis’ health began to deteriorate, he sent many of his followers off to distant lands to win people to the Lord, building into the fabric of the Franciscan movement a missionary vision and zeal. Loosing his eyesight and grieved over the fact that Franciscans were beginning to build their own buildings and give up the extreme poverty he taught, Francis died in his mid forties. By 1223 the Franciscans had made begging their primary means of support and had become increasingly involved in the growing university movement. But before dying in 1226, Francis had his will written down in which he warned the brothers against idleness, commanded them to work for food and not to receive gifts of churches or places to live, and forbade them from getting the pope’s permission to relax their rule. This resulted in a split after Francis’ death between those who wanted to follow his original dream of extreme poverty and itinerant preaching, a minority called the Zealots or Spirituals, and those who wanted the order to acquire shared belongings, positions in universities, and power in the church. For almost 30 years the order wavered between the two modes, depending on the leanings of their elected leader, but in 1257 a very capable, humble and charismatic leader, Bonaventura, became the minister general for 25 years establishing the more moderate view. Some of the Spirituals denounced the slide, and in 1312, Pope John XXII began persecuting them, until some of them declared him the Anti-Christ and the Roman Catholic Church the “harlot of Babylon” in Revelation. He responded by denouncing as heretical the Franciscan assertion that Jesus and his disciples lived in absolute poverty. However, even in its more moderate monasticism, the Franciscans continued to play significant roles in evangelizing the world for centuries to come. The Dominicans, whose official name was The Order of Preachers, or Preaching Brothers (Friars Preachers), arose at about the same time as the Franciscans. They were wandering preachers like the Franciscans, but had a much higher emphasis on scholarship and teaching, and a lower emphasis on poverty. Dominic, the Spanish founder, was born in 1170 and became an Augustinian Canon, scholarly and devoted to prolonged prayer. When he was in his thirties, Dominic traveled through southern France, where heresies were flourishing, particularly the Cathari heresy, and was appalled by the lack of knowledge of the clergy and general populace. Driven by love and concern, Dominic worked doggedly to raise up preachers to travel around teaching people, and gained permission from Pope Innocent III, like Francis, in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council to form a new order. While in Rome, Dominic met Francis, picking up an increased emphasis on poverty and not seeking to provide for their own needs except on a daily begging basis. By Dominic’s death in 1221, there were 100 Dominican houses, and there were 404 houses by 1277. They copied the Franciscans by not only having female branches but also a third order for lay people, as well as through sending missionaries to far places, like Africa and Asia. The distinctive of the Dominicans was a strong emphasis on making all of their members into scholars, putting members through systematic training to become able preachers and missionaries. While Franciscan preachers emphasized gospel simplicity and love, Dominicans emphasized biblical knowledge and refutation of heresies. The Dominicans, and later the Franciscans too, became leaders in the universities of Europe, and the Scholastic movement, of which St. Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar. Although most of the Franciscans came from the middle or lower classes, most of the Dominicans came from landed aristocratic backgrounds, as was more true in general for all monastic orders. The excellent example of the Franciscans and Dominicans in their influence on the faith of the people led to the forming of other mendicant orders, such as the Carmelites and the Augustinian Friars. While the Carmelites began as a hermit-like group of trans-national crusade pilgrims, camped on Mt. Carmel in Palestine, when they were forced back to their home countries by the Muslim take-over, they left their hermit tendencies behind and copied the mendicant preaching lifestyle of the friars. The Augustinian friars developed out of an Italian lay group which followed the rule of St. Augustine of Hippo, like many devout non-monastics. The Pope, fearing they would take a heretical turn, formed them into a structured group with authorities the Pope could keep an eye on by appointing Cardinal Annibaldi supervisor. Annibaldi helped bring many hermits into the fold, organizing them into a scholarship-based preaching order like the Dominicans in 1256. The Servants of Mary (Servites) and the Brothers of the Cross (Crutched Friars), along with many other groups, copied the friar pattern, which continued to expand at an amazing rate. Eventually the friars came into conflict with the secular clergy (“regular clergy” were those who were monastics following a rule or “regula” and “secular clergy” lived in “saculum” namely the world). The secular clergy, or priests, were under the authority of local bishops, while the regular clergy were under their own authority structures which reported to the Pope directly or to Cardinals of his choice. However, since they wandered about preaching, hearing confessions, and saying mass, the friars came into direct conflict with the role of the local priests, who tried to get them banned, unsuccessfully, from preaching in areas where the church was established. There is no doubt that the friars movements had a significantly deepening effect on the faith of the average European, converted in mass movements in the centuries before. Indeed, during the same period, many popular religious movement arose that were never recognized as legitimate by the Roman Catholic Church, and some were put down violently. Waldensians and the Cathars, Condemned as Heretics The 13th century was a time of exploding religious zeal in Europe, perhaps largely because of the preaching of the Friars across the countryside in the local languages (church services were still almost entirely in Latin). Lay movements of many types began. Guilds of singers, for example, developed where members would process through towns singing hymns of penitence and praise in the local languages (“the vernacular”). The Flagellant movement called men, women and even children to strip to a minimum of clothes and whip themselves and cry out for mercy as they went from town to town. They brought repentance and reconciliation of people wherever they traveled. This movement spread quickly but also was very short lived and never organized. Mendicant chaste single women, often widows, became known as “the Beguines” and while they wore special clothing and dedicated their lives to God’s purposes, they did not take vows and could live alone, in their own families or in communities of Beguines. A male version named Beghards, was also popular, and is where the English word “beggar” comes from. Ultimately they were condemned by the pope, and some became part of the Franciscans, but they existed as an unofficial lay movement well into the 16th century. Most of the popular lay movements of this era came from the educated urban middle classes, merchants and artisans, through they also attracted illiterate peasants to their causes. While the monastics, who were more aristocratic, reinforced the established order of church and society, the lay movements tended to be more independent and even anti-ecclesiastical and rebellious, denouncing the excesses of the established church. Many of these movements never became organized and died out as soon as their leader died or was killed. Peter Waldo, a rich merchant in Lyons (France), became the leader of one of the most lasting movements, almost a precursor of Protestantism. While reading the scriptures on day, Waldo was struck by the refusal of the “rich young ruler” to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. In 1176, Waldo decided he would not make the same mistake, and, after paying all his debts and providing for the needs of his wife and children, he gave the rest of his riches to the poor and became a wandering preacher. He diligently studied a translation of the New Testament in his own language, that he had paid to have done, and followed the same commands to the disciples, to take neither purse nor coat, that Francis had followed. He attracted followers, called the “Poor Men of Lyons,” who traveled around preaching much as Francis and his followers were to do about 30 years later. Like Francis later, when the local bishop condemned them and Peter Waldo appealed to the Pope, who permitted them to preach as long as they got permission from local parishes. But they found this too constraining and disregarded it, so when they asked for authorization from the Third Lateran Council (in 1179), it was denied. They continued to grow and preach, believing they should “obey God rather than men” and were excommunicated by the Pope in 1184. The Waldensians (or Waldensees) memorized large portions of the New Testament in the vernacular translation, and went about preaching two by two. They taught that the Pope was not the head of Christ’s church, that effective prayers could be made anywhere, that many of the sacraments of the church were unnecessary, and that purgatory was the troubles in this life, not after death. They also opposed the Latin services and prayers that people could not understand, and taught that only godly priests and lay people could administer sacraments, and ungodly priests’ ministry was invalid. Interpreting scripture literally, they opposed all oaths, declared all lying a deadly sin, along with any taking of human life. They began to hold their own communion services and established their own deacons, priests and bishops. The only formal prayers they allowed were the Lord’s Prayer and prayers at meals. The “Poor Men of Lyon” spread quickly from France to Spain, Italy, Germany and Bohemia, where it eventually influence the movement toward Protestantism under John Hus. Many still considered themselves Catholics, and Pope Innocent III, who approved Francis, formed a order called the “Poor Catholics” in 1208, trying to win back the Waldensians and encourage others not to join the movement. But the church continued to discourage the use of vernacular scripture seeing that as leading to rebellion and heresy, so many Waldensians refused to come back into the fold. Although even their enemies reported that the Waldensians were hard-working, truthful, sober, chaste and simple people, who avoided drinking, partying and wealth, some also started slanderous rumors of sexual orgies, a common attack on enemies of the church. As they were increasingly persecuted for being “heretics,” they ended up seeking refuge in the remote valleys of the Italian Alps, where they lived until they things started to become more open to descent after the Reformation. Waldensian churches exist to this day. Another movement that arose in the same period in the same geographic area as the Waldensians, Franciscans, and Dominicans, is the Cathari (“Pure”) also known as the Albigensians (Albigensees), after Albi in the south of France, one of their main centers along with Cologne (Germany). This movement, like the Waldensians, reacted to the corrupt, luxury-loving and immoral clergy in their area, and rejected Latin worship in favor of the vernacular. However, less grounded in scripture, they veered off into dualism, the belief that there are two eternal powers, good and evil, in an eternal struggle. They could have descended from Bogomils, Zoroastrian influenced peoples from Bulgaria and the Balkans, who were also dualists, though some claim they had Manichaean influence, the religion of Mani that St. Augustine had once been a member of. The Cathari (or Cathars) rejected parts of the Old Testament, as demonic in origin, but instead emphasized the New Testament and especially the gospel of John. Like the Gnostics of old, they saw the material world as a product of an evil god, and the immaterial as the creation of the good god. Some said God had two sons, Satan who rebelled, and Jesus, the redeemer. They rejected sex, even in marriage, as evil, along with eating meat, milk or eggs, which they also viewed as needing reproduction to exist. To reach this state was to become “perfect” (perfecti) and was often reserved for later in life, when they would enter a Cathar monastery. They saw their church as the true church and the Catholic church as evil. Their churches had no physical buildings, but heard sermons and shared a simple communion, foot washings, and baptism without water through the lay on of hands. Since flesh was evil, they believed that Jesus could not have had a real body or died a real death, it was all an illusion, so they had no crosses or crucifixes. They recruited extensively and often remained superficially in the Catholic churches, like the Gnostics had permeated the early Christian churches, but met secretly outside the church. Mostly from artisan or peasant stock, they wrote prolifically in the vernacular and even translated the Bible into local languages. Eventually they spread from southern France to north Italy, north Spain, Flanders and the Balkans, mostly in urban areas. The Cathari were even more violently suppressed than the Waldensians, with the Third Lateran Council of 1179 proclaiming a crusade against them, the first crusade against fellow so-called Christians. Nevertheless, they continued to grow and Phillip Augustus, King of France, and Raymond of Toulouse (Count in Southern France) refused to fight them as many of the noble families were involved in the sect. When a Papal Legate (legal representative of the pope explained above) was murdered in southern France in 1208, Pope Innocent III, called for another crusade against the Cathari, which was followed by years of warfare and destruction. Phillip’s son, Louis VIII, and grandson, the pious Louis IX, who ultimately died on a crusade to the Holy Land, continued the anti-Cathari crusade. The military crusade against the Cathari was brought to a halt in 1229, when the council of Toulouse, in southern France, agreed to ban all possession of the Bible, except for parts of the book of Psalms, and to stamp out vernacular translations. They also formalized a church Inquisition (or trial by jury) process, to not only try secular cases, as it already had been doing, but to also try people for heresy in a more orderly process than the military invading and killing heretics and their families indescriminently, as had been happening. Because of their interest in arguing against heresies, the Dominicans were called on to run the religious Inquisition. The Inquisition has a bad reputation and has been sensationalized in history, and did include negative aspects such as the assumption of guilt until proven innocent and occasional use of torture. However, it did in fact sharply reduce the number of deaths related to heresy hunting and effectively and persistently eradicated the Cathari/Albigensian heresy. Rise of Science No where has truth been more distorted and obscured than in the discussion of the interaction between faith and religion. A.D. White, founder and first president of Cornell University (1832-1918) wrote a two-volume book called _A History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom_, which was swallowed as complete truth by the academic community, getting its perspective into textbooks for the last century. Turns out much of what he said was a completely lie. For example, White clearly states that the church warned Columbus, from scripture, that the earth was not round and refused to believe it even after Magellan’s men returned from a round-the-world trip. The fact of the matter is completely different. Every educated person of the time, including the Catholic scholars (which were a high percentage of all scholars) knew the earth was round. Even in the seventh century, the Venerable Bede, a Catholic scholar, taught the earth was round, as did many well-known scholars and saints from each century, including St Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1224-1274). The English Scholastic John of Sacrobosco (ca. 1200-1256) wrote the most popular astronomy text of the medieval period, entitled _Sphere_, which promoted the long held view that all the heavenly bodies, including earth, were round. The scholars of Spain who opposed Columbus’s voyage did so because they believed the earth was much bigger around than Columbus had calculated. They were right, as Columbus estimated a mere 2,800 miles from the Canary Islands (off Morocco) to Japan, when the distance is actually 14,000 miles. Far from the so-called “Dark Ages” being dark, they were a time of increasing scientific inquiry and growing scientific skill and knowledge. The myth of the “dark ages” and the war of faith and science was started by self-named “enlightenment” philosophers of the 16-17th century, atheists like Voltaire, Diderot, and Gibbon, who were not scientists themselves. These anti-clerical, anti-religious propagandists wanted to paint the church as anti-intellectual and anti-progress and give credit to the atheistic humanists for the rise of science. However, history proves otherwise. The Greek and Eastern philosophers engaged in a lot of theorizing, but it was almost entirely non-empirical. Even Aristotle, sometimes praised for his willingness to actually look at the real world, unlike Plato who deplored sensory data as misleading, didn’t check his theories against the real world. For example, he never tested his theory that a stone that was twice as heavy fell twice as fast, which would have hardly been difficult to disprove. He maintained that women had less teeth than men, in their smaller mouths, never bothering to count them. Greek, Eastern, and Muslim philosophers alike all steered away from experimentation because of a widely held belief that manual labor was low-class and unscholarly, for peasants and slaves, not intellectuals. Science must first be distinguished from technology. Building better ships or inventing clocks, smelting iron or creating porcelain dishes, is not science. Science is an organized methodology to discover rules governing nature, subject to constant correction through systematic observations, thereby producing theories that can give accurate predictions. In order for science to have arisen, people had to first believe that nature is governed by consistent laws. In the far east, great civilizations like China made many technological discoveries, but did not have a view of the world that made it worth their while to look for “laws” in nature. At the common level in both Greek culture and China, nature was somewhat personified, though not to the same extent that it is in animism, and was considered unpredictable and manipulated by the gods. At the scholarly, philosophical “godless” level, impersonal remote powers sustained an eternal universe, more mystical in nature than practical and rational--some even presented the cosmos as a visible living creature. The philosophical intellectuals of China, India, and Greece pursued spiritual “enlightenment,” not systematic explanations for the physical world. The Greeks, like Hindu and Buddhist scholars, saw the world as an endless recycling of the same people and the same ideas. Aristotle assumed that everything has been invented innumerable times before. Christianity, on the other hand, like Judaism and Islam, believed that the world had been made by a rational, intelligent God--that it was His “handiwork.” They also saw history as linear, moving forward and making progress. However, the Hebrew scholars had become preoccupied with the systematizing of the Law. And the Islamic scholars, through experiencing a great “golden age” of learning, refused to do any imperial testing because of their attitude toward manual labor, and saw no need for laws in nature because of their belief that God directed the world as He pleased on a daily basis. The medieval monasteries had the perfect combination of beliefs and practices in which science could arise, with a love of book learning, faith in an orderly creator God, and respect for manual labor as worthy of a godly scholarly man. The widely taught idea that Christianity caused a period of intellectual stagnation from the time of the “fall of Rome” in 300 AD to 1300 AD, a 1000 year period referred to as the “dark ages” (a term coined around 1850 by British historian Henry Buckle) is just not true. During this period, technology steadily advanced in the west, with the stirrup, improved saddle, chain mail and lance, giving Frankish knights power over the Saracens (Muslims invading via Spain) at the Battle of Tours. Padded horse collars, iron horse shoes, and improved plows catapulted agricultural production to a new level. Water-powered mills, mechanical clocks, and compasses, although also invented farther east, were spread all over for practical uses in Europe, not kept for novelty or aristocratic uses. But, most importantly, the arose a movement, primarily monastics at the beginning, called Scholasticism, which not only founded universities all over Europe but changed the intellectual paradigm of Europe from rote learning to critical analysis. Scholasticism and the Universities of the Middle Ages The Scholastics, initially mostly Dominican and Franciscan monks, began founding many universities in the 12th and 13th centuries. This universities, unlike universities of rote memorization in Islamic centers of learning, were centers of disputation. Between 1125 and 1200 a huge number of classical Greek writings had been translated into Latin, the language of the learned monks, having been brought back from the east by returning Crusaders. These classical writings, by Plato, Aristotle, Euclid and others, quickly spread to all the universities. However, the ancient theories were not merely re-instituted, without question. These Scholastic universities analyzed the ancient ideas, evaluated them, accepting some and rejecting others. The methodology of critical inquiry was obviously already established before the influx of ancient texts. The Scholastics were more than willing to compare various theories and to set up test to determine their accuracy. Set up like a trade or craft guild, the university system set guidelines and standards for their profession. The Pope helped to insure they remained free from local politics, and reserved the right to try all students and faculty in ecclesiastical courts, like all clerics, even though those in the university were not required to become ordained or take monastic vows, and most did not. Since all learning was done in Latin, professors could easily move from one university to another, compare what they were learning, and discuss things with people from other nationalities easily by letter or in person. Divorce of faith and reason (N/A) Rise of use of vernacular languages for writing (N/A) Black Death The “Black Death” (the bubonic plague) first broke out in China’s Hubei province in 1334, killing almost 90 percent of the population (about 5 million people). Spreading throughout the Mongol controlled provinces, some think it may have caused the death of almost 2/3rds of China’s people. Traveling through central Asia, along the extensive Mongol empire, it reached the Middle East by 1348 and Europe around 1350, spreading like wildfire. In Syria and Palestine hundreds of people died each day, killing over a third of the population in the cities of Aleppo and Antioch. It was immediately taken back to Europe by fleeing European Crusaders and Italian trading ships. Hitting the cities and towns the hardest, soon one third to as much as half of the population was dead. People fleeing the infected population centers, in hopes of surviving, unfortunately spread the plague to rural areas that might have otherwise remained unscathed. The impact on the economies and societies around the world was immense. Everywhere the immediate effect was economic and agricultural collapse, as skilled people were killed off. However, in Europe, the shortage of labor, and the new surplus of farm land, gave the remaining peasants the power to choose their future, breaking down the residual bondages of the feudal system. Farther east, interestingly, it had an opposite effect, where Russian peasants were saddled with laws that even more tyrannically tied them to serfdom on the land. Unfortunately, such a huge disaster caused some people to look for someone to blame for the misfortune. Rumors circulated that the Jews had poisoned the wells of Europe, partially since their separation from the rest of the population in separate ghettos provided them some protection from the plague, as did their strict cleanliness laws, so they experienced lower death rates. Pogroms broke out where Jews were killed in mob violence, though both the church and the civil government tried to protect them. In areas where there was the least ecclesiastical or civil control, the Jews were attacked the most violently, and again along the rivers of Europe with the most recent Viking migrations had settled, and were still the most superstitious and violent in nature. Lepers also became scapegoats for the tragedy and were killed by fearful mobs. The friars and monasteries were especially hard hit as they made an effort to care for the sick. “Flagellants” developed, wandering religious groups that whipped themselves in an attempt to repent for everyone and gain God’s forgiveness and the repealing of the plague. Breakdown of feudalism (N/A) Towns, guilds, and capitalism (N/A) The Rise of Commerce, Medieval Jewish communities, and Capitalism In areas, like the Netherlands, where new land could not be gained by conquest, they started to reclaim land from the sea, by building dikes and turned to commerce. Also with a dirth of land, the people of Flanders learned to weave fine woolen cloth, crossing the English channel to buy the surplus wool of the English and Scottish. With greater peace trade was possible, and soon Flemish cloth was sold far and wide, even into the Middle East in exchange for dyes and eastern spices. During this time period a rudimentary private banking system began to develop, run mostly by Italians or Jews. Instead of transporting chests of money back and forth, money would be credited on one end or the other and things would eventually balance out. Out of this system developed the idea of richer people financing, or providing the capital, for the ventures of others, and charging interest for the loan. This was the beginning of the “free market” system called “capitalism,” based on “capital” or the leveraging of money to expand the economy and fund entrepreneurial ventures. Three groups were especially well situated to become the “bankers” of medieval society\: the Italians, who were increasingly involved in trading ventures at great distances, the Jews, who had communities sprinkled all over Europe but were short on land and other money making resources, and the Crusader religious orders, which established networks from Europe to the Holy Land. Before the Crusades, the Jewish people monopolized international trade. However, during the Crusades, the balance shifted to the Italians, who formed the Hanseatic League to shut the Jews out of Mediterranean and Baltic Sea ports. Being shut out of trade forced the Jews to focus more and more on financing as a source of income, beginning with money changing \(exchanging foreign currency\) to lending money at interest. All three religious traditions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, forbade the lending of money at interest. However, the rules usually applied only to others of the same faith, which gave the Jewish people a huge advantage, since they were sprinkled among the Christian and Muslim populations. Even churches and monasteries applied to Jews for loans, and nine Cistercian monasteries and the great abbey of St. Albans, were financed this way. Nevertheless, the Jews were not accepted in the general society. The kings of Europe frequently taxed the Jewish money lenders at a much higher rate than others, 25% rather than the say 10% for Christians. Also, the kings would occasionally cancel all interest owed to Jews or cancel even their entire loan owed by certain people. When some Jews became even ostentatiously rich, they could find their property suddenly confiscated by jealous officials. Rabbis tried to check excesses, discourage the creation of monopolies, and encourage rich Jews to at least provide for the poor Jews. During the Middle Ages, many Jewish philanthropic societies were established to support Jewish hospitals, orphanages, poor houses, and care for widows, brides without dowries, and provide free burials to the poor. Jewish families and community, usually living in separate ghettos by law, were very strong and close, with early marriages, strong extended families, and high moral standards. The Italian banks grew up around powerful, rich families. In Florence, for example, the Medici and the Brunelleshci banking firms or “houses,” often represented opposing interests, and funded, in addition to trade, wars between different factions even in far away European countries. For example, in 1295 Edward I of England borrowed 200,000 gold florins \(about 2 million dollars\) from the Frescobaldi of Florence. ​ ## 12 The Waning of the Holy Roman Empire The Latter Middle Ages As we have seen, the Middle Ages was a time of great struggle for power in Europe between not only different monarchs, but also between the monarchs and the Pope. All of these rulers considered themselves to BE the one who defines what is or is not to happen, i.e. the Law. When the German Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI died in 1197, son of Frederick Barbarossa and descendent of Henry IV who had had such conflict with the pope, his infant son, Frederick was deposed by warring German factions. Frederick’s mother Constance, Henry VI’s wife, who had inherited the Norman/Viking kingdom of Sicily, in the Mediteranean had him crowned King of Sicily, at age four, but died before she could help him establish his rule. Protected by the powerful pope Innocent III, Frederick managed to survive. He officially took the throne of Sicily at age fourteen. However, at the age of twenty one he was able to claim his father’s throne of the Holy Roman Emperor when the Holy Roman Emperor Otto invaded the Pope’s territory and was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Frederick joined the German opposition to Otto and Pope Innocent III crowned him Frederick II the Holy Roman Emperor in Aachen in 1215. Both the power of the pope and the power of the emperor seemed secure. Frederick II revived Southern Italy and freed Sicily from its state of internal conflict by moving Sicily’s rebellious Muslims to southern Italy. He thereby continued to support their great artistic crafts, such as carpet weaving, and also gaining their undying support at his kindness, because in Italy he allowed them to practice their religion freely (though persecuting Christian heretics in Germany such as the Waldenses and Catharis). In fact, these Muslims become the source of his personal bodyguard for the rest of his life. Frederick, who could speak 9 languages, including German, Italian and Arabic, established a university in Naples, the first university in Europe independent of the church, and promoted in his government only those educated in his university, maintaining worldview control over the students. He avidly collected information from all sources, particularly Arabic sources. An animal lover, Frederick collected wild animals from many continents and wrote a six-volume book on the care and art of falconry (hunting with hawks or falcons). Having vowed to retake Jerusalem when he was crowned in 1215, after his first wife died in 1222, Frederick married Isabella in 1225, heir to the throne of Jerusalem taken by Saladin 40 years earlier. Finally leaving Italy for Jerusalem in 1227, his army was struck by an epidemic and he returned after just three days. The new pope Gregory IX was not impressed and excommunicated him. Nevertheless, he set out again in 1228, with about a 1000 knights and his Italian Muslim bodyguard. Frederick II managed a diplomatic coup by establishing a scholar-to- scholar relationship with Malik (King) al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt controlling Palestine. Without a war, the Sultan agreed to turn over Jerusalem, Bethlehem and a corridor to the sea to Frederick, in exchange for a promise of no war and no interference with Muslim holy places (no doubt it helped that he spoke Arabic and had a loyal Muslim bodyguard). Since he was still excommunicated, Frederick crowned himself King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, al-Kamil’s followers were infuriated by the agreement, as were the Europeans who saw Frederick’s agreement as a “deal with the devil.”Frederick returned to Italy in 1229 to find the Pope having reported his death and raised up his own new emperor, but, ever capable in diplomacy, by 1230 Frederick was restored to power. Frederick II then had his best scholar, former peasant Pietro della Vigna, write up a comprehensive code of law, the first since the Justinian Code of 700 years before, borrowing from it as well as Norman law, Roman law and the political ideas of Aristotle. While the emperor remained supreme, all the nobles were now subject to obey the laws of the land like anyone else. Trades and professions required licenses from the state based on qualifications. Citizens were required to behave in moral ways, no gambling, swearing or making of love potions, for example. However, commanding morality and enforcing it are two different things. Frederick’s laws, though enlightened, were comprehensive and were ruthlessly enforced by an “army” of secret police and informants. Because the people had not been persuaded of the changes, the enforcement quickly became corrupted and things began to degenerate as Frederick became more controlling. Meanwhile, the battle for power between Frederick II and Pope Gregory IX over Italy escalated over the next decade. So preoccupied were these two powerful men that they hardly noticed when the Mongols invaded from the east in 1240 and took Hungary, Poland and part of Germany. The pious Louis IX of France, and Conrad, King of Germany (Frederick’s second son who ruled under him and grand master of the Teutonic Knights, another military order that came out of the Crusades) tried to bring peace between Frederick II and the Pope. However, in 1244, the next pope, Innocent IV, called a council of cardinals and managed to get them to declare Frederick the “Anti-Christ” and release all his subjects from obedience to him (he had already been excommunicated a second time earlier). Italy erupted into betrayals and counter-betrayals as men vied for the role of emperor. Though Frederick’s son Conrad came to Frederick’s rescue it was too late, and Frederick II died of a fever in 1250. Immediately, Conrad tried to claim the title of Emperor and reclaim Italy from the Pope, but he also died. At that point in history, the Holy Roman Empire, begun at the time of Charlemagne, essentially ceased to exist. Soon all the descendants of Frederick had been murdered, and the powers that arose where just as fractious. Italy continued as a patchwork of antagonistic city-states. Likewise, Germany reverted to the chaos of territorial states. It would be another 600 years before any national unity was to be created out of the various dukes, archbishops and aristocratic families of Germany. But, not only that, because Frederick had returned quickly to Europe and gotten tied up in European intrigue, he was unable to establish his rule in Jerusalem, which was taken back by the Muslims in 1244, never to be in Christian hands again until the 20th Century. The Baltic Crusades and the Teutonic Knights During this period, additional crusades were held in the Baltic region, a very dark epoch in Christian history. The military order of Sword Brothers was a Crusading order formed, not to take on the Holy Land but to attack the tribes to the east of the Baltic Sea, the Estonians, Livonians (Latvians), Lithuanians, and Prussians, to force them to convert from animism to Christianity. These tribes had been known to treat Catholic missionaries brutally. However, at this time they were actually responding fairly well to Russian Eastern Orthodox missionaries, though they were sometimes forced into group baptisms by Russian princes. The tribal groups themselves regularly led raids against each other and the Russians, and each village was in constant danger even from neighboring villages. But in 1199, Albert, a German aristocrat who had been made the bishop of Livonia, got an agreement from the pope that crusaders who fought in Livonia would get the same automatic remission of sins that those who went to the Holy Land did. Then, declaring Livonia the land of the “Virgin Mother,” Albert recruited men from all over Germany to conduct the first Baltic Crusade. Albert formed some of them into the Crusading order of the Sword Brothers, whose violence shocked the Christian world. Bishop Albert led them on brutal campaigns, devastating areas until the inhabitants were willing to be baptized. The Sword Brothers did manage to gain control of Livonia, as well as Estonia, though the Estonians later revolted with horrific vengeance, disemboweling every soldier they caught and eating the heart of the governor. The Crusaders retaliated, winning a crushing defeat, and the Estonians, and their Russian allies, sued for peace. The Sword Brothers eventually were condemned by Pope Gregory IX when they refused to relinquish their authority to Albert’s successor. Instead, they set out to attack the Lithuanians, typically robbing, burning and ravaging the coastal areas of Lithuania. However, the Lithuanians, having picked up the superior war techniques of the Crusaders, gathered their forces and massacred the Sword Brothers. The few Sword Brothers left by 1236 joined the Teutonic Knights, a Germanic Crusading order that went to the Holy Land, wore black crosses on white tunics, and were headquartered in Acre (in Palestine). When the Cistercian monk, Christian, Bishop of Prussia failed to reach the Prussians peacefully, he called for another Baltic Crusade in 1223. The Teutonic Knights, who, had helped the Hungarians and were now being booted out of that area, were the ones who descended on Prussia to help. Though Dominican friars would go in advance of the troops and try to persuade the Prussians to surrender and be peacefully baptized, they were mostly refused and fights to the death ensued. The Teutonic Knights, unlike the Sword Brothers, were extremely disciplined, following rigid regimes of prayer and self-denial to fulfill their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They had to be silent at meals, in the dorms, while marching, etc. and could not talk to lay people. They could only hunt animals which were attacking people or crops, and had strict rules as to what clothing they could possess. Neither plundering nor individual owning of goods was allowed. They fasted 20 days throughout the year, ate meat only on specified days, flagellated themselves on Fridays, and woke 4 times in the night to pray. In 1240, as the Teutonic Knights had completed the conquest of the Western Balkans and were about to attack Russia, the Mongol forces rushed into Hungary and Poland. While the Teutonic Knights sped south to fight off the Mongols, the Russians, under Alexander Nevsky from Novgorod, recaptured Estonia. The see-saw war continued, with the Lithuanians and Samogitians leading the revolts against the Teutonic Knights, until 1290, when the Teutonic Knights finally gained control by opening Prussia to wholesale German colonization. They gave 100-150 acres of land in Prussia to groups of 20 German families, thereby making German villages throughout Prussia. When the Knights Templar, who had gotten far too powerful, were disbanded and tried for heresy in 1307, though most of the charges were false, the Teutonic knights withdrew their headquarters from Venice (there they had moved after the city of Acre was taken in 1291) to Prussia. No longer able to go to the Holy Land, Crusaders flocked to the Baltic Crusade, and the winter and summer foray crusades were violent, so violent some Lithuanians would kill themselves before they could be taken by the Crusaders. The Lithuanians themselves were also in the habit of burning captives of war alive. Finally, the Poles, who were already Christians, with their own Catholic bishops, agreed to help the Lithuanians get rid of the Teutonic Knights if the Lithuanians became Christians. So, ironically, the Lithuanians agreed to mass baptism in 1386, and destroyed their pagan temples, and set out with their new allies to get rid of the Teutonic Knights, who had supposedly come merely to ensure they were converted. The Poles and Lithuanians won a huge victory against the Teutonic Knights in 1410 at Tannenberg, marking the beginning of the rapid decline of the order, which survived another 100 years. All told, the Baltic Crusades are a huge black mark on Christian history, similar to the Holy Land Crusades in their incompatibility with the teachings of Christ for whom they theoretically fought. For a fairly balanced account of the Baltic Crusades, which is hard to find, see The Northern Crusades: the Baltic and Catholic Frontier, 1100-1525 by Eric Christiansen. The Magna Carta and the Rule of Law While Europe struggled between absolute rulers, and France was to have a totalitarian ruler into the 19th Century, England began to make progress toward a parliamentary form of government. King John, son of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine became the true king of England in 1199 when his brother died—King Richard the Lionhearted (whom he had governed for while he was away at the Third Crusade, when the “Robin Hood Tales” take place). After the death of King Richard, the French King Philip II and his son Louis (later Louis XIII) used a pretext to take Normandy, the westernmost area of France, away from King John, demolishing the massive crusader-like castle on the Seine River (Chateau Gaillard) which Richard had built to protect the Norman territories in Normandy. Although John did his best to fight for Normandy, Louis XIII had chased John back to England and conquered of all the Norman/English territories in France by 1214, except for Glascony, the coastal area north of Spain. King Louis XIII went on to solidify French control over the rest of France, including areas held by the Cathari heretics, in what is today southern France. Now England had their king at home for a change; Richard had been away all but one year of his eleven-year reign, and John, after being crowned in 1199, had spent the first four years of his reign fighting away from England as well. Since John had lost all his continental territories, he now had to reside in England. He was a disliked monarch overall, who had had a run-in with the Pope, being excommunicated in 1208 only regaining papal favor in 1213 when he made himself a vassal to the pope and England a papal fief. Though history shows John to have been a well-read and meticulous administrator, he also had the notorious temper tantrums of his father Henry II, and may have been bipolar, as he went from periods of high-energy productiveness to immovable lethargy. When King John returned to England in 1214, the country was bankrupt from the wars with France. John was angry that the nobles of England had failed to respond with knights when he had summoned their help in France. He started fining those who had failed to serve in the war, exacting high taxes, and even blackmailing lords when possible, to rebuild the treasury. Soon he was embroiled in a civil war, renting mercenaries from Aquitaine (his mother’s territory in France that he had just lost) to fight his own nobles. In June of 1215, John asked for a truce, and the barons drew up a 63-clause document, extracting promises from the king. This document, which came to be known as the Magna Carta (Great Charter), was to change the course of history as its most important clauses asserted the rule of law over even the king. King John had to agree not to imprison, exile, or in any way ruin a person “except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” This stripped the king of the age-old practice of punishing people who displeased him without a legal process. Taxes could no longer be arbitrarily levied without the consent of a tribunal of 25 barons, who were also given the power to ensure that the king comply by the charter and were allowed to restrain the king by force if necessary, were he to disregard the agreements made. Things were not necessarily peaceful after the Magna Carta was signed. Within a year, in the midst of ongoing conflict, John died after a long illness and after a ghastly disaster in which the pack trains of mules and drivers carrying much of the taxes John had collected were sunk in quicksand in a bay of Cambridgeshire, while attempting to take a short-cut. King John’s nine-year-old son, Henry III, came to power, but a regent William Marshall ruled for him until 1219. Henry III was to rule until 1272, over 50 years, and the Magna Carta was reissued several times during his reign. Nevertheless, both Henry III and his mother (after John’s death) married French royalty, and increasingly put Frenchmen in high positions of authority, while continuing to give the Pope ultimate authority over England, all to the anger of the English aristocracy. Henry continued to try to retake Normandy, the former English land in France, which proved fruitless and draining to the treasury. In 1259, after years of struggle, Henry signed the Treaty of Paris renouncing all claims to the Angevin lands that had belonged to his grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. However, the English still had control over Glascony, which proved an open sore that caused repeated wars. The people of England were increasingly upset at their taxes both being spent in overseas wars and being sent to support the Pope. They also resented the number of advisors the king had who were foreigners. Finally, the crisis came to head in 1258, when the barons decided that they needed to meet on a regular basis to control the king at tri-annual meetings which became known as the “parliament.” The barons, on threat of civil war, forced Henry III to agree to obey their advice on all matters, including a number of detailed proposals for reform. Although Henry continued to try to regain his power, and a civil war broke out again between the king’s forces and the parliament in 1263. When Henry died in 1272, his son Edward I made use of the parliamentary meetings to consolidate legal power into the central government and to put down local abuses. Edward I expanded English control over their own island, rather than the continent, forcefully putting down a Welsh rebellion and building English castles throughout Wales, which is controlled by England to this day. He also tried to annex Scotland, but was fought off by the famous William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, who after Edward I’s death, demolished the forces of his weak son, Edward II, in the Battle of Brannockburn in 1314. Before Edward I’s death in 1307, he had reissued the Magna Carta in 1297, expanding the idea of no taxation without representation (later picked up by the American colonies) by stating that he would not levy feudal taxes without the “common consent of all the realm and for the common profit thereof.” In other words, not only did all the people now have to agree (through their baron representatives) to be taxed for some purpose, that purpose had to benefit them in return. While King Edward I later got the Pope to free him from this agreement, the precedent had been set. Louis IX and France Unlike England, which was now moving more and more toward a nation governed in part by representatives of the people, France remained entrenched in the rule of an autocratic monarch. In 1226, Louis XIII died and his young son Louis IX came to power. Much like Henry III of England, he also was to have a very long reign, highly influenced by his devout mother Blanche of Castile, granddaughter of Henry II of England. Louis IX is one of the most highly respected monarchs in French history, devout and responsible. He established a vast administrative system in France, and used friars to extend public justice to the corners of his realm. He also allowed any man to appeal directly to him if he felt he was not getting justice. Dressing modestly and living morally, he won the respect not only of his own people but all of Europe. Louis IX mounted the best-funded Crusade in 1248, but was captured in Damietta, Egypt (where Francis of Assisi had gone in 1219), and his forces began to die of scurvy and dysentery. His pregnant wife Margaret rescued them by promising large sums of money, but Louis returned from his six-year campaign discouraged by the failure to liberate the Holy Land and by the needless loss of life. There was no move toward a parliamentary system in France at this time because King Louis IX was so well-loved. As he led an increasingly ascetic life, Louis also increased the careful judicial system, making the settling of disputes by use of force illegal and requiring even the nobles to submit their complaints to the crown rather than taking up arms. With relative peace in France, commerce boomed and Louis was able to build up the treasury with taxes on all people, even the church, that were not resented because of his fair judicial system and because he used the funds to build beautiful cathedrals and other public buildings. While Louis’s brother, Charles of Anjou, was seduced by the Pope’s offering him the rule of Sicily (now that Frederick II and Conrad had both died), Louis went off on another crusade, dying in Tunis in 1270, and being made a saint 27 years later. The “Babylonian Captivity of the Church” During the same period when there was much spiritual revival progressing among the common people through the work of the friars, the institutional church was going downhill again. The papacy had already been significantly discredited through its perpetual involvement in the political intrigue of the Holy Roman Empire, Italian city-states, and other countries. The elaborate and expensive bureaucracy that had developed all over Europe, extending the pope’s powers into every country, proved to be its undoing. Increasingly, the positions became more powerful and lucrative, and were thus desired by ambitious, but not necessarily godly men. More church taxes had to be levied to support the large number of people on the church payroll, which brought the church ever more into conflict with the secular rulers, also levying taxes. The “Babylonian captivity of the church” refers to a period of time when the Pope was essentially held under the control of the French monarch in France. It was started by Phillip IV, king of France, who abducted the pope in 1303. Louis IX’s son, Phillip III reigned only until 1285, and was succeeded by his 17-year-old son Phillip IV, who became more powerful by acquiring the county of Champagne by becoming betrothed to its 3-year-old heiress. Phillip IV came into increasing conflict with the pope over the practice of the French king taxing the church in France. Phillip called meetings of the “three estates” of the realm, the clergy, the nobles and the townspeople, to defend his policies to the pope. Also, when a new pope was elected in 1305, Phillip made sure that the pope resided in Avignon instead of Rome. Pope Clement V (pope from 1305 to 1314) was especially corrupt, making no less than 6 of his relatives into cardinals, and appointing 18 other Frenchmen as cardinals. From 1309 to 1377 all the Popes were French and lived in Avignon, which, though not in France, was close enough to be under France’s thumb. The Papacy became a French-run institution, which ultimately caused the rebellion of other nations. During this entire period the Pope continued to wage wars of various types with the Emperors of Germany, often using as much as 2/3rds of the papal budget for those purposes. One particularly fiscally astute pope, Pope John XXII (1316-1334) raised more funds by claiming all the property of any bishops that died. This pope is also also well-known for having recommended to the whole church the use of the Ave Maria or “Hail Mary” prayer (combining aspects of the angels speech to Mary with Elizabeth’s salutation), which had first appeared in use around 1050, but was getting more well-known by 1300. In spite of the wars depleting their treasuries, the Avignon popes erected palaces for themselves, and lived extravagant lifestyles. They managed to reduce expenses by not refilling clerical posts that fell vacant, thereby being able to keep the funds otherwise required at the church headquarters. They also increased revenue by charging fees for people who appealed to the court system of the church for justice outside of the secular powers. Kings began to enact laws to prevent people appealing to the Pope for judicial help, and preventing the Pope from making ecclesiastical appointments in their territories. Though a few of the Avignon popes were of noble character, the period as a whole was very negative for the church. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), one of the great mystics of her age, worked tirelessly to return the Pope to Rome. Catherine, one of twins and the 23 child of her prosperous and deeply religious parents, became devoted to prayer and asceticism from a young age. She joined the Third order of the Dominicans, lived in her parent’s home, and tirelessly wrote letters of mediation and counsel. She helped with plague victims, reconciled enemies and warring factions, and dedicated herself to seeing the papacy return to Rome. She finally succeeded in persuading Gregory XI to move from Avignon to Rome in 1377, and became a widely respected spiritual influence on her generation. The “Great Schism” Ironically, the return of the Pope to Rome in 1377 trigger the “Great Schism” which caused Catherine of Siena even more grief ultimately leading to her death in Rome before the age of 30. This schism was a period of time from around 1378 to 1417 when there was more than one pope, two or even three. After Gregory XI died, the Italians insisted that the next pope not be a Frenchman but an Italian. Though by this time 2/3rds of the Cardinals were French, under pressure from the masses they elected an Italian, Neapolitan, who chose the name Urban VI. Pope Urban VI started quickly and undiplomatically instituting reforms, including requiring clerics to live in the areas for which they held clerical offices. The incensed French Cardinals, unused to high-handed treatment, departed for the luxurious Avignon, a safe distance from the Roman mobs, and from there demanded that Urban VI resign. They insisted that they had the power both to elect and depose the pope, so they declared the post vacant, and elected French pope, one related to the King of France, who named himself Clement VII. Urban VI refused to resign and merely appointed more Italian cardinals to rule with him (though not demoting the others). Never before had there been two popes and the countries of Europe quickly took sides. Italy, Germany and countries in the east sided with Rome, along with England, as the other countries chose to side with France. As years passed, each pope was replaced when he died, none giving in to the other. Finally, in 1409, Cardinals from both Rome and Avignon called a general council of the church, which included not only cardinals, but patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, leaders of religious orders, university representatives, and emissaries of kings and princes. The council nullified both existing popes and called on the Cardinals to elect a new pope, which they did. Europe was stunned when neither of the other two popes were willing to resign, leaving the church with not two, but three popes! To clear up this disaster, a greater council of the entire church was held at Constance in 1414. This council was called by Sigismund, the King of Germany and the Romans, (soon to become the Holy Roman Emperor in 1433), renewing the tradition that Constantine began of emperors calling councils. It was the largest European general meeting to be called so far in history, and they decided to vote by nations, not by bishops, thus establishing the nations as decision-making bodies. Two of the three popes agreed to resign, and the third, Benedict XIII, the one in Avignon, was declared a heretic and all of Europe refused to follow him or the two succeeding popes in his line, before it died out. The council elected a new pope, one who was above moral reproach and member of an old Roman family, who took the name Martin V, and finished the proceedings. Very few of the reforms put forth at the Council of Constance passed, since most of the people there were profiting from the abuses in the church. However, the council did manage to limit the number of cardinals to 24, require them to be from many countries, and restrict people from getting salaries for jobs they either did not do or for multiple jobs they could not perform. The Council of Constance asserted that the council had higher authority from God than the Pope himself, who was bound to obey all its decrees, and agreed to have a council meet every 5 to 10 years. The Council of Constance is also known for condemning John Hus and having him burned at the stake for heresy. The movement to make the General Council the highest authority of the Catholic Church, called “the conciliar movement,” did not last long. The next General Council meet in Pavia in 1423, then moved to Siena due to a plague outbreak, but it was poorly attended and even the pope sent representatives. Attempts to pass reforms were blocked by the pope’s emissaries, the pope having never really carried out the last reforms and the council dissolved after a year of non-progress. From 1432 to 1439 the next General Counsel met in Basel, but turned out to be an anti-pope fiasco. As the Donation of Constantine, one of the ancient documents supporting the pope’s claim to the mantle of Peter, had been shown to be a forgery by two men, the pope’s role was more unstable than ever. However, the council discredited itself by overstepping its powers, giving itself the power to sell indulgences, deposing Pope Eugene IV and electing a new one, etc. It was also unable to enact any correction of abuses that its relatively small membership was benefiting from, in the end demonstrating that councils were not going to be the hoped for reforming solution to the church’s problems. Advances Because of Christianity Though the Christian hierarchy was often out of step with the Spirit, in retrospect it must be admitted that great advances in the humane treatment of human beings was actually being accomplished by the Christian faith, especially compared with their own past and other civilizations of the same period in time. From the time of the early Middle Ages, King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway forbade infanticide through exposure (except deformed children) and recommended that the national assembly of nobles known as the “thing” freed a slave during their meeting instead of sacrificing a slave as had been tradition. By 1102 the church council in London forbade the slave trade, and the Third Lateran Council, in 1179, made enslaving of Christians illegal. Christian orders had begun setting up hospitals and caring for the chronically ill or poor. Women were increasingly seen as worthy of honor not abuse, and chivalrous songs extolled not just the outward beauty of women, but of their souls as well. Women were being canonized and recognized as spiritual leaders in the church even though they did not hold ecclesiastical positions. Though celibacy was prized, marriage was seen as a sacrament and channel of God’s grace, which gave it a new weightiness. Gambling and drunkenness were condemned, as was extravagant luxury and other forms of greed. The 100 Years War and Joan of Arc When Charles IV, King of France, died in 1328 without any sons, the stage was set for a war of succession that would last over one hundred years. Edward III, King of England, a grandson of the French monarch, claimed that he was closer to the throne than Philip Valois (Philip IV), a mere nephew. Calling Philip a usurper, he asserted authority over the areas his family once owned in France, including Aquitaine. In 1329, Robert Bruce of Scotland died and his son David II fled to France for protection under King Philip from King Edward III. Then Philip transferred ships built for another Crusade to the Holy Land, after it was canceled by the Pope, from the Mediterranean to the Normandy coast. England’s King, Edward III, was understandably alarmed that Philip VI might be planning an invasion of England. The first battle of the subsequent long war was started by Edward III, in 1339, riding through the French countryside burning the freshly harvested fields and storehouses. During the near 150 years that the “100 year war” lasted, advances were being made in warfare, including the arrival of gunpowder in Europe. Cannons were first used at in 1346 at the Siege of Calais. The battles were essentially a series of sieges, taking strategic fortresses and towns, raids and other types of “war of attrition.” When armies met in the field, the English long bows could fire 12 arrows in the amount of time the French crossbows could only fire two, and so won the day. In fact, Edward’s naval forces demolished the French navy in 1340 largely due to the advantage of the long bow. The arrival of the Black Plague in 1347, after the devastating victory of the English over the French at the battle of Crecy, looked like it would end the war. However, peace negotiations in 1350 broke down, and war resumed with the next English heir Edward, known as the Black Prince, capturing the French King John II in 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers, a masterpiece of strategy on the part of the English. An agreement was drawn up (Treaty of Bretigny in 1360) that would give England a third of French territory in exchange for Edward III renouncing the English claim to the rest—but in the end, the part where each king renounced his claim to sovereignty over the other’s part was never signed. France’s agriculture and economy had been severely damaged by the years of slash-and-burn fighting by the English. With the French peasants revolting, the nobility banded together to fight them and crushed the rebellion. By 1370, the son of John II, now King Charles V of France, boldly took over the English holdings in France. The Black Prince tried to stave him off but died of dysentery in 1371, leaving his aging father to take up the war. But King Edward III died in 1377, and the Black Prince’s 10-year-old son Richard II becoming the next king of England. Wat Tyler led 10,000 peasants in a revolt against the young king, who listened patiently to their demands and had his scribes write out promises to the peasants. When Wat angrily accused the king, claiming he would not follow through on his promises, the mayor of London stabbed Wat to death, ending the rebellion. In 1380, Charles V of France also died, leaving his 12-year-old son Charles VI to fight England, boy king against boy king. An optimistic attempt at peace was initiated, but after 10 years no agreement had been reached. Finally, in 1395, the two kings decided to reach peace by marrying Charles VI’s 7-year-old daughter to Richard II, now 28, who promised not to consummate the marriage until Isabelle was 12. Stranger things still conspired against peace as Richard’s throne was taken by force by Henry IV, his cousin, back from the Balkan Crusades, who starved Richard to death at age 33, and France’s Charles VI, descended into madness, believing he was made of glass and could shatter at any minute. By 1415 Henry IV’s son Henry V was on the throne of England and once again rampaging through the French countryside, burning whatever he did not take. No wonder people were ready to follow Joan of Arc (1412-1431), a peasant girl who saw visions from God calling her to lead the French king to victory. With the king of France gone insane, and a weak prince (“dauphin”) also named Charles, the French were in no position to fight off a strong English king Henry V, who was claiming the French crown for his son Henry VI. Joan managed to rally the French, get the Dauphin crowned King Charles VII of France, and encourage the French to fight for victory before being captured by the Burgundians—English allies who promptly turned her over to the English who burned her at the stake for heresy, before she had even turned 20. However, no peace treaty was signed until 1492, and the kings of England continued to call themselves also kings of France until 1815 after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon’s short-lived French empire. The Mamluks of Egypt: The Rule of Slaves and End of the Crusades In the last unit, the Shi’ite Fatimid rulers of Egypt were displaced by the Kurdish Sunnis, the Ayyubids, in 1171, under Saladin. Saladin went on to take Jerusalem from the Crusaders. However, during this period the Ayyubids lose control of Egypt to the Mamluks. The Mamluks were not invaders, but Turkish-Armenian slaves who were recruited from the area north of the Caucasus, where they had been trained from birth to be warriors. Once these enslaved non-Muslims (Muslims could not enslave other Muslims) were brought to Egypt and converted to Islam, they were much more likely to be freed, especially if they were valuable and trusted. Soon the Mamluks held powerful positions, and some of the Ayybid’s turned to Sudanese slaves who were less threatening. However in 1259, the reigning sultan Aybak was assassinated by his wife’s servants when she feared being replaced, and Aybak’s Mamluk officer grabbed the throne. By 1260 Aleppo and Damascus, in Syria, had been taken by the Mongols, and so Egypt consolidated under the Mamluk warriors to fight them off. However, when the Mongols rushed back to Mongolia for a succession dispute, the Mamluk leader was assassinated by another Mamluk, Baybars. Baybars, influenced by an immoral Muslim prophet named Khadir, instituted pogroms and riots against Christians and Jews, closing churches and synagogues and making them wear special colors. The Mongols at this point had some favoritism to Christians, and would often spare them when sacking cities. Because the Mongols favored the Christians, they were suspected of potential treason by the Mamluks, who created an extensive secret police system to support their totalitarian regime. In 1268 the Mamluks took Antioch after almost 150 years of Christian Crusader (Norman ) rule, and sacked it. Baybars ordered the gates to be closed so no inhabitants could escape, and massacred the inhabitants that were not considered suitable for slavery. So many were taken and sold as slaves that they became a glut on the slave market. The Mamluks continued to get their new Mamluk slaves from the area north of the Caucasus, and the Sultan position was usually passed to these recently arrived warrior slaves not to their own sons of the last Sultan. The Egypt-born sons were fully Arabized, could not speak Kipchak Turkish, and were often not as strong military leaders as the slaves raised solely for that purpose. This pattern insured that the strongest leaders took over, even if by coups, and produced a relatively steady strong government. In 1291 it was the Mamluks who finally took the Crusader city of Acre, beheading every man in the city. They then went on to destroy all the other Crusader cities and all the Knights Templar castles, dismantling them so they could no longer be used, thereby ending the 200 years of Crusader presence in the Middle East. Somehow the Mamluk Turkish rulers ended up keeping control of Egypt until the early 16th century, in spite of many assassinations and coups, to the great dislike of the Egyptian people. Mongolian Empire The Mongol armies burst on the scene around 1200 AD, and within 50 years had destroyed fabulous centers of civilization from Zhongdu (Beijing) China to Baghdad. The city of Kiev, Russia, with beautiful golden domes, was burned to the ground. Calling himself the “flail of God,” Genghis Khan apparently believed that God was using him to punish sinful people. The Muslims called the Mongols “the accursed of God,” as they were savagely wiping out Islamic civilizations in Iran and Turkey, and were stopped only by the Malmuks of Egypt (the Turkish Armenian slave-background Muslims). They even invaded Korea on the east, but were stopped by the rising samurai warrior class of Japan. Genghis Khan, born Temujin, rose from obscurity in a culture full of feuding clans. Becoming a ruthless warrior by his late teens, he soon overpowered, subdued or acquired the allegiance of a growing number of Mongol clans. By 1206 he was master of all of Mongolia, feared everywhere for his violent treatment of any who opposed him. He declared himself “Genghis Khan,” meaning universal ruler or king of kings. The Mongols were animists that worshipped a variety of spirits, the most powerful of which was the “Eternal Blue Sky” god. By the age of 45 a shaman had declared Genghis Khan the representative on earth of the sky god, and executor of his will on earth. A masterful organizer, Genghis Khan completely reorganized the Mongols from warring clans into one people under him, with a pyramid of powerful governors under him. He codified the laws, which forbade blood feuds, adultery, sodomy, sorcery, theft and other things, such as bathing in running water, which might anger the water god. The most common punishment was death. As long as the Khan was obeyed, people were allowed to maintain their local religions. The nomadic warriors were organized into groups of 100, 1000, and 10,000, with capable leaders. Since one of their main sources of livelihood had always been warfare, and now they were no longer attacking each other, they struck eastward at the rich land of China. Never intending to settle down, the Mongols goal was raiding and plundering. Extremely shrewd fighters, they adopted new military tactics as needed, including catapults to attack walled cities. They wanted horses, gold, silk, jewels, and young men and women. Initially they stripped cities then killed everyone and burned everything. Soon they began to see the wisdom of destroying less and exacting tribute to focus their destruction elsewhere. A Muslim ruler in Samarkand named Shah Mohammed challenged the Mongols in 1218 by capturing a Mongol caravan and killing a Mongol ambassador. Drafting all Mongol men between 17 and 60, Genghis rode west with 200,000 warriors on a killing spree that lasted 3 years and destroyed most of the central Asian cities. Mongol warriors collected cut off ears in sacks to prove they had killed their quota of people. Cities that resisted were treated especially badly, with men, women, children and even pets being killed. Supposedly 1,747,000 people were killed at Nishapur alone, their heads piled in pyramids, one for men, one for women, and one for children. They continued to push west past the Caspian Sea, to the Crimea, north of the Black Sea. By 1227 there was trouble with a revolt back home, and the Mongols retreated, then suddenly Genghis died of a fever. Power passed smoothly to Genghis’ son Ogedei, due to the careful and meticulous organization that had divided the empire into sub-khanates, ruled by Genghis’ various sons and grandsons. After conquering Korea and southern China, attention swung again to the west, and in 1236 the Mongols returned with an army of 150,000. By 1240 they had destroyed Kiev, having already taken Moscow and more eastern cities. Just when the Mongols were poised to destroy Christian Europe in 1241, the great Khan Ogedei died without a clear succession. The Mongol chiefs rushed back to western Mongolia to elect a new leader. Following two other grandsons of Genghis, Kublai Khan came to power in the East, establishing his rule over Song China between 1250 and 1279, and Hulegu came to power in the west, annihilating even the famous Assassins, Shi’ite terrorists that had terrorized the Middle East during the entire crusader era. When Hulegu went back to Mongolia to assure his succession, Mamluk forces from Egypt took Syria from the Mongols, chasing them back over the Euphrates in 1260, thus halting their advance in the Middle East. The western Mongols began to divide up into factions under different descendants of Genghis. It wasn’t until 1264 that Kublai Khan was to gain the role of supreme khan, though there were factions he never controlled, including the “Golden Horde,” a group that had settled down on the outskirts of Russia, from whom they exacted tribute. Kublai Khan, having spent many years in China, had been educated by a Confucian scholar, Yao Ji, and had big plans distinct from the traditional nomadic ways of the Mongols. He rebuilt a capital near the ruined Beijing, and by 1270 it was a city of incredible splendor once again. He had halls that could seat 6000 guests at an unparalleled feast and had 12,000 personal guards on three round-the-clock shifts. Marco Polo and the Mongols in China Niccolo and Matteo Polo, two merchants from Venice, showed up at Kublai’s court in 1266. Although earlier friars who had ventured into Mongol courts had been disregarded, these merchants impressed Kublai Khan enough that he asked the pope to send 100 learned religious men, capable in arts of the west. He said that if they could prove the superiority of Christianity, he and all of his subjects would be baptized! This, he assured the Polos, would mean that China would have more Christians then existed in the west. When Niccolo and Matteo traveled back to Italy, they could not persuade 100 men of God to accompany them. It is too bad that Bonaventura, the able leader of the Franciscans at this time, who had been more missionary minded than any previous monastics, did not hear and respond to this call. The papacy of that period, as well as the kingdoms of Europe, were once more embroiled in a scramble for power, and the pope was distracted from recognizing and fulfilling God’s purposes on earth. The Polos finally returned to Kublai’s court in 1275 with only a few papal letters and some holy oil that Kublai had requested from Jerusalem. They also brought Niccolo’s son, Marco Polo, who was 20 years old. Marco Polo hit it off with the Kublai, who employed him as a special envoy for 17 years, which Marco wrote up in his book A Description of the World. This book later hit Europe by storm, impacting even Columbus 200 years later with its detailed and romantic description of the East. His book showed how advanced China’s long civilization had become. Kublai had built on China’s already amazing legacy, extending the Great Canal of the 5th century (built to connect the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers) until it was over 1000 miles long. China also had an amazingly quick and organized horse postal system with over 10,000 stations, 25 miles apart. Kublai tried to simplify the language situation by commissioning a scholar to replace the Uighur alphabet that the Mongols tried to use for their language with something that would fit it better in China, but also be usable for many languages. Kublai had thousands of astrologers to guide him and he catered to foreigners in his service partly because he never trusted the native Chinese. There were several hundred thousand Mongols in China who lived like parasites off the country, making no contribution to the economy through work or taxes. The Chinese were not allowed to intermarry with the Mongols or learn their language. In the end, the warlike ways of the Mongols undermined their empire. They were never good administrators, and Kublai was constantly sending people off to try to conquer more territory in Japan and southeast Asia. In countries on the Malaysian peninsula, the jungles made the Mongol specialty of horseback warfare impossible. And their naval attempts to take Japan were disasters. Though Kublai had reunified a China that had been divided for 350 years, his dynasty did not last long after his death in 1294, wiped out by civil war and natural disasters. In 1368 a Buddhist peasant who had risen to power, named Zhu Yuanzhang, defeated the last Mongol descendents, ending Mongol rule in China after a mere 108 years. He was to start a new dynasty, the Ming Dynasty which isolatedChina from foreign barbarians once again. In the west, Hulegu’s descendants had managed to hold on to Persia as the Ilkhan dynasty. However, they so mismanaged the economy that by 1295 the only way for them to survive was to become Muslim and ally themselves with the Arabs. Nevertheless, Hulegu’s line, even as converted Muslims, died out by 1335.The Persian Khanate only lasted 80 years. The Golden Horde harassed Russia for 150 years, on the steppes where they continued their nomadic traditions. Parts of the Mongol empire existed into the 18th century, though they were absorbed into Turkic language groups and adopted Islam like the Mongols of Persia. In the 14th century, Central Asia saw the rise of a Muslim Mongol-Turkic leader in what is now Uzbekistan, a soldier named Timur Lang, or Tamerlane (in the West), meaning Timur “the Lame,” which you will read more about below. The Ottoman Turks By the 14th century, Constantinople was being threatened again. Asia Minor (also known as Anatolia or modern Turkey) had been lost to the Seljuk Turks 300 years earlier, however the empire of Byzantium had managed to hold out against onslaughts from the east. They kept the Turks from taking land west of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus—the narrow straights connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. When the Mongols poured into the Middle East in 1243, they vanquished the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia, and their subject Oghuz Turk allies, who had their own extensive empire covering Persia, Iraq, Syria and part of Anatolia. With the help of a nomadic subgroup of the Oghuz, the Seljuk Sultan fought off some Mongol troops. The Oghuz were awarded the land on the eastern side of the Dardinelles and the Bosporus. These Turks, soon known as the Ottomans after their most famous leader Uthman, highly prized “ghaza” or holy war, especially against the Christian areas, known as “dar al-harb” meaning “the house of war.” Any warrior who won a victory over the Christians, known as a “ghazi,” was made into a prince and given awards by the Seljuk Sultan. Meanwhile, Constantinople had been significantly weakened by the Fourth Crusade which had sacked it and taken over rule of Byzantium, dividing up its territories between Crusader leaders. In 1261, Michael Palaeologus managed to reestablish a Byzantine dynasty and withdrew his troops protecting Byzantium from the Turks, in order to take back the Balkan Peninsula. Three main Christian strongholds remained on the eastern side of the straits, Nicomedia (today’s Izmit), Nicaea (Iznik) and Bursa. Uthman began by cutting these Christian strongholds off from each other. From 1299 through 1337, Uthman and his son Orhan systematically took over ports and began starving out the cities until they surrendered. With each new victory, Turks rushed to join the successful venture. Bursa became the new Ottoman capital with its Christian leader defecting to Islam and becoming a capable Ottoman general. As a trading center, it grew richer and Greek and Byzantine culture and crafts were adopted. The Ottomans soon declared themselves their own empire, taking the title of Sultan, minting their own coins, and using Turkish as the official language. They were officially Sunni Muslims, but were tied to the mystical dervish religious orders of Anatolia, which used drugs and repetitive physical behavior to induce trance-like states. The government would pay for dervish monastic-like groups to found rural hospices for travelers and caravans on trade routes. As they were free from taxes, people rushed to join them and towns quickly grew up around these frontier outposts. They became renown for their generous and cultured hospitality. The Ottoman army consisted of a core of salaried men, called sipahis, and many militia-like irregular forces called up when needed, called akinjis (raiders) and delis (fanatics). They were highly disciplined and traveled quickly and silently, and used primarily bows and javelins. Unwisely, the weakened Byzantine Empire began to call on the Ottomans to help, like mercenaries, in their battle to regain the Balkans from the Serbians, Bosnians, and Hungarians. In a surprising move, a chancellor of Byzantium named Cantacuzene married Orhan’s daughter, and tried to take over the role of Emperor in Constantinople. In exchange for repeated military help, Cantacuzene even gave the Ottomans a fortress on the western side of the Dardinelles, a fatal mistake. Finally, in 1354 the Ottomans attacked the Byzantines in their own territory. As the Ottoman Turks were storming the city of Gallipoli, a Christian stronghold on the Balkan side, an earthquake hit, collapsing the walls of the city. Taking this as a sign from God that He had given the Balkan Peninsula into their hands, they decided to take the entire Balkan Peninsula. Cantacuzene was forced to declare war on his Turkish allies, begging Christian monarchs of the Balkans, the Serbians and Bulgarians, for help. They refused, since Catancuzene had used Turkish forces against them. As things grew more desperate, Cantacuzene abdicated in favor of the true Byzantine heir, John Palaeologus, who appealed to the West for help. A call for another crusade by Pope Urban V in 1364 landed on deaf ears, the population of Europe still reeling from the devastation of the Black Death only a decade before. The Pope’s demand that the Byzantine emperor convert to Roman Catholicism met with limited success, as the Eastern Orthodox church was firmly established. Constantinople was so in debt to the wealthy Venetians that the traveling Byzantine Emperor John, who had gone to visit the Pope in Rome, was captured and held for ransom for repayment of debts the Empire owed to Venice. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks, under the leadership of Murad, Uthman’s grandson, were taking more and more Christian territory. They treated the Christians well, only taxing and them not forcing them to convert. However, Christian boys, enslaved when captured in battle, were taught Turkish and raised to be Muslim personal guards of the Ottoman rulers “zealous in their (Muslim) faith and enemies of their relatives.” These slave troops came to be known as the “janissaries.” Soon the practice developed of Christian territories having to deliver a certain number of their boys to the Ottoman rulers on a regular basis. They were forbidden to marry and were taught a dervish form of Islam called Bektashi, which allowed them to drink alcohol and unveiled women could participate in the ceremonies. Murad used the Janissary troops to take over the rest of the Balkans from 1380 to 1390, and there are a significant number of Bektashi Muslims in the Balkans to this day. Murad died at the age of seventy while battling in the Balkans. His successor, Bajazet, not as kind as Murad, began the Ottoman practice of their rulers killing off their brothers, which lasted until the 17th century. The Fall of Constantinople From the late 14th century, Byzantium was essentially a vassal state of the Ottomans. Bajazet had Emperor John Palaeologus’s son Manuel as a hostage, and when John set out to strengthen Contantinople’s walls, Bajazet threatened to blind Manuel, so John demolished the improved fortifications. When John died, Manuel escaped and was crowned emperor, but he had to cede one fourth of the city to Muslim settlers to get Bajazet to stop blockading the city. Later, when Emperor Manuel refused to appear before the unpredictable Bajazet, the city was again laid siege to from 1394-1402. Finally the Ottoman ruler Bajazet decide to march west, broadcasting the threat that he would feed his horses with oats off the altar of Saint Peter’s in Rome. King Sigismund of Hungary called for a crusade against the Turks, proceeding even though the pope did not really respond and King Charles VI of France, in a state of insanity, remained uninvolved. Nevertheless, a great army of French, English, Scottish, German and Italian knights met King Sigismund’s army at Buda, the capital of Hungary in the summer of 1396. As reckless as previous crusades, the Crusaders marched down the Danube River into Ottoman-held territory and took the city of Rahova, slaughtering its people, though many turned out to be Bulgarian Christians. They had trouble taking fortified cities because they had expected to battle Ottoman troops in the open and had therefore brought no siege equipment with them. Even when they were joined by a group of Knights Hospitalers, sailing up the Danube, they could not make any progress. They hadn’t even found Bajazet and his army yet. Soon the different nationalities began to argue about what to do, some wanting to go back, others spending their time carousing, were happy staying put, and others wanting to go forward. By the time Bajazet’s army reached them, they were ill-prepared to fight, especially against such a crafty foe. The French knights set off with their horses to take the enemy before even figuring out how many of them there were. Tricking the Crusaders into getting off their horses by setting up stakes that would pierce running horses in the breast, Bajazet slaughtered all but one of the French, the Duke of Burgundy’s son. Sending the rider-less horses of the French back into the Crusader camp, many of the allies scattered in fear. Those who stood to fight were slaughtered. King Sigismund lamented that they could have won the battle if they had used strategy and fought together, but that the pride of the French had lost the battle for them all. After an 8-year siege, the starving inhabitants of Constantinople were about to give up. Emperor Manuel prayed constantly that the Lord Jesus Christ would deliver Constantinople during his reign. Then suddenly Bajazet and his army left. In 1402, Tamerlane, a Mongol descendent calling himself the “scourge of God,” was attacking the heartland of Anatolia, Ottoman territory. Bajazet was captured by Tamerlane and Bajazet’s sons, knowing the winner would kill the others, began a civil war to see who would succeed as ruler of the Ottomans. They did not regain sufficient organization to take Constantinople until 1453, which they held on to for the next 500 years. With their policy of fratricide (killing off all brothers of the ruler) the Ottoman descendents of Ulthman were able to build a dynasty which lasted 600 years with only 36 different rulers during that period. It was a young sultan, Mehmet II, just past 20 years old, who finally took Constantinople with 100,000 men after a 7-week siege in 1453. Over the years Constantinople had withstood 22 sieges, with a moat and three layers of walls on the land side, the innermost 65 feet high, and 188 towers along the sea side wall, above treacherous cliffs and currents. Mehmet wisely guessed that there was insufficient force within the city to long oppose him, and that he must prevent reinforcements as well as supplies landing and entering the city from the sea if he was to win. So he assembled a huge fleet of 125 ships, including 16 warships, to blockade the western end of the Bosporus. With the enticement of the booty from Constantinople, it was not too difficult to recruit over 100,000 men from all ends of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Balkans. Promising Muslims a place in heaven in exchange for taking this Christian capital, the crack troops were the Muslim Janissaries, mentioned earlier, captured Christian boys trained as slaves in warfare and Islam. Because they were forbidden to marry, their army was their only family, and they were replenished by warfare and the capture of more boys. Mehmet had prepared by constructing a number of fortresses near Constantinople and along the coast, armed with very large cannons that could blast through the walls of Constantinople or destroy warships trying to pass through the straits. The emperor of Constantinople, Constantine XI, had sent off messengers six months earlier to the west to beg for help, even forcing the Orthodox church back into the Roman Catholic fold in hopes of gaining numerous reinforcements. Easter of 1453 was celebrated in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), with both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic liturgies, and both Pope Nicholas V and Patriarch Gregory III (Orthodox leader) being honored in prayers. The Italian cities, now greatly dependent on trade routes through the Ottoman Empire, were hesitant to send official armies against the Sultan, but private citizens rose to the occasion and sent off men and supplies. One Genoese soldier, Giovanni Guistiniani, brought 700 of his own men, got through before the blockade and was put in charge of the wall defense by the emperor. Constantinople had only 7000 fighting men, and 2000 foreign helpers, as well as monks helping, when the battle began. The rest of Western Europe, embroiled in their own problems, hoped that this siege would pass like all the rest and did not send help. The Venetian citizens put together a fleet that arrived too late to make it through the blockade. In a stroke of genius, Mehmet II finally managed to get his ships into the “Golden Horn,” the bay north of Constantinople, not by breaking through the Byzantine blockade of its entrance, which had proved futile, but by pulling his ships across the land on sledges rolling over greased logs, with their sails raised to catch the wind as additional push. From inside the bay, they could bombard the relatively minor walls on the bay side, as well as prevent any more food or reinforcement sneaking in through the ports. The citizens of Constantinople began to starve. When the Ottoman Turks finally broke into the city, they rampaged through the streets, looting, killing and raping, as the Genoese and Venetian Italians that survived rushed to their ships to escape. Palaces and churches were stripped. Libraries were burned. People of all ages were killed. Women and nuns were taken for gang rape by the Turkish troops, and 50,000 captives were carted off. The sultan himself asked for the Grand Duke’s 14-year-old son for his own sexual pleasure, and when refused killed the entire family. The Papal legate and some of the royal family escaped only by dressing as beggars. Sultan Mehmet II declared himself the new legitimate heir of the Caesars of ancient Rome, taking the title “Kayser-i-Rum” (Caesar of Rome). No western crusade came to rescue the city, and the sultan set out to rebuild the walls and then capture all of Byzantium’s former territory. The Hagia Sophia was immediately turned into a mosque, though most of the churches were allowed to continue to serve the surviving Christian population. New mosques were built in typical Islamic architecture, changing the feel of the city. Constantinople, now called Istanbul, has been in Turkish hands ever since. The capture of Constantinople was to have a lasting impact on Western Europe, which was already looking for new trade routes to the East that would bypass the Middle East. Tamerlane: The Last Nomadic Empire from Central Asia From 1370 to 1405, Tamerlane, a Mongol leader arising out of central Asia, pillaged and destroyed even cities that surrendered, from Delhi in India to Sarai in Russia, to the Damascus in Syria and Ankara in Turkey. Tamerlane called himself “the scourge of God… you are wicked but I am more wicked than you, so be silent.” But he was a sincere Muslim who loved scholarly debates on issues like the nature of martydom, and the correct way of reading the Koran. His motto was Rasti Rusti (“truth is safety”) which was inscribed on his signet ring and he would not take the title Khan since he was not a descendent of Genghis Khan. Tamerlane had both Hanafi Sunni and Shi’a Muslim advisors and seems to have respected both traditions. The cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, near where Tamerlane was born were centers of Islam learning with many madrasas (Koranic schools). Tamerlane himself dabbled in a lot of astrology and occult mysticism. He also planned strategy by playing the game of chess (invented earlier in India). In spite of being vicious, Tamerlane was careful to preserve the scholars and artisans of any city that he demolished, sending them back to Samarkand to be put to good use. He even went out of his way to meet the famous Persian poet, Hafiz. Tamerlane’s expeditions seem a bit haphazard but were governed by the constant need of plunder to sustain his large army. He had a military advantage in the small bows, since it allowed his men to fire from horseback. Amazingly, they had a better penetrating power than even the English long bow because the compact bows were bent forward at the tips, where the string was attached. Organizing his army in groups of 100, 1000, and 10,000, like Genghis Khan had, Tamerlane also reserved the highest ranks for his most loyal soldiers. Everywhere he went he left tax collectors to extract painfully high tribute. If cities did not resist, he treated them fairly well, but if they rebelled, as Isfahan in Persia did in 1387, Tamerlane exacted cruel punishment. Setting guards to protect the families of scholars and religious teachers, he had his soldiers massacre the city, cutting the heads off of men, women, and children and stack their skulls in pyramids around the city. An eyewitness at Isfahan reported 28 pyramids of 1500 skulls each, and over 70,000 killed total. These towers of skulls became his trademark, marking areas that had dared to defy him. Tamerlane conducted vast campaigns, defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the Golden Horde of Russia and the Sultanate of Delhi in India. Some believed he killed all told over 17 million people, or 5% of the world’s population at that time. These atrocities were excused as necessary to prevent more rebellion and blood shed (and had been used by Genghis Khan before him whom he was trying to emulate). Many areas were pillaged repeatedly, especially the little kingdom of Georgia in the Caucasus, on his way to and from everywhere, and targeted for being Christian. In the end, Tamerlane ended the Empire of the Golden Horde, destroying their capital at Sarai on the Russian steppes. After taking a break to build beautiful buildings in Samarkand, Tamerlane set out in 1398 , crossing the Hindu Kush and plundering Afghanistan on the way, to Delhi, India. By the time he had reached the Indus River, he had accumulated 100,000 captives to be taken back and sold as slaves, but his troops were having trouble sustaining them all. Pragmatic as ever, Tamerlane ordered them slaughtered. Facing elephant warfare for the first time, Tamerlane proved ingenious. He not only put spiked metal balls on the ground to hurt the elephants feet, he piled straw onto the backs of camels, and then sent them toward the elephants while lighting the straw on fire. Seeing the approaching flames, the elephants scattered. At first Tamerlane entered Delhi peacefully and demanded tribute, but as time wore on, the tired soldiers patience wore thin and Tamerlane barely had time to rescue the best artisans to send back to Samarkand before wholesale looting and killing broke out. Most of the people of the city of Delhi were either enslaved or killed. By Tamerlane’s own account they ransacked the city, sparing only the Muslim rulers quarters, taking thousands of prisoners and all the wealth they could find, counting it God’s will on the infidel people. It was after the short-lived foray into India, more to prove he could do it than to retain any ongoing control, that Tamerlane decided to attack the Ottoman Empire of Anatolia. He inadvertently saved Constantinople from falling into Turkish hands for another 50 years. The first frontier Ottoman garrison he attacked surrendered when he promised not to shed any of their blood, so he buried them alive in an underground vault instead. Now Tamerlane detoured to take Aleppo from the Mamluk Muslims of Egypt, this time using his new weapons of war, elephants! Next he sacked, and then torched Damascus and later Baghdad, carefully carting off the scholars and skilled artisans to Samarkand before beheading virtually all the male inhabitants. With his capital city now full of highly skilled slaves, Tamerlane used them to create astonishing works of art in architecture as well as movable possessions. Reflecting the fact that the artisans had come from distinct backgrounds, art varied from carved jade to bronze work to tile work and many other distinctive styles. In 1404, Tamerlane planned an extravagant wedding for five of his grandsons, creating a massive elaborate central tent surrounded by 20,000 smaller tents for the guests. Drunkenness, a traditional Mongol, not Muslim, pastime crowned the festivities, to the disgust of Muslim scholars visiting from as far as Spain for the occasion. Nevertheless, though over 70, Tamerlane set out the next year to take Ming China, however, when he fell sick, he refused anything but alcohol and died vomiting blood in 1405. His descendants could not hold together the empire. Built on terror, with little administrative infrastructure, within a decade the empire collapsed. In the centuries following, unfortunately even most of the grandeur of Samarkand was destroyed by neglect, earthquakes or fire. The Rise of the Ming Dynasty in China You learned above that the Yuan Dynasty (meaning “origin”) was founded by Kublai Khan in 1271, though he had first invaded China in 1260. This dynasty managed to stay in power in spite of upheaval and brother killing brother for control, a Mongol tradition, every time a leader died. As the various leaders vacillated between assuming Confucian ideals, and forms of government, and reverting to the Mongol ways, China managed to survive. They even benefited from the relative peace and the reunification of the North and South accomplished by Kublai Khan. However, by 1340 corruption and loss of central control was extensive. Buddhism had taken on a more aggressive form during this time. Chinese Buddhism had evolved with the idea of a Buddha of the Future, Maitreya Buddha, who would descend to earth and establish a Pure Land that the Buddhists would rule. The secret “White Lotus” society spread these doctrines, claiming that Maitreya was coming to earth soon. These doctrines became mixed with a Chinese form of Manicheanism, a form of the Zoroastrian religion of battle between the God of Light and the God of Darkness, proclaiming that the arrival of the victorious Prince of Light, Ming Wang in the last days to redeem the world would be the same as the arrival of the Maitreya Buddha. In 1340 a group of conspirators, wearing Red Turbans (the color a symbol of royalty, and the Turban a symbol of rebellion), persuaded most of the 150,000 conscripted workers (brought to the Huai valley to restore to service the Great Canal, silted by a huge flood) to join their rebellion against the Yuan. After many years of civil war, and several different generals arising to take control, the Wu Chinese gained power in 1368 under Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu gained control over both the North and South of China, the first time the Southern Chinese ruled the entire country. Always before, when China had been united, a Northern group was in power. The Mongol rule of China thus ended by 1368, as Zhu chased the Mongols, out of China using cannons as weapons. The new emperor Zhu took the title Hongwu meaning “Boundless Martial Valour” and called the new dynasty the Ming dynasty, meaning “brilliant,” after Ming Wang, the “Prince of Light”, who was supposed to come as a redeemer for mankind. The Ming emperor set about to return Chinese society to all the traditions of the old China’s emperors by turning back to using Confucianism and copying all ancient rituals. He built a new capital at Nanjing with walls sixty feet high and 19 miles long, enclosing imperial palaces and temples. He also set about to restore the devastated countryside, planting over a billion trees, for timber and fruit, and building irrigation systems. He moved people from the south to the northern areas which had been depopulated by floods and famine. By dividing all of China into “communities” of 110 families, making the 10 most prosperous families the leaders of the community, the emperor gained great control of society in a way that minimized corruption. The 100 remaining families were divided into groups of 10 that took turns providing community labor services for their community, including a school, altar, running of charitable services, etc. All the communities had to hold monthly meetings to work out their problems. The nation-wide state-supported Confucian schools funneled students from every sector of society into the Confucian examination system, which, beginning in 1370, added archery and horsemanship to the Confucian classics and thought questions. Those who passed the test became the civil servants who administered the entire system, including collecting taxes and advising the emperor. But since the Ming emperor had fought his way to power against many other rebels, he was intrinsically suspicious. He disavowed any support of the “Red Turban” movement, which he had originally been a part of, and treated harshly any secret political or religious organizations (which the Red Turbans had originally been). As a result, the emperor maintained ruthless control of the system, and even forbade trade with any foreigners, something the merchants refused to comply with. In 1380 the paranoia of the emperor came to a head, and he killed his long time friend and chancellor Hu Weiyong. Fearing a huge conspiracy against him, ultimately, some 30,000 government officials were executed in a dragnet of accusations and confessions under torture. A reign of terror began that continued, with surveillance officers seeking out and torturing suspected traitors. The emperor believed that brutal measures, like cutting off people’s feet found guilty of corruption, would keep others from committing the same crime. He was dismayed, however, when it didn’t seem to work. Though he tried exhaustively to terrorize people into being good, before he died in 1398, the emperor expressed disillusionment that men, whether clever or stupid, could ever be made good. Ultimately, the emperor used his own 26 sons to govern the country, but forbid even them from appointing their own staffs or raising their own armies. From that time on, the Ming emperors held all top power positions themselves, including chancellor and head of the army. This pattern of the power of the emperor being unchecked or advised by any other powers, either in the civil sector or the military, proved to be the ongoing bane of the Ming dynasty. Nevertheless, his successors managed to dredge and repair the Great Canal, and moved the capital city back to the Mongol capital site of Dadu, renamed Beijing (called Peking by later foreign colonials). They also took over Annam (called Vietnam today), and were initially more open to outside trade than the founding Hongwu emperor Zhu. However, eventually the Chinese Ming empire became more and more isolationist again, banning sea trade. But even if little progress was made in either science or technology, 200 years of peace followed. India India had come increasingly under control of Muslim rulers from the eighth century on. Beginning with the Indus Valley, first Arabs came, taking control of the trade routes as well, then came the more violent Central Asian Turks repeatedly raiding North India, but finally settling down to control things directly. By 1206 a Turko-Afghan dynasty ruled from Delhi, establishing what became known as the Delhi sultanate. In spite of the leaders frequently taking power through murdering each other, the sultanate slowly gained more territory. In 1296 a man named Alauddin Khalji became sultan by assassinating his uncle. Declaring himself the “second Alexander” after the great Greek leader, Alexander the Great, he set out to conquer south India. Using the fast and effective horse-back fighting techniques of Central Asia, Alauddin outmaneuvered the traditional massive and sluggish infantry fighting methods of the Indians, where sheer numbers, often unskilled in fighting, were depended on for success. He managed to extend Muslim rule as far south as the Tungabhadra River, but, in spite of instituting an effective form of administration, found it hard to govern. Not only that, he was fighting off Mongol invasions in the northwest as well, which turned his attention elsewhere and southernmost India was never invaded. However, by around 1370, Hindu resurgence had taken back the central Deccan plateau. They, adopting the fighting methods of the Muslims, archers on horseback, established a small empire named Vijayanagar. The area was governed through the cooperation of local kings, who paid taxes in return for protection from the Muslim north. Pockets of animistic tribal groups with separate languages remained in more rural jungle or mountain areas. It was in the Deccan plateau area of Indian that Europeans, who began arriving in the 1500’s, first recorded the Indian practice of widows throwing themselves on their husbands funeral fires. When kings died, as many as 500 concubines would burn themselves to death after their “husband” had been cremated. The Shogun Era of Japan As long as anyone could remember, at least 1000 years, the same family had provided emperors for Japan. At the end of the 12th century, the 400 year Heian period came to a close, an era marked by growing ceremonial function of the emperor and a court governed by detailed etiquette and hierarchy. Japan had a adopted a mixture of Buddhism’s philosophy of enlightenment, which had arrived from India in the 8th Century, with native Shinto, a nature-deity religion, and Chinese Confucianism, which provided ethical, family, and behavioral codes. The Buddhist monks had become especially powerful. They had accumulated considerable landholdings, had many members who were of the nobility, and their often held their own private armies (who were warrior-monks, oddly enough, not unlike those developing in Europe at this same point in time). Ex-noble warrior monks were called “samurai” which meant “those who serve,” and lived a highly disciplined and self-sacrificing life. In 1185, the Minamoto clan, after generations of warring, unseated the powerful Tiara clan, which had been controlling the emperor’s court. Their leader, Yoritomo, had carefully built up to this moment by both by carefully organizing administratively and by building up his military forces. In 1192 Yoritomo was given the title “Seitaishogun” meaning “barbarian-subduing generalissimo” which was shortened to Shogun. Though the Shogun now controlled everything, there still was an emperor in the background, and the outward appearances and rituals of the emperor’s court continued. The traditional capital at Kyoto remained a center for extravagant costumes, which revealed the wearer’s status, sumptuous banquets, elaborate rituals, and poetry written with exquisite turns of phrase and calligraphy. The military capital was the city the Minamoto clan had used as their headquarters, Kamakura, which eschewed elaborate dress and focused more on behavioral guidelines and moral duties of the soldier. Kamakura also became the legal and judicial center of the Shogun administration. The military samurai became increasingly literate, and began to write down, in addition to official documents, martial epics glorifying the romance of military successes, which were usually written in the Japanese language and script, not the more prestigious Chinese. By the mid 13th century the merchant class was rapidly growing, providing former luxuries to even the warrior class. Artisans began to group into guilds, called “za.” These guilds helped them to fix prices and create monopolies. There was a vigorous trade with the Chinese mainland. Beginning in 1175 new forms of Buddhism began to develop in Japan. The most popular among the common people was called the Pure Land sect. In this version, instead of followers being reborn hundreds of times to attain nirvana, the Lord of Boundless Light, Amida Buddha, would guide those who constantly said “homage to Amida Buddha” and they would could achieve enlightenment in the present lifetime and reach nirvana at death, thereby becoming a buddha. Though attacked by more orthodox Buddhists as a heresy, the Pure Land sect was to survive to the present day. Zen Buddhism, another sect, also began in this period. Like the Pure Land sect, it rejected ritual and multiple existences as precursors to Enlightenment, choosing instead the path of meditation and hard physical labor. Enlightenment came as a flash of ecstasy at any point, and the Zen master would even beat his disciples to help bring about this jump to higher consciousness. Though Zen Buddhism was also rejected as heretical and persecuted by traditional monks, it gained much favor with the Samurai warrior class. There was also a sect that came to hold the Lotus Sutra as the most important Indian Buddhist text, called the Lotus sect, whose followers meditated on a phrase meaning “salutation to the Lotus Sutra” whether they could read it or not. Its founder, Nichiren, used a large earthquake and following famine of 1257 to insist that all other “non-native to Japan” forms of Buddhism were dangerous and needed to be rejected. He warned that if his version of Buddhism was not adopted a large army would invade Japan. In 1264 Kublai Khan had taken control of Beijing and made Korea a vassal state. The Khan began sending messages to Japan demanding tribute to avoid invasion, but the Shogun ignored his letters (the emperor was not probably even informed of the threats). Finally in 1274 the Mongols used Korean ships and set out to take Japan, using new gunpowder exploding projectiles. Winning their initial battles, the soldiers, sleeping on the ships, were wiped out on the second night by a sudden typhoon. The Japanese prepared for another invasion, which didn’t come until 1281, though they continued to behead any Mongol messengers with threats. This time 150,000 Mongol troops (including Korean and Chinese draftees) landed on Kyushu. Though beaten back furiously, they would no doubt have won except another massive storm destroyed four fifths of all their ships. The Japanese considered the storm a “kamakazi” or “divine wind” that had saved them. However, the long focus on military preparedness had produced near-famine through the neglect of agriculture so, though they were saved from the Mongols, the country was still in desperate straits. Dissatisfaction with the military government of the Shoguns increased and decades later, in 1333, the aristocracy and the imperial households raised up an army, capturing and then burning the military capital of Kamakura. Although the last of the Hojo line of military regents committed suicide to have an honorable death, the idea of having a shogunate continued during the civil war to gain control, which lasted for 50 more years. In the 1390’s the Ashikaga clan gained control, setting up another military shogun dynasty. The line of emperors continued on, however, they were again forced into a powerless background role. ## 13 African Civilizations & Age of Exploration African Civilizations (600-1400) Most people don’t know a lot about the empires that existed in Africa during the Middle Ages. The whole continent of Africa was isolated from the rest of the world by oceans, on the south, west and east, and by the vast Sahara Desert on the North. As a result it did not benefit much from trade of goods and ideas with the great civilizations of the world for many centuries. The Sahara stretched a band of uninhabitable parched land from what is now southern Morocco (formerly Spanish Sahara) on the Atlantic Coast across nearly to the Red Sea on the east. Below the Sahara is a swath of grasslands (known as the Sahel), traditionally inhabited by nomadic herders, sandwiched between the Sahara and impenetrable rainforests and swamps. Even the Nile River passes through vast swamps, called the Sudd (in modern Sudan), on its way north, resisting exploration until the 19th century. None of the Mediterranean Empires or traders, from the Egyptian, to the Phoenician, to the Greek, to the Roman, succeeded in advancing through these areas into sub-Saharan Africa. All that was to change with the coming of the Arabs, who were desert nomads themselves and used to traveling through waterless regions. The earliest African kingdom of note was in Abyssinia (Ethiopia), up the Nile River (going south) from Egypt. It was close to the trade routes that came down the Red Sea or across the sea from the Arabian Peninsula. Because of access to the Red Sea, this area had been less isolated than the most of Africa from the rest of the world through the centuries. Ethiopia, established as a Christian kingdom by the 4th century AD, experienced a renaissance in the 14th century when Arab traders mastered the techniques needed to cross into Africa south of the Tropic of Cancer (the latitude 20 degrees north of the Equator) to trade, and to spread Islam. The Arab traders proved to be a boon not only to Ethiopia, but to native African populations as far west as Timbuktu, and the west coast of Africa (coming down through Morocco and Algeria or across from the Sudan). A prosperous and sophisticated civilization developed in Morocco when the Arabs reached there in the 8th century. Within a few centuries, trading caravans were regularly making their way across the Sahara, greatly increasing the wealth of the tribes to its south. Three empires arose in West Africa as a direct result of these commercial contacts: the Mali, the Songhai, and the Ghana Empires. These empires in turn benefited other people groups south along the Volta River (the Akan of modern Ghana, and the Yoruba people of modern Nigeria). The only empire that arose in the southern half of Africa was the Great Zimbabwe Empire (in modern Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia). This empire benefited from Arab traders establishing trade centers on islands off the coast of East Africa. They sought Zimbabwe’s gold for which they exchanged goods, like cloth, with the coastal peoples of East Africa. The gold came from the interior region of the Zimbabwe, carried to the coast by cattle herders, who also became wealthy as a result of the outside trade. The Soninke Empires of Ghana and Mali After Ethiopia, the first empires to arise in Africa were among the Soninke people, called the kingdoms of Ghana and Mali. The Arab Muslim forces had swept westward along the southern edge of the Mediterranean, converting the indigenous Berbers tribes of North Africa to Islam. Then the Sanhaja Berbers of southern Morocco found that they could trade the salt they leached from the desert sands pound-for-pound for gold with the people of sub-Saharan Africa. That made crossing the desert worthwhile! Suddenly the camels, which had slowly made their way westward from Asia, arriving in Morocco shortly before the time of Christ, were seen in a new and more useful light. The secret did not last long, and within 50 years neighboring Berber tribes, like the Tuareg, relatives of the Sanhaja, were crossing the Sahara from Algeria to the Songhai region of Niger and from Tripolitania (Tripoli, Libya) to Lake Chad. Salt was scarce in sub-Saharan Africa so the riches derived from becoming distributors of salt produced two Soninke-speaking empires, the Ghana and the Mali Empires (called Malinke in Mali) in what is now southern Mali and parts of Burkina Faso. With a ripple effect, the wealth spilled over into other language groups, elevating the Songhai Empire, farther east, and the Kanuri kingdom of Chad, speakers of languages from the Nilo-Saharan family group. Though the Arab traders brought in new sources of wealth, these tribal groups were already organized into kingdoms with chiefs that acted as spokesmen for divine powers. They were so revered that humans were sacrificed during their funerals. The kings held a virtual monopoly on the gold trade, zealously hiding their gold sources to the south (in modern Ghana). As their wealth increased, the kings kept increasingly large personal armies of slaves to handle and protect the gold. By the 11th century, a Spanish-born Arab historian reported that the king of Ghana (in modern day southern Mali) had an army of 200,000 with more than 40,000 archers alone. The kings often constructed their own royal cities with palaces of mud and wood outside the main city and members of their entourage even wove gold into their hair. The Arabs favored trading with Islamic groups, so more and more of Ghana converted to Islam. Arab scholarship and culture poured in as the Soninke people learned to read and write in Arabic. In 1076 AD, the Almoravid Berbers, having already taken most of modern-day Morocco, the south of Spain and Portugal, and most of Algeria, tried unsuccessfully to take over the Ghana Empire, managing only to cripple and destabilize it. As a result, by 1240 the Malinke people from the south (Mali) were able to take over the Ghana Empire under a charismatic and legendary semi-Islamic leader called Sundiata. The most famous leader of the emerging Mali Empire was Mansa Musa, (“mansa” means emperor, and “Musa” means Moses). His empire extended from the Altantic Coast to as far as east as modern day Nigeria, about 1200 miles. Mansa Musa, the greatest Muslim king of medieval Africa, is famous for his pilgrimage to Mecca. In July of 1324, Mansa Musa along with reportedly 15,000 subjects, traveled for two months across the southern Sahara, the region the Arabs called the B’lad al-Sudan (“land of the blacks”). He brought to Mecca caravans of camels, heavy with gold and other gifts. When the Mali entourage reached Cairo, one of the largest cities of its time with over half a million people, they encountered riches from as far away as China. Egypt was ruled at this time by the Mamluks (which means “slaves”). The Muslim Mamluks had descended from Christian captives that the Arabs had taken from Turkey and made into top soldiers, (similar to the Janissaries of Constantinople, which were Christian slave soldiers of the Muslim Turks). When the Mali Emperor, Mansa Musa, was asked to bow to the ground in front of the Sultan of Egypt, he diplomatically said “ I bow before the God who created me” and bowed before approaching the Sultan. How could the Muslim Mamluk ruler object! Gold and other gifts were exchanged between rulers. The Egyptian Sultan provided housing, provisions for their journey to Mecca and Egyptian art. When Mansa Musa presented the normal Mali gift to rulers, beautiful girls, he was shocked to find out that such a gift was not Islamic practice. He renounced the practice immediately, showing his sincere commitment to Islam. Mansa Musa gave large quantities of gold to Cairo’s officials, and bought provisions with unminted gold, quickly inflating the prices in Egypt. The Mansa’s subjects bought silk, clothing, horses, as well as Turkish and Ethiopian women for slaves (probably Christians, because the Muslim slave traders could not sell fellow Muslims). So much gold was exchanged in Cairo, the value of gold dropped precipitously and did not recover its value for several years. Mansa Musa made it to Mecca, and back, making clear that Africa was had its own amazing civilization. He brought back with him Arab scholars and architects to build mosques and schools of Islamic theology and law in places like Timbuktu, one of the main trade route cities. Arabic became the written language for the Mali people, and was used for contracts and law. Timbuktu became a center for Islamic studies for the next two centuries. The Mali warriors kept control by riding horses across the savannah lands of the Sahel, a practice they had learned from the Arabs; however, horses were not useful for fighting in the rainforests, which remained largely out of their control and pagan. Though the Mali soldiers controlled the jungle areas where gold nuggets were dug out of the ground, the oppressed jungle tribes resisted any attempt made to win them to Islam. Unfortunately, as non-Muslims, they were thus easy prey for Muslims slave traders. African tribes later took to capturing and selling each other to European slave ships taking slaves to the plantations of the New World. Use of the Native American populations for slaves was increasingly impossible because of a combination of factors, such as widespread death from European diseases and the protection of remaining indigenous populations by Jesuits, Franciscans, and papal edicts against enslavement of the Indians. Songhai (N/A) American Civilizations (N/A): Olmec Maya Aztec Inca and other South American Civilizations The Age of Exploration: What Started It. Bursting out after AD 600, the Muslim forces soon held sway over an area greater than Rome, from Spain on the West to as far as Northern India and Central Asia on the East. By 1000 AD the nomadic Turkish-speaking tribes of had superficially accepted Islam, and began to move south and west, isolating the older, more cultured Muslims of Iran, Iraq and Syria (which also retained large Christian populations) into the cities and towns. While maintaining their own Turkish languages, the Turkish Muslims began to dominate the Persian and Arab Muslim people groups, virtually holding them for ransom (by being paid off to not attack). The rival clan and tribal leaders of the Turks created a politically unstable situation, with allegiances constantly changing. The Turks pushed the Islamic control into south India in 1565, when the empire of Vijayanager fell to Muslim princes. The Byzantine Empire had already lost control of most of Turkey (Asia Minor or Anatolia) to the Seljuk Turks in 1071, as well as the Ukraine to the Kipchak Turks, resulting in the Crusades as a series of attempts to regain territory. The final blow came with the take over of the Ottoman Turks, who after securing Turkey crossed into Europe in 1354, defeated the Serbians at in Kossovo in 1389, and conquered Constantinople in 1453, wiping out the Byzantine Empire at last. Before, and especially during the Crusading period, economically-growing Europe had become increasingly used to imported goods from the East and Far East that traveled along the Silk Road to Constantinople and from the Middle East on ship to the trading cities of Italy. The fall of Constantinople suddenly fueled the need for safer sea routes to the Far East (India and China), as the violent and uncompromising Ottoman Turks sank the once illustrious Muslim cultural centers into further isolation from world trade of goods and knowledge. The Ottoman Empire, ruled from central Anatolia (Turkey), controlled most of the Balkan Peninsula and the Middle East until the early 20th century. The Portuguese Lead the Way The Portuguese led the way in figuring out a way to get around the Arab traders of the Middle East, who also controlled shipping routes through the Red Sea or Persian Gulf to India. Prince Henry “the Navigator,” a brother of the King of Portugal, decided to set up a place on the south-western most tip of Portugal where he would collect all the best information and skills on navigation known at that time in one place. Prince Henry was a devout Christian, and hoped by figuring out a way to get around Africa, he could help the legendary, and apparently purely mythical, Christian kingdom of Prester John fight back the advance of Islam (remember at this time, in the mid-1400’s, the Muslims still controlled much of Spain). An accurate way to measure the distance east and west (longitude) was not going to be discovered for another 300 years (the chronometer was invented in 1760), and the latitude (north-south) had already been measured for centuries by the angle of the sun above the horizon at noon. This angle changed with the seasons, however, and the trick was having accurate tables that you could use to verify your location based on the angle and the date. Prince Henry set capable astronomers and mathematicians to work on the project and soon his sea captains, like Vasco da Gama, could sail far distances with no land in sight and still turn east in time to hit the southernmost tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, at the accurate latitude, as he first did in 1497. Nine years earlier, Bartolomeo Diaz had sailed along the coastline and recorded the latitude of the cape. By not sailing along Africa’s coastline, da Gama saved much time and avoided many dangers. The Portuguese also took the lead in developing significantly better ocean-going ships. Better masts for easier maneuverability, combined with larger ships with stronger hulls, allowed for greater loads and the installation of cannons for fighting off and sinking competitive ships. Traditional sea fighting techniques of ramming and boarding were now completely outmoded by cannon that could smash ships at a distance. Chinese and Japanese “junks” were the only comparable ships around, but they lacked heavy duty metal cannons. With their naval superiority, Europeans quickly gained supremacy of the oceans. The Portuguese already had naval stations at Goa, Malacca, and other south Asian locations by the early 1500’s. Since most of the other major civilizations, from China to India to the Muslim world, were still focusing primarily on land trade and smaller shore-bound ocean trade, they hardly noticed the significance of the rise in European sea power. Changes in the Muslim World: How the Muslim World Falls Behind Once the Portuguese had successfully circumnavigated the continent of Africa, they began to try to control shipping with India. After being challenged by Egyptian fleets, encouraged by the Venetians, who were also getting side-lined, the Portuguese went on the offensive and destroyed much of the Muslim merchant shipping of the Indian Ocean. The Mamluk slave-descendent dynasty of Egypt was dealt a double blow, with Portugal destroying their ships and the Ottoman Turks breaking their friendly relations and attacking by land. The Ottomans gained the upper hand by adopting the new firearms, including hand guns and cannon, while the Mamluks clung to “honorable” weapons of the past, swords, lances, and bows. Meanwhile, the Ottomans became embroiled in a Sunni-Shi’ite inter-Islam war when they were attacked by the rising Safavid dynasty of shahs in Iran. These radical Shi’ite Muslims, who had originally moved from Anatolia (Turkey), under Ottoman control, triggered the deportation of all Shi’ite Muslims from Anatolia, and responded by deporting and martyring Sunni Muslims in Iran, resurrecting a mutual hatred and fear between Sunnis and Shi’ites that last to this day. Fighting to a standoff at the Iranian capital of Tabriz, in 1514, the Ottoman Turks turned their eyes once again toward Europe. In 1526, the Ottoman Turks conquered the kingdom of Hungary. The famous Ottoman sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent (reigned 1520-1566) laid siege to Vienna in 1529, terrifying all of Europe. But the balance of power had shifted, and the Europeans now controlled the seas. The age of global conquest and the rise of European Colonial powers had begun. The Persians of Iran finally managed to adjust to the idea of using firearms, (eagerly supported by Venice, Portugal and England who sold them arms and expertise), and kept the Ottomans distracted from taking over Europe, while the Western sea powers began to spread around the world. The Iranian Persians beat back the Uzbeks encroaching from the north, and managed to seize control of what is now Iraq from the Ottomans, and took ports to the Persian Gulf in 1622 held by the Portuguese since 1514. By then the English, Dutch and Portuguese were struggling for supremacy in the trade with India and South East Asia, a rivalry which the shah made use of. In the western part of Europe, the Muslims were also losing ground. Ferdinand and Isabel, whose marriage brought two regional royal families together in Spain, were declared monarchs of all of Spain by the pope. They had steadily taken back areas not under their control, by victory or negotiation. After making agreements to allow freedom of religion for acquiring Granada from Muslim rulers, they later overturned their agreement and banished not only the Muslim Moors, also Jews who did not convert to Christianity. Since the Muslim forces had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 756, Spain had become one of the centers of Islamic wealth and culture, with a unique combination of the strengths of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cultures. The three cultures had lived in relative harmony, punctuated by bursts of Muslim Berber or Christian reforming zeal or political wrangling. However, the widespread devastation of the black plagues at the end of the 14th century caused growing blame-shifting and intolerance, with the Jews in particular being made the scapegoat. In 1492, while Columbus sailed into the sunset, droves of Jews and Muslims were embarking for other lands at every port, or being hastily baptized to avoid expulsion. The golden age of Islam in the West was over, remembered now mainly by the beautiful Muslim palaces and mosques (turned churches) of Spain. The Spanish find the New World and Modern Myths about Columbus Taking advantage of Portuguese advancements in ship-building, the Italian-born, Spanish-funded explorers, Columbus and Magellan, were able to go farther and faster than ever before. The discovery by accident of a whole new continent, and proof that the world was indeed round, changed the world in significant often-unanticipated ways. Rodney Stark, in his book For the Glory of God, points out that much of the myths being taught in schools about Columbus and his age are just not true. Neither the church, nor any other scholar at the time, believed the world was flat. As early as 700 AD, English clerical scholar the Venerable Bede was teaching that the world was round. So did church scholars up through the time of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1224-1274). The most popular medieval textbook on astronomy was called Sphere, by English Scholastic scholar John of Sacrobosco (ca. 1200-1256) which taught the accepted view that all heavenly bodies were spherical, including the Earth. While Columbus DID have some conflict with the scholars of Spain, mostly churchmen, they were disagreeing with his calculations of the distance around the world. Columbus claimed that the distance from the Canary Islands (of the coast of Morocco, just south of Spain) to Japan was only 2,800 miles, while the actual distance is 14,000 miles, closer to the calculations of the Spanish scholars who considered his voyage foolish. [Note: This historical myth and many other blatant distortions of the role of Faith in Science were promulgated in a now largely discredited book by Cornell’s first president A. D. White in his self-admitted polemic against Christianity called A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.] There is little doubt that Christopher Columbus’s desire to travel westward, as well as that of his sponsor Queen Isabel of Spain, was largely a result of his faith and desire to spread knowledge of Christ. The men on his first ships, however, were largely riff-raff with little to lose by a dangerous journey and large gamble. When one of Columbus’s ships ran aground, he built a fort with the wood and left the men from the ship there until he could return. They ran out of food and began to increasingly abuse the Indians on their island, and their women, until the Indians attacked and burned their fort, killing the men. Columbus’s second voyage brought more men from the impoverished nobility, in search of a fortune, whose motives were dangerously greedy and who were not use to doing any physical labor themselves. Their shock at the killing of the men left behind put them in immediate adversarial relationships with the Indians, whom they promptly enslaved. The Impact of Discovering the New World The discovery of the New World had worldwide impact. Not only did the conquistadores trigger the immediate collapse of the Aztec and Inca civilizations, but the populations of almost all the New World inhabitants were decimated by diseases introduced from the East that spread from tribe to tribe, even those not yet in contact with Europeans. Not just small pox and measles, but yellow fever and malaria, transmitted by mosquitos, made their way to the New World, making parts of Central and South America that are jungle climates almost inhabitable. The population of the New World dropped from around 50 million to a mere 4 million by 1650. The civilized nations, long in contact with other cultures and germs, did not far as badly, only acquiring syphilis from the Americas. As a result, populations in Europe and the East were not significantly hurt by contact with the new people groups. With silver pouring in from Mexico, prices in Spain, Europe and eventually the Ottoman Empire and China began to inflate. Within a century prices in Spain had quadrupled. People with fixed incomes could not buy as much, while those selling good often became much more wealthy. People did not realize the influx of silver coinage was causing the problem, so bitter political and religious arguments developed as both wealth and poverty increased. A third significant effect was the influx of new food crops from the New World to the Old World. American crops that became significant staples from Europe to China include corn (maize), the potato (for cold climates) and sweet potato (for warm, like in China and Africa). With extra food sources, populations climbed dramatically from Europe all the way to China. Europeans, having “invented inventing” in the Middle Ages, continued to outstrip the rest of the world in coming up with new tools, weapons, and devices. As a result, their naval access to more and more lands and confidence in technological superiority wherever they landed, fueled an unprecedented spirit of adventure and push to colonize the continents and islands of the world. In response, other advanced civilizations, like the Chinese, East Indians, and Muslims, tended to withdraw into themselves, protecting ancient truths and repudiating a spirit of innovation. The Rise of Capitalism Crucial to the economic and resulting political booms of Europe was the rise of capitalism. Capitalism is a system whereby people with more wealth can invest in (or “capitalize”) the business of another in exchange for part of the profits made. In antiquity, the invention of coins for trade, instead of merely exchange of goods, was a significant jump forward in the process of trade. Later, banking systems developed that made it so people did not have to carry trunks of cash around but could “deposit” the cash in one country and “withdraw” it in another. The Crusading orders of the Middle Ages helped to perform this function, as did the widespread Jewish diaspora communities. Moneylending at interest, long banned by the Roman Catholic Church, became a profitable way to both make money and stimulate commerce by dissenting communities. The Jewish people were often forced to leave one home and find another, and their communities had long before learned to provide working capital to those getting on their feet when newly dislocated to another Jewish diaspora community. As the anti-institutional communities of protesting Christians began to grow in Europe, first with the various Anabaptist groups, and later also with Protestants, especially repressed groups, like the Huguenots of France, the hard-working “Protestant Ethic” combined with the Jewish idea of capitalization, and capitalism as an economic system gained ascendancy. The goods flowing in through shipping trade with the East required massive up-front capitalization, the ship had to be bought and outfitted, goods for trade had to be purchase, etc. The new Protestant sects, located frequently in the towns and cities, threw off the feudal system, which had broken down significantly following the plagues in any case. They became the bulk of the new middle class, landless merchants, ushering in the modern commercial system. They favored innovation on all levels, were not committed to the traditional ways or structures. The great international trading companies were born and by the 18th century the selling of stocks, and the stock market as a way to raise capital, was going strong. Meanwhile Back in the New World: Conquistadores, Slaves and Friars Not even Fernando Cortez could have guessed what was going to happen when he had his invasion force burn their ships on the beach to prevent a sudden attack of cowardice and change-of-mind. Many days later, success seemed highly unlikely, as the Spanish troops marched across the causeway into the semi-floating mid-lake capital of the Aztecs (Teotihuacan), some appearing to be an odd species of man-animal by riding on horses. But, the ruler of the Aztecs, Montezuma, was intrigued by these strange white men, coming from the East. The events seemed to fulfill an ancient prediction of the return of the white Aztec god Quetzalquatel. As the tiny force of Europeans, surrounded by thousands of seasoned Aztec warriors watched, Montezuma put on a feast for them, complete with the requisite Aztec tradition, human sacrifice. The days of festivity dragged on, and Cortez’s troops watched man after man have his pounding heart ripped out of his chest and his body kicked down the steep steps of the Aztec pyramid temple. Cortez had been called back to the shore*************(for?) and his men began to panic that they would be the next sacrificial victims. Before Cortez could return, all hell broke out. The Spanish soldiers “escaped”from their highly-guarded guest quarters, and began to massacre the Aztec warriors with their superior weapons. What arms did not do, the setting in of disease accomplished, and the Aztec civilization collapsed. Pizzaro (N/A) New World Slavery Official law from both Madrid and from the Pope in Rome forbade enslavement of the native populations of the New World and protected the rights of the native populations quite thoroughly. However, getting the distant unsupervised areas to obey laws set in Europe proved to be nearly impossible. As the native American populations dwindled due to disease, they were more likely, not less, to be enslaved to provide food from fields and precious silver from mines. Soon the idea of importing black slaves from Africa arose. There had been slave trade in Africa for many centuries. When the Vikings slowly became Christians, they stopped raiding the Slavic and German areas to sell slaves into the Middle East (former Roman areas that were now Christian had largely given up slavery since the fall of the Roman Empire). Nevertheless, Muslims, who had a rule that they could not enslave other Muslims, continued to look for sources of slaves beyond their borders. Christians captured in war became both the famous Mamluk (from the Caucasas) rulers of Egypt and the skillful celibate Jannissary troops of the Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish Empires. However, most Muslim slaves, used mostly for domestic not field work, were purchased from the tribal areas of Africa, south of the Sahara. There intra-tribal warfare always ensured a number of captured victims that could be sold, and the Muslim traders willingness to pay made sure that the slave-capturing raids continued. The first Portuguese slave ship landed in Lisbon in the year 1441. Slavery had disappeared from most of Europe, but not from areas of Spain and Italy under Muslim control. Christians of Spain were made slaves when captured in battle by the Moors, and they had reciprocated by making Muslims they captured their slaves. With native American populations dwindling, it made sense to ship increasing numbers of black slaves to the New World to work on the developing plantations. While Spain was relatively slow in getting involved in slave trade because of the presence of their friars, Portugal, Holland, and England had no such “snitches” around to slow them down and jumped into the slave trade. The Dutch had, lacking land in Europe, or the New World, become master traders of all types. England, who had also lost out in the New World land grab, became one of the leading slave traders of the Atlantic, along with their other favorite seafaring profession of pirating Spanish ships of precious metals on their way back from the New World. They were, however, the leading modern nation to ban the slave trade and later the owning of slaves. But that is a later story! In fact, no sooner did selling slaves become a business, it also became a roaring issue, with the devout, whether Protestant or Catholic, blasting it is sinful and illegal. By the end of the 16th century, owning slaves in Europe was banned everywhere, even in Portugal and slave trading countries like England. The slave trade by Europeans, with slaves bought from African tribes who caught them, on the coast of Africa and sold in the New World, began around 1510. The slave trade itself wasn’t completely stamped out until 1868. Between those years around 15 million slaves were taken from Africa to the New World and about a third of them died in transit. Of the 10 million survivors, about a third went to the Caribbean, a third to Brazil and half a million to North America, the rest going to Spanish territories. In many areas not only the men, needed for the field and mining work, but women were brought and slaves were allowed to establish families. In the Caribbean, slaves worked on primarily sugar plantations (also coffee, cacao, cotton and tobacco). Friars and Jesuits in the New World The religious orders came to the New World on the heals of the Conquistadores, and were appalled! While the Spanish friars (Franciscans and Domincans) and later Jesuits tried to protect the Native Americans of South and Central America, the French friars sought to protect the Indians of Canada from exploitation by Europeans. It proved to be too late for the natives of the Caribbean Islands, who died out completely and were replaced by imported black slaves from Africa or by white populations, and sometimes a mixture of the two. Ibn Battuta Chinese Explorers (Portuguese) Prince Henry the Navigator Diaz Da Gama Cabral Explorers (Spanish) Columbus Vespucci Magellan Balboa Conquistadores and Conquest Cortez Pizarro ​ ​ ​ # Learn: Activities ## 1-6 Art Activities Ancient World Unit One STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research early cave paintings from Patagonia, Spain and Gargas and Lascaux, France. Brainstorm possible techniques and materials used by the artists to make these paintings. List reasons human beings create art. Discuss possible purposes for the cave paintings. ER Note the use of handprints of children and babies. Discuss possible reasons the artists include small children in making the imagery. IR Note depictions of animals common to the region. Discuss possible reasons for including images of animals. List animals you would include from your culture. MS Note objects and activities depicted through stylized action figures. Discuss possible reasons these objects and activities were important to the artist or viewers and what objects/activities would be representative of your culture. HS Note the abstract motifs used to represent ideas (arrows, sticks, tree shapes, disks, crosses, V-shapes, parallel lines, etc.). Speculate possible definitions for the symbols and why the artists use them. What symbols would you want to portray from your culture? STAGE TWO (Time: 2-4 weeks) Create a collaborative cave-like painting on a wall or large rock. Like the early cave painters, incorporate the natural formations, the curves and folds in the rock, into the composition of your scene. Make your own art supplies from natural materials. ER 1. Using handprints, depict negative space, positive space, and pseudo-positive space (i.e. outlines of hands with background painted, hands painted with background unpainted, and hands painted in one color and the wall painted another). 2. Use natural materials to paint (i.e. paint from crushed bricks, charcoal, mixed with butter/oil and brushes from sticks, with the ends pulverized, and natural sponges). IR 1. Using various types of line (straight, curvy, horizontal, vertical, thick, thin) and shape (organic, geometric, freeform), depict animals significant in your culture. Make art supplies (i.e. paint from crushed vegetables mixed with butter/oil and brushes from sticks and mosses). MS 1. Using various types of line (line character to create movement) and shape (used expressively), illustrate activities significant in your culture. Make art supplies from natural materials (i.e. paint from crushed flowers mixed with butter/oil and brushes from sticks and animal fur.) HS 1. Using various types of line (actual and implied line) and shape (used symbolically), depict ideas/values significant in your culture. Make art supplies from natural materials (i.e. paint from crushed fruits mixed with butter/oil and brushes from sticks and grasses.) Teacher Tip: Original paint was often made from crushed rock (ochre, manganese dioxide and charcoal), pulverized on stone palettes and mixed with animal fat, blood or bone marrow. Older students may try this authentic recipe for paint. Unit Two STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research the art and culture of ancient Egypt. Discuss Egyptian beliefs in the afterlife. Compare/contrast to a New Testament view of heaven and hell. ER 1. Look at several examples of Egyptian art that contain hieroglyphs, including The Book of the Dead. 2. Discuss Egyptian beliefs in the afterlife. Contrast to a biblical view of heaven and hell, noting differences in place (Where am I?) and purpose (Why am I here?). IR 3. Contrast to a biblical view of heaven and hell and list differences in destiny (How did I get here?). MS/HS 4. Compile differences and aspects in common regarding place (Where am I?), purpose (Why am I here?), destiny (How did I get here?), role (What will I be doing here? What will I look like?), and morality (What kind person was I to get here?). STAGE TWO (Time: 1 week) Examine Egyptian hieroglyphs what they mean, how they are read, and where they are found. ER 1. Examine Egyptian hieroglyphs for simple words. Note the Egyptian use of two perspectives when depicting the figure (i.e. head is in profile and legs/feet point the same direction as the nose yet the eye and body face front) and that corresponding symbols are read the direction the figure is facing. Find examples of this type of perspective and decode simple words or messages from the symbols found in The Book of the Dead or other Egyptian art. IR 2. Show examples of Egyptian hieroglyphs, noting common symbols, figure size (i.e. nobles are larger than their subjects are), and direction to be read (direction of profiles of humans and/or animals). MS/HS 3. Interpret Egyptian hieroglyphs (using definition of symbols, direction they are read, use of space, use of registers and stylistic design preferences). After examining examples of hieroglyphs from The Book of the Dead, explain their significance to the afterlife belief system. Describe the Egyptian’s unique use of space and perspective making a connection to their belief system. STAGE THREE (Time: 2-3 weeks) Create/sculpt a clay tablet and inscribe/engrave simple symbols and people to illustrate a biblical view of the afterlife. Fire (and glaze) tablets for display and presentation. ER 1. Create/sculpt a clay tablet and inscribe/engrave simple symbols and people to illustrate a biblical view of the afterlife. IR 1. Create/sculpt a clay tablet and inscribe/engrave a pictorial example of a biblical view of the afterlife using animals, humans and hieroglyphs. MS 1. Create/sculpt a clay cartouche using bas-relief (design is raised above the surface of the tablet). Incorporate hieroglyphs and other images to define/illustrate a biblical view of the afterlife. Use color glazes. HS 1. Paint a large clay tablet and incorporate hieroglyphs, Egyptian stylistic preferences, and their characteristic use of space to define/illustrate a biblical view of the afterlife. Teacher Tip: If clay and glaze are unavailable, use salt dough and paint. Unit Three STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research the Ch’in Dynasty. Discuss events of the Dynasty and King Cheng. Cover religious beliefs and how their doctrine regarding life after death differs from a biblical view. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 week) Examine the tomb of King Cheng and the elaborate army of “watching warriors” (terra cotta soldiers). Ask students to imagine how this vast army was created. Theorize the purpose of the elaborate army. List the different kinds of soldiers and their roles (i.e. archer, chariot driver, etc.). Contrast Cheng’s beliefs and his clay warriors to a biblical view of life after death, examples of God’s army (spiritual warriors) and the armor of God described in Ephesians 6:13-17. Note the attention to detail on the warrior’s armor and relate it to the armor of God described in Ephesians. STAGE THREE (Time: 3 weeks) Sculpt a child-sized soldier collaboratively from terra cotta clay. Note the revival of naturalism seen in the terra cotta statuary (detail on the armor, size/proportions, and individualized facial features). Explain the basic proportions of the human body and face (i.e. men are usually 8 heads tall, eyes are located half way down the face etc.). If clay is unavailable, use salt dough and make individual 6” – 12” warriors, pairing younger students with a middle or high school partner. Using the slab method for hand building, (roll clay into 1/2-inch thick slabs or 1/4-inch for individual soldiers, cut shape, mold around an armature and use slip – clay and water mixed to the consistency of peanut butter – to attach). For permanent display, fire each clay part separately and assemble using ceramic glue (for short-term display, attach pieces with slip and let air dry slowly). If using salt dough, bake in the oven for permanent display (let air dry for short-term). ER Assign Emergent Readers to create texture and details on the armor and hair by pressing small objects into the soft clay (i.e. buttons, combs, bottle caps) to create pattern. IR Assign Independent Readers to create the feet and legs of the soldier using an armature (underlying support of wire, wood or paper). Members will need to collaborate on the appropriate size of each part. Add texture and details for authenticity. Assign different warrior roles (i.e. archer, guard, swordsman) to students. MS Assign Middle School students to work on the torso and arms using an armature. Members will need to collaborate on the appropriate size of each part. HS Assign High School students to make the head/face (hollow out the head), hands, and armor/weapons. Members will need to collaborate on the appropriate size of each part. STAGE FOUR (Time: last week of the unit) Present with a drawing or picture of an original terra cotta warrior and text contrasting King Cheng’s warriors and their purpose to a biblical view of spiritual warriors. Teacher Tip \#1: Keep clay projects moist and pliable by storing them in damp paper towels and covering them with plastic wrap. Dry the pieces slowly by removing the plastic wrap but not the paper towels until they dry out. Fire in a kiln only after the pieces are completely dry. Teacher Tip \#2: Wedge the clay before you begin building to help rid the clay of air bubbles. Make the project no more than 1/2 inch thick to assure it will not explode in the kiln. Unit Four STAGE ONE (Time: 1 session) Introduce “Gyotaku,” the Japanese art of fish printing after researching vertebrate classification and external parts and internal parts/systems. Examine various species of fish. (Note: Fish printing began in ancient China, when fishermen would return with their catch to sell in the market. Merchants would print their fish using black ink on rice paper and hang the image so consumers would know what varieties were available that day. The Japanese made it an art form in the 1800’s.) Show examples of fish prints. ER Learn basic vertebrate classification and show/label external parts. IR Add internal parts. MS/HS Add internal systems. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 week) Explain basic color theory: color is light, colors change hue with amount of light, some color rays are absorbed on a surface while others are reflected, primary colors cannot be mixed, secondary colors can. Identify and contrast warm colors to cool colors. Compare color in light (i.e. rainbow, prism) to color in organic matter (i.e. paint pigment, clothing). Discuss color in relation to new heaven and new earth (no darkness, organic matter?). Demonstrate color mixing and create individual color wheels. ER/IR Explain basic color theory. Create a color wheel with primary and secondary colors. MS 1. Discuss color theory asking questions like: “How do we know color is light? What determines which color rays are absorbed on a surface and which are reflected?, Where do primary colors come from?, Why are primary colors in light different than pigment?, How are secondary and tertiary colors made?”). Compare color in light (i.e. rainbow, prism) to color in organic matter (i.e. paint pigment, clothing). Discuss color in relation to heaven (find biblical references in prophecies). 2. Create individual color wheels (primary, secondary, and tertiary). Show how to mix neutral colors using complementary colors (those across on the color wheel). HS 1. Explore color theory further (i.e. “Does the surface material determine which color rays are absorbed and which are reflected? Where do colors come from and are black and white colors?, Why are secondary colors in light different than pigment?, Why /how does the angle of a light ray affect color?”). Compare color in light (with a prism, if available) to color in organic matter (with a microscope, if possible). Discuss color in relation to what we read about heaven and tell if/how/why color will be different. 2. Demonstrate color mixing and create individual color wheels with primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Include inner and outer circles for tints (white added) and shades (black added). STAGE THREE (Time: 1 week) Create a “Gyotaku” ( fish print). Find a 6” to 12” whole, fresh or frozen fish (tilapia or rockfish work very well, if available). Cut rice paper, fabric or printmaking papers to fit the fish, leaving a generous border on all sides. Prepare the fish by laying it on several layers of newspaper or paper towels (let thaw if frozen). Crumple strips of paper to put under the fins and tail to stabilize and enhance their shape. Lemon juice can be used to gently clean the surface of the fish if needed. Print the fish by first painting the surface with primary and secondary colors (overlap primary colors to make secondaries) of either tempera or acrylic paint, applied with a soft paintbrush. Center the paper or fabric over the fish and gently drop. Carefully pat the entire surface of the fish beginning at one end and working toward the other. Take special care around the tail, fins, mouth and eye. Hold the top corners of the paper or fabric and slowly lift to reveal the print. ER/IR /MS/HS Create a fish print on paper or fabric using primary, secondary, tertiary, and neutral colors ( ER and IR will experience tertiary and neutrals as colors overlap on their print and MS and HS will add them intentionally). STAGE FOUR (Time: 1 session) Present fish print to classmates. ER/IR 1. Show your print to a classmate and name the external and/or internal parts represented on the print. 2. Identify the primary, secondary, and warm and cool colors on the print. MS/HS 1. Present fish print to younger classmates, describe the species of fish and explain the internal systems represented on the print. 2. Using color theory, explain the various colors, neutrals, shades and tints in your print. Teacher Tip \#1: If you have access to a microscope or a good magnifying glass, look at the surface of a cereal box (or other brightly printed material) to isolate the primary colors used in printing. Ask students to compare these colors to those used in television or computers (these can be seen through a good magnifying glass). Teacher Tip \#2: To enhance the brightness of colors for the fish print, layer pigment thickly and print on black cloth. Teacher Tip \#3: For further enrichment, research how colors got their names in the book, When Blue Meant Yellow by Jeanne Heifetz. Unit Five STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Discuss what makes a vessel (or any functional form) a work of art. Give examples from contemporary culture. Show the various Greek vessel shapes (hydria, lekythos, krater, amphoria, kylix, and oenochoe) exploring the connection between form and function. Closely examine the “Francois Vase” and list characteristics that make this a particularly unusual work of art. Note the signatures of both potter and illustrator; also that the vessel was prized as a beautiful piece of art as well as utilized for its intended purpose in daily life. Explain the narrative depicted in bands (called registers) around the vase. ER/IR Display various “ordinary” vessels (i.e. drinking cup, flower vase, pencil cup etc.). Discuss their purposes, if their shape fits their purpose, and whether they should be considered works of art. Encourage students to back up their opinions. Show the Greek vessel forms one at a time and have students guess the purpose/function of each. MS/HS Discuss related questions like: “What makes a vessel a piece of art? Does art have to have a purpose? If not, why? If so, what is art’s purpose?” Have students give examples to back up their opinions (from their culture, history, the Bible, etc.). STAGE TWO (Time: 1-2 weeks) Using the coil method of hand building (roll strips of clay and attach them with slip in a spiral fashion), create a vessel with a specific purpose out of clay (if clay is unavailable, use salt dough). Form the vessel to fit its function. Fire the vessel (or bake if using salt dough). STAGE THREE (Time 1-3 weeks) Choose a significant event from life, the life of someone close to you, or a Bible narrative that shows God’s power. Illustrate the story in bands (registers) around your vessel. Paint the scenes in sequential order (black ink, paint or glaze on an orange background would add authenticity to your piece). Fire again, if using glaze. STAGE FOUR (Time: 1 session) Present your story and vessel to someone who does not know you or your chosen narrative well. Teacher Tip \#1: Keep clay projects moist and pliable by storing them in damp paper towels and covering them with plastic wrap. Use crumpled paper towels inside the vessel to help keep its shape. Dry the pieces slowly by removing the plastic wrap but not the paper towels until they dry out. Fire in a kiln only after the pieces are completely dry. Teacher Tip \#2: Wedge the clay before you begin building to help rid the clay of air bubbles. Make the project no more than 1/2 inch thick to assure it will not explode in the kiln. Teacher Tip \#3: A paddle can be employed by older students to fuse the coils and create a smoother, more uniform, finish for painting. To use, put one hand inside the moderately dry, completed vessel and slowly turn it as you beat the paddle against the outside of the piece with the other hand. Teacher Tip \#4: When painting the scenes on the vessel, begin with the orange paint/glaze for the background. After it dries, layer the black over the top. Consider using a Sharpie fine tip, permanent marker for intricate details over the painted surface. Teacher Tip \#5: If possible, use a turntable to paint/draw register lines on the vessel. Keep the loaded brush or fine tip pen stationary and turn the vessel at a uniform speed for straighter lines. Unit Six STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research the historical and mythological events surrounding the origin of Rome. Analyze the key characters in the mythology (Romulus and Remus), their character qualities, how they responded to others, and the roles they played in founding Rome. Compare and contrast the actions of Romulus and Remus to characters in the Bible with like struggles. Discuss how brothers and sisters in Christ should treat those in authority and each other. ER/IR 1. Read the story of Romulus and Remus. Describe their relationship as brothers. 2. Discuss the following questions: “Can you think of other examples in the Bible of brothers who did not get along? How should brothers treat each other? What does this story have to do with beginning the city of Rome?” MS/HS 1. Analyze the story of Romulus and Remus in light of the historical events surrounding the origin of Rome. Discuss this mythological story’s characters: who they were, how they were discovered, and the roles they played in founding Rome. 2. Compare and contrast Romulus and Remus to characters in the Bible who struggled with sibling rivalry, pride and a desire for power. Discuss biblical teaching related to these issues. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 session) Examine the sculpture known as the symbol of Rome, the Capitoline Wolf Statue. Explore reasons this sculpture was chosen to represent the city of Rome. How does the violence in this myth mirror Rome’s history? Discover all the interesting shapes found in the negative space (the area around/behind the sculpture) of the statue. Pay special attention to how the artist used texture to add detail and interest to the artwork. ER/IR 1. Discuss why you think this sculpture was created to represent the city of Rome. 2. Point out the negative space on the sculpture. Do the shapes remind you of anything? 3. Point out the texture on the sculpture. Does it make the statue more interesting? MS/HS Describe how this sculpture stands for the city of Rome and whether the myth’s violent beginning has any bearing on the violence Rome experienced in their future. STAGE THREE (Time: 2-3 weeks) Working in a group of four (one student from each level: Emergent Reader, Independent Reader, Middle School, High School) research the origins of the area in which you live (oral or written history). After brainstorming possible objects representative of the origin of your city/town/village, design a group sculpture using paper mache. Explore ways to use negative space as part of the symbolic imagery of the piece (i.e. the jagged shape beneath the wolf denotes the rise and fall of Rome as a city of power). Begin with building an underlying structure and cover with paper mache strips. Use extra thick paste to add texture to your piece. Paint your sculpture a neutral color to look like stone or metal. . STAGE FOUR (Time: 1 session) Present your collaborative sculpture to others allowing the Emergent Readers and Independent Readers to give the oral story of the area’s history and the Middle School and High School students to explain the symbolic imagery in the artwork. Teacher Tip: You may try mixing two parts white glue to one part water instead of using the flour/water paste or buy the prepared Paper Mache Paste available at most art/craft stores. Both will provide a smoother finish. ## 7-12 Art Activities The Medieval World Unit Seven STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research the Roman Empire from the birth of Christ to Constantine. Closely examine the lives of the early Christians in Rome and the paintings they created in the catacombs. Look for symbols and research their meanings (i.e. the lamb with a Chistogram symbolizes Christ; the fish, the cross & the bird symbolize Christ who brings salvation to the faithful – both from the catacombs). ER Note some of the different Bible stories used for the catacomb paintings. Discuss possible reasons the artists chose these stories. IR Discuss how these paintings could have brought comfort, hope and courage to the Christ followers of this time. MS Discuss the symbolism used by the artists. HS Note the artistic styles used by the artists. List the conditions/influences that may have contributed to the styles/techniques, the subject matter and the color palette chosen by the artists. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 session) Brainstorm, in groups of four (one member from each age group), Bible narratives you would paint if you were the persecuted church. ALL Narrow your search to one Bible passage/story. Defend your choice based on the conditions/ influences in your culture. STAGE THREE (Time: 1 session) Explain and demonstrate the four basic principles for a successful composition (do not center the main object, go off the page/edge on at least two sides, incorporate diagonal lines or space, use The Rule of Thirds). ALL As a group, design a composition for a Bible narrative painting. Incorporate at least two symbols into your imagery. STAGE FOUR (Time: 1-2 sessions) Explain and demonstrate basic color theory and color mixing. Note that since color is light, the conditions in the catacombs significantly affected the colors the artist chose and how they were/are perceived. ALL Create a collaborative color wheel. ER Positions and paints the three primary colors, IR mixes, positions, and paints the secondary colors, MS mixes, positions, and paints the tertiary colors, HS mixes, positions, and paints the neutrals, and the tints and shades of all the colors. STAGE FIVE (Time: 3 weeks) Create a collaborative catacomb mural of the Bible narrative chosen. If possible, find an area with walls that resemble a catacomb structure yet can be viewed by others. Consider the light source in the space and how this will affect color. ER Cover the area below the mural with a painting tarp or newspaper and gather the supplies for the project. IR Organize the supplies (lay out various brushes, pencils, erasers, water containers, paints and rags). MS/HS Using a yardstick, draw the outline dimensions of your mural. With the help of the younger students, apply masking tape to the outside of this pencil line. Draw the collaborative composition sketch freehand or with the help of a grid (see Teacher Tip \#3 below). ALL Using medium to small brushes, outline the drawing done by the older team members with dark paint. Mix colors needed for the background. Begin painting the mural, assigning younger students to larger background areas with large brushes. Paint darker colors first working to lighter colors. Color areas up to the outline but not covering the outline. Mix colors needed for mid-ground and foreground. Older students paint smaller, more detailed areas but continue to assign younger team members to add color to appropriate parts of the painting. Blend colors together using a dry brush while paint is wet. Stand back from the painting to continually assess areas that need tweaking. Teacher Tip \#1: You only need the three primary colors of paint and white for this project (they can mix their own black). Students will be able to mix their own colors after the color wheel activity. Latex house paint is less expensive and works well for this project. Add a protective coating when murals are finished (i.e. latex varnish). Teacher Tip \#2: Space can be a problem with such a potentially messy project. Try to space the murals a good distance apart or have only one or two groups painting at a time. Teacher Tip \#3: After completion, have students docent tours through the various scenes, sharing about the stories and explaining the symbols present in the images. Teacher Tip \#4: Draw a 1” X 1” grid over the top of the preliminary drawing for the mural. After drawing the border for the mural, draw a 1’ X 1’ grid (or smaller if needed). Have students number the boxes on their preliminary sketch grid. Next, number the boxes on the space for their mural to correspond to those on the sketch. Draw the shapes and details in each box, beginning with box \#1 and working through until the entire mural is sketched in. Unit 8 STAGE ONE (TIME: 1 week) Research Medieval Japan and the ways China influenced the Japanese culture during this time. Investigate Sumi-e painting (“ink picture”); its origins (came to Japan in 700 AD from Japanese scholars returning from a trip to China) its historical uses (was used to record historical events, to illustrate poetry and stories, to make hydrographic and topographic maps, for political cartoons and to protest social conditions, Zen Buddhist priests used it as an exercise in their teaching programs), the philosophic/religious foundations (the Tao: the spirits of Master Sumi-e Artists are present to help), its form (The Four Gentlemen: bamboo, wild orchid, chrysanthemum, plum branch, together represent all shapes and forms in nature), Sumi-e legends (The Boy Who Drew Cats, Sesshu, The Rooster Story), its influence on artists and the art world (i.e. Toulouse- Lautrec, Van Gogh, the Impressionists, its emphasis on extreme discipline), its materials (brushes: fude, hake; ink: watercolor, Sumi-e ink stick and suzuri- rice paper and silk fabric). Discuss how our Master Artist/Creator, Jesus, is at our side helping us as we create art. Examine various sumi-e compositions looking for the use of hierarchical space (sometimes call stacking space, i.e. foreground: at the bottom of the picture plane, mid-ground: in the middle, and background: at the top) and the use of values (lights, darks, & shades of gray) to create depth. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 week) ALL Explore the materials using sumi-e brushes and black watercolor or ink to make as many different types of strokes as possible in a limited time period. Create as many values as possible in a limited time period. Demonstrate the First Gentleman, bamboo, using a wide brush for the stalk (hake) and a round brush (fude) for the stems and leaves. Beginning with the closest bamboo stalks, practice making several stalks using lighter values as the stalks go back in space. Demonstrate the other three Gentlemen. ER Continue bamboo until it is mastered, IR continue bamboo until mastered then add wild orchid, MS continue bamboo and wild orchid until mastered, then add chrysanthemum, HS continue bamboo, wild orchid and chrysanthemum until mastered then add plum branch. STAGE THREE (1-2 sessions) ALL Create a sumi-e composition with foreground, mid-ground, and background using various values to enhance the illusion of depth. Optional: Create a collaborative Sumi-e Garden painting with each age group adding the Gentleman they mastered to the composition. STAGE FOUR ALL Exhibit a series of practice paintings from the earliest to the final composition. Unit 9 STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research the history and origin of the Muslim era (officially began in AD622) Focus particularly on the art forms used in Islam. Note the religious context is iconoclastic (avoids the use of figures and animals) with mosques adorned with abstract designs, calligraphy, and mosaic patterns. ALL Discuss, as a class, the first of the Ten Commandments. What are some of the ways this commandment is interpreted? What implications does this commandment have on art making? How does our interpretation affect the images we make in art? Are there differences between how Christian artists and Muslim artists interpret and practice this commandment? What do you think is the symbolic significance of the designs used in Islamic art? Compare the designs in mosques to the art used in Islamic religious manuscripts. Explain why mosques only use designs and calligraphy for decoration and manuscripts allow the use of images of people and animals. STAGE TWO (1 session) Examine the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran. Show, describe, and compare the different types of pattern and form in the designs used in the mosaic tiles (i.e. geometric, calligraphic, floral, arabesque). Note the play of shadow and light especially evident in the wall and ceiling of the entry to the Shah Mosque. ALL Discuss possible reasons the architect chose this sculptural form in the entry and the visual impact it has on the viewer. Discover the symbolic meaning of the various geometric shapes used (i.e. triangle – harmony, square – physical world, star – spread of Islam, pentagon – heaven etc.). Compare these symbols and their meanings in Islam to symbols in Christianity. How are they the same? How are they different? Do you see any bridges that could be built between the similarities to share biblical truth to the Muslim people? STAGE THREE (Time: 1 week) Using a 6”x6” piece of heavy paper, design a geometric, calligraphic, floral, or arabesque (or a combination of two or more of these elements) tile. Make the design go off the edge on at least two sides. This will allow new options by connecting one tile to another. ER Transfer your design to four actual 6”x6” clay tiles IR Transfer your design to nine actual 6”x6” clay tiles MS/HS Transfer your design to 16 actual 6”x6” clay tiles (if clay is unavailable, use heavy paper or cardboard). STAGE FOUR (Time 1 or more sessions, depending on complexity of design) ALL Add color to your design with glaze or acrylic paint. STAGE FIVE (Time 2 or more sessions, depending on complexity of design) ALL Arrange tiles into a collaborative design, connecting as many sides as possible. Exhibit the collaborative design on a wall (if using paper or cardboard) or an open area on the floor (if using tiles). Optional: Actually install the clay tiles for a permanent wall or floor display if there is access to the supplies and space required. Unit 10 STAGE ONE (Time: 1 week) Research The Book of Kells: the date of origin, location, purpose of the book, how it was formatted, artists involved in its making, and a description of the work. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 session) ALL Discuss why it is regarded as the most beautiful book of the early Middle Ages. Look closely at several pages/examples of the borders, illustrations, and calligraphy used. Note the style of calligraphy and its origin. Discuss the amount of time, the dedication, and the discipline it must have took to create such a masterfully executed book. How can we, as Christian artists, exhibit this kind of commitment in our art? STAGE THREE (Time: 1 session) ALL In groups of four (one member from each age group), create your own calligraphy pen from a Popsicle stick (or equivalent), plastic wrap, felt (or soft, absorbent cloth) and a rubber band (or string). Layer the end of the stick first with a small piece of plastic wrap, then a piece of felt. Trim the sides to fit the edge of the stick to keep a squared off edge for writing. Secure the layers with a rubber band. Experiment with the pen, making as many kinds of marks as possible in a predetermined amount of time. MS/HS Using 4 pen nib widths, line a piece of large (18” x 24” or larger) paper with black pen. Leave a 2” border on all sides. Make one or more extra sheets for the younger students in your group. ALL Place a lightweight piece of paper over the top so the lines beneath are visible. Practice the alphabet using Half Uncials. STAGE FOUR (Time: 1 week) ALL Choose a Scripture verse that has special meaning to you (younger students should select a short verse). Study each of the verses together with your group, using a commentary or other study helps. Using the lined under sheet, place a lighter weight sheet of paper over the top and using Half Uncials, practice writing out your verse. Remember to keep your pen at a 25-degree angle and get tips from other group members as you practice. Create a final copy of your calligraphy. Design a border and/or illustration for your Scripture verse that helps clarify its meaning. Add color with colored pencils, markers, or watercolor. Use gold paint or pen to highlight the design. STAGE FIVE (Time: 1 session) ALL Present (and hang if possible) your finished “Illuminated Manuscript” where you worship. After the exhibit, consider giving it as a gift to a friend whom does not yet follow Jesus. Teacher Tip \#1: The Teacher’s Resource Section shows how to measure the distance between lines for the under sheet. A copy of the Half Uncial alphabet can be found in the Usborne book on Calligraphy listed in the resources or you can find it on the Internet. This alphabet only has one case of letters and is authentic to the historical period. Teacher Tip \#2: If you have access to manufactured felt tip calligraphy pens, this can make the project less complicated and the student’s calligraphy more uniform. Teacher Tip \#3: You may want to encourage the older students to make the first letter in their manuscript larger and more ornate than the rest of their verse. Setting off the letter with a special border is another way to enhance the beauty of their composition. Unit 11 STAGE ONE (Time: 1 Week) After learning about the Franciscans and the Dominicans, research the architecture of the cathedrals built during the Middle Ages. Look closely at the cathedral, Notre-Dame de Chartes in France. Discuss the events leading up to its construction, the purpose for building this cathedral, how long it took to construct it, miraculous stories connected to the building of it and how it was paid for. ALL Research in groups of four (one member from each age group), the steps in the process of building a cathedral. ER Draw a picture of and describe the tools used. IR Portray and tell about the various craftsmen needed. MS Show pictures of and report on the building materials used. HS Create a visual example and describe the basic floor plan for a cathedral. STAGE TWO (Time: 1 Week) ALL Examine pictures of various views of the exterior and interior of Notre-Dame de Chartes Cathedral. Note the distinctive architectural aspects of the cathedral (flying buttresses, rose window, vaulted ceilings etc.) Note the immense amount of sculpture used as ornamentation and the effect it has on the viewer. Name several of the stories and people represented in the sculpture. Choose an architectural detail from the cathedral (a sculptural piece or a part of the actual structure) and make a sketch of the detail you’ve chosen. Next, make a model using clay (or salt dough if clay is unavailable). Give other group members input and ideas as you work through the sculpting process. Make sure you score and slip connecting pieces so they stay attached during firing. When dry, fire the pieces in a kiln (or air dry if using salt dough). STAGE THREE (Time: 1 session) ALL Write an artist’s statement for your piece stating the location of your detail, why you chose to recreate it and what you learned about cathedrals from this project. Display your work and statements together as a group. Teacher Tip \#1: Gray clay, if available, will look most like stone after it is fired and will add authenticity to the student’s piece. Teacher Tip \#2: You can focus primarily on the outstanding stained glass found in this cathedral. The project would be to design, as a group, a simulated stained-glass rose window. The older students would be designing and cutting out the tracery from poster board or heavy paper (preferably black) and the younger students would be cutting out the colored tissue paper for the “glass” pieces. The group could assemble and glue the tissue pieces to the tracery. These would be best displayed in front of a window with the group’s artist statements. Unit 12 STAGE ONE (Time: 1 Week) ALL Discover the Ottoman Empire and its culture. How was the empire structured? Discuss and list the various countries, cultures, and religions that influenced Ottoman art. Were there restrictions regarding subject matter for the artist? Why? STAGE TWO (Time: 1 Session) ALL If possible, look up the naqqashkane (art workshops specializing in making decorative motifs that were applied to various media). Discuss and list the various subjects that were shown in the art of miniatures. Why was it acceptable to render images of people and animals in this form of art? Do you see other cultural or religious influences in the miniatures of this period? Examine the Book of Kings. Discover the purpose of this series of miniatures. Why do few examples of Islamic painting exist today from these early periods? STAGE THREE (Time: 1 Session) ALL Using mixed media, design a series of miniatures showing at least three of your ancestors. Make preliminary sketches of your ancestors and place them in a scene appropriate to their occupation, personality or other facts you know about them. STAGE FOUR (Time 1 Week) ALL Begin with an 8.5” X 11” piece of card stock. Draw the outline of the composition lightly in pencil. Once you have everything where you want it, go over the pencil with a black pen. Make an exact copy on card stock by using a copier or by tracing your lines using pressure so the lines from the original top sheet show through to the blank bottom sheet. Fill in the traced lines on the bottom sheet with black pen. Use one of your sheets as the template and cut the shapes out one at a time. Choose a patterned sheet of Orgami paper, wallpaper, or a magazine and trace and cut around the shape. Glue in place on the original drawing with a glue stick or white glue. Use solid colors or white paper, especially for people or for other areas to add contrast to all the patterns. Once all the paper shapes are glued in place, outline with black pen and shade areas with colored pencils. Make a decorative border for your picture with patterned paper or create your own original border design. Optional: Design a miniature of one of Jesus’ parables. Optional: Design a series of at least three scenes based on a New Testament story. Teacher Tip: If you don’t have access to patterned paper, you could use fabric or let students paint their own pattern on. Keep in mind that painting this kind of detail will add a considerable amount of time to the project. ## 13-18 Art Activities The Age of Discovery (Unit 13-18) 13 - Research the Mayan Civilization. Explore different aspects of their culture (i.e. religion, *aesthetics*, art, daily life activities, language). - Examine Mayan hieroglyphs. Note how they were incorporated into artwork and architecture and how many used the *profiles* of animals and people. Discover the process used for decoding the glyphs. List and show examples of various types of glyphs (numbers, letters, words, events, emblems, etc.). - Using number glyphs, calculate three math problems. Have a partner check your solution. - Look at the basic *proportions* of the face (i.e. eyes are typically halfway down the face etc.). Draw a *portrait* of a classmate from the front and from the side. Compare your *facial proportions* to those used in Mayan art. - Design your own set of glyphs using *portraiture*. Write a message of encouragement to a classmate using your glyphs. Include a "key" to help them decode the message. 14 - Research the prominent worldview during the Renaissance and the major artists during this period (i.e. Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Dürer, Giotto, Ghiberti, Donatello, Botticelli, Titian etc.). Cover their life (date of birth/death, their family statistics and experiences, any personality traits), their artwork (subject matter, mediums, palette preferences) and how they influenced the art world. Show examples of artwork from each of these artists. - Examine the ways these artists created a sense of depth in their work (overlapping, atmospheric perspective, hierarchical space, 1 and 2-point perspective, relative size etc.) - Find examples of *1-point perspective* used by painters during the Renaissance. Look closely at Leonardo DA Vinci's *The Last Supper*. Draw the *horizon line*, *vanishing point* and corresponding lines over the top of a copy of the painting. Where is the_ vanishing point_ (where do the lines converge)? Why is this significant? - Consider how the *Golden Rectangle* was used in Renaissance paintings. Discover the relationship between the *Fibonacci Sequence* and the *Golden Rectangle* by using two numbers next to each other in the sequence (3 and 5, 5 and 8, 8 and 13, 13 and 21, etc) as the dimensions (ratio) of the rectangle. Find a *Golden Rectangle* in *The Last Supper* by DA Vinci. Note where Jesus is positioned in relation to the rectangle. - Using *1-point perspective* and the *Golden Rectangle*, create a composition illustrating an event in the life of Christ or a landscape of a setting from His life. 15 - Research the Reformation. Examine *Heraldry*. - Study symbols used in *heraldry*. Look also at the symbolic nature of color? Answer questions like "What color is wisdom? What color is kindness?" - Design your own *Coat of Arms*. - What will others know about you and your faith by the symbols and colors you chose? - Make a banner (either from fabric or colored paper) of a *Coat of Arms* that represents you. - Hang the banners in a prominent place and be ready to explain how they represent you and/or your family. 16 - Look at the paintings of the Still Life. Create a *Trompe L'oeil* composition as a self-portrait. What are you conveying about your life? 17 - Discover Genre Painting. Paint a scene from everyday life in your culture/town/village. 18 - After your study of the American Revolution and the French Revolution, research paintings of war scenes. What purpose did they serve? Look at the paintings of Goya. Why would be considered the *Father of Expressionism?* ## 19-24 Art Activities 19 - Research Western Expansion: the motivation for expansion and key people who drove this endeavor. - Discover America's first native school of landscape painting, the geographical area it first centered on, its founders and followers, and their reasons for beginning and continuing this work. Discuss ways this new school of painting promoted or discouraged Western Expansion efforts and how these artists came to terms with the pros and cons of progress. Find paintings and information to support your claims. Find out how they received their name (the *Hudson River School*) and other areas of the country/world represented in their work. - Examine the ways the *Hudson River School* painters created the *illusion of deep space.* Distinguish the difference between stacking space (hierarchical space), overlapping, and atmospheric perspective to give a feeling of depth. Look closely at the use of *atmospheric perspective*. From a scientific view, discover why things look lighter, hazier and colors are more muted as they go back in the distance. Find paintings that use these qualities to create depth. - Paint a landscape of your area using stacking space (hierarchical space), over lapping or atmospheric perspective to create the illusion of depth and space. 20 - Study the life of James John Audubon. Discuss his life dream and the influences that helped develop his ambitious endeavor. List the obstacles he faced in accomplishing his dream. - Discuss the difference between "Fine Art" and "Scientific Rendering." How did Audubon bridge the two? - Closely observe something living (a plant, fish, or animal) and create a scientific drawing of it, labeling the parts. - Next design a fine art rendering using color (watercolor or colored pencils and black ink). Keep in mind the principles of composition and include illustrating the appropriate setting/background for your subject. - Display for others to enjoy both your scientific drawing as well as your fine art composition. How are they different? How are they alike? 21 - Study Jacob Lawrence (Social Injustice) PRINTMAKING 22 - Pre-Raphaelites (Choose a scene from literature) Read the scenes from Hamlet about Ophelia's death then show the Pre-Raphaelite painting of the scene. How did the scene in your mind's eye differ from the painting? How were they the same? 23 - Modern Art (take an object from a painting and make it into a 3-d sculpture) 24 - After studying the last fifty years, (Finish the master or folk art) Fine Arts Resources ART: A World History DK Publishing, Inc ISBN 0-7894-2382-0 (HB) ISBN 0-7894-8904-X (PB) The Usborne INTRODUCTION TO ART By Rosie Dickins and Mari Griffith CATHEDRAL: The Story of Its Construction By David Macaulay Scholastic Inc. ISBN 0-590-99511-1 National Audubon Society First Field Guide: BIRDS Scholastic Inc. ISBN 0-590-05446-5 (HB) ISBN 0-590-05482-1 (PB) A GUIDE TO HERALDRY By Ottfried Neubecker McGraw-Hill Co-Publication ISBN 0-07-046312-3 ## 1-6 Poem Recommendations Assigned Poems Key A: An Arkful of Animals B: 100 Best-Loved Poems (ed. Philip Smith, Dover) C: Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry (ed. Pound) D: A Child’s Treasury of Poems (ed. Daniel) E: Essay on Man and Other Poems (Alexander Pope) F: Favorite Poems of Childhood (ed. Smith) G: The Real Mother Goose I: The Illustrated Library of World Poetry (ed. Bryant) L: Poems (C. S. Lewis) M: Poems: American Themes (ed. Bassell) N: Now We Are Six (A. A. Milne) O: The Oxford Illustrated Book of Children’s Poems R: Arrow Book of Poetry S&S: Sound and Sense, Eleventh Edition T: A Treasury of Poetry for Young People V: Poems to Read to the Very Young W: When We Were Very Young (A. A. Milne) Y1 – U1 Nonreading Explained (Milne N, 80) [God] Old Noah’s Ark (Folk Rhyme, A 1) 1-4 5-8 The Late Passenger (C. S. Lewis, L 47) [Noah’s ark] Fire and Ice (Robert Frost) [cosmology] Nothing Gold Can Stay (Robert Frost) [the Fall, autumn, memorize] There is no Frigate like a Book (Emily Dickinson, O 25) [reading] 9-12 – THEMES: THE FALL, THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF POETRY Week 1: “The Departure,” final lines from Paradise Lost (Milton, I 233) [the Fall] Week 2: Eden’s Courtesy (C. S. Lewis, L 98) [The Fall] Week 3: The Sick Rose (William Blake, B 24) [The Fall, memorize] Week 4: Ars Poetica (Archibald MacLeish, S&S 19) [poetry] Week 5: Introduction to Poetry (Billy Collins, S&S 88) [poetry] Week 6: The History Teacher (Billy Collins, S&S 125) [history] Y1 – U2 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF POETRY Week 1: On Being Human (C. S. Lewis, L 34) [poetry] Week 2: The Jacob’s Ladder (Denise Levertov, supplement) [poetry] Week 3: Sonnet LV: “Not marble nor the gilded monuments ” (Shakespeare, supplement) [poetry] Week 4: This is my letter to the world (Emily Dickinson, B 69) [poetry] Week 5: Digging (Seamus Heaney, S&S 95) [poetry, symbolism] Week 6: The Pasture (Robert Frost, supplement) [poetry] Y1 – U3 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF POETRY Weeks 1-2: selections from An Essay on Criticism (Alexander Pope, supplement) [poetry, criticism] Week 3: The Writer (Richard Wilbur, S&S 106) [writing] Week 4: A Study of Reading Habits (Philip Larkin, S&S 25) [reading, dramatic monologue, read-aloud, paraphrase] Week 5: Sonnet 1 from Astrophil and Stella (Philip Sidney, supplement) Week 6: Meeting at Night, Parting at Morning (Browning, S&S 56-57) [poetry as capturing experience] Y1 – U4 Nonreading The Caterpillar (Lucie-Smith, A 40) 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: NATURE, HISTORY, DIFFERENT TYPES OF POETRY Week 1: Trees (Joyce Kilmer, supplement) Week 2: I taste a liquor never brewed (Emily Dickinson, S&S 80) [enjoyment of nature, metaphor] Week 3: The Fly (Karl Shapiro, S&S 403) [insects, poetry as cacophony, capturing ugliness] Week 4: Ozymandias (Percy Shelley, B 35) [ancient Mesopotamia, irony, power, politics] Week 5: The Destruction of Sennacherib (Byron, B 34) [Old Testament, compare to Lewis] Week 6: Sonnet (C. S. Lewis, L 120) [destruction of Sennacherib, Old Testament, sonnet, theology, compare to Byron] Y1 – U5 Nonreading At the Zoo (Milne W, 46) Furry Bear (Milne N, 48) [real bear] The Four Friends (Milne W, 10) [animals] Oliphaunt (Tolkien, A 19) Frog (Aiken, A 34) 1-4 5-8 The Eagle (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) 9-12 – THEME: ANCIENT GREECE, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM Week 1: On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer (John Keats, B 42) [ancient Greece] Week 2: Ulysses (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, supplement) [ancient Greece] Week 3: Ode on a Grecian Urn (John Keats, B 45) [ancient Greece] Week 4: The Lamb (William Blake, B 24) Week 5: The Tyger (William Blake, B 25) Week 6: The Fish (Elizabeth Bishop, S&S 295) Y1 – U6 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEME: SEASONS Week 1: Spring (Shakespeare, supplement) Week 2: Spring (G. M. Hopkins, S&S 58) Week 3: Indian Summer (Anonymous, I 317) Week 4: Autumn (Percy Shelley, I 316) Week 5: To Autumn (John Keats, S&S 67) Week 6a: It sifts from Leaden Sieves (Emily Dickinson, S&S 72), Week 6b: Winter (Shakespeare, supplement) ## 6-12 Poem Recommendations Y2 – U1 Nonreading The Tooth Book (Seuss) The Foot Book (Seuss) The Eye Book (Seuss) 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: HISTORY, NEW TESTAMENT Week 1: selections from De Rerum Natura (Lucretius, C 32) [Epicureanism, i.e. atheism] Week 2: Boadicea (Cowper, I 435) Week 3: Journey of the Magi (T. S. Eliot, supplement) [New Testament] Week 4: Stephen to Lazarus (C. S. Lewis, L 125) [New Testament] Week 5: Redemption (George Herbert, supplement) [The New Covenant] Week 6: Y2 – U2 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: GOD’S CREATION, WORSHIP Week 1: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (Henry van Dyke, supplement) Week 2: Adam’s Morning Hymn in Paradise, from Paradise Lost (John Milton, I 261) Week 3: God’s Grandeur (G. M. Hopkins, S&S 185) Week 4: God’s World (Edna St. Vincent Millay, M 130) Week 5: Virtue (George Herbert, S&S 200) Week 6a: Puritan Sonnet (Elinor Wylie, M 258) Week 6b: Pied Beauty (G. M. Hopkins, B 74) Y2 – U3 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 The Camel’s Complaint (Carryl, O 28) 9-12 – THEME: HUMAN EXPERIENCE Week 1: Deadly Sins (C. S. Lewis, L 91) Week 2a: The Wants of Man (John Quincy Adams, I 567) Week 2b: The Kiss (Sara Teasdale, M 298) Week 3: Forbidden Pleasure (C. S. Lewis, L 116) Week 4: Holy Sonnet XIX: “Oh, to vex me” (John Donne, supplement) Week 5: As the Ruin Falls (C. S. Lewis, L 109) Week 6: Seven Stanzas for Easter (John Updike, supplement) Y2 – U4 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: HISTORY, POETIC EFFECTS Week 1: The Seafarer (Anonymous, C 69) [medieval] Week 2: Death of Arthur (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, I 407) Week 3: Easter Wings (George Herbert, supplement) [concrete] Week 4: The Raven (Edgar Allan Poe, B 55) Week 5a: The Bells (Edgar Allan Poe, supplement) Week 5b: Recital (John Updike, S&S 235) Week 6: anyone lived in a pretty how town (e. e. cummings, B 91) Y2 – U5 Nonreading Bad Sir Brian Botany (Milne W, 93) [middle ages] Knights and Ladies (Milne W, 75) [middle ages] The King’s Breakfast (Milne W, 55) King John’s Christmas (Milne N, 4) 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEME: MIDDLE AGES Week 1: Cantico del Sole (St. Francis, C 86) [medieval] Week 2: Hierusalem (Anonymous, C 77) [medieval] Week 3: Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister (Robert Browning, supplement) [monasticism, hate] Week 4: La Belle Dame sans Merci (John Keats, B 47) [medieval romance] Weeks 5-6: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, supplement) [medieval romance] Y2 – U6 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEME: ATTITUDES TOWARD DEATH Week 1: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night (Dylan Thomas, S&S 247) Week 2: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (Thomas Gray, B 19) Week 3: Is my team plowing (Housman, S&S 29) Week 4a: On My First Son (Ben Jonson, B 12) Week 4b: To an Athlete Dying Young (A. E. Housman, B 75) Week 5a: The Dying Christian to His Soul (Alexander Pope, supplement) Week 5b: Crossing the Bar (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, B 63) Week 6: Holy Sonnet X: “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee” (John Donne, B 10) ## 13-18 Poem Recommendations Y3 Poem Recommendations - K12Together Unit 13 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer (Walt Whitman) [astronomy] 9-12 THEMES: PSALMS, HISTORY_ Week 1: Psalm I (John Milton, _supplement_) Week 2: Psalm V (Milton, _supplement_) Week 3: Psalm VIII (Milton, _supplement_) Week 4: Prayer (C. S. Lewis, _L_ 122) Week 5: Footnote to All Prayers (C. S. Lewis, _L_ 129) Week 6: The Ballad of Agincourt (Michael Drayton, _I_ 386) Unit 14 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: RENAISSANCE, SHAKESPEARE_ Week 1: My Last Duchess (Robert Browning, _S&S_ 132) [Renaissance Italian aristocracy] Week 2: Sonnet 12: "When I do count the clock that tells the time" (Shakespeare, _supplement_) Week 3: Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (Shakespeare, _B_ 6) Week 4: Sonnet 73: "That time of year thou mayst in me behold" (Shakespeare, _B_ 7) Week 5: Sonnet 116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds" (Shakespeare, _B_ 7) Week 6a: Sonnet 130: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (Shakespeare, _S&S_ 166) Week 6b: Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth" (Shakespeare, _S&S_ 43) Unit 15 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 THEMES: REFORMATION, RELIGIOUS POETRY_ Week 1: A Mighty Fortress is Our God (Martin Luther, _supplement_) [Reformation] Week 2: The British Church (George Herbert, _supplement_) [Church of England] Week 3: Prayer (I) (George Herbert, _supplement_) [metaphor] Week 4: Love (III) (George Herbert, _supplement_) Week 5: Holy Sonnet 14: "Batter my heart, three-personed God" (John Donne, _B_ 10) Week 6: A Hymn to God the Father (John Donne, _supplement_) Unit 16 Nonreading Waiting at the Window (Milne _N_ 91, raindrops) Wind on the Hill (Milne _N_, 95) [the wind] 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEMES: PURITANISM, THE ENLIGHTENMENT_ Week 1: Sonnet 9: "Lady that in prime of earliest youth" (John Milton, _supplement_) [Puritan worldview] Week 2: Sonnet 14: "When faith and love which parted from thee never" (John Milton, _supplement_) [Puritan worldview] Week 3: Sonnet 7: "How soon hath Time the subtle thief of youth" (John Milton, _supplement_) [Puritan worldview] Week 4: Sonnet 16: "When I consider how my light is spent" (John Milton, _supplement_) [Puritan worldview] Week 5-6: selections from _An Essay on Man_ (Alexander Pope, _supplement_) [Enlightenment worldview] Unit 17 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 9-12 – THEME: LOVE POETRY_ Week 1: To His Coy Mistress (Andrew Marvell, _B_ 17) [lust] Week 2a: To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time (Robert Herrick, _S&S_ 98) [carpe diem, marriage] Week 2b: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (Christopher Marlowe, _B_ 5) Week 3: The Sun Rising (John Donne, _S&S_ 114) [apostrophe, personification, love] Week 4: Song: Go, Lovely Rose (Edmund Waller, _B_ 14) [apostrophe] Week 5: A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (John Donne, _S&S_ 84) [exalted view of love] Week 6: [Hail wedded love, from Paradise Lost VIII] (John Milton, _supplement_) [Christian view of love] Unit 18 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument (R. W. Emerson) [Revolutionary War] Which Washington? (Merriam, _R_ 78) [George Washington] 9-12 – THEMES: HISTORY, THE PSALMS_ Weeks 1-2: The Rape of the Lock (Alexander Pope, _supplement_) [English aristocracy, mock epic] Week 3: Psalm LXXXIV (John Milton, _supplement_) Week 4: Psalm LXXXVI (John Milton, _supplement_) Week 5: The Avowal (Denise Levertov, _supplement_) Week 6: The Star-Spangled Banner (Francis Scott Key, _I_ 447) [Revolutionary War] ## 19-24 Poem Recommendations Unit 19 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 The Battle of New Orleans (Jimmy Driftwood) [War of 1812] Clipper Ships and Captains (Benet, _R_ 83) [clipper ships] 9-12 – THEMES: HISTORY, POETIC DEVICES Week 1: Waterloo (Byron, _I_ 401) Week 2: Limericks Week 3: Haiku Week 4: Eldorado (Edgar Allan Poe, _supplement_) Week 5: Narnian Suite (C. S. Lewis, _L_ 6] Week 6: The Slave Auction (Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, _M_ 314) Unit 20 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 The Charge of the Light Brigade (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) [Crimean War] The White Man's Burden (Rudyard Kipling) [colonialism] 9-12 THEMES: COLONIALISM, HUMAN EXPERIENCE_ Week 1: The White Man's Burden (Rudyard Kipling, _supplement_) [colonialism] Week 2: Recessional (Rudyard Kipling, _B_ 78) [colonialism] Week 3: If (Rudyard Kipling, _B_ 79) Week 4a: Curiosity (Alastair Reid, _S&S_ 105) Week 4b: The Hound (Robert Francis, _S&S_ 70) Week 5: The Road not Taken (Robert Frost, _B_ 84) Week 6: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost, _B_ 84) Unit 21 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 The Cremation of Sam McGee (Robert Service) [Yukon gold rush] London (William Blake) [Industrial Revolution] Barbara Frietchie (John Greenleaf Whittier) [Civil War] "Faith" is a fine invention (Dickinson) [secularization] 9-12 – THEME: HISTORY_ Week 1: The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Julia Ward Howe, _I_ 462) [Civil War] Week 2: O Captain! My Captain! (Walt Whitman, _B_ 66) [assassination of Lincoln] Week 3a: The world is too much with us (William Wordsworth, _B_ 30) [Industrial Revolution, romanticism] Week 3b: London (William Blake, _B_ 25) [Industrial Revolution, romanticism] Week 4: Dover Beach (Matthew Arnold, _B_ 67) [secularization] Week 5: The Darkling Thrush (Thomas Hardy, _B_ 72) [modernism, turn of the century] Week 6: The Convergence of the Twain (Thomas Hardy, _supplement_) [sinking of the Titanic] Unit 22 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 We Real Cool (Gwendolyn Brooks) [jazz] The Man He Killed (Hardy) [war] 9-12 – THEMES: WAR, MODERN CULTURE Week 1: Dulce et Decorum Est (Wilfrid Owen, _S&S_ 6) [WW1] Week 2: plato told (e. e. cummings, _M_ 109) [war] Week 3: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (T. S. Eliot, _S&S_ 284) [modernism] Week 4: The Weary Blues (Langston Hughes, _supplement_) [blues] Week 5: Jazz Fantasia (Carl Sandburg, _M_ 322) [jazz] Week 6: Her Kind (Anne Sexton, _S&S_ 401) [feminism] Unit 23 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (Randall Jarrell) [WW2] Dream Deferred (Langston Hughes) [civil rights] 9-12 – THEMES: HISTORY, MODERN LIFE_ Week 1: The Second Coming (William Butler Yeats, _S&S_ 425) [fascism] Week 2: The Defence of the Isles (T. S. Eliot, _supplement_) Week 3: Atomic (Louis Ginsberg, _M_ 110) [the bomb, the fate of humanity] Week 4: Howl (Allen Ginsberg, _supplement_) [Beat Generation] Week 5: Chicago (Carl Sandburg, _M_ 266) Week 6: Mr. Z (M. Carl Holman, _S&S_ 130) [race relations] Unit 24 Nonreading 1-4 5-8 Ballad of Birmingham (Dudley Randall) [civil rights] 9-12 – THEME: SOCIETY Week 1a: Much Madness is divinest Sense (Emily Dickinson, _S&S_ 113) Week 1b: The Pedigree of Honey (Emily Dickinson, _M_ 96) Week 2a: A Poison Tree (William Blake, _S&S_ 265) Week 2b: Mending Wall (Robert Frost, _S&S_ 363) Week 3: Pathedy of Manners (Ellen Kay, _S&S_ 44) Week 4: The Abortion (Anne Sexton, _S&S_ 400) [abortion] Week 5: Hurricane (Bob Dylan, _supplement_) [continuing racism] Week 6: Meditation XVII (John Donne, _supplement_) POEMS NONREADING UNSORTED A Visit from St. Nicholas (Moore, _O_ 12) The Three Little Kittens (Follen, _O_ 14) Hide and Seek (Shiffrin, _V_) Jump or Jiggle (Beyer, _V_) Skyscrapers (Field, _V_) Table Manners (Burgess, _V_) Bedtime (Farjeon, _V_) Bedtime (Goddard, _V_) Before a Bath (Marsh, _V_) After a Bath (Fisher, _V_) One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (Seuss) ABC (Seuss) Hop on Pop (Seuss) Fox in Socks (Seuss) Buckingham Palace (Milne _W_, 2) Happiness (Milne _W_, 4) Puppy and I (Milne _W_, 6) Lines and Squares (Milne _W_, 12) Independence (Milne _W_, 15) Nursery Chairs (Milne_ W_, 16) [imaginary adventures] Daffodowndilly (Milne W, 28) [spring] Disobedience (Milne W, 30) [James James…] Politeness (Milne W, 41) Jonathan Jo (Milne W, 43) Hoppity (Milne W, 60) The Mirror (Milne W, 79) [lake] Before Tea (Milne W, 84) [hygiene] Teddy Bear (Milne W, 86) The Alchemist (Milne W, 97) [alchemy] Vespers (Milne W, 100)** Little Bo-Peep (G 11) Little Boy Blue (G 11) Rain (G 11) Fingers and Toes (G 12) Old Mother Goose (G 14) Pat-a-Cake (G 14) Jack (G 16) Going to St. Ives (G 16) Thirty Days Hath September (G 17) To Marker (G 19) Hush-a-Bye (G 25) Little Polly Flinders (G 26) Georgy Porgy (G 32) Wee Willie Winky (G 33) Simple Simon (G 35) Three Blind Mice (35) Five Toes (G 35) Miss Muffet (G 39) Humpty Dumpty (G 40) One, Two, Three (G 41) Old Mother Hubbard (G 43) Jack Sprat (G 47) Jack and Jill (G 49) To Babylon (G 57) Baa, Baa, Black Sheep (G 58) The Cat and the Fiddle (G 60) Sing a Song of Sixpence (G 62) The Mulberry Bush (G 65) The House that Jack Built (G 68) Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (G 77) One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (G 80) Old King Cole (G 83) Little Jack Horner (G 90) Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary (90) Birds of a Feather (G 93) The Pumpkin-Eater (G 98) For Want of a Nail (G 101) Peas Porridge (G 102) The Crooked Sixpence (G 102) Peter Piper (107) What are Little Boys Made Of? (G 108) Little Tom Tucker (G 110) There Was an Old Man (G 116) The Mouse and the Clock (G 125) Hot-Cross Buns (G 127) POEMS 1-4 UNSORTED A Visit from St. Nicholas (Clement Clarke Moore, _O_ 12) Mary's Lamb (Sarah Josepha Hale, _O_ 15) The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day (_O_ 18) Eletelephony (Richards, _O_ 34) Habits of the Hippopotamus (Guiterman, _O_ 41) The Panther (Ogden Nash, _O_ 55) Too Many Daves (Dr. Seuss, O 60) Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (Shel Silverstein, _O_ 74) Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories (Seuss) Gertrude McFuzz The Big Brag The Sneetches and Other Stories (Seuss) Green Eggs and Ham (Seuss) The Cat in the Hat (Seuss) The Lorax (Seuss) The Butter Battle Book (Seuss) Horton Hears a Who (Seuss) Horton Hatches the Egg (Seuss) And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (Seuss) Oh, the Places You'll Go! (Seuss) If I Ran the Zoo (Seuss) I Can Read with My Eyes Shut (Seuss) Oh the Thinks You Can Think! (Seuss) Dutch Lullaby (?) The Walrus and the Carpenter (Carroll) The Owl and the Pussycat (?) Sneezles (Milne _N_, 14) Binker (Milne _N_, 17) [imaginary friend] The Friend (Milne _N_, 67) [Pooh, school] A Thought (Milne _N_, 71) [identity] Twice Times (Milne _N_, 83) Cradle Song (Milne _N_, 89) Forgotten (Milne _N_, 97) [playing] In the Dark (Milne _N_, 101) [bedtime] The End (Milne _N_, 104) [growing up] Block City (Stevenson, _R_ 21) Weather is Full of the Nicest Sounds (Fisher, _R_ 58) The First Tooth (Charles and Mary Lamb, D 20) A Calendar (Sara Coleridge, D 21) A was an archer (Anonymous, D 22) Arithmetic (Anonymous, D 30) How to Write a Letter (Elizabeth Turner, D 32) Little Things (Julia A. Carney, D 36) The Mouse and the Cake (Eliza Cook, D 82) All Things Bright and Beautiful (Cecil Frances Alexander, D 87) Wynken, Blynken and Nod (Eugene Field, D 126) POEMS 5-8 UNSORTED The Village Blacksmith (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, _O_ 20) The Blind Men and the Elephant (Saxe, _O_ 24) I'm nobody, who are you? (Emily Dickinson, _O_ 25) Little Orphant Annie (Riley, O 29) Casey at the Bat (Thayer, _O_ 37) Macavity: The Mystery Cat (T. S. Eliot, _O_ 46) Books Fall Open (McCord, O 53) Adventures of Isabel (Ogden Nash, O 54) Mother to Son (Langston Hughes, O 56) Cardinal Ideograms (Swenson, O 68) Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll) Old Ironsides (Oliver Wendell Holmes) Sea Fever (Masefield, R 19) The Donkey (G. K. Chesterton, D 89) The Spider and the Fly (Mary Howitt, D 106) A Christmas Carol (Christina Rossetti, D 137) POEM SKILLS reading and listening memorizing and performing poetry vs. prose personification repetition rhyme rhythm, meter ambiguity, multiple meanings sound effects: alliteration, assonance, consonance, euphony, cacophony, onomatopoeia structure, shape poetic forms poetic genres (ballad, lyric, narrative) comparative poetry between cultures pastoral figurative language (simile, metaphor) symbolism dramatic effects (apostrophe, "conversation") irony allusion dialect POEM KEY An Arkful of Animals 100 Best-Loved Poems (ed. Philip Smith, Dover) Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry (ed. Pound) A Child's Treasury of Poems (ed. Daniel) Essay on Man and Other Poems (Alexander Pope) Favorite Poems of Childhood (ed. Smith) The Real Mother Goose The Illustrated Library of World Poetry (ed. Bryant) Poems (C. S. Lewis) Poems: American Themes (ed. Bassell) Now We Are Six (A. A. Milne) The Oxford Illustrated Book of Children's Poems Arrow Book of Poetry Sound and Sense, Eleventh Edition A Treasury of Poetry for Young People Poems to Read to the Very Young When We Were Very Young (A. A. Milne) ## 1 Bible Activities WEEK 1 This week we focus on understanding the Bible (and all of history) as God’s unfolding story. By the end of this week, students should be able to tell “The Story of the Bible” (and the world!) through recalling six large periods of history. Most importantly, students should recognize where we are in this Story, and begin thinking about what that means for us, God’s people. Spend time this week praying together for one another, for the class, and for your year of learning together. Ask God to reveal Himself to this group, and pray for understanding of His Word and His world. MONDAY All – Bible Overview, Part One 10 minutes STI: Put six large poster-size papers in a large folder labeled “THE PLAN.” Gather students and say, “Look what we have here! The Plan! God’s plan for the universe, the earth, for all of us in all of history! Do you want to discover what His plan is?” Ask them what they think God has planned for the universe, for creation, and all people from the beginning of time. Introduce the Bible as a book that tells us the Big Story of God’s plan and how it is working out. (See Appendix G:Bible for the overarching The BIG Story of the Bible). Teacher Tip: Remember that at the end of every lesson (for all subjects), students should record the lesson in their workplans, including information on any assignments given. Tell them what to write (this lesson could be called “Big Story1”), then check to make sure they have done it correctly. You can check it off as they leave the lesson. (For a review of workplans, see Lesson 8 of the Teacher’s Guide.) TUESDAY All – Bible Overview, Part Two 15-30 minutes R/E: Divide students into six multi-age groups. (Make sure there is at least one good reader in each group, noting sections 5 and 6 are the most difficult). Give each group one of the poster pages (from Monday’s lesson). Assign each group a segment of the story (copied from The BIG Story of the Bible page). Have students read aloud to each other the Bible passages that correspond with their assigned section (or shortened versions for long passages). Students should then work together to make a poster representing all the “short summary” points in their section of the story, then practice retelling the short summary points by looking at their poster. WEDNESDAY All – Bible Overview, Part Three 35 minutes SHARE: Prepare (20 minutes) Have students get in their groups from Tuesday and review their part of the story by looking at their poster. Each group must then decide how to express the meaning and important points of their segment by acting it out while one person in the group reads the points out loud. Share (15 minutes, or 5 minutes each group) Beginning with Creation and continuing in order, have students act out their segment of the story for the rest of the group, while reading the main points. Try to get through the first two or three groups today. THURSDAY All – Bible Overview, Part Three (continued) 15-20 minutes SHARE: Continue sharing the Big Story of the Bible. Quickly review the presentations from Wednesday, and continue hearing from each of the remaining groups in order. FRIDAY All – Bible Overview, Part Four 20 minutes REVIEW: Mix up the posters made by the groups, then have the younger students work together to put them in order and older students hang them on the wall. Each group should retell the important points in their section, showing briefly how the poster drawings represent each point. Name different well-known Bible stories (Daniel and the Lion’s Den, Jonah and the big fish, Jesus feeding the 5,000, Paul going on a missionary journey, etc.) and ask students to “place” them in the BIG Story. Then ask, “Where do we fit into God’s BIG Story?” How should this knowledge affect me/my life, and my family? What might my role in the BIG Story be? Review and refer to these posters throughout the year, as you introduce each new Bible story or book. The ultimate goal is to have each student be able to “talk their way” through the whole Bible in less than 10 minutes (at their own level of understanding). Take opportunity from time to time throughout the year to practice this! WEEK 2 With a good understanding on the “Big Story” of the Bible, students are now ready to dig into the text, starting with Genesis 1 (the beginning)! Try to look at these familiar passages with “new eyes” to see what can be learned about our God, even through just these few verses. We introduce the Inductive Bible Study method of Scripture study teaching students to really investigate what the text says (observation), figure out what it meant to its intended audience (interpretation), then apply it to their lives, families, and community (application). Pray for understanding and knowledge of God, and for opportunities to share Truths learned. MONDAY Review with MS/HS students their assignments due this week (History, Science, Class Set Reader homework), and make sure they are on track to complete them in time. All – Genesis 1-2; Inductive Bible Study TIME Students should bring their Bibles (Bible appropriate to reading level) to this lesson. STI: Discuss the following questions: Who is God? How can we know God? What is the Bible like? Who wrote it? What’s the Bible about? Have the group that presented Section 1 of The BIG Story of the Bible quickly review their section with the whole group. Then have students open their Bibles to the first chapter of Genesis and read it aloud. Ask, “What if I asked you to rip out this first chapter and throw away the rest of your Bible? Or, what if this one chapter was the only chapter of the whole Bible translated into a language you could read? What would you really know about God from just this one chapter only, nothing else in the rest of the Bible or that anyone has ever told you?” List (on a poster) everything we can know about God from Genesis 1 only. Now have students generate questions they have about God from reading Genesis 1. Keep a list of these questions on the poster to try to answer them as the study of Genesis and Creation progresses (check them off as you run across answers). Discuss the need to always be asking questions as we study the Bible, which forces us to think about what the text really says and means, and keeps us from thinking we already know. Now read Genesis 2:1-4. Add more observations about God to the poster. Explain that to study the Bible well, we want to start by making as many observations as we can. We use good questions to help us observe carefully. After introducing the idea of Inductive Bible Study (IBS) in the large group, the small groups will go over the specific IBS guidelines given for their level in the Bible Study Skill Objectives (already written out by level in detail, see right section in the Appendix, summarized here). Start the Big Picture Bible Timeline somewhere in the classroom by putting up the first picture (Creation). ER/IR – Questions about Genesis 1; IBS Worksheet TIME Work together to make a list of questions, some “yes or no” and some open ended, relating to Genesis 1. After reading the story aloud as a group, “cross examine” the older students using the list. (i.e. “Is it true man was made on the fourth day?” No, man was made on the fifth day. “How many days did God create?” etc.) ER/IR – 7 Days of Creation; Begin Timeline TIME R/E: Discuss each of the seven days of creation, considering ways to experience each of the wonderful works God has made through observation. Talk about how God rested on the 7th day and gives us a day each week to rest, too. Begin a timeline book with a page or section about the days of creation, placing these events at the beginning of the book – the beginning of “time.” Students may draw pictures or cut and paste in pictures from magazines to represent the 7 days of creation. Students will use this Timeline book for the entire year, the entire BC period. MS/HS – Begin Timeline TIME R/E: Begin a timeline book for use across the next 4 years of study, up to the present day. Start with a page about Creation. Add other historic events as they are studied. Note cause and effect. (Including unmeasured for pre-history – both OE/YE – and beginning measured – in a non-specific sense – with Adam.) Assignment: Prehistory timeline chart (OE and YE: Include Man, Dinosaurs) MS/HS – Hermeneutics TIME \*IBS worksheet (due Fri) \*Interpreting Genesis (literal/figurative) Read and discuss the entire first chapter of Genesis, following your Inductive Bible Study skills detailed in the Bible Skill Objectives. Be sure to discuss the idea of the Sabbath (working six days and resting on one, and ways to honor the Sabbath together with your family). Introduce and practice the hermeneutic principles: using the historical and literary context, along with the way the rest of Scripture interprets a passage, to determine meaning of a Bible passage and gain insight before making any applications to your life. Using a study Bible with cross-referencing, show the students how to look up other passages in the Old and New Testaments that refer to Genesis 1. Do the other writers of the Bible seem to consider Genesis a poetic description of origins, a literal explanation of what actually happened in the beginning, or a figurative way of explaining an actual event that is too hard to describe literally? [From History] MS – Discuss the possible interpretations of Genesis 1 as biblical record (literal, progressive, or literary approach). Make a chart comparing the views. Include evidence to support both and young earth and old earth account of prehistory. HS – Continue debates on the various interpretations of Genesis. Practice listening critically to arguments, taking notes, and forming logical rebuttals. TUESDAY All – Memorize Books of the O.T. – Law WEDNESDAY All – Memorize Books of the O.T. – History Bible Memorization ALL – Work together to Memorize assigned Bible verses. Recite verses together in groups and individually. THURSDAY All – Memorize Books of the O.T. – Wisdom Bible Memorization ALL – Work together to Memorize assigned Bible verses. Recite verses together in groups and individually. FRIDAY All – Memorize Books of the O.T. – Prophets Bible Memorization ALL – Work together to Memorize assigned Bible verses. Recite verses together in groups and individually. WEEK 3 MONDAY All – Basic Doctrine ~ Gen. 1&2 Strike the Imagination: Say: “Where is the one chapter of the Bible you had last week? (Show it to me!) Last week you listed what you learned about God from Genesis 1. [Take out poster made last week with characteristics of God and questions.] But, don’t you learn about much more than just about God from Genesis 1? What other things do we learn about from that one chapter?” (List as many categories as possible: the universe, light, life, plants, animals [did you know animals only ate plants when God made them]…. Then have them see as many details as they can see, if necessary breaking into two teams for competition to see which team can notice the most. Add on chapter 2 of Genesis for the “bonus round” and see if any new things show up there. Large Group Lesson Explain what is meant by a “basic doctrine” (doctrines are things we believe, in the church, about reality, God, life and man, etc. because of biblical teachings). Review what was learned last week by listing basic doctrines that we already know from Genesis 1. What more do we learn from Genesis 2? Have any of our questions we came up with last week been answered? What new questions do we have? Derive from observation a few basic doctrines from Genesis (such as God is all-powerful; God is not created and is separate from His creation; God created nature as good; God gave mankind freedom to choose to obey Him or disobey Him; evil in the world comes from man’s choice to do evil, in Chapter 3). See more detailed list of doctrines from Genesis provided in Appendix. Have the class see if they can remember the key points of Section 1 of the “BIG Story of the Bible.” ER/IR – Discuss “Made in God’s Image” Emergent Reader/Intermediate Independent Reader ER/IR Use your Inductive Bible Study Questions to learn more from Genesis 2. [ER: What is happening? When is it happening (context)? And Why is God doing what He is doing/ people doing what they are doing? IR: Use “5W’s and an H” questions to ask when studying any Bible story (see Bible Skills Objectives)] Discuss what it means to be made in God’s image. List all the things humans can do that other created beings cannot. Explain the differences between humans and all other created beings (man and woman together created in God’s image, immortal soul, conscience, ability to reason and communicate with God, the need for relationships “it is not good for man to be alone.”) MS/HS – Basic Doctrine Chart \*Chart Be sure to spend time in prayer and meditation on God and the truths we do know about Him and His creation. Knowledge and passion work together in worship! Middle School/High School Begin poster list/chart of basic doctrines (leave room to add more later) MS/HS – Gen. 2 \*IBS Worksheet (due Fri) Middle School/High School MS/HS Using your IBS Bible Study Skills, study through Genesis 2, discussing it as a group. [MS Use “5 W’s and an H” questions, then identify key ideas or themes from the passage, lastly discuss lessons taught and how they apply to your own life TUESDAY All – Sabbath ALL – Describe the idea of Sabbath and the pattern of six days work to one day of rest. Discuss ways to honor the Sabbath together with the family. WEDNESDAY Bible Memorization ALL – Work together to Memorize assigned Bible verses. Recite verses together in groups and individually. THURSDAY FRIDAY WEEK 4 MONDAY All – The Fall / Covenant Strike the Imagination: If possible, bring in something really beautiful and appealing, like a frosted layer cake (preferably that you have made). Pick one of the students to help you shock the rest (preferably one of those who acts up the most so it will be believable, but he/she has to be able to keep a secret). Put the cake in front of the class room and say how “good” it came out and how proud you are of it and how everyone will enjoy it together, but must wait until the break. Go on with the reading in the Large Group lesson, while the “partner-in-crime student” needs to sneak around the back, try to run off with the cake but drop it on the floor so it is ruined. At this point you can talk about how we all feel when something created good is ruined…. How everyone suffers when one person disobeys (be sure to tell them you put the student up to it, so he/she won’t get yelled at). [If you want, you can put a clean plastic/cloth on the table and have him drop it upside down on the table so that it is still edible, but all messed up.] Large Group Lesson: The Fall Have the group that did Section 2 of the “BIG Story of the Bible” review their section to the whole group. Read Genesis 2:15 through Genesis 3 (whole chapter). Ask observation questions after each section then ask them if they notice any other thing and then go on (have older kids answer if smaller kids cannot): What did God tell Adam about the tree? Who tempts Eve? Does he start with a complete lie? Does Eve tell him the truth? How does the Serpent make God seem sneaky or like a liar? What did God REALLY say? Is Adam tricked too? What happens/changes after Adam and Eve eat the fruit? Why is Adam afraid of God now? Do Adam and Eve freely confess? Who do they blame? What happened between God and man, man and his wife? What did they each get cursed for, and what curses did they get? What promises does God make? Did God stop taking care of Adam and Eve? Who clothed Adam and Eve in skins? Where might the skins have come from? Why did they have to wear the skins instead of fig leaves? What did this show about the price of sin? Who might the seed/offspring of woman who crushes the head of the snake be referring to? ALL – Talk about what a “covenant” is. (Who is making the promises in God’s covenants with us?) Watch how God involves people in his covenants from the very beginning. MS/HS – Covenants \*Chart MS/HS – Start covenants chart, to be added to as you go along. As they work on the chart, talk about what went wrong in Genesis 4 and its impact not just on Adam and Eve but on all of creation. They only had one rule to obey, why did they disobey? Do we have any idea how God felt about their sin? How could they have reacted better to their sin than what they did? How have we all suffered from their disobedience? How did it affect their relationship with God/with creation/with each other? What is the first promise or covenant God makes with man? ER/IR – The Fall Discussion ER/IR – Put the story of Adam and Eve on the Bible wall timeline. What happened before Adam and Eve? What happened after? Where do we believe the garden may have been? Have the students retell the story of the Fall and help each other not to leave out key points. Explain that through disobedience, men lost their close relationship with God, and man and nature lost their protection from evil. Does God have a plan for helping save people and the world from evil? (explain the term “redemption”) IR – Discuss how man’s relation to land changed at the fall. What was life like before and after the fall? IR/MS – Genealogy Chart (Adam – Jesus) \*Adam – Seth (1 week) IR/MS – Start a genealogy chart tracing the ancestry of Jesus starting from Adam. Add each ancestor as they are studied, or who lived in the period covered. Refer to the genealogy of Jesus found in Luke and the Genesis. The line should be covered from Adam to Abraham (Abram) this unit. (begin Wk 5) Put this into week 5. MS/HS – Fall’s Effect on Nature MS/HS – Discuss the fall’s effect on nature as found in Genesis and Romans 8. Is man going to be the only thing redeemed and restored? What is God’s plan for redeeming mankind? … creation? How did man now have to change the land now because of the Fall? TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY All – Cain & Abel / Conflict Resolution Follow up Activity for this week for both ER/IR and MS/HS: Read the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4). Put them on the Bible wall timeline. What did this come after? How did the Fall of Adam and Eve affect their children. Was God trying to help Cain do the right thing? How do we know? (3 examples: telling him to give the right sacrifice, warning him not to blame Abel for his own failure, giving Cain a chance to confess his sin.) What punishment did Cain receive? Was God kind to him, even in the punishment He gave him? (Yes, protected him with a mark.) Act out the Bible story. Make a new version where Cain does the right thing. How does it change his relationship to God and his family? [From Language Arts] Strike the Imagination: Read the story of Cain and Abel to the students. Have the students analyze what went wrong in the relationships brother to brother and person to God. Now choose two students to play act Cain and Abel, and tell them to figure out how to resolve the conflict at different points (Cain with Abel or Cain with God) to avoid the murder. Large Group Lesson Have the class brainstorm on some conflicts that are coming up in the classroom or school so far. Have them suggest procedures for resolving conflict in the school setting. As various conflicts occur try to understand the problem from all perspectives. (each opposing side, family, God). Identify what went wrong between the groups or people. What about conflicts between siblings in their families? How can these be more effectively resolved so that it doesn’t get worse or become a pattern? In their small group reading groups have them begin to identify any conflicts going on in the book. What is the conflict about? Who/what are the different sides/perspectives? How is the conflict being either resolved or escalated (increased)? FRIDAY All – Noah ~ Gen. 6:5-23 \*Make Ark [From Language Arts] MS/HS – Read aloud and discuss Noah’s Ark and the Lost World. Build a scale model of the ark out of Styrofoam or cardboard. Try using a small eraser as a standard for a large elephant; will the ark be too big for you to build? If you make the ark the length of a desk (about 1 m), how small would an elephant be? HS – Finish the model ark to present to other students. WEEK 5 MONDAY All – Noah & the Flood (act out) This week study Genesis 5-9 Strike the Imagination: (Done the Friday before) To introduce Noah (without mentioning him), have students retell from the Bible timeline the events that have happened from Creation until now. Ask them how the story is going? What kinds of things are happening? Are people acting better or worse than they were before? Worse and worse… What is God going to do? Have them consider many options. (If you start the lesson with no mention of Noah, they are more likely to ask “What happens next..?”). Large Group Lesson: Have the whole class see if they can present the main points of Section 2 of the “BIG Story of the Bible.” (Done on the Friday before). Read Genesis 6:5-23 as a class. Discuss what had happened to the earth and people since the Fall. Why is God so upset? What has God decided to do? What shows that Noah was different? Why does God speak just to him? How do we know that Noah is godly? List things the students notice from the story that they never noticed before. Using the scale of 1/4 inch equals 1 foot, make a scale model of the ark out of card board and a scale model of your classroom to put next to it. Put a 6 foot scale model of a man next to it (1 ½ inches).(The ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall, with three floors and an 18 inch air space around the top edge under the roof). Or, if you have a set of plastic animals, figure out how they compare to real life measurements, then build a scale model of the ark to fit them (make sure the students figure out how to do an accurate scale model, and the older ones do the calculations). If you have a large outdoor space, mark out the length and width of the ark in actual scale so the students can see how large it really was. MS/HS Add the story of Noah to the Bible timeline: How old was Noah when God spoke to him about building an ark? How long did it take him? ( On Monday Bible Lesson Large Group) Read Genesis 7-8. As you read and discuss it, keep track of how long the rain came down, and how long the floods came up. How much longer did it take before the water began to go down? How much time had passed before the mountains were visible? How much longer until Noah sent out a raven. How old was Noah when he entered the ark and how old was he went he came off? How much time had passed total? Add all these times to the Bible timeline. Find all the places where it lists what died because of the flood. What is the promise (covenant) that God makes with Noah at this time? Read Continue adding to covenants chart: ALL – Read Genesis 9: Make a list of all the new things the students notice that they hadn’t notice before. What punishment does he institute for murder? What are the provisions of His new covenant with mankind and with the living creatures)? What is the sign of the covenant? Discuss what role we have in God’s covenant today. HS: How does Canaan get cursed? Who were the descendents of Canaan? Which line of Noah does Abraham come from? Emergent Reader/ Independent Reader ER/IR – Create and perform a short play about life on the ark. Perform together with plays of older students. Why was Noah chosen? Middle School MS – Create a short play about life after the flood (using Genesis 11) to perform together with other students. What did God tell Noah that would encourage him to spread over the whole earth? Did they obey Him? High School HS – Create a short play about life before the flood to perform together with younger students. ER/IR – Families & Nations ER/IR – Talk about what it means to be a family. Why did God pick Noah’s family? Show them how the words that end with “-ite” or “ine” mean a whole people group that came from one father (Philistine, Jebusite, Amorite, Canaanite). What other endings to words do we use today to talk about a group of people (usually that speak the same language, point to countries on the map as they discover new terms)? [“-ish”, English, Spanish, Danish, “-ese” Chinese, Japanese, Nepalese, “-an” American, German, Indian, Italian, Brazilian, Australian, “-i” Pakistani) Point to different countries on the world map, read the name and see if they can figure out how to call someone from that country. Point out that every country has many “families” of people in them, some very big (tribes) and some smaller. Many countries have dozens or even hundreds of different language groups in them. Read Revelation 5:9 and talk about how God is going to save people from every family/tribe/etc. on earth. Finish adding the generations from Seth to Abraham on your genealogy of the ancestors of Jesus (refer to Luke to see where it goes). IR/MS – Genealogy Chart (continued) \*Seth – Abraham (Due 1 week) IR/MS – Start a genealogy chart tracing the ancestry of Jesus starting from Adam. Add each ancestor as they are studied, or who lived in the period covered. Refer to the genealogy of Jesus found in Luke and the genealogies in Genesis. The line should be covered from Adam to Abraham (Abram) this unit (do Seth to Abraham next week). Add the key people to your Bible time line (define “key people” as people the Bible records God speaking specifically to) along with key events. MS/HS – Lifespan Overlap Chart \*Chart (Due 1 week) MS/HS – Start a genealogy that shows how, if understood as literal, the lives of many of descendents of Adam overlapped. On the chart, draw lines showing how long each person lived, when each new son was born, etc., so that who was alive at the same time can be identified (cover Adam to Abraham, Shem’s descendents are listed in Genesis 11, and should be done in Week 6). HS – Universal vs. Local Flood \*Chart (due Wed) HS Research the differences between universal and local flood theories of Genesis. Include strengths, weaknesses, and evidence for each. How do the “Old Earth” creationist understandings of the flood compare to the “Young Earth” creationist understandings of the Flood? How does it change a person’s interpretation of the “geological column” (the layers of fossils in the earth), if the flood is global vs. local? [From History] Where does the Ice Age fit on your historical timeline? Where does it fit on your biblical timeline? TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY All – Culture vs. Worldview FRIDAY All – Family Tree of Noah Large Group Lesson Read Genesis 10, having students draw a “family tree” of Noah, while you read (IR) while older students use their Bible Atlas to locate where the different descendents of Noah lived (only some towns/cities will be shown) and draw a large map of the section where the people lived, shading areas where the descendents lived and listing the people groups there. While reading Genesis 11, they should use a Bible map to locate the possible site of the Tower of Babel, putting both on their map and on the world map. WEEK 6 MONDAY All – Tower of Babel \*Pray for the Nations Discuss why people built the Tower of Babel, and God’s reaction. How were people disobeying God? What was their attitude towards God? (Don’t forget to use the Inductive Bible Study guidelines for the different age groups). Note that after the Tower of Babel, people then spread out even to Australia and New Zealand. Talk about what God was doing and why, and how it has affected our world today. Prayer ER/IR – Read aloud from Window on the World, praying for the different peoples of the world. Connect these peoples to the families (nations) listed in this week’s Genesis study. Look at a map or globe to locate where your city is and neighboring cities in comparison to where people prayed about are. Understand that even though it is a long way away God hears our prayers and works in their lives. MS/HS – Use Operation World, and current news praying for different peoples of the world. Connect these peoples to the families (nations) listed in this week’s Genesis study. Pray also for Christians working in scientific fields to bear a witness for Truth among fellow scholars and researchers. ER/IR – Tower of Babel \*Picture Book ER/IR – Make a picture book representing life before, during, and after the building of the Tower of Babel. Illustrate what God was doing and why, and how it has affected our world today. How were people disobeying God? What was their attitude towards God? MS/HS – Lifespan \*Graph Lifespans (due Thu.) MS/HS – Finish through Abraham the genealogical timeline started last week showing the overlapping ages and lifespans of the people from Adam through Abraham using Genesis 11. Create a poster size graph of the age at death of the people for whom it is given Adam through Abraham, with their age on the vertical axis and the years between their deaths on the horizontal axis. Mark on the graph the approximate time when God says He will limit mankind’s lifespan to 120 years. Mark the time of the flood. Mark the approximate time of the Tower of Babel. Show when the men were born that began to die around 120 years. Did the Flood change the world significantly so people could not live as long? What might this have done to the animals as well? Research the fact that animals and plants and insects grew to huge sizes in ancient times, according to the fossil record. HS – Spread of Nations \*Map of Spread (Due 1 week) HS – Create a map and a tiered timeline demonstrating how nations may have originated with Noah and his sons and spread throughout the earth. Continue to trace the line of Christ. TUESDAY All – Religion & Worldview [From History] Strike the Imagination: Show the students pictures from books of different religious ceremonies. Have them guess what the people are doing and why. Ask them (especially the older students) to explain what a “religion” is and why it is an expression of a worldview but not the same as a worldview. How does what the people are doing in the picture tell us something about what they believe about how the world/reality works? [From History] Large Group Lesson Have the class come up with some examples of Christian religious ceremonies. What do those ceremonies represent? What do they teach us about what we believe? Is there any body who believes nothing? Are there people who have no religion? What do they believe? \*Religion in da hood (due Thu) Have the students look at the religious rituals of one or more of the religions in their neighborhood, and ask the people who do them what they are doing and why. The students should be ready to share what they have learned with the class. If they can bring pictures or props that is good. Have the other students ask questions and see if they can tell the difference between the religious expression and the underlying worldview. [From History] HS – Compare and contrast worldview and religion using a Venn diagram. Discuss why Darwinism goes beyond science to become a naturalistic worldview. WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY ## 1 History Activities I. Unit 1 History Activities By Week HS: Have students generate questions about the Bible, God, history, and science related to Creation and Genesis. Address these questions throughout this unit study (note the need to address rather than answer where there is no conclusive answer). A.302 IR: Look at ways different peoples passed on their histories. MS: Discuss how history was passed on orally and written. 1.310, 1.315 MS: Begin timeline for the year. 1.313 Activities by week Week 1 Time (past, present, future) History / Prehistory Biblical record Worldview ER/IR: Mark time (daily) with tally marks on a strip of paper (unmeasured distance between marks). 1.306 ER/IR: Begin a timeline book with a page about Creation, placing that event in the past. MS/HS: Begin a timeline book with a page about Creation. Add other historic events as they are studied. Note cause and effect. 1.303, 1.304, A.312, A.313 MS: Discuss the possible interpretations of Genesis 1 as biblical record (literal, progressive, or literary approach). Make a chart comparing the views. Include evidence to support both and young earth and old earth account of prehistory. HS: Form teams of students to debate interpretations of Genesis 1-2. Begin coaching students on the art of debate. A.002, A.320, 1.014, 1.016 (N/A: is there a skill in the matrix for debate?) MS/HS: Define history and prehistory. Discuss the Bible as history. A.320, 1.311 MS: Define a person's "worldview" and stress the importance of developing a biblical, world Christian worldview. 1.020, MS/HS: Distinguish between primary and secondary sources. Discuss ways to determine credibility of scientific or historical documents. 1.118, 1.123, 1.127, 1.320, 1.321 Week 2 Cont. Time Cont. Worldview ER: Practice "experiencing" the passing of time (watch an hourglass, take a walk, sing a song, watch an animal, etc.). 1.301, 1.301 MS/HS: Describe a creationist and naturalistic (materialist) worldview. Students role play discussions on various topics from each of these worldviews. Discuss bible topics from this week and last from different worldviews. 1.020, 1.021 HS: Continue debates on the various interpretations of Genesis. Practice listening critically to arguments, taking notes, and forming logical rebuttals. 1.016, 1.040 Week 3 Theory of Evolution Overview Darwin Origin of Species Intelligent Design Paleontology Dinosaurs Age of the Earth Fossils / Fossil Record Dating Methods Archeology (overview) Worldview and Religion ER: Look at pictures in dinosaur books to gather information (beginning research). Draw pictures or write simple words to record information. IR: Look in dinosaur books to gather information (beginning research). Draw pictures or write simple words to record information. Begin taking notes in keyword outline form. List bibliography (title, author) with research. A.105, 1.108, 1.111, 1.113 ER/IR: Read aloud and discuss one chapter at a time from Dry Bones and Other Fossils. Explain how fossils are formed. Make or hunt fossils in your area, then draw pictures, label, and display. MS: On a map of the world mark locations where dinosaur fossils have been found. HS: Recreate and display the geologic chart (divided up into eras and periods) using fossils created/ found by younger children. Include explanation of events from a young earth perspective on one side of chart and an old earth perspective on other (include appearances of different species on the geologic chart). Include problems with fossil record as support for evolution. 1.109, 1.111, A.320, A.328, A.408, 1.312, A.524 ER/IR: Define extinction and identify ways a species becomes extinct. What are our records of most extinct animals? Make pictures of species (plants or animals) that have been found in those same records that have not gone extinct yet. A.502, A.505, A.512 MS: Define paleontology and archaeology and distinguish between them. Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast. 1.316 MS/HS: Research Charles Darwin. What era did Darwin live in? What were some contemporary issues or events that may have effected Darwin’s philosophy/worldview? Re-enact autobiographical sketches of Darwin’s life, including the writing of his book On the Origin of Species. Focus on summarizing main points into easy ideas to understand and be sure to articulate words clearly. A.106, A.301, A.302, A.303, 1.032, 1.033, 1.037 HS: Describe dating techniques (carbon-14, radiometric, etc.), listing problems and limitations of each. What type of material can be dated? Under what conditions would the dating be valid? How does one’s understanding of history effect the interpretation of data? A.328 HS: Compare and contrast worldview and religion using a Venn diagram. Discuss why Darwinism goes beyond science to become a naturalistic worldview. A.328 Week 4 Cont. Paleontology Dinosaurs Age of the Earth Fossils / Fossil Record Cont. Archeology Artifacts Tools ER/IR/MS: Define data and theory. Show a fossil or picture of a bone (leg, tooth, etc.) and have students sketch the creature's appearance based on that bone. Compare drawings, emphasizing how difficult it is to estimate the appearance of dinosaurs or other extinct animals, and how easy it is to begin with the same evidence (data) but construct different theories. Explain that pictures of dinosaurs with skin, flesh, color, even some features, are only someone's idea of how they may have looked. A.502, A.513, MS: Use information and activities from It Couldn't Just Happen (Ch 9) and Oxford: Prehistoric World (pp 24-41) to explore the fossil record, and the evidence that can be gathered regarding evolution and intelligent design. MS/HS: Skim books or articles in the classroom to determine the perspective/worldview of the author. Cite evidence you used to identify their worldview. A.320, 1.020, 1.021 MS: Discuss how artifacts are pre-served over time. Have each student create a different sample artifact, explaining how it was preserved and what sort of information (clues!) we can learn from each. Listen to each others ideas respectfully whether you agree or not. 1.014, 1.015, HS: Recognize ways that a naturalistic worldview has influenced modern Western culture, including Christian culture. Identify areas in one’s own worldview that have been tainted by naturalism. Write a paragraph on each that shows where these ideas lead when it comes to; relationships with people of all races and backgrounds; religious practice; loss and grief; purpose in life and scripture. . Develop reasonable responses to offer in defense of Christianity to a naturalistic society. A.324, A.326, 1.210 HS: Continue work on geologic chart, and present work on the fossil record to intermediate students. Discuss polystrate fossils, lack of erosion between layers, fossils crossing layers or even standing straight up (fossilized forest) etc. HS: Trace the development of tools, pottery, and other technology from the Stone Age to Bronze Age. (Oldowan, Acheulian, Mousterian, etc..) Week 5 Cont. Paleontology Dinosaurs Ice Age Flood theories Cont. Archeology Simulated dig Culture ER/IR: Define culture and identify all the different aspects of culture that vary among people groups (i.e. food, clothing, shelter, beliefs, etc.). Ie. Food: Hunting, gathering, farming etc. Explore the various cultures represented in your classroom, noting similarities and differences. HS: Using information from artifacts, conduct an analysis of the culture (using a comprehensive definition) and worldview of early peoples. A.308, A.310, A.311, A.315, A.316, A.406 ER/IR: Read about cultures around the world. (Choose at least one culture from each continent to review the continents as well.) A.308, A.310, A.311, A.315, A.401, A.404, 1.404 ER/IR/MS: Learn about animals of the ice age. Make "cave paintings" (large brown paper on wall using accurate colors) depicting these unique creatures. Discuss how cultural values are expressed in art. A.308, A.310, A.317 IR/MS: Look for catastrophic events that would have caused huge changes in the geography. Include evolutionary and creationist perspective. Who was Peleg? Why is his name significant? MS: Make a chart comparing universal and local flood theories. Include strengths, weaknesses, and evidence for each. A.320 IR/MS: Fit dinosaurs into the timelines of both a young and old earth. Continue research of dinosaurs, gathering information, making notes, and creating reports appropriate to level. MS/HS: Discuss the ice age and its possible relation to the flood. Identify evidence and locations of humans and animals living during this time. Tell older students about some of the theories about the ice age in relation to the flood. 1.314, A.301, A.302 ER/IR: Define archeology and identify tools used in a dig. Find pictures of an archeological dig. Participate with older students in a dig simulation. Learn to follow steps in order and to work carefully with tools and artifacts. Document the dig making sketches of artifacts found in relation with other artifacts. MS /HS: Prepare a simulated archeological dig for students. Identify tools and procedures for digging and recording work. Be as accurate as possible with the simulation! Explain/demonstrate procedure to younger students before starting the excavation. Use artifacts found in dig as well as observations from recorded information to make deductions about the "cultures" uncovered. 1.314, 1.503, A.309, A.502, A.503, A.506, A.508, A.509, A.511, A.514, A.515, A.518, A.526 HS: Discuss the pros and cons of theistic evolutionary theory. Week 6 Cont. Archeology Culture Stone Age Rise of civilizations MS: Using information from cave paintings, human fossils, and other artifacts, label on a world map the locations of the earliest human settlements. Note they are scattered throughout the world. Connect this to Bible work, genealogy chart, etc. Discuss what is known about each of these early cultures. HS: Relate the geographic implications of fossils and artifacts to biblical genealogies and the spread of nations. Discuss location of the garden of Eden. A.412, MS/HS: Research and plot on a world map locations of current excavation sites. Also list important finds from each continent that have shaped modern knowledge of ancient history. (Use internet) A.527 ER/IR: Simulate the Stone Age. Practice living like early man, using means of meeting daily needs common to that period. Invite older students to the simulation once prepared. Remember that they could talk and were much like people are today. MS: Consider what things and values would have been important to people living in this kind of society. HS: Research the Tasaday stone age people of the Philippines. It was documented by National Geographic but is now said to be a hoax. A.308, A.309, A.310, A.318, 1.320, 1.305, MS: Read aloud from The Story of the World (Ch 1), and explore the rise of civilizations from nomadic families. Act out various human migration patterns with older and younger students. MS: Mark on a map the locations of early settlements around the world (early towns, cave painting locations, etc.) A.407, ER/IR: Create a culture based on what you know about geography and how man adapts to his environment. Decide on what kind of habitat you are "living" in. What resources will be available and how will you use them to meet your needs? MS/HS: Work with younger students to create a “culture.” Beginning with geography, identify ways the culture will meet its needs. Try out some of the ideas. Weave fibers, make fire etc. How many different names will there be for the staple food? A.409 ER/IR: Use the era note cards to tell the story of history. MS/HS: Break up timeline into eras. Write them on note cards and have younger students put them in order. Include evolutionary idea of history and the young earth idea. Include symbols that represent what happens in each era. A.313, 1.312 MS/HS: Discuss how certain lies embedded in a culture can stunt its growth or even destroy it. II. Unit 1 History Activities By Day WEEK 1 The focus of history this week is to begin reflecting on concepts like “time” and “history” and God’s role in the history of the universe, earth, life, and mankind in particular. Students should begin recognizing that: History is linear (it has a clear beginning, middle, and end) and reveals God’s unfolding Story God is the Lord of history, and intervenes in or authors events. He has interacted with man and reveals Himself to be known by all peoples throughout all time. Finally, students should begin to acknowledge and question the difference between “history” and “what actually happened,” embarking on a quest for understanding and knowledge of Truth. MONDAY ER/IR – Learning About Time, Part One 10 minutes (then 2 minutes each morning) R/E: The goal of this ongoing exercise is to guide students through the process of understanding “time,” and that events happen in sequence, and more specifically, to help students understand we measure time in various ways (clocks, calendars, timelines, etc.) In order for a “timeline” to make any sense and be useful, students must begin to grasp these abstract concepts. This activity begins the process. We will build upon it each unit. This unit, begin “marking time” or counting the days as they go by. Hang a strip of paper (old adding machine tape is a good size) horizontally along the wall (under the board is a good place, where students can reach it to write on it). Explain, “We as a class are going to keep track of all the days that go by while we are in school this year. We will use one mark to represent each day.” Mark the first mark (for today) at the beginning of the strip (see example below). INSERT SAMPLE (I’ll draw it for you quickly) Choose a time (at the beginning of Large Group lessons, right after lunch, etc.) to add a tally mark each day. Try to always do it at the same time. Let students raise questions (perhaps on Monday of the next week) regarding weekend days, talking through answers. Let students take turns adding tally marks. Where will this activity lead? Next unit we begin measuring the distance between the marks (since the time between marking them is always the same). Later we begin adding “events” to the day spaces, eventually leading to making calendars, and finally to measured timelines. Note: A secondary use of this exercise is an opportunity to practice counting, even skip-counting (by 5s, 10s, etc.). After collecting a number of marks, you can choose to count them. Then circle every fifth mark in green, every tenth in blue, every hundredth in red, for example, and count by 5s, 10s, even 100s. Skill Ref. \#1.304 MS/HS – What is History? 30 minutes STI:Write the word history on the board or on a piece of paper. Ask, “What is history?” Listen to and reflect on students’ responses, helping them arrive at a good working definition (should include something about information from the past, as well as a record of that information, especially written record). Oral and written history: Ask, “How do we know what we know about history?” (students may answer from books, etc.) How did the author’s of those books know what they know about history?” Keep pursuing this discussion until students are lead back to the original events, the accounts of those who were there, and those who wrote about them. Then ask, “How did those eyewitnesses who lived before writing systems were developed pass along what they knew?” Help students understand the difference between passing on history through oral and written records (note that oral histories often reflect greater accuracy than written records in some contexts, though most of us come from non-oral cultures). Discuss briefly the Biblical record. Ask, “How did Moses know what he knew (about Adam and Eve, for example) if he was not an eyewitness in the Garden of Eden?” Recognize the importance of historical record, the role of oral records, and the necessity of written record. Recognize the Bible as a written historical record. In it are different records written at different points in history (see if students can name some records and when they were written). Note that the written accounts reflect at times a firsthand (eyewitness) account, and at other times reflect oral records passed down to the writer (see if students can identify examples of each). History and historiography (the writing of history): Ask students to quickly write two sentences about what has happened so far at school this year (including today and any orientation days). Then have students take turns sharing what they wrote. At the end ask, “What did you notice about each person’s answer? How were answers the same? How were they different?” Guide students discussion toward an understanding that: “History” (the record) and “what really happened” are not always the same Every person who records events has a particular worldview or perspective on a situation and meaning, and so interprets events differently. Tell students to imagine that you had not been with them in the classroom. Now you write two sentences summarizing what has happened in school this year, based solely on what the students wrote. Ask, “How well did my summary reflects your experience? How well did it reflect what you actually wrote?” Discuss the difference between an eyewitness (first-hand) account and a second-hand account. Which is more reliable? Primary and secondary sources: Tell students to imagine you buried these accounts (theirs and yours) in a time capsule, and someone from a different culture unearthed them in 100 years. Discuss what the discoverers might learn from reading them. Discuss what those people might write about the school based on what they learned. Now compare those two accounts. How would they be useful? What would the possible problems be with each? Explain the difference between primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are original accounts, either of historical events or of research conducted. Secondary sources are accounts based on study or reading of primary sources. Think about the resources in the classroom. Are they mostly primary or secondary sources? What about newspapers or magazines? The various books in the Bible? Ask, “What must we keep in mind about a resource as we conduct historical research? What kinds of resources should we look for when doing research? What kinds of questions should we ask about any resource before ‘believing’ it?” (lead student to thinking about: Who wrote it? What was their perspective / worldview? What was their source? Who was their audience? How would their audience have affected their writing?) Skill Ref. \#1.220, 1.223, 1.312 TUESDAY Remember to add a tally mark to your “school days timeline” (begun Monday). All – General and Special Revelation 20 minutes (All), then 20 minutes (MS/HS) STI: (Prepare in advance) Find two identical, medium-sized objects (2 large buttons, 2 Christmas bulbs, etc. – something familiar to the students, but not simple to guess), and put each into similar boxes. Seal the boxes. Write a brief written description of the object but do not name it. Gather students and divide them into two multiage teams. Give each team a sealed box, asking them to guess what is inside. Ask, “How can your team find out more about what is inside without opening the box?” Let them do anything they want for a few minutes (except open the box), then make a final guess based on what they discover. Now give one of the groups the written description, asking one student to read it aloud. Have each group give their final guess, then open the boxes. Ask, “Can experimenting give you good information about something? Is a written explanation better? Or is it better to have both?” Now ask, “How we can learn about God? What does every person on earth have to teach them about God?” (Romans 1: nature/creation, and our consciences/intuition) Explain we call these forms of revelation general revelation because everyone in the world has them. (Write the term on the board.) Ask, “What else do we have that teaches us about God, that only some people have? (Scripture) God also speaks through special people (like prophets) or in dreams (like the dreams Pharaoh had). Finally, Jesus was God revealed in human form. Explain we call the kinds of revelation that come only to specific people special revelation. (Write the term on the board.) Review with students the difference between the two, discussing that God has revealed some things about Himself to all peoples, but other things He revealed to certain people, asking them to share the revelation to others. Dismiss younger students to begin/continue their independent work. (MS/HS only) Use the General and Special Revelation lesson from Appendix E. ER/IR – Learning About Time, Part Two 10 minutes R/E:Young students experience “the passing of time” every day, though quite unaware of this, as “time” is an abstract concept. Take opportunities to make students aware that time is passing by pointing it out in practical ways. Bring students together and ask, “What is time?” Listen to all responses. Tell students that all day long time is passing. Ask them to tell you ways time passes in a day. Ask what things have already passed today? What things have not yet happened? What things are happening right now? Say, “Let’s practice paying attention to time this week.” Bring out a small (short!) hourglass or other timer. Tell students we will “watch” the time pass. Throughout the week as you undertake various activities (taking a walk, singing a song, etc.), talk to students about time passing. Compare “long” times with “short” times. Help students begin to get a feel for estimating time (i.e. “Will this take us a long time or a short time?”) Note: All work with time goes both toward helping students learn to measure time (clocks, timelines, etc.), but also toward learning to manage time and use it wisely. Skill Ref. \#1.301 MS/HS – Prehistory: An Old vs. Young Earth Perspective 50 minutes PART I, R/E (20 minutes): Ask students to share what they learned yesterday in the discussion of history. Make sure to review the definition of “history.” Now write the word “pre-history” on the board and see if students can distinguish between history and pre-history. Ask, “Why is everything that happened before people were around automatically pre-history?” Guide students toward realizing that history requires a record (oral or written), and a record cannot exist without a recorder! (Pre-history generally refers to the time before historical record, so before humans, in typical accounts.) Explain that today’s lesson introduces students to an exploration of the period of “pre-history.” Obviously, if no humans were there to record the events, then we must gain understanding of this period through gathering data and presenting theories. We do both through study of science and historical record (such as the Bible, etc.). In our time, most scientists believe the period of pre-history to have lasted for millions of years before the first humans appeared. This would make the earth very old. Christians are seeking to understand how the record in the Bible fits with scientific data. Those Christians who agree with current scientific theory hold to an Old Earth Theory of Creation. Other Christians (and some scientists) believe that the dating methods currently used to obtain data are flawed, and theorize that the earth is in fact only thousands of years old. These hold to a Young Earth Theory of Creation. Tell students, “Our job the next few weeks is to explore both these positions and theories held by Christians, looking for Truth. We must see where the data is strong for each theory, and where it is weak. We must find out what proponents of each theory suggest about pre-history, and what their critics say. Finally, we must find out what questions still need to be answered for each theory.” Divide students into two groups (no more than four in a group). Assign one group to address Old Earth Creationism, and the other Young Earth. Each group must make a chart with the following headings: Old (or Young) Earth Creationists suggest… Critics of Old (or Young) Earth Creationists refute this by suggesting… Down the left side of the chart, students will identify all relevant “categories” for gathering data. Ask students to brainstorm what topics each theory of Pre-history might need to cover [i.e. How old is the earth? When did the first life forms appear? When was the Fall (when did “destructive” life appear)? When did the dinosaurs live? When did man appear? etc.]. Note: Both groups should research the same categories! As more categories emerge during research, make sure BOTH groups add it to their chart. Using resources in the classroom (as well as limited internet resources), each group must work together to complete the chart, due in one week (next Tuesday). Students should use a minimum of three resources (and a minimum of two non-internet resources), and should turn in their notes along with the chart. Stop now for a moment and have students record the assignments in their work plans. Since this is the first assignment, take time to make sure everyone is doing this accurately. (For a review of managing assignments, see Lesson 8 of the Teacher’s Guide.) PART II, Skill (30 minutes): Since this lesson sends students off to research, it is a good time to clarify research expectations, and to review research skills. Make note of any students who need extra help or an extra skill review lesson, and schedule a time for the lesson. (Note: For a review of note-taking, use Unit 1: Note Making and Outlines from Teaching Writing: Structure and Style from the Institute for Excellence in Writing. Use a selection from a book relevant to student’s research as the sample.) For a review of research expectations for MS/HS students and a sample note page/card, see Appendix C. (Not included in this sample.) Students should take notes on either a card or page (lined) with the source cited at the top. Choose a preferred format for citing resources (MLA, APA, etc.), and let students know where in the room to find examples of entries for reference. Help students learn to be accurate and consistent with format. Students should take notes (good summary phrases) in a loose “outline” form, with notes from each source arranged generally by topic (underlined), then by numbers or bullet points. Find a book in the classroom with good information on Old and/or Young Earth Theory and pre-select a good paragraph or two to use for practice in note taking. Explain to students that this quick lesson will help them review their note taking skills and get a head start on their assignment. Show them the book you found with good information about their topic in it. Explain they should take notes on each source, recording all information from that source on one card or page with the source information at the top. (When the number of notes exceeds the space on the page, simply staple a second page to the first.) Tell students you will be using the (your choice) format for citing resources this year, showing them where to find samples for use. Write the info on the board and have each student start a card/page with the info for this source at the top. (You can have one student ask for the information in order, such as author, title, etc., while another student finds the information from the book.) Ask students, “How do you take good notes from a book?” Using their good answers, show or remind them they should take notes by category with sub-points underneath. (Have students leave 3-5 blank lines between the citation and their notes for information to be added in Thursday’s Language Arts lesson.) Now read the paragraph or two you selected. Ask students to identify the position represented (Old/Young Earth), and ask students to identify the category addressed. Write this category on the page and underline it. Now read the sample again, asking students to identify the key sub-points they need to remember from that category. As they list relevant sub-points, help them shape them into short phrases (notes), and record them on the page. Guide students through the process of learning to select key information, and of forming good notes (3-5 word phrases of key words). GROUP ASSIGNMENT: Notes (minimum 3 sources) and Chart Due date: 1 week Skill Ref. \#1.207, 1.221, 1.222, 1.219, 1.308, 1.315 WEDNESDAY / THURSDAY Remember to add a tally mark to your “school days timeline” (begun Monday). Talk with younger students about “time” throughout the day (begun Tuesday). FRIDAY Remember to add a tally mark to your “school days timeline” (begun Monday). Talk with younger students about “time” throughout the day (begun Tuesday). Geography study throughout the year will give students another unique lens through which to view creation and human societies. By the end of this week, students should be able to identify a globe as a representation of planet earth, and to begin recognizing and locating key features on both political and physical globes. ER/IR –What is Geography? 20 minutes Write the word “geography” on the board, and ask, “What is this word? What is Geography?” Work with students to form a good definition. Show the etymology [i.e. the word origins: Greek “geographia” from “ge” (earth) and “graphia” (description)]. Note: Continue to give the etymology of words for all content words throughout year. Always write the word and its parts on a label to show students, or on the board for them to see. Ask, “Why is it important to study geography? What are some good ways to study geography?” Explain that today we begin our study of earth by looking at a model of planet earth. Show the globe and ask, “Does anyone know what this is? What do you know about a globe? How can we use it?” Pass around the globe and allow students to touch it, spin it appropriately (if it spins), and to find anything they know how to find on it already. FOLLOW UP: Have a student who can write make labels for each of the places students already know how to find on the globe. Place the labels with sticky tack or tape (or something sticky that won’t damage the globe) in a small basket on the shelf near the globe. Students can practice placing the labels correctly on the globe (getting you to check them when complete) as an extra geography work this week! Note: Remember that FOLLOW-UP activities are optional! Note: Why teach etymology? Showing students the origins of words not only introduces them to various concepts of language and grammar, but also helps with new vocabulary acquisition. Students will quickly learn to identify common roots and affixes, helping them when they encounter unknown words in their reading. Years of exposure to etymology will leave students more aware of language and vocabulary while also preparing them for college entrance exams (generally containing large vocabulary components)! As a further perk, students learn about history and culture, and how languages are formed. Skill Ref. \#1.401, 1.404 MS/HS – Globe Game 20 minutes (students can continue longer if they like) Review the definition of “geography” and the purpose for study. (If students are new to the school or this curriculum, include them in the “What is Geography?” lesson above or repeat it with them.) Divide students into two groups. Explain this is a game to see which team knows the most about the globe. Give the teams time (5 minutes) to “study” the globe, reviewing the oceans, seas, continents, as well as larger islands, or large nations and areas (i.e. Europe, the Middle East, India, China, etc). Spin the globe and stop it with your finger (a student can also do this). The other team must describe where your finger is pointing, but without “reading” the globe. The more specific a team can get, the more points they get (1 point for the continent, 1 more for the country, 1 more for the state or major nearby city). After playing, you can increase difficulty (or add bonus points) for also including major mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers. Have fun! Continue personal dictionaries? (adding content words); MS/HS begin vocab. boxes WEEK 2 MONDAY Remember to add a tally mark to your “school days timeline” (begun last Monday). PLEASE NOTE: This will be your last reminder, though you should continue this activity for the whole year. TUESDAY All – Theistic vs. Naturalistic Worldview Strike the Imagination: Find a picture of Stonehenge in one of your books or on the internet. Have the whole class look at the picture. Did this stone formation just happen naturally or did someone intelligent make it? What makes us think one way or the other? What difference does it make? How will it change how we look at Stonehenge or study it if we think some intelligent people put it together or if we think it is just random? Large Group Lesson How will it change how we study nature if we think someone intelligent created it or if we think it happened randomly? Describe a creationist and naturalistic (materialist) worldview. What do they disagree about? What do they agree about? Dismiss the younger students and keep discussing with the older students: MS/HS – Describe a creationist and naturalistic (materialist) worldview. Students role play discussions on various topics from each of these worldviews. Discuss bible topics from this week and last from different worldviews. [From Science Week 1] (MS/HS only) Talk about how some aspects of the naturalist worldview actually come from a creationist worldview originally and don’t necessarily follow from a “matter is all there is” worldview (like the idea that there are laws in nature that all things follow, or that each part of plants/animals must have a purpose or function, or that all over the universe similar laws will apply, etc.). Why does a naturalistic worldview not necessarily imply order and function in nature? MS/HS – Skim books or articles in the classroom to determine the perspective/worldview of the author. Cite evidence you used to identify their worldview. Below we list some aspects of worldview. As you present each worldview question, ask students to think of ways different people might answer. What is reality? (Is there a supernatural world? Does God exist? Are there many gods? Are there other spirits? Can humans have relationship with God?) What is reality (the world) like? (Did someone create the world, or has it just always been here? Is there order to it? Are things really just in chaos? Is there a spirit dimension? Or is matter all that is real?) What is a human being? What is its value? (Is man made in the image of God, or simply an evolved being? Is man a god? Is man really pretty “good” or actually “evil?”) Do humans have a free will (to choose their fate), or a “fatalistic” outlook (fate is chosen for humans by something outside of us) How do we know what is “right” and what is “wrong?” Why is there evil? What is the solution for evil? What happens to humans at death? (Is death the end? Is there life after death? What about reincarnation? Is it the same for “good” people and “bad” people?) What is the meaning of life and history? (Is there a purpose for living? Is history simply repeating itself? Is there a beginning and an end to the world?) (USE INSIGHT WV/RELIGION SHEET!) ER/IR – Created vs. Evolved Have the students find a number of things that were created by human beings and some things that were not created by humans. How can they tell which is which? Relate this to views on nature. How might we tell if nature was created by God or not? Discuss difference between being created and having evolved randomly. MS/HS – Old Earth/Young Earth History (continued) \*Debate Using research done during last week, separate into two teams and debate the “Old Earth” vs. the “Young Earth” Christian interpretations of Creation. Be sure to include different interpretations Genesis 1-11 of things like the “days of creation,” the flood, and the genealogy. Have the students look up the rules of how a debate is run, and be ready to critically evaluate one another’s arguments and form logical rebuttals to specific points. When they present their debate in front of the class, make sure that they follow the rules for debates. Explain concepts of the Young Earth/Old Earth conflict to ER/IR on a lower level. [NOTE: “~include info from interp. of Gen 1-2”] FRIDAY ER – Globe: Land vs. Water ER – Using a globe (physical if possible), distinguish between land and water. Have them memorize the names of the continents and all the oceans and large seas labeled on the globe. WEEK 3 TUESDAY All – Evolution vs. Theistic Evolution [From Science] Ongoing Assignment: Compare Darwin’s theory of naturalistic evolution and theistic evolution with the theory of intelligent design. Focus this week on providing an overview of each theory as well as defining key terms and concepts. Keep complete bibliographic notes on all information discovered. Prepare a presentation to the rest of the class (and parents?) explaining the difference between Darwin’s theory of evolution and theistic evolution, then between evolution and intelligent design. Point out what scientific data each side uses to support it case. Strike the Imagination: Show some pictures of old cars (Model T Fords, 50’s cars, etc) and talk about how cars have “evolved” as we learn more about engines, aerodynamics, etc.. But what does the word “evolution” mean? Can evolution be directed by intelligent beings? What is the difference between directed evolution and random evolution? What would you expect to find in random “evolution” or random change? Why did Darwin think that “natural selection” solved these problems? Large Group Lesson Talk about the difference between a naturalistic view of evolution of life, and a theistic view of the evolution of man. Compare a progressive view of creation (different kinds being created over long periods of time) and theistic evolution (that God designed DNA and life in such a way that it would evolve through natural selection). Discuss what some reasons people would have for being a theistic evolutionist or for not being one? Discuss why Darwinism goes beyond science to become a naturalistic worldview. What statements in Genesis 1 and 2 imply that God created each kind of animal separately “from dust”—in chapter 2– (kind is usually understood to mean deer-type, cat-type, etc. not every species within kinds)? HS – Pros & Cons of Theistic Evolution \* [From Science] MS/HS – Discuss what some reasons people would have for being a theistic evolutionist or for not being one? HS – Discuss the pros and cons of theistic evolutionary theory. ER/IR/MS – Dinosaur Research \*Notes [From Language Arts] ER/IR – Students identify the parts of a book and make a book of dinosaur drawings and poems or sentences/paragraphs about students’ favorite dinosaurs using what they have learned in their science research. ER students can have older students write in their poems and descriptions for them. Continue small group reading sessions started last week throughout the unit. Draw pictures or write simple words to record information about dinosaurs. [From Science] Emphasize the importance of accuracy. IR: Also begin taking dinosaur notes in keyword outline form and making drawings (as accurate as possible) to go with the notes. List bibliography (title, author) with research. Ongoing Assignment: ER – Research at least 4 different kind of dinosaurs this week, drawing pictures of them and showing how they are different from one another, describing them in simple words. IR – Do the same except take notes on the specific differences of each dinosaur in keyword outline form (see the Institutes for Excellence in Writing curriculum for details). Show how much of a fossil of this animal has been found. List a bibliography to show where you are getting your information (title and author and page number only). ER – Look at pictures in dinosaur books to gather information (beginning research). Draw pictures or write simple words to record information. IR – Look in dinosaur books to gather information (beginning research). Draw pictures or write simple words to record information. Begin taking notes in keyword outline form. List bibliography (title, author) with research. IR/MS – Fit dinosaurs into the timelines of both a young and old earth. Continue research of dinosaurs, gathering information, making notes, and creating reports appropriate to level. MS/HS – Evolution/Darwin/Natural Selection \*Research/reenact \*Flow chart [From Science] HS – Distinguish between evolution and Darwin’s (Theory of) Evolution. Explain difference to younger students. [From Science] MS – Create a flow chart explaining natural selection. Describe the concept “survival of the fittest.” [From Science] MS/HS – Compare Darwin’s theory of evolution with the theory of intelligent design. Focus this week on providing an overview of each theory as well as defining key terms and concepts. Divide into two groups and present a case for both sides. MS/HS Research Charles Darwin. What era did Darwin live in? What were some contemporary issues or events that may have affected Darwin’s philosophy/worldview? Re-enact autobiographical sketches of Darwin’s life, including the writing of his book On the Origin of Species. Focus on summarizing main points into easy ideas to understand and be sure to articulate words clearly. MS/HS – Create a flow chart explaining natural selection. Describe the concept “survival of the fittest.” Explain that all dogs are still the same species and just because some could survive climates that would kill others, it doesn’t mean that a new species has been formed. When some types of a species die out, the remaining forms of that species are fewer, and have less options of variety not more. Variety has been lost. New species have not developed. Mutations do not create more information in the gene pool, but mangle some of the information. Mutations do not create new species. Even intelligent selection of characteristics (such as when creating new types of roses), cannot produce new species. HS – Worldview Reflection ~ Naturalism \*Paragraph (journal) Journal? HS – Recognize ways that a naturalistic worldview has influenced modern Western culture, including Christian culture. Identify areas in one’s own worldview that have been tainted by naturalism. Write a paragraph on each that shows where these ideas lead when it comes to; relationships with people of all races and backgrounds; religious practice; loss and grief; purpose in life and scripture. . Develop reasonable responses to offer in defense of Christianity to a naturalistic society. FRIDAY ER/IR – Globe: Continents Note that each continent can be identified with two hemispheres. Have them learn the name and location of the following four continents (biggest pieces of land): America, Africa, Asia and Australia (notice that they all start with the first letter of the Alphabet and end with the same letter, explain the difference between a capital A and a little a, and then explain how the special names of things are capitalized!) ER/IR/MS – Fossil Hunt or Make Fossils \*Draw/label ER/IR – Read aloud and discuss one chapter at a time from Dry Bones and Other Fossils. Explain how fossils are formed. Make or hunt fossils in your area, then draw pictures, label, and display. WEEK 4 TUESDAY All – Macro vs. Micro Evolution MS/HS – Macro vs. Microevolution/Mutations \*Poster [From Science] MS – Make a chart comparing micro- and macro-evolution. Include pictures (drawn or from magazines) as examples of each. MS/HS – Discuss the mutation mechanism. Why does it not lead to new species? Thoroughly discuss the difference between micro- and macro-evolution, then have the students make two posters, one showing actual micro-evolution and one showing the mythical macro-evolution. Explain to younger students. [Note to teacher: While there is plenty of proof of micro-evolution, there is no real proof of macro-evolution (where fish become reptiles become birds) which requires NEW genetic information. Mutations are caused by loss or damage of genetic information (errors on part of the DNA) and do not produce NEW organized information (like the codes for wings or feathers or lungs or legs, for example). Micro-evolution is caused by “natural selection” where certain pre-existing variation-potential in a species, physical characteristics like lighter/darker hair, smaller or larger body, etc., make it easier in an isolated area for one form of an animal to survive over another. With time, the other variations die out, causing the species in one area to drift in one direction, where the same species in another area can drift in another direction. Eventually the subspecies are quite distinct and are classified as separate species. However with artificial insemination, they can still have offspring together (like ligers, from lions and tigers).] ER/IR/MS – Continue Dino Research \*Product – Dino book (Due 1 week) ER/IR – Identify the parts of a book and make a book of dinosaur drawings and poems or sentences about students’ favorite dinosaurs. [From Science] ER/IR Continue working on dinosaur research. Today take the pictures and information that has been collected and discuss as a group how the dinosaurs could be categorized. Have the younger children explain what they learned then the older children add in more (MS and HS can listen if they want to). Categorize them by meat-eating (carnivores) or plant-eating (herbivores), size, period of time that they lived in, where they lived (land, water, continent), if they lived alone or moved in herds, etc. Are there some categories that are missing (that no one did a dinosaur report on), or do they need to do more research on the ones they found? Decide what types of dinosaurs we need more information on. Add in ancient reptiles that exist to this day, like alligators, and dinosaurs that flew or lived in the sea. Try to get at least three dinosaurs in each category (more if the class is large). Talk about how God designed each dinosaur to be able to survive in variety of environments. Work on this during the week, be sure that the IR take notes in keyword outline form and list bibliography (title, author, page number) with their research. MS/HS – Mendel/Heredity \* MS – Mutation/Adaptation \*Find Dino Adaptations [From Science] MS – Define mutation and distinguish between the two. Make a list of characteristics and adaptations in humans (or any animal) that allow for survival. Discuss God’s ingenious design in Creation! [From Science] MS – Divide among students different dinosaur physical characteristics that suit them their diets and habitats. (see objectives). Make models, props, or diagrams to represent each. Talk about how God designed each to be able to survive in variety of environments. Who was Gregor Mendel? What significant scientific field did he pioneer? What were the three major tenets he formed? How does this relate to hybridization? Explain specifics of speciation and hybridization as related to Evolution. Relate to punctuated equilibrium. HS – Hybridization & Speciation \*1 Paragraph essay (due Fri) ON YOUR OWN: Look up and define hybridization as compared to natural selection; how are they the same or different? How early did humans start creating hybrid plants? How is hybridization different from modern forms of genetic modification and gene splicing? Research genetically-modified plant foods on the internet, like soy, etc.. Is gene splicing an attempt to get macro-evolution or not? Write a one-page essay with your findings, taking a stand for or against genetic modification and gene splicing. (Extra credit: Look in Leviticus and discover what the Bible has to say about breeding animals across species.) [From Science] HS – Describe the process of speciation. What part does [MISSING text] [From Science] HS – Explain specifics of speciation and hybridization as related to Evolution. Relate to punctuated equilibrium. FRIDAY IR – Globe: Hemisphere Define hemisphere (“half” of a “ball”). On a globe, identify the Northern, Southern, then Eastern and Western hemispheres. Note the continents located in each. Note that each continent can be identified with two hemispheres. Have them memorize the names of the continents and all the oceans and large seas labeled on the globe. WEEK 5 TUESDAY All – Culture [From Science] Spark the Imagination: Bring in silverware and chopsticks. Ask students what is the most common thing used (by the most people) worldwide to eat food with. (Answer: the right hand fingers). Talk about the fact that people in different places have figured out different ways to take care of their needs and to be creative and that is called their “culture.” Large Group Lesson Define culture and have students brainstorm and identify all the different aspects of culture that vary among people groups (i.e. food, clothing, shelter, beliefs, etc.). Ie. Food: Hunting, gathering, farming etc. Explore the various cultures represented in your classroom, noting similarities and differences. Ask: How it is possible to find out about cultures of people that lived a long long time ago, thousands of years? Show the students some pictures of artifacts that have been found from ancient Middle Eastern cities. Have them make some theories about the culture of these people. How is “culture” different from “worldview”? (Answer: Culture is the rules, patterns of behavior, material creations, etc. that people in a group hold in common. Worldview is less visible, consisting of their assumptions about reality, values, and commitments. Worldview is much harder to discern from archeological findings, but influences culture significantly, and can be best discerned through stories/teachings the people pass down through generations.) ER/MS – Read about cultures ER/IR – Read about cultures around the world. (Choose at least one culture from each continent to review the continents as well.) ER/IR – Intro to Archeology/Tools ER/IR Define archeology and identify tools used in a dig. Find pictures of an archeological dig. Participate with older students in a dig simulation. Learn to follow steps in order and to work carefully with tools and artifacts. Document the dig making sketches of artifacts found in relation with other artifacts. ER/IR/MS – Dino Research (present) MS/HS – Archeology vs. Paleontology \*Venn Diagram \*Research & Prepare Dig (due Fri) \*Create sample artifacts (due Fri) Strike the Imagination: Show pictures of different things that have been dug up. Fossil bones. Fossil shells. Arrowheads. Pottery. Etc. Ask students to think of two major categories they could fit into (answer: things created by man, ancient dead life created originally by God)… Large Group Lesson Define paleontology and archaeology and distinguish between them… identify the former as the study of mankind’s ancient life and culture through digging up and identify man-made artifacts (analyzing graves, etc.), archeology, and the latter as the study of ancient life forms through digging up fossils, paleontology. Archeology is a form of pre-history, and paleontology is a form of ancient biology. When would archeologist also look at bones of people and animals?. Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two, showing what can overlap between them. Prepare a simulated archeological dig for students using the artifacts that the MS students have prepared. Identify tools and procedures for digging and recording work. Be as accurate as possible with the simulation! MS – Read through the Usborne book on Archeology. Discuss how artifacts are pre-served over time. Have each student create a different sample artifact, explaining how it was preserved and what sort of information (clues!) we can learn from each. Make typical artifacts for older students to bury. MS – Discuss how artifacts are pre-served over time. Have each student create a different sample artifact, explaining how it was preserved and what sort of information (clues!) we can learn from each. Listen to each others ideas respectfully whether you agree or not. HS – Ancient Culture Research \*Prepare Presentation (Due 1 week) [From Science] Ongoing assignment: Divide up between the students the most ancient peoples (including ice-age people) which have a fair amount of information about them. Have the students research and then compare their findings about the ancient cultures. What is similar? What is different? How does geography and climate affect the cultures? How do ancient people cope with, change or capitalize on their environment? How do the creations of even the most ancient peoples demonstrate that their intelligence is the same as modern man? Prepare a presentation for the ER/IR students on each people group (about 5 minutes each). HS (optional additional work) – Relate the geographic implications of fossils and artifacts to biblical genealogies and the spread of nations. Discuss possible location of the Garden of Eden. MS/HS – Current Excavation Sites (OPTIONAL) \*Map (due 1 week) MS/HS – Research and plot on a world map locations of current excavation sites. Also list important finds from each continent that have shaped modern knowledge of ancient history. (Use internet) THURSDAY All – Peoples of the World \*Cultures Research Strike the Imagination: Look at a world map. Have students guess how many nations there are on earth today (prize to the student whose guess is closest at the end of the exploration). Divide students up into groups to count the number of countries on each continent (give easier continents, like North America, to younger students, and give the island nations and Australia to the older students or preferably make all the groups multi-age). Total them up and identify the winner. Ask, “In Genesis we read a list of all the families of the earth at that time. Do these nations represent the families? No? Do they represent the number of language groups at least? Have the students guess how many languages, and how many people groups (with different cultures) there might be on earth. Large Group Lesson Using the same groups as above, have the students find descriptions or pictures that will represent at least two distinctly different cultures from their continent/area and share them with the rest of the class. What are some racial and cultural things that tend to be concentrated in certain areas? (including ways to eat, what to eat, types of houses or clothes, religions, etc.). Why are people more the same when they are closer together? How are languages and practices and beliefs passed from person to person? Or generation to generation? MS/HS – People Group Research \*Report \# (Due Fri) This week, have the older students research the number of both, using Operation World, or the websites of Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Joshua Project. Middle School/High School (small group plus ongoing assignment) Each of the students needs to pick a particular non-industrial unreached people groups whose culture he/she will research this week (preferably from different continents, see website of the Joshua Project for a list). In the small group session, discuss the various aspects of culture that would be important to cover and come to a concensus on 5-7 things that all will research for their own people group (including things like how the adapt to their environment in terms of diet/housing/clothing/agriculture etc.). Discuss how this research will be presented to the rest of the class, including at least a paragraph of information and a picture or drawing on each topic (so each student will be responsible for 5-7 paragraphs with a drawing/picture for each). High school students need to add to these cultural factors some worldview factors like: understanding of life after death, view of the “evil eye” or other curses, or belief in “limited good” (i.e. if one person has more than someone else must have less now). MS/HS – People Group Research B \*Presentation (due 1 week) FRIDAY All – Archeological Dig \*Maps & Sketches of Artifacts Explain/demonstrate procedure to younger students before starting the excavation. Help them se artifacts found in dig as well as observations from recorded information to make deductions about the “cultures” uncovered. ER – Globe: Oceans Have them learn the location and name of the Altantic and Pacific Oceans. Show them where they are on the globe (show them where there family comes from, if different). IR/MS – Catastrophic events/Pangaea (geography) Emergent Reader/Independent Reader Lydia: This doesn’t match overview chart which says Dry Bones and other Fossils chapter 1-3, which is right? Where is chapter 4? Read Ch 5 in Dry Bones and other Fossils. Talk about how fossils are only formed in catastrophes, like floods and volcanic eruptions. Draw pictures of fossils. Large Group Lesson Get the students to find information on the Ice Age. What are some theories about how many there were and what caused them? Look at catastrophic events that could have caused huge changes in the geography (asteroid impacts, for example). Include evolutionary and creationist perspective. Have older students look up the scientific theory that all the continents use to be connected (pangea). Who was Peleg (in Genesis 10:25)? Why is his name significant? WEEK 6 TUESDAY All – Stone Age All – Present Ancient Cultures Research [From Science] ER/IR – Have the Middle School/High School students present their discoveries about different early peoples (done during the last week) to the ER/IR students. Have the ER/IR students compare the peoples in a discussion guided by the MS/HS students. Ongoing assignment: Keep working on their stone age model village. If they are done, they can try making “cave paintings” (after looking at real ones that have been discovered) and Australian-like hand silhouettes on a wall (either covered with paper or one that can be painted over later). HS – Cultural Analysis (OMIT) \* HS – Using information from artifacts, conduct an analysis of the culture (using a comprehensive definition) and worldview of early peoples. ER/IR – Needs of Man/Stone Age \*Make Props (Due Fri) Emergent Reader/Independent Reader [From Science] Have the students gather books that show things about the stone age people. Look at the pictures and talk about what that we have learned about Stone Age people. Where did they live? How did they survive? ONGOING ASSIGNMENT: Design and build a model of a stone age village. MS/HS – Early Human Settlements \*Map (Due Fri) [From Science] MS/HS – Using information from cave paintings, human fossils, and other artifacts, label on a world map the locations of the earliest human settlements. Note they are scattered throughout the world. Connect this to Bible work, genealogy chart, etc. Discuss what is known about each of these early cultures. MS/HS – Migration Patterns (OPTIONAL/OMIT) MS – Read aloud from The Story of the World (Ch 1), and explore the rise of civilizations from nomadic families. Act out various human migration patterns with older and younger students. THURSDAY All – Create a Culture ER/IR – Create a culture based on what you know about geography and how man adapts to his environment. Decide on what kind of habitat you are “living” in. What resources will be available and how will you use them to meet your needs? MS/HS – Work with younger students to create a “culture.” Beginning with geography, identify ways the culture will meet its needs. Try out some of the ideas. Weave fibers, make fire etc. How many different names will there be for the staple food? MS/HS – Early Technology MS /HS – Trace the development of tools, pottery, and other technology from the Stone Age to Bronze Age. (Oldowan, Acheulian, Mousterian, etc..) FRIDAY All – Stone Age Reenactment Emergent Reader/Independent Reader ER/IR Simulate the Stone Age. Practice living like early man, using means of meeting daily needs common to that period. Invite older students to the simulation once prepared. Remember that they could talk and were much like people are today. MS – Consider what things and values would have been important to people living in this kind of society. ## 1 Language Arts Activities Week 1 MONDAY Begin Read Aloud books today, if not already begun in Orientation. They are books containing Creation Myths from around the world. (Use them with all students, or have the HS students read to younger students. Begin the HS Read Aloud for this unit in Week 2.) For a review of the Read Aloud component of this curriculum, see Lesson 12 of the Teacher’s Guide. Skill Ref. \#V.125 TUESDAY Continue reading aloud and discussing the Creation myths. WEDNESDAY Continue reading aloud and discussing the Creation myths. THURSDAY Continue reading aloud and discussing the Creation myths. All – All About Books! 35 minutes (ALL), then 15 minutes (MS/HS) STI: Show a picture of a fired clay tablet (cuneiform), a rolled up papyrus scroll, and a silk with block printing from China (from history books). Have students compare these with a modern book. Ask, “Why were these older forms of preserving information used only for the most important messages, documents, or financial records? [They are difficult, expensive, and time consuming to make, they are hard to duplicate, etc.] Why is a modern book a more effective form?” Discuss benefits of books that make them important and relevant to us. Identify ways books will be useful to the class this year. Ask, “What are the parts of a book?” (As students answer, list parts in two columns on the board according to the following groupings.) Group 1: Spine, Cover, Title page, Title, Author, Table of Contents, Text/Body, Glossary Group 2: Illustrator, Publisher, Copyright page – date/ISBN, Dedication page, Forward, Introduction, Bibliography, Index R/E:Divide the class into pairs (make sure non-readers are paired with readers). Send one member of each pair to quickly find a book and return to the lesson. Note: You may wish to “pre-select” books for students to use that easily fit the criteria above (have a glossary, have an author rather than editor, etc.). Discuss each part of the book, using the books students now have as examples. Spine – What does the spine of the book do? What information is found on the spine of the book? Cover – What are book covers made of? As students list materials, guide them to distinguish between hardback and paperback books. What are the benefits of each? Note the differences in the front and back covers, and the information found on each. Title page – What information is found there? What does an author do? Who is the author of your book? What is the title of the book? Where else is this information found? (spine) Who is the publisher of the book? (What does a publisher do?) Table of Contents – How is this page useful? Text/Body – How long is the body of your book? (page numbers) Does the body contain pictures or graphics, or just words only? Glossary – What is a glossary? How is it helpful? When and how would you use it? (Help students think both of using it while they read, but also for research purposes. You may even select some books in the classroom with helpful reference glossaries students will use often, taking this opportunity to point them out.) Ask, “How can you tell what a book is about before you read it?” (Table of Contents, Covers, etc.) Ask students to estimate how many books are in the classroom. Ask, “Why is it important to take care of the books in our classroom?” Help students understand their part in taking care of the classroom. Learn how to take care of books by having different students model the following for the class: How do you save your place in a book? (Save the spine! Flat marker, not a pencil!) How do you hold a book? (Two hands, small paperback books are an exception.) How do we properly store books on a shelf? (Spine facing out, cover facing right.) How do we replace or remove them from the shelf? (With care and in its place!) Dismiss younger students to begin/continue their independent work. Continue discussing the parts of a book, using the list from Group 2 above. FOLLOW UP: Either make or have students make one or more of the following activities for use as independent free-choice activities. Store each activity in small baskets or trays on the Language Shelf. (We think number four is the most fun!) 1) Matching Work I. Create three-part cards (see Appendix A for more information) for the parts of a book. 2) Matching Work II. Have students make a “concentration” games with either the name and picture on matching cards (for Group 1 parts) or word and definition (for Group 2 parts). Note: Matching works should be checked by an older student or teacher before being returned to the shelf. 3) Create forms with the list of parts down the side, and blank spaces to fill in next to each one. Students must select a book and fill out the form, then bring both to be checked by an older student or teacher. 4) Scavenger Hunt. Make a list of items to find in classroom books (a glossary of archeological tools, an index with “Charles Darwin” as a topic, etc.) Use topics students will be researching in coming weeks. Make several lists, each one more difficult than the previous (label each list by degree of difficulty: Easy, Medium, Difficult, etc.). Skill Ref. \#1.110, V.017, 1.307 ER/IR – Dictionary 30 minutes SKILL:Show students a children’s dictionary and ask, “What is this? How do you use it? When is it helpful to use a dictionary?” Show students the parts of this book (dictionary). Ask, “How is a dictionary organized? How do you find the word you need?” Have students practice finding words in the dictionary. R/E: Have students each begin a personal dictionary for keeping new words learned in the different areas of study. (See Appendix A: Creating a Personal Dictionary.) Have IR students begin with the words “history” and “prehistory.” Check each student’s dictionary before dismissing him or her from the lesson to make sure students have organized the pages and made their first entries correctly. Assignment (ER): Add a new letter, or several new entries each week Assignment (IR): Add new content / vocabulary words as they are introduced in lessons Note: ER students who have not yet memorized the alphabet should do so this unit. Skill Ref. \#1.215, 1.217, 1.219 MS/HS – Introduction to Research 50 minutes Students should bring with them to this lesson their note cards/pages from their Old/Young Earth research assignment, as well as each of the books used for research. SKILL: Have students brainstorm a list of all the resources available in the classroom for research. (Include dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesaurus, books, and other reference tools.) Discuss the value of each, how to choose between resources for different tasks, and review proper use of each. R/E: Review the concept of worldview (from Wednesday), helping students refine their understanding and definition. Say, “Most authors do not state, ‘My worldview is \_\_\_\_\_.’ So, how might we determine the worldview of an author of both non-fiction and fiction books we read?” (Include clues about background and perspective from biographical info, publisher, etc., as well as from the text.) Ask, “Why is it important to determine the author’s worldview for non-fiction books? What about fiction books?” Take one book students have used for research this week. Ask, “What do you know about the author’s worldview from what you have read? What ‘clues’ do you see that indicate worldview?” (Help students learn to make statements they can back up with examples from the text, and away from stating opinions or assumptions.) Have students find the note card/page for this book. On one of the blank lines between the citation and notes, have students write Worldview (WV): \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ and fill in the blank with key words that describe in general the author’s worldview, so far as it is clear now (i.e. theist, atheist, Old Earth Creationist, etc.). If students struggle with this activity, repeat the exercise together with one or more of the books brought to the lesson. Note: Throughout the four-year study, we expose students to a variety of worldviews, and HS students will learn to identify them more quickly and specifically (i.e. nihilist, Marxist, humanist, etc.). Assignment: Include WV info on all note cards/pages in the Old/Young Earth research assignment, and in the future. Teacher Tip: Use this opportunity to check in with students on the history research assignment due next Tuesday (Old v. Young Earth perspective of Creation). Check note cards/pages for: Accuracy in source citations Accurate and effective notes (well organized by topic/bullet points; short phrases or key words); one way to test for effective notes is to have students explain back to you what they found out from that book using their notes Group progress (troubleshoot any problems) Remind students this is due next Tuesday, helping them plan when they will complete the work. (Check also to see they are recording their research/note taking on their workplans correctly.) Make note of any students who need extra individual help. You may work with them after the lesson, or schedule a separate time to meet. If you take the extra time this week and next to help students set good patterns for research, you will be well on your way to a successful year! It will be harder to correct bad habits or patterns once they are learned incorrectly. Before dismissing students, write the following two words on the board: “plagiarism” and “copyright.” Ask, “What is plagiarism? Why is it ‘wrong’ to plagiarize? How can you avoid plagiarizing an author?” (direct quotes, citation, etc.) Now ask, “What is a copyright? What does it mean for the author? What does it mean for the reader? What is the difference between breaking copyright law and plagiarizing?” (Remember to include republishing, whether copying from books, copying CDs/DVDs, etc.) Make sure students know what they must do in their research to avoid breaking these laws. FOLLOW UP: Collect a variety of books (4-5) from different subject areas and place them in a separate basket on the Language shelf. Write these instructions on a card to include in the basket: “Look through each book and determine the author’s worldview. On a piece of paper titled “Worldview of Classroom Books I” write the title of the book, the author, the worldview, and clues (evidence) from the text to support your answer. Get your work checked by a teacher.” After the first student has completed the work, have him or her create a form for other students to use. Copy the form and include it in the basket. (If students enjoy the activity, or if they need extra practice, rotate the books regularly so they can continue: “Worldview of Classroom Books II” and so on. Skill Ref. \#1.208 FRIDAY Continue reading aloud and discussing the Creation myths. MS/HS – Intro Class Set Readers 20 minutes each Note: We recommend doing this lesson separately, first with MS, then repeating with HS students. For a review of the Class Set Reader, see the Lesson 12 of the Teacher’s Guide. Remember that students should leave the lesson with a book (checked out to them), and a Reading Schedule for the Unit. Students read Class Set Readers outside of class as nightly homework, and discuss them in class on Fridays. Students should bring their Homework Folders to this lesson. STI: Explain that today begins the Literature Study for this year. Tell students, “There are three ways Literature is studied in this curriculum: Read Aloud books (which have already been started), Small Group Readers (which we will begin next week), and Class Set Readers (which we begin today).” Explain that students will read the Class Set Readers outside of class (Homework, Monday – Thursday night). Everyone in the group reads the same book, and discusses it together on Fridays. Show students the Reading Schedule for this Unit / Book, explain how to read it, and allow them a minute to look it over. Then tell students the following: Everyone must be prepared on Fridays to discuss that week’s assigned portion. The discussions will dig deeper than simply “facts” about what you read, so be sure you are familiar enough with the story and facts to engage at a deeper level. The group discussion will suffer when any member is not prepared. To make this learning opportunity successful, everyone must agree to contribute his or her part! The curriculum writers chose the books to correspond with some aspect of the unit study (either by selecting historical fiction set in the time studied, or a novel written during the time studied, or a novel with themes that relate to studies), so it is important to keep this in mind while reading. How does this story shed new light on what we are learning in Bible, Science, History, etc.? The books will give us opportunity to learn how to analyze literature effectively, enabling us to understand more of the author’s intent and message in writing this story. Introduce the Class Set Reader for this unit by describing a bit about the author, the time in which he or she wrote, and the plot line of the book. Make the introduction enticing! Pass out the books (make sure you record each student’s name by the number of book taken), and take time to read aloud together the first few pages (or chapter, if short). Make sure students are clear on their assignment. Tempt them to read not only seeking to understand story basics (What is the setting? Who are the characters? What are they like? Etc.), but also clues about the worldview of the author. Note: The Magician’s Nephew (MS Reader) relates to the study of Creation. As you progress through the reading, try to identify C.S. Lewis’ perspective on Creation (theistic evolution). Lord of the Flies (HS Reader) depicts the utter depravity of man and his need for atonement. This book lends itself well to many good discussions on this issue, a Truth greatly eschewed by a Postmodern or Secular Humanist worldview. WEEK 2 MONDAY ER/IR continue reading aloud and discussing Creation myths. Begin the HS Read Aloud (excerpt from Paradise Lost). Note: This will be the last reminder about Read Aloud books. Until there is a change or specific instruction, continue daily with this exercise. TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY All – Intro to Small Group Readers Strike the Imagination: How to Read Aloud. Take out an exciting children’s book/story and read the first section with clarity, volume, intonation and expression. Have the students point out things you are doing right then look for things you do wrong. Begin in succession (seeing if they can pick up the problems) to read in monotone, too softly, mumbling your words or putting your hands by your mouth, not pausing between sentences or paragraphs, etc. Talk about what to do if you get to a word you do not know (sound it out, ask other students for help). Large Group Lesson Divide the students into their small-group reading groups and hand out their books. Explain how they will be reading out loud to each other in their small groups, and discussing the book. Talk about how to run small reading groups (see teacher’s manual for directions). [Small groups will not remain the same all year, but change depending on the book and reading progress of the student.] Each student should have his own book and follow along visually while students take turns reading aloud (older students read longer sections before changing). Ongoing Assignment: Students will meet in their small group reading groups as often as daily (for older students) or around 3 times a week (for younger students), or as necessary to complete their small group book(s) by the end of the unit. [Note: The teacher will need to sit in on each group from time to time, to see how students are reading out loud as well as how they are discussing. Older students that get ahead on their work can help with younger reading groups, but try to have them facilitate it, not lead it, so that the students themselves get use to running their own groups.] NOTE LYDIA (for the first unit you might want to look at the books we recommended and calculate approximately how long it will take to complete the reading in this format to get a feel for how long reading and discussion realistically will take each week, given that they have started only at the end of the first week. ALL – Over the unit read through small group readers. Take turns reading aloud as a group as others follow along in their books as well as independently after school. Plan ahead so that you know which will be read as a group and which chapters each student is responsible for reading at home. When reading aloud use proper inflection and flow. MS/HS – Novel/Schedule Small Group Lesson Emergent Reader/Independent Reader/Middle School/High School Intro small readers (have them see what they can tell about their book before beginning to read it) and get student groups started today and tomorrow. The goal is to get to where the groups are fairly self-managing. Get them use to stopping after each section or chapter to reflect on what is happening (see Literary Analysis Guidelines in the Appendix for level-appropriate discussion questions). MS/HS – Discuss what makes a novel. List different genre. What are some reasons people write novels? ER/IR – Reality vs. Fiction ER/IR – Distinguish between reality and fiction stories (myths). Identify all Bible stories as reality (history). Begin a fiction / reality wall chart and add pictures and titles of stories read to the appropriate column. IR/MS – Encyclopedias Go over with IR students the purpose of encyclopedias, and how to find information in them. How do you know what a specific paragraph is going to be about? (Topic sentences and summary sentences.) MS/HS – Fact vs. Opinion MS/HS – Create a variety of exercises to help students distinguish between fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose, and fact and opinion. Continue until concepts are mastered. Books: Author’s purpose in writing….. What was the main point of the work? (add to notecard) FRIDAY MS/HS – Views of Science & the Bible MS – Begin Magician’s Nephew MS – Begin reading The Magician’s Nephew. (creationism) Read a section each night and discuss in class at least twice weekly. Be sure to use primarily interpretive questions for discussion, with evaluative questions for personal application. Use Progeny Press Study Guide for discussion and activity ideas. HS – Begin Lord of the Flies HS – Begin reading Lord of the Flies (depravity of man, atonement). Read a section each night and discuss in class at least twice weekly. Use Progeny Press Study Guide. WEEK 3 MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY ER/IR – Read Dry Bones THURSDAY All – Intro to Poetry Strike the Imagination: Read from four different types of short poetry (example: limerick, haiku, iambic pentameter, and free verse… they do not need to learn the terminology at this point). NOTE: perhaps we should provide an example of each to read that is short. Have the students notice what is different about the poems (other than content). Large Group Lesson Talk about two things that influence poetry in English significantly: Rhyming and accent. Have students come up with and group words that rhyme with each other. What else did they notice in poems besides rhyming? Talk about how to recognized accents on words, group words by similar length and accent. Talk about accents in sentences. Write some simple sentences out and mark out the beats/accents: Example: “In winter I get up at night, and dress myself by candle light.” [off/on beat], “How do I like to go up in a swing…” (on/off/off beat). What is free verse poetry? What makes it poetic? Have students find some examples of free verse and write or write their own. Compare with rhymed poetry. Choose a short poem or section of a longer poem to memorize. ER/IR – Poetry vs. Prose Emergent Reader/Independent Reader ER/IR Read aloud from Bone Poems. Distinguish between poetry and prose. How is free verse poetry different from prose? Ongoing Assignment: Have students individually or as a group write their own bone poems about dinosaurs, and then read them out loud to the group. ER students can dictate their poems to older students who transcribe them. [It may help to give ER/IR students a model to follow, where, without at this point identifying all the parts of speech, they can copy the speech forms, replacing adjectives with adjectives etc. For example, a free verse poem on a T-Rex could be something like: giant, hungry, mean, running on the plain, eating other dinosaurs, T-Rex is the king of dinosaurs… 3 adjectives, followed by two dependent clauses, and a complete sentence. They could pick one of the “bone poems” and copy the form, exchanging the words. Older students can copy more difficult poems or make up their own.] ER/IR/MS – Bone Poems \* ER/IR/MS – Read aloud from Bone Poems. Distinguish between poetry and prose. Have students individually or as a group write their own bone poems about dinosaurs. MS/HS – Poetry (selected) MS/HS – Differentiate between concrete and abstract language (look up in dictionary). What senses are appealed to in the concrete images in free verse poems encountered? What are some examples of abstract language? Ongoing Assignment: Have students write two free verse poems, one using all concrete language, focusing on sensory language, and the other using examples of abstract language (underlined). As they study free verse, have the High School students answer the following questions: How is emotion expressed in these poems? Why do people respond to poetry? Do a search on quotes concerning free verse. What do many poets think of free verse? They should write a third free verse poem this week focusing on expressing an emotion through the poem. FRIDAY ER/IR – Read Dry Bones MS – Discuss Magician’s Nephew HS – Discuss Lord of the Flies WEEK 4 MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY MS – Discuss Magician’s Nephew HS – Discuss Lord of the Flies WEEK 5 MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY MS – Discuss Magician’s Nephew HS – Discuss Lord of the Flies WEEK 6 MONDAY TUESDAY ER/IR – Needs of Stone Age Man \*Make Props (Due Friday) Ongoing Assignment: Identify some cultures today that were in the “stone age” (i.e. using only stone, not metal, tools) when first “discovered” by the rest of the world (like the Australian aborigines or Amazon Indians). Talk about how they are not “primitive” in either their language, intelligence level, or ingenious adaptation to their environment (weather, landforms, water-access, etc.). Discuss what things and values would have been important to people living in this kind of society. How do they make their clothes, make fire, get/make food, sleep safely, etc. What do they teach their children? What celebrations do they have? What do these two things teach you about what they believe? [Put ER students paired with IR students so that the older students can help the younger ones research, read and come to come to conclusions.] WEDNESDAY THURSDAY ER/IR – Bible Acrostics \*Acrostics Large Group Lesson ER/IR/MS – Write acrostic poems using important thematic words from this unit, or from important Bible stories studied. Challenge students to make poems both accurate to history and meaningful to life today. Younger students can work together to make their own acrostic poem. A.108, 1.145 FRIDAY MS – Discuss Magician’s Nephew HS – Discuss Lord of the Flies ## 1 Science Activities WEEK 1 MONDAY None TUESDAY None WEDNESDAY All – Worldview 30 minutes (ALL), then 20 minutes (IR/MS/HS) IR/MS/HS students should bring paper, pencil, and their work binder to this lesson. STI: Tell this story: “Once upon a time there was a chief who lived in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. This chief had never seen the “outside” world, meaning any life outside the Desert. One day he was walking along, minding his own business, when an empty Coca Cola bottle dropped out of the sky! He thought this glass object with sacred writing on it was an amazing thing the gods had thrown down to him! [In actuality, the bottle had dropped from a small plane.] He did not know what it was for, but he carried it back with him to show the people of the village.” “Soon, the villagers began to fight over the bottle. Some liked to blow on the top and make music. Some liked to use it to pound the grain because it was stronger than wood. Some liked to carry water in it, as it was better than gourds. Everyone wanted the bottle for his or her own use. Finally, the chief decided to walk to the end of the earth and throw the bottle off — to give it back to the gods — because it was causing nothing but trouble for his people. He thought the gods must have been crazy to have gifted them with such a strange object that caused nothing but trouble!” (Story adapted from The Gods Must Be Crazy. Dir. Jamie Uys. 20th Century Fox. Film, 1980.) Quickly draw a simple tree on the board with three roots (see picture this page); leave off the words for now but include the ground line. Explain that all people have a way of explaining and understanding what is going on in the world around them. We call this a “worldview.” It is how they view (or understand) the world. Write “worldview” below the tree. Explain that we cannot look at a person and see his worldview, since it is invisible. Ask, “Can you see my worldview?” That is why in the tree picture we put it underground – it is always there providing support, but we do not see it at first. These are things like what a person values (thinks or feels is important), what they assume to be true about the world, and where their allegiances are (what or who they are loyal to). Add these words to the tree roots as you talk. We cannot see worldview, but we can see clues that reveal a person’s worldview. Ask, “What kinds of clues might tell us what someone values?” (As students answer, add the appropriate word to the top of the tree. They will most likely start with something in the practices or attitudes category.) Continue the questioning with assumptions and allegiances. Explain that we sometimes refer to the things above ground (we can see) as aspects of a person’s culture. Say, “You each have a worldview, too! The way you see the world is influenced by your culture, your family, and many other things.” Back to the story… Ask students, “What can we learn about this chief’s worldview from the events described in the story? What in the story show clues about assumptions the chief is making? (What are some things he thought were true about the world?)” If students need help ask, “How did he explain a new object dropping out of the sky? What did he think about the earth? Where did he think the “bad” (evil) came from? What was his solution for getting rid of something bad/evil?” Then continue the questioning with values (What did he think was good? What did he think was bad? What does he seem to value more? Or value less? He has to walk very far to get to the “end of the world” and return the bottle. People use their worldview to explain and understand not only what is happening to them today, but also what has happened in history and what is going to happen in the future. Finally, ask, “Does God have a worldview?” (Allow students to wrestle a bit with this. God has a view of the world that is completely True and perfect, but His “worldview” differs from a human’s in some ways.) Then ask, “Why would it be important for us to try to bring our worldview in line with God’s worldview? Why do we call this ‘developing a biblical worldview’?” Dismiss ER students to begin/continue their independent work. Have remaining students draw the worldview tree diagram on a page, get it checked, then add it to their binder. (Once they are finished and checked, they may be dismissed to begin independent work.) As students are drawing, discuss how a worldview provides an understanding of how reality works, and seeks to answer the most fundamental questions humans have (Who am I? and Why am I here?). Give students a minute to think about their own worldview by discussing how they answer some of these important questions. Start by working at the “culture” level. What are students’ practices? (How do they greet new people on the street? Greet friends or family? Show they are full at the end of a meal? Ask for a favor? Etc.) What are their attitudes (toward family? Toward body self-image? Toward money? Toward the rest of the world? Etc.) Where are their committments? (To a cause? To a particular person or group of people? Who or what influences them most? To whom are they most loyal?) What expectations do they have? (What do they expect to always happen or be true? Etc.) Note: This is a good chance to begin identifying students’ worldviews, helping you know areas that need addressing throughout the year. ER/IR – Big Bang and Creation 15 minutes Read Chapter One of A Child’s History of the World and have students describe the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe. (There was a beginning point and there will be an end.) Ask, “What does the Bible tell us about the beginning?” Recognize that we can know from the Bible that God spoke Creation into being and that God is the power behind Creation. FOLLOW UP: Read aloud and look at pictures of the universe in Simon’s The Universe. Wonder at its size. Go outside on a clear night and look at all the starts (if you live in a large city, take a special trip far enough outside the city lights for an evening). Stay out at least 30-45 minutes to let your eyes fully adjust to the dark. If a telescope is available, have an adult or older student find the Andromeda galaxy or a star cluster. Identify earth as only one planet of one solar system of one galaxy! MS – Big Bang Key Concepts 40 minutes Read a book describing the “Big Bang” Theory. Ask, “What does this theory assume about reality and the universe?” (It had a beginning. There was no intelligent being involved. It happened extremely quickly, billions of years ago. Etc.) Now read the first chapter of Genesis. What does this chapter assume about reality, right from the start? Tell students, “Using classroom resources, outline the following for the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe. Working with a partner and a large piece of paper, research and include all three of the following on your paper (well-organized!): 1) Make a sequence chart of the series of “events” immediately before, during, and after the “big bang?” Once your chart is complete and correct, use colored pencils to make it more attractive and interesting. 2) Outline the key concepts necessary to understanding this theory. Write a brief 2-3 sentence) summary of each one. 3) Examine this theory from a biblical perspective. What do we know is true? What do we know is false? What do we not yet know? List your findings in a simple chart. Stop and help students record this assignment in their workplans, including all necessary information and the due date. This assignment has several parts, so they will need to abbreviate in their workplans and write more details on a page in the history section of their work binder. Partner Assignment: Research and Chart (minimum 2 sources) Due date: 1 week HS – Big Bang Problems 30 minutes Bring classroom resources on the Big Bang Theory to the lesson. As a group, look through the books to identify the scientists whose discoveries contributed to the current Big Bang Theory. Make a list of the scientists and their contribution on the board. Have students sign-up to research 1 or 2 on the list. They must give basic facts about the scientists, identify his contribution, and explain it in simple terms for the younger students (including a simple diagram or model to help). Stop for a moment and help students record this portion of their assignment into their workplans. Tell students they will be researching current “problems” with the Big Bang theory for the class. They should use books available in classroom as well as the Internet (if available). Have students sign up for one of the following three questions (making sure at least 1 student is assigned to each): 1) What is the second law of thermodynamics? What does it have to do with entropy? Does this work for or against the “Big Bang” theory and the theory of evolution of life? 2) What is “red shift” and how does it affect our understanding of the universe. Is there a difference between “movement in space” and the “stretching of space” itself? 3) Define “cold dark matter”, “dark matter” and “dark energy”. Explain why it is important for dark matter to exist to make the idea of he Big Bang Theory true. How did Einstein make room for dark matter in his Theory of Relativity? (Or, how did Einstein adjust his theory so the universe wouldn’t be “exploding,” but would appear a “steady state” universe instead? This material appears in the Unit 1 Introduction, if not found elsewhere.) Students should take notes on their question on note cards/pages, citing their sources (follow procedure for note-taking outlined in History). Stop and help students record this second part of their assignment. Remind them of the expected note-taking procedure (note cards, citing sources, arranged by topic, key words/phrases as bullet points). Remember to skip 3 lines between citing the source and their notes for later use. Assignment \#1: Scientist Explanation (including diagram) Due date: 1 week Assignment \#2: Notes (minimum 2 sources) Due date: 1 week THURSDAY None FRIDAY None WEEK 2 WEDNESDAY All – What is Science \*(Data, hypothesis, evidence, theory) Strike the imagination: Ask: If I paint a picture of an imaginary flower, is that science? Why not? What if I paint a picture of a real flower, is that science? Why not? Could it be science if I very carefully study the flower and make a very exact picture? Maybe? What makes “science” science? How do we learn more about God by studying science? Large Group Lesson Define science [Science involves at least three steps: 1) making careful observations about something in the natural world; 2) making an hypothesis, or informed guess, about how those things generally work that can be tested against new information, or data; 3) checking your hypothesis against a lot more observations and adjusting it to fit the new information.] Identify tools scientists use to gather data in different areas of science. Concentrate this unit on activities that sharpen observation skills. What is data? [carefully organized observations that can be reproduced by others] What is a hypothesis? What is a theory? What is evidence? ER/IR – Define science and identify tools scientists use to gather data. Concentrate this unit on activities that sharpen observation skills. What is theory? What is a hypothesis? What is evidence? MS/HS – Define science. List tools used to gather data. Create a sequence chart describing steps of the scientific method. Use these steps with future science experiments. ER/IR – Scientific Observation \* ER/IR – Observe common items using all senses. Make a list of questions you could ask about it. What does it smell like? Where did it come from? What is it made of? Use skills listed below to classify objects. Etc. Have an older student pick an object (quietly in his head) and the class asks good “yes or no” questions to find out which object it is. Play the same game with numbers between 1-100 and only 10 questions or chances to guess. MS/HS – Scientific Method \*Sequence chart MS/HS – Look up the definition of “science” in the dictionary. How does it compare to the definition the class came up with. What is the “scientific method”? Look that up. Create a sequence chart describing steps of the scientific method. Use these steps with future science experiments. HS-discuss big bang problems and what was learned…. Summarize notes! Remember to go back and add WV of books? All – Big Bang & the Bible MS/HS – Present Big Bang Research Discuss how the scientific method is used with the “Big Bang Theory.” Get ready, and present your findings about the Big Bang to the whole class that you have been researching this week. What are the perplexing things that the Big Bang Theory does not explain well yet? WEEK 3 MONDAY ER/IR – Data vs. Theory \* ER/IR/MS – See if the students can define data (information we can observe and test) and theory (using the data to come up with some ideas about what is happening or how things work). Show a fossil skeleton (preferably an actual fossil skeleton which is almost always partial) and have students sketch the creature’s appearance based on what they see. Compare drawings, emphasizing how difficult it is to estimate the appearance of dinosaurs or other extinct animals, and how easy it is to begin with the same evidence (data) but construct different theories. Explain that pictures of dinosaurs with skin, flesh, color, even some features, are only someone’s idea of how they may have looked. WEDNESDAY All – Fossil Record/Tree of Life/Paleontology \*Diagram Draw a picture of a standard evolutionary tree of life, with few animals branching into more and more kinds. [Find a diagram of the phylogenetic tree (tree of life) in Oxford: Prehistoric World (p 44) or It Couldn’t Just Happen (p 84). ] Explain that the fossil record actually shows a very different picture. Draw another picture of many vertical lines, some starting at the bottom and continuing all the way to the top, some ending short, some starting higher and going to the top or ending short of the top. Explain that some types of animals alive today have lived from the earliest times without changing hardly at all (called “living fossils”), others died early on or lived half-way to the present, still others seem to have started at a later date and either died out or survived until today. Explain how fossils are formed only under certain catastrophic conditions. If possible hunt fossils in your area, then draw pictures, label, and display. Look at pictures in dinosaur books to gather information (beginning research). IR – Find a diagram of the phylogenetic tree (tree of life) in Oxford: Prehistoric World (p 44) or It Couldn’t Just Happen (p 84). Discuss evidence that renders this diagram inaccurate. Create a tree of life showing all forms of life, from all kingdoms, branching from one source (God). Share with older students. ER/IR – Extinction \*Pictures Strike the Imagination: Show pictures of a variety of animals and plants that are extinct. Define extinction and identify ways a species becomes extinct. Talk about how only a fraction of all the animals that God created are still alive today. How do we know? (the fossil record) Many forms of extinct life were huge, and could not be sustained in the world’s current climate. Middle School And make pictures of species (plants or animals) that have been found in those same geological strata that have not gone extinct yet Define extinction and identify ways a species can become extinct; list species from each geological strata that have not gone extinct (e.g. Nautilus, coelacanthe, alligator, ferns, beetles, etc.) MS – Fossil Map \*Map (Due 1 week) MS – Create a large wall map of the world showing where fossils of different types of dinosaurs have been found. When the ER/IR finish their dinosaur picture/reports, post them near the map, and put lines of yarn showing where those types of dinosaurs have been found. With additional research if necessary, try to discern patterns. Research how the dinosaurs fit into the timelines of both a young and old earth views of creation. Use their own explanations from sources like the internet (young earth: answersingenesis.org, old earth: Reasons to Believe at reasons.org, find your own sources and determine if they are old or young earth in perspective). MS/HS – Fossil Record/Geologic Chart \*Chart (Due 2 weeks) HS – Discuss the lack of transitional fossils in the fossil record, sudden “explosions” of new life forms, stasis (lack of change) of the life forms that survive and research Steven Jay Gould’s punctuated equilibrium theory and the problems it was made to address. Compare this theory with Darwin’s original proposed concept of gradualism. Create a visual aid to use in presenting information to younger children. Creation, Evolution, and Modern Science (Ch 1,3), The Weight of Evidence (Ch 4-6), Defeating Darwinism (Ch8), Goodbye, Darwin (Ch5),Biology (pp 192-207). HS – Make a chart of the geological column, recording time periods and life forms associated with each era, along with any major extinction events. Research the Young Earth Creationist problems with the standard interpretation of the geological column, and present findings to Middle School students. Discuss frequent lack of erosion between the geological layers (that are supposedly millions of years apart in age), examples of multiple geological layers that have been folded together (and therefore must have been laid down simultaneously), as well as “polystrate” fossils that cross through more than one geological layer or even standing straight up (fossilized forest) through many layers, etc. MS – Study how fossils are formed and different types of fossils. Make out of clay or play-dough some mock fossils, or draw pictures, from each of the major geological eras. Recreate and display the geologic column (divided up into eras and periods) using the fossils created. Include explanation of events from a young earth perspective on one side of chart and an old earth perspective on other (include appearances of different species on the geologic chart). Include problems with fossil record as support for evolution (lack of transition fossils, stasis of species, i.e. they do not really change over time into other species, explosions of new types of fully developed animals in the fossil record, etc.). Add drawings of extinct animals. . [Note: Young Earth creationists theorize that the worldwide flood buried all the layers of the geological column by habitat (sea creatures first, then swamp, then higher woodland animals, etc., at the same time) while Old Earth Creationists believe that the animals died in a series of local floods and catastrophes separated by millions of years, just like the secular scientists. Fossils are NOT formed without the animal being completely and suddenly buried deeply in a flood or volcanic explosion, etc. , so all graves, for example, do not fossilize the humans in them.] HS – Dating Techniques \* Ongoing Assignments: HS – Describe dating techniques (carbon-14, radiometric, etc.), listing problems and limitations of each. What type of material can be dated? Why is it that older fossils cannot be dated directly, only pieces of the sedimentary rock they are in? Under what conditions would the dating be valid? How does one’s understanding of history effect the interpretation of data? THURSDAY ER/IR – Read Dry Bones ER/IR Read aloud and discuss one chapter at a time from Dry Bones and Other Fossils. WEEK 4 WEDNESDAY All – Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Strike the Imagination: Using blocks from a Scrabble game, or cards with letters written on it, have students randomly take letters out and line them up in the order they picked them (no re-arranging allowed). Each student should take four to seven letters. Have them talk about what the chances would be that they would pick a real word out in order. Now, talk about how difficult for random processes to pick words out in order enough to write an entire sentence that makes sense. How about an entire encyclopedia? Tell them that a single DNA molecule in a simple one-cell animal has as much information as an entire library… that the probability of picking letters at random to write out an entire library of organized meaningful sentences and chapters of information is impossible, even with millions of years. Look at a picture of part of a DNA molecule and discuss the fact that something as complex as the DNA molecule must have been designed. DNA is the instructions that tell the cell how to grow and what to become, so if DNA cannot come about randomly, neither can life forms. Large Group Lesson Ask the students how they would recognize if something had been designed or not. Show them something that is “irreducibly complex” (i.e. that will not work unless every part is in place and functioning properly, like a simple mouse trap or a bicycle). Explain the concept of irreducible complexity and how something like the human eye needs many separate things working at the same time to function. So parts of it cannot “evolve” before other parts, since they will not be useful (and therefore will not be selected by natural selection) until all the other parts are also in place. \*(ER/IR) Picture or Act Out ER/IR – Overview the theory of evolution and the theory of intelligent design (good information in Chapter 5 of Dry Bones and Other Fossils). Draw pictures or act out representations of the general concepts of each theory. What is a theistic evolutionist? HS – Unlocking the Mystery of Life \*Notes HS – View the video/DVD: Unlocking the Mystery of Life on the Intelligent Design theory. Practice good note-taking skills while listening (Institute for Excellence in Writing Advanced program, Unit 1) ER/IR – Adaptation \*Poster [From History] ER/IR – Define adaptation. Discuss ways people and animals adapt to environments. Talk about how adaptations are behavioral changes that make it easier to survive, but do not pass down genetically. Distinguish between that and variations with in a species (physical things like thicker or color of hair or stronger beaks or longer necks) that make it easier for some types to survive while others die, causing a drift in characteristics in that species in isolated areas. Make one poster of behavioral adaptations and one of special physical characteristics that helped some animals survive, drawing pictures as examples of each. IR – Make posters of different adaptations, using pictures (drawn, from magazines) as examples of each. MS/HS – Icons of Evolution \*Make props & pictures (due Fri) \*Present Arguments IR – Look at diagrams or pictures (i.e. Haekel’s embyos, archaeopteryx, etc.) commonly used as evidence for Evolution. Hear from older students reasons why they cannot always be taken as “proof.” MS/HS – Divide among students (or teams of students) various “icons” of evolution often given as “proof” that evolution happened in textbooks and museums. Research, for example, 1) vertebrate limbs, 2) archaeopteryx, 3) Darwin’s finches, 4) four-winged fruit flies, 5) ape to human, 6) Haekel’s embryos, 7) evolution of the horse, 8) the moths of England. (See book: Icons of Evolution) Each team must use a large prop (they create) to explain both the myth and the point of error. Use diagrams or pictures (i.e. Haekel’s embyos, archaeopteryx, evolution of the horse or of mankind, etc.) commonly used as evidence for Evolution and explain what is falsified or commonly misrepresented in evolutionary explanations of these things. Present these to the younger students giving reasons why they cannot be taken as “proof.” THURSDAY HS – Miller-Urey/Pasteur (biogenesis) \*1-pg. explanation/lab report [From History] HS – Research: How was the Miller-Urey experiment supposed to tell about the origin of life? What common element would negate the experiment? What were other flaws that are admitted today? Write a one-page explanation of the experiment and why it does not provide proof of even the random origin of the more simple organic molecules. Include: How does an amino acid compare to a protein in size and complexity? How does a protein compare to a DNA molecule? Ongoing assignment: Research Louis Pasteur, focusing on his work with biogenesis. Define spontaneous generation. What was the system/method he used to reach a conclusion about spontaneous generation? How do they clearly demonstrate the use of the scientific method? Create diagrams that represent each concept. Write up a lab report based on the steps Pasteur took to find out about biogenesis as if you were Pasteur. Be sure to keep a bibliography with notes taken (see Unit 1 of Institutes for Excellence in Writing). WEEK 5 WEDNESDAY All – Ice Age Strike the Imagination: Show a picture of a wooly mammoth and talk about how whole wooly mammoth, frozen solid, have been found in the far north, but that these animals have been extinct for thousands of years since the last Ice Age, as far as we know. Explain that in spite of their size, they must have been flash frozen, because undigested food sometimes appears in their stomachs. Ask the students if they want to find out more about the Ice Ages and Ice Age men and animals. ER/IR/MS – Ice Age Animals ER/IR Learn about animals and cave paintings of the Ice Age. Talk about how early man was very intelligent, and even cave paintings are very difficult to make by modern standards. Look at pictures of cave paintings from different parts of the world. Discuss how cultural values are expressed in art. MS/HS – Discuss Ice Age & the Flood [From History] MS/HS – Discuss the ice age and its possible relation to the flood. Identify evidence and locations of humans and animals living during this time. Tell students about some of the theories about the ice age in relation to the flood. HS – Punctuated Equilibrium & Gradualism \*Create a visual Guide (due Fri) \*Continue geologic chart (due 1 week) HS – Discuss Gould’s punctuated equilibrium theory and the problems it was made to address. Compare with Darwin’s concept of gradualism. Create a visual aid to use in presenting information to younger children. Creation, Evolution, and Modern Science (Ch 1,3), The Weight of Evidence (Ch 4-6), Defeating Darwinism (Ch8), Goodbye, Darwin (Ch5),Biology (pp 192-207). WEEK 6 WEDNESDAY All – Evolution of Man Strike the Imagination: Find a standard picture of the evolution of man. Point out that there are no fossils for the “missing links” shown in the picture. Although other extinct apes have been found, show some pictures of these, it has been acknowledge that none of them are ancestors of modern man. Large Group Lesson Have students find books in the classroom (or sites on the internet) that talk about the evolution of mankind. Have the older students discern what things are backed up by facts or data, and what is just stated without any proof given. (Why is it important to hold “science” accountable to hard data and the scientific method?) Find representations of “early man” in books throughout the classroom. Discuss that early humans were humans much like us, and that pictures of half men, half apes are just someone’s idea of how they may have looked. Fossils and archeological sites do not support the idea that early mankind looked more “ape-ish” than modern man. (Pictures of entire families of “missing link” pre-humans have been drawn in magazines like Time Magazine, with as little as one toe bone to go on— in 2001.) IR/MS – Human Fossil Record \*(MS) Map (due Fri) IR – Find representations of “early man” in books throughout the classroom. Discuss that early humans were humans much like us, and that pictures of half men, half apes are just someone’s idea of how they may have looked. Fossils do not support those ideas. Remind students of the activity where they drew a picture of a creature based on the picture of a bone (week four), and that every picture scientists or artists draw from so little evidence is not accurate. Middle School Ongoing assignment: Label on a world map the locations where fossils reported to be human ancestors have been found, including hoaxes/mistakes like the Piltdown Man, the Nebraska Man, and Java Man, as well as better established groups like australopithecene, homo habilis, homo erectus, homo sapien, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon. Draw pictures of actual bones or fragments unearthed. Include the name given by scientists. Once the map is complete, add labels identifying each as “hoax,” “ape,” or “human.” (Different students can each focus on one discovery and make a combined map with their results and pictures.) HS – Human Fossil Record/Neanderthal Man \*Research/Timeline HS -Create a timeline recording the discoveries of possible human ancestors around the world. Have students select a particular discovery to research, filling in that section of the timeline with pictures and detailed information. High School Ongoing Assignment: Students can choose one of the two following research papers (try to have some take each subject, or give number 1 to the 9th and 10th graders and number 2 to the 11th and 12th graders). 1) Research the latest information and thinking about the Neanderthal Man. Take notes, keep a bibliography, and write up a 5 page paper (with title page and bibliography), including the history of the discoveries of Neanderthal, locations, different scientific theories of who they are, creationist perspectives on who they are, and comparisons of them with the ancient human peoples studied previously. Put the Neanderthal on your time line. HS – Display Geologic Chart (due Fri) [From History] HS – Continue work on geologic chart, and present work on the fossil record to intermediate students. Discuss polystrate fossils, lack of erosion between layers, fossils crossing layers or even standing straight up (fossilized forest) etc. HS – Fossils & Genealogies (OPTIONAL) [From History] HS – Relate the geographic implications of fossils and artifacts to biblical genealogies and the spread of nations. Discuss location of the garden of Eden. FRIDAY HS – Biblical Worldview Apologetics \*Winsomely defend Biblical positions (ie, Evol. Vs. ID, Human body in ID perspective) Ongoing assignment: Simulate a classroom situation where students practice being the only person in class with a Biblical worldview. Practice making winsome defenses for difficult accusations about Christianity, Creationism, and Science and the Bible. MS/HS – Discuss how the view that man has evolved and is therefore just an animal affects the way people view other humans, treat the disabled or newborn or pre-born babies, etc. How do these views affect the way people look at the human body? Explain the view of the human body from both an evolutionary and intelligent design position (have the students look up and define the ideas of homologous and vestigial organs). How does an evolutionary view impact things like genetic engineering? Discuss the importance of worldview, and of being able to ask the right questions to challenge even scientific paradigms. ## 2 Bible Activities ALL Memorize the Unit verses. Play a memory game or write it out. Find the best way to learn verses. Continue learning the books of the Bible in order and additional information according to level. A.602, A.607, A.608, A.613, A.614, A.619 ER/IR Practice retelling the bible stories for this unit in your own words, recalling the correct sequence of events. Use IEW’s Unit III: summarizing Narrative Stories. 2.003, 2.004, A.312, 2.208, 2.209 ER Create props to have in the classroom for use retelling bible stories. Be sure to relate each story God’s bigger picture and what He was doing in the world at that time. A.305, A.305, ER/IR Add events and stories to timelines students are creating for the year. Use pictures and labels. MS/HS Use pictures and short descriptions. Be sure to tier timeline to reflect various regions or strands of development, biblical and non-biblical. Look for examples of cause and effect. Quiz each other about sequence of events. A.312, A.313, A.321, A.319, A.329, A.603, A,6.09, A.615, A.621 ER Listen for direction words (over, through, across, around, up, down, etc.) in the stories describing the journeys of Abraham and Moses. Use the salt map to locate important points and note direction. IR/MS/HS On a map, trace the journey (Abraham, Moses, Israelites) recounted in the bible stories as they are read. Identify major cities and land forms. Practice pointing out the rout from memory. 2.401, 2.410, A.301, A.302, A.603, A.609, A.621 IR During group discussions this unit be sure to ask and respond to questions. 2.007 IR/MS/HS Make a chart comparing the covenants between God and the patriarchs. Analyze each using the “5 W’s and an H”. Pay special attention to “How” because we can look at much of the fulfillment of the covenant in the past. Hind sight is 20/20. A.610, A.616, MS/HS Use reader’s theater to perform bible stories for younger students. V.125 ER Discuss the stories of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, as they are studied. Ask : What is happening? Why is God doing what He is doing or why people do what they do. Talk about how things turned out for them and why. A.301, A.305, A.604, HS Adopt a patriarch to research. Make a timeline of events in their lives. Notice times when they did things in their own strength instead of waiting on God and the consequences. What experience did they have that prepared them for the work that God had for them? Understand God’s plan for them despite their sinfulness. Describe interactions between the patriarchs and the Gentiles; note how God was at work in the hearts of all peoples. A.325, A.329 IR Continue to list God’s promises and their fulfillment (in the OT, NT, and future). A.305 MS List in chronological order events of Moses’ life and call by God, showing how God works with sinful humans who believe what He says and are willing to trust and act in obedience to his word; discuss how God showed His power over all gods and nature through his servant, Moses (speaking before Pharaoh, plagues, parting of the Red Sea, etc.). A.301, A.302, A.319, A.321 HS Practice using the guidelines given in the Bible Study Skill objectives A.622 HS Explore he distribution of Gods people during this time in history. A.327 Activities by week Week 1 Genesis 12 – 22 Abraham’s call Abraham and Lot Melchizidech and the Abrahamic Covenant Hagar and Ishmael Isaac ER Listen to older students tell about when God called Abraham. What did God call Abraham to do? How did Abraham respond? How is God’s concern for all the peoples of the earth shown in His calling of Abraham? What did God say he would do through Abraham? In what way was Abraham godly? IR Identify the culture and worldview in which Abraham grew up, but then left to obey God; discuss how he wandered among other peoples who lived in tribes, hordes, or smaller kingdoms, except when he visited another large civilization. MS Explain the significance of God’s call to Abraham., the first missionary. According to Abraham’s call what is one of the final results for all peoples? How does this happen? HS Start a map that shows the route Abraham took from the start of his call to his death. Read Genesis 12 to the younger students. Ask them the assigned questions and let them come up with the answer from what they remember from the reading. Use the map to help younger students understand all the people Abraham had contact with. 2.302, 2.601, A.305, A.307, A.310, A.314, A.604, A.609 ER/IR Read about animism in Window on the world. Look at how their worldview effects their forms of worship and life. Pray for people who still live in fear of the spirits. MS/HS Write a definition of animism and pray for peoples who are still deceived by this false form of religion. A.308, A.311, A.605, A.611, A.617, A.623 MS/HS Who was Lot and what people group descended from him? Make an outline of his adventures. Be sure to include what part Abraham played in each adventure. “5 W’s and am H”. What do you learn about Abraham’s character from these stories? How did Abraham plea with God? A.616, A.306, 2.217 MS/HS What was the prophesy that Hagar received from God about Ishmael? How did God say he would bless Ishmael? Why did God not let Abraham’s first son bear the covenant? Trace the descendants of Ishmael to the Muslim world, praying for the hearts of Christians that have been hardened into hatred and many Muslims who have been deceived by a false understanding of the true God. Discuss how God’s nature was exhibited in his dealings with Hagar and Ishmael. How can one see the fulfillment of this prophesy in current events? Remember that God was compassionate and merciful to Hagar and Ishmael and continues to reach out to all peoples through Jesus Christ. A.304, A.305, A.329, A.617, A.623, Week 2 Genesis 23 – 50 Covenant with Isaac Jacob and Esau Covenant with Jacob Joseph ER/IR When Abraham wanted to bury his wife Sarah, how did the Hittite people treat him? MS Read chapter 23 out loud for the younger students. Talk about the cultural traditions and signs of respect that are exemplified in this story. The culture of many Arab and Bedouin peoples has not changed very much over the past 4000 years. HS Research Arab culture and tell about some of the traditions and values. A.308, A.309, A.310, A.311, A.314, A.315, A.317 ER/IR Listen to the story of Joseph. Draw pictures with a short label of different things that happened to him. Discuss how Joseph was godly and how he responded to trouble and temptation. Did he seek revenge on his brothers for treating him so badly? MS/HS Read the story of Joseph over the week. Where did Joseph get his worldview from? Who did Joseph see himself accountable to when he resisted Potiphar’s wife? How did he respond to temptation? Who did Joseph give credit for all the things he could do? Was Joseph lazy? How did this reflect on his God? What Godly character traits does Joseph have? A.301, A.305, A.311, A.313, A.315, A.325, 2.202, A.307, IR Make a family tree for Jesus Christ through Abraham’s family (Isaac, Jacob, Judah). A.301 ER/IR Watch older students act out the story of Jacob and Esau. Ask 3 basic questions. Explain how this story fits into the overall story of the Bible. MS Discuss the importance of the story of Jacob and Esau, tracing the descendants of Esau to the pagan tribes of Canaan that turned to other gods, tempting Israel to do the same. Discuss whether God only has godly people carry the line of his covenant. HS Make lentil stew and bread to eat as a class. Act out Esau selling his birthright and Isaac’s being tricked into giving the wrong blessing to his sons. A.604, A.606, IR Discuss how the Egyptians later enslaved the Israelites for 400 years, but God used this evil to bring about good by protecting the nation of Israel so that it could grow large and strong. Look at the timeline to see where in history this happened. A.305, A.313, A.314, A.609, MS Using the words of Joseph in Genesis 50:19 and from what we know of the history of the Hebrews, explain the significance of God’s hand in Joseph’s life for both his family and the entire nation of Israel. A.305 Week 3 Exodus 1 – 15 Nation of Israel Moses’ life Plagues Passover Exodus ALL Research in groups. Regroup near the end of the week to show and tell what was learned. Nation of Israel: When and how did Israel become a nation. What was odd/different about this nation. Etc. Bar graph Moses’ life: Where did he go, What was he like, What did he do? Why did he do it? etc. Map, list Plagues: How many were there. Why did God send these specific plagues? What could Pharos’ magicians do about it? What does this show about the mercy and wrath of God? Etc. How did the Pharos respond at different points? List, Pictures. Passover: What did the people have to do? How was it to be celebrated afterwards? What does it mean to Christians? Etc. Discuss God’s desire that His people celebrate in remembrance of His mighty deeds and fulfilled promises so that His name will be great among their descendants and the nations; analyze our celebrations and remembrances in light of God’s design (i.e. Christmas, Easter traditions) Exodus: Who went, what did they take, What rout did they take. How did they know when to go? Etc. Map, timeline A.301, A.302, A.304, A.305, A.307, A.311, A.312, A.313, A.315, A.319, A.324, A.325, A.326, A.329, A.2.601, ER Notice that the bible is made up of many books written at different times by different people. God used these writers as a pen to speak into the midst of human life. MS/HS Write a plot of the Exodus explaining how each story fits into the whole story of God’s redemption of man. 2.602, A.305, A.612, A.618 ALL Do a responsive reading of Numbers 9:15-23. Every time the words “Set Out” are read respond with “Hallelujah!” and every time the word “Camped” is said respond with “Amen”. Discuss how this was an example on waiting and trusting on God. Later (Exodus 33: 2-17) God tells Moses that he will not enter the land with them for fear of killing them because they are “a stiff necked people.” How does Moses respond? Why should God go with them into the land as he has through the wilderness, instead of just sending an angel? What can we learn from Moses’ attitude? A.307, A.319, A.306 Week 4 Exodus 16 – 40 10 Commandments Covenant renewal Tabernacle Leviticus 1 – 15 Overview of laws Priesthood ER/IR/MS Create a model of the tabernacle, making labels for each of the parts and their function HS Create a detailed drawing of the tabernacle, identifying all the parts and their symbolic functions. A.308, A.311, A.315 MS Role play a number of situations where God’s moral laws (from Exodus and Leviticus) should be applied. ER/IR/MS Play memory games to learn the 10 Commandments A.602, A.608, A.614 MS Make a model of the Tabernacle, noting the significance of each of it’s elements; discuss the idea of God’s glory coming to dwell among Israel and their responsibility to take the glory wherever they went, sharing it with all the nations. A.305, A.306 MS Make a chart that shows the difference between, and the purposes for, the moral laws and ceremonial laws given to Moses. HS Compare and contrast the moral and ceremonial laws given by God with the laws of surrounding cultures (i.e. Code of Hammurabi in Babylon) A.301, A.317, A.324, A.326, A.328 IR What might the life of a priest have been like? MS Define priest and priesthood, discussing Israel’s role (and ours today) as priest (mediator between man and God) to the nations. Draw a picture of a priest dressed in his ceremonial garb. Denote the purpose of symbolism. HS How long does a priest have duty and how often. What tribe does the priesthood come from? A.310, A.317, A.318 HS Trace major moral concerns through the laws given to the Israelites. A.324, A.326, Week 5 Leviticus 16 – 27 Atonement Celebrations Obedience Numbers 1 – 9 Census of Israel Tribes and duties ALL Experience some of the Jewish customs still practiced in modern day celebrations. What are Jewish customs about? A.308, A.310, A.317, A.324, A.326 MS/HS Research each of the celebrations of Leviticus. List the event that it celebrated and what day it was celebrated and how long. Find out what other events happened on that day, there may be more than one. Find when Jesus celebrated each of these. Record personal reflections on information learned. A.317, A.326, 2.205 Research optional feasts and required feasts. Week 6 Numbers 10 – 36 Tribes leave Sinai Laws for Canaan Victories Deuteronomy Moses’ counsel Moses’ blessing ER/IR Review what was learned during the first week of last unit. What is the bible, who wrote it and what is it’s story. Look at the verses that tell us about when Moses wrote the first five books. MS Discuss how Moses wrote down the first five books of scripture (Pentateuch) which were kept beside the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. 31:24-26) HS Research Oral and written history. Look at reliability and validity. Consider the length of lives and overlap of the people pre and post flood. Compare: date written, Earliest copy, and number of surviving manuscripts. Look at other ancient writtings for comparison. 2.601, 2.308, 2.309 MS Discuss how and why the people who once followed God had turned to worshipping so many false gods, and how that has happened in tribes and kingdoms all over the world. Understand that at some point the truth was known but someone did not pass it on. A.306, A.323 MS Recount the stories of Israel’s journey to the “promised land,” noting God’s loyalty to His covenant despite Israel’s sin and rebellion (note that God was willing to put off entry into the land for a generation, but not willing to forsake His plan to be known and worshipped by all peoples) A.305 HS In Deuteronomy, list both the peoples God protects and does not allow the Israelites to plunder and the peoples they are to destroy. Remember these for next unit. A.325, A.329 HS Discuss what part of God’s mosaic covenant with man are unconditional (see Deut. 29:12-14), and which are conditional (blessings and curses dependent on Israel’s faithfulness as seen in Deut. 28, 29) HS Discuss how both in Numbers and in Deuteronomy Moses predicts the entire history of Israel up to today; looking at Deut. 30, discuss the choice God gives Israel (and also us!) ## 2 History Activities ALL Research in order to either Draw or build a model ziggurat, step pyramid, and true pyramid. Who built what? Discuss why these people built these structures. What was their world-view and how is it different from our own? Note the uses of each of these buildings. (Living in, worship, storage, education, etc.) A.302, A.308, A.310, A.316, A.317, 2.107 ALL Work to make a salt dough map of Mesopotamia and the Middle East. Paint it and add markers (numbers?) and a map key to show were landmarks are/were or where major events took place as they are studied (i.e. pyramids for Egypt). Use it to tell the story of history as it unfolds. This map should be a physical map, not political because political lines on the map as they are today did not exist yet. ( one may have them as dotted lines just as a point of reference.) Do talk about or note where specific people groups lived. A.309, A.314, A.402, A.404, A.407, 2.405, 2.110 ER/IR Create a map of the classroom, school, playground, etc. 2.406 ER/IR Practice putting labels with the names of the days of the week in order. Say them aloud in order. 2.305 ER/IR Research our letters to find their origin. Draw, for example, the figures that preceded “A” (children’s dictionaries are good resources) MS Begin a timeline recording the development of writing systems. HS Research oldest historical or cultural documents and records. How were they preserved? A.301, A.302, A.304, A.319, A.321, A.323, 2.308 MS/HS Start making charts for each of the writing forms covered each unit. Include examples of the script, what medium it was normally written on and how its symbols functioned in different ways (phonetic, symbolic, etc.) Compare to other writing forms. Add to writing systems timeline. ER Distinguish between, ocean and continent on a globe. IR Draw hemisphere maps labeling continents and oceans. A.405, 2.402, 2.404 , 2.110 IR/MS/HS Look at flags of countries that are with in the area covered this unit. Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon. 2.403 MS/HS Color in geography coloring book. Learn different gradations of both horizontal and vertical land forms. (i.e. River: headwaters, source, tributaries, bank, bed, delta, etc.) 2.411 IR Using a list, find examples of major land / water forms on a world map. MS Make a list of major land and water forms. 2.407, 2.110 IR Begin using measured tally marks to track days. Add a note it a major event the day it happened. Count back. 2.304 MS Make a timeline to scale. Use specific measurements to represent year, decade, century, millennium. Show younger students the difference between near past and distant past. 2.303, HS Make a topographical map of the fertile crescent. What does Mesopotamia mean? Discuss effects that geographical features have on politics, economics, communication, defense, and cultural development. 2.412, A.412, 2.110 MS/HS View a variety of map projections, noting similarities and differences. A.403, 2.110 HS Make a map showing trade routes of the Middle East during this time period. Represent also the various empires and their domains. A.329 Activities by week Week 1 Early Civilizations Monotheism, Polytheism, Animism Mesopotamia Geography History and rulers Irrigation City-state Sumer Religion / Ziggurat ALL Begin research by meeting do discuss what kinds of open ended questions can lead research forward. Discuss what kinds of things would be good to learn about. List questions and check off as they are answered. Sort questions into different groups. ER Search through books to find information from pictures about the Sumerians. Begin to record research in pictures or one-word answers. IR Begin to record research in sentences or paragraphs. MS Generate questions to help lead research. Take notes, and compile a bibliography. Write good paragraphs reflecting information found. Focus on city-states and cultural systems (political, social, economic, religious, etc HS Take notes and compile a bibliography. Write a good outline and use it to develop a well-thought-out essay. A.104, A.301,A.302, A.308, A.310, A.314, A.316, A.317, 2.118, 2.119, 2.217, 2.307 ALL Split into four research groups to research. Each group will focus on a different aspect of life in early Mesopotamia. At the end of the week the class will teach each other what they learned about their specific area. Some areas will overlap. Use good presentation skills. ER: use proper sentence construction and purposeful adjectives. IR /MS: use good posture, body language and gestures, use note cards with outlines to stay on track. Consider different ways content can be ordered to make presentation more interesting (build up to the conclusion or start with the conclusion and support it with information) HS: use statistics and case studies to compare to other ancient societies and modern societies. Geography and its effect on people. What was the predominant livelihood? How did people depend on landforms and natural events? What geographical features brought people together or kept them apart? How did people change the land to make it fit their needs? Locate the fertile crescent. Make a map. History and rulers. Who ruled the major city states. What records do we have of kings of that time. Where did they get their authority from? (gods, priests, force, people, heritage etc.) Were there any female rulers? Was there one city state that the king was from or could the king be from any where? Looking at the list of kings was there a definite royal line? What can you learn about casts or classes in those times by reading the list of rulers? What major event divided the dynasties? How long were the first kings said to have lived? Make a timeline. Irrigation in Mesopotamia.. What are Shadufs, canals, channels, dykes, weirs, and reservoirs. How did they work? Who maintained them? What were the major crops? How did the farmers get the field ready for their crops? Make a model City State and government. What is a City-State? What were the major Sumerian city states? Did they have patron deities? Where were they in relation to each other? How would a city state have been laid out? How did city states interact? Make a city plan and map noting where the major city states were. A.104, A.301, A.302, A.309, A.313, A.314, A.3.16, A.318, A.319, A.321, A.322, A.329, 2.210, 2.217, 2.019, 2.020, 2.023, 2.024, 2.025, 2.026, 2.027, 2.031, 2.032, 2.033 HS Take notes from each of the above presentations and elaborate how each of these areas could be interconnected. A.412, 2.218 ALL Research religion of the Sumerians. Were they monotheistic or polytheistic? Were human traits exhibited or was deity set apart as altogether different from man? Who was Anu? What was the place of worship? What other role did temple play in society? Was there just one temple that all the people would go to or were there many? What was significant about their mythology? What part did religion play in society and government? A.104, A.303, A.308, A.310, A.311, A.316, A.317, A.324, A.326, HS Identify the Akkadians and specifically Sargon I, discussing the differences (politically) in city-state and empire. Make a timeline that extends from the end of Sumeria to the take over by the Babylonians. A.301, A.302, A.A.329, MS/HS Who was Hammurabi? What was the “Code of Hammurabi” and why was it so radical? Some scholars claim that the Hebrews derived their mosaic law from it. Discuss how some of the laws may seem similar but the spirit is altogether different. Compare the “Code of Hammurabi” with the ten commandments. Chose ideologies to uphold and try to persuade the other party of the merits of your position. Utilize fact and literal over opinion and figurative. A.303, A.320, A.324, A.326, A.328, 2.028, 2.029, 2.030 HS Read the epilogue of Hammurabi’s code and research how Hammurabi invaded the north and south. Discuss the Babylonian invasion of Mesopotamia. A.104,A.301, A.302, Week 2 Cont. Sumer Culture Cuneiform writing Contributions ALL Break into Two groups. Research either Culture and Technology: List forms of technology that were common in those days and exploring how art took advantage of what was learned to build stylized architecture. Research and make either tools, clothes or weapons from this era.. Research the wheel, potter’s wheel, plow, sailboat, 12-month calendar, ramp, arch, metal coins, oil-burning lamps, etc. Look for pictures of artistic archeological finds that predate Sumarian culture to compare. Cuneiform and Akkadian script: Compare Akkadian and Cuneiform to Chinese. Learn how it was written, make samples of your own. What is the difference between a logogram and a syllabary symbol? Which came first? Make a chart the shows an example and gives some details about the media it was “printed” on and how common it’s usage was. The chart will be used in future units to help compare Cuneiform to other forms of writing. What was a cylinder seal and tablet? Why/how were so many preserved? Why is the Behistun Inscription important? A.104, A.301, A.302, A.309, A.316, A.319, A.323, ER/IR Find examples of real cuneiform in class resources. Use a stylus made by the older students to copy cuneiform onto a clay tablet/slab. Draw some small pictures and convert them into cuneiform. MS/HS Make triangle tipped styluses to write in cuneiform with. Explain that people did not always use an alphabet but pictures. As time went on the pictures looked less and less like the real thing but people still understood what it meant. ALL Discuss how technologically advanced people were so long ago and how these developments have effected our lives today. List important inventions and contributions of the Sumerians, identifying for each the need it met and further inventions that it made possible. A.304, A.309, A.314, MS Compare accounts of biblical events in Sumerian literature with those found in the Bible, particularly the story of the flood (read excerpts from legend of Gilgamesh). HS Read the writings about Gilgamesh (selectively). Research other Deluge Myths. Discuss the likely hood of a world wide historical event becoming a myth V.S. a myth being accepted as a historical event. Reason that if the belief that at some point in history a flood of gigantic proportions happened is so wide spread, it may have happened. A.104, A.320, A.328 Week 3 Ancient Egypt Geography History and pharaohs Dynasty and city ER Search through books to find information from pictures about the Egyptians. Begin to record research in pictures or one-word answers. IR Read paragraphs, begin to record research in sentences or paragraphs. MS Generate questions to help lead research. Take notes, and compile a bibliography. Write good paragraphs reflecting information found. HS Focus on city-states and cultural systems (political, social, economic, religious, etc.) Take notes and compile a bibliography. Write a good outline and use it to develop a well-thought-out essay. A.104, A.301, A.302, A.303, A.308, A.309, A.310, A.311, A.313, A.314, A.315, A.316, A.317, A.319, A.320, A.321, A.322, A.324, A.325, A.325, A.326, A.328, A.329, 2.110, 2.217 ER Locate Egypt on a map; name the continent on which it is located. Find a resource map (children’s atlas or encyclopedia ) to see where various resources are located. Use clay or play-dough and paper to create examples of landforms. Then cut and paste paper to match (blue for water on top of brown for land). Label and collect them into a book of landforms. IR/MS Locate the Nile valley on a map of the ancient world; find locations of key Egyptian cities and monuments in Upper and Lower Egypt. Discuss the geography of the area, noting the advantages of locating a civilization there. Make wall charts for each of the major land / water forms studied this unit. Draw the landform at the top and list beneath ways that culture, geography, and the ecosystem are affected by it. HS Make a topographical map of the Ancient Egypt. Make sample landform pictures and definitions to use to teach younger students. Peninsula, Delta, Isthmus, Sea, ocean, etc. A.401, A.402, A.405, A.406, A.406, 2.407, 2.408, 2.409, A.409, A.410, IR/MS Make a timeline of Ancient Egypt, seeing how it was a prominent kingdom / empire for almost 3,000 years; place important events, pharaohs and dynasties on the timeline. Look for cause and effect relationships of events. HS Include on the timeline when Joseph may have come to Egypt and when the Hebrews finally leave 430 years later. Relate how the period of the Hyksos Kings may or may not have worked in Joseph’s favor at the end of the period, found in Exodus 1, set the stage for the abuse of the Hebrews. Research the differing views on when the Hebrews came to and left Egypt. A.301, A.302, A.305, A.309, A.312, A.313, A.314, A.319, A.321, A.322, A.325, A.328, A.329 MS/HS Distinguish between kingdom and empire, exploring Egypt’s unification (under Menes), the Old and Middle kingdoms, the intermediate periods of foreign invasion(Hyksos), and New Kingdoms, and the decline (invasion of Persian, Greek, and Roman empires). A.319, A.321, A.329 HS Make a map that indicates the area’s Egypt had conflicts with it’s neighboring countries. Explain the political structure of Ancient Egypt and its relationship to surrounding empires and kingdoms throughout its history. A.329 MS/HS Discuss the role of women in Egyptian society, recognizing Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra as female pharaohs; compare the role of women with that of Sumer and other ancient civilizations. A.318 Week 4 Cont. Ancient Egypt Culture Religion Mummification IR Make a calendar as if you lived along the Nile and depended on it’s seasons for our lively hood. When would you plant crops, hunt, fish, move your herds, etc. Identify other ways that Egyptians met their daily needs. A.316, A.406 IR Religion: discuss how the Egyptians were deceived in believing that there were many gods, except for one pharaoh (Amenhotep IV) who worshipped the one True god MS/HS Discuss the significance of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) and his conversion to worshipping God; identify reasons why his “revolution” did not last. Did this happen before or after the Hebrews left Egypt? A.312, A.314, A.319, A.320, A.328 MS Identify classes of people within Egypt’s cities, and point out what rights and jobs members of each class might have. A.318 MS Trace the descendants of Ancient Egyptians to present day Egypt, Ethiopia, and Arabia, praying for the many people groups who remain in darkness in this predominantly Muslim area, not having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. A.617 MS Discuss the polytheistic religion of the Ancient Egyptians, noting the effects their fascination with the afterlife had on daily life (discuss charms, amulets, etc., noting their prevalence in our culture today, and how this does not honor God) Notice that in-spite of having spent many years living among the Egyptians, the Hebrews do not have a very developed idea of the afterlife. A.303, A.305, A.317, A.320 ER/IR What is a mummy? Who made mummies? Why did people make mummies? MS Describe the process of mummification, and explain why this practice (for both humans and animals) was important to the Ancient Egyptians. A.308, A.310, A.317, 2.107 HS Make a map of trade routes noting products traded, and trading partners. Explain how trade and conquest affect culture and the spread of oral tradition / religion. A.324, A.326, A.329 HS Describe the physical, spiritual, and social structures of Ancient Egypt A.301, A.302, A.324, A.326, Week 5 Cont. Ancient Egypt Cont. Culture Pyramids Hieroglyphics Tutankhamun All Research pyramids. What is a pyramid? Why are some called true pyramids? What are some ways they were built? What did they look like when they were finished. Where were they built in relation to where the Egyptians lived? Why did the Egyptians make them? Etc. Build a small pyramid of resources in your area… or play-dough! Draw examples of the different types of pyramids. A.302, A.308, A.310, A.311, A.315, A.316, A.317, A.324, A.326 IR/MS Make a chart of the Egyptians’ hieroglyphic writing system. What is the meaning of “hieroglyph”? How many phonetic symbols were there in their writing system? Are hieroglyphic symbols: Figurative, ideographic or phonetic. Compare with other writing forms studied and our modern day alphabet. Discuss the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, and its impact on the study of Ancient Egypt/hieroglyphics. Distinguish between hieroglyph and hieratic writing. Was there a high level of literacy in Ancient Egypt? A.301, A.302, A.309, A.314, A.316, A.320 ALL Define cartouche and make your own using hieroglyphics. See art activity. MS Explain the significance of the discovery of King Tutenkhamen’s tomb to archaeology. HS Research the important manuscripts and artifacts that have been found in Egypt that provide evidence for biblical accuracy. Look at the differing views on when Joseph served in Egypt. A.301, A.302, A.304, A.328 Week 6 Cont. Ancient Egypt Cont. Culture Art and architecture Contributions ER/IR Make a water clock. Watch time pass, be ready to re-fill the clock after a specific amount of time passes. Try to make one that can tell time for more than three hours. Talk about how many hours there are in a day. Figure out how many times the water clock would have to be refilled to last a whole day. MS Help younger students make water clock. 2.301, 2.306 IR Demonstrate writing hieroglyphics, and the making of papyrus (paper). MS Explain the process involved in making papyrus (describe a day in the life of a scribe) HS Research the archive-ability of papyrus. What are some of the most famous papyrus documents? A.301, A.302, A.323, 2.308 MS Look at irrigation in relation to Egypt. Explain the processes used to irrigate Egypt, including the way the land was fertilized annually. How could too much water or too little cause famine? Is there historical evidence of a serious famine that may be linked with the one told of in the Bible? A.319, A.408, A.409 MS List the resources and products available to the Egyptians, identifying ways that each was used to meet the needs of daily life A.409 IR/MS/HS List important inventions and contributions of the Egyptians, astronomy, science, mathematics, and culture, identifying for each the need it met and further inventions that it made possible. MS Identify where other architectural feats such as the Sphinx, the obelisk, and the great temples are found on a map. MS List the various types of Egyptian art, drama, literature, and music, citing characteristics of each; describe the unique technique used in representing the human body. HS What period did Egypt go through a phase of realism. What was happening at the time and what may have caused that movement? A.317, A.319, A.321, A.324, A.326 ## 2 Language Arts Activities ER/IR Practice placing events or elements in stories in the order of occurrence. What kind of place is the story set in? 2.003, 2.004, 2.121, 2.124 ER Write about what you did on the weekend. IR After writing pick some words to replace or rephrase using a thesaurus. Get help from older students if needed. 2.201, 2.111 IR/MS Look through resource books for glossaries. Why and when would one need to use a glossary? 2.112, 2.116 ER Using set readers and group readers, practice summarizing narrative stories. (IEW: Unit III). IR/MS/HS Write paragraphs that summarize the story. Add dress ups: Strong verb and quality adjective, “when, while, where…” clauses, and add either a prepositional or “ly” oppener. A.101, 2.003, 2.004, 2.005, 2.103, 2.208, 2.209, 2.102, 2.122, 2.213, 2.214, 2.215, 2.216, 2.219, 2.220, 2.221, 2.222 IR/MS/HS Read group readers aloud as a group and independently. Pay attention to sequence of events and cause and effect. When reading aloud read expressively and use pauses. A.102, A.103 2.105, 2.101, 2.102, 2.03, 2.104, 2.106 ER/IR What are social customs we have when greeting and introducing others? Role play. Find out if there are different words in other languages or actions that are used the same as ours. 2.008 ER In group discussions ask about words you don’t understand. IR Ask and respond to questions MS Ask questions to clarify. Have other people rephrase their questions when they are unclear. Take notes from class discussions. HS Take notes from class discussion. Use Socratic discussion. 2.006, 2.007, 2.009, 2.010, 2.011, 2.012 IR Practice retelling the stories for this unit, recalling the correct sequence of events. 2.005 IR/MS Write diamond shaped (diamante) cinquain poems about types of living things studied in this unit. 2.131, 2.132 IR Practice reading paragraphs from history or science texts, identifying the main idea of each. (Teacher: select a number of good paragraphs to have available for students to use for practice.) 2.108 IR Continue using keyword outlines. Students can retell stories or information from the outline only. (pre-writing exercise) 2.211 MS/HS Read aloud to younger students. Be sure to read clearly and pause for punctuation and effect. 2.104 MS Draw a map or chart (sensory, geographic, historic, sociologic, relational) of story setting from description in either class set or small group reader (novel). What events are alluded to that help create a setting? From what point of view it the story written? HS In what context was the author living in? How does that help us interpret reasons and points of the story? How can words and sentences be read out of context? Can this be done to whole books? 2.126, 2.127, 2.128, 2.130 MS Have students discuss and create appropriate rubrics for evaluating written work, models, and oral presentations. Have students type up rubrics to use in self and peer evaluation. Guide them through this process, teaching them to celebrate strengths and make clear plans for improving weaknesses. 2.204 IR Identify class set readers and other books found in resources as historical fiction. What is a historical fiction? MS Begin analyzing novels read. Discuss the difference between narrative and historical fiction. How has culture and history influenced literature? 2.123, 2.125 HS Begin analyzing literature by looking at how the setting is conveyed. Make a list of details that can be fit into the five senses. How does this start to set the mood? Do the actions of the characters contrast or match the setting? 2.129 MS/HS Choose one speech of Moses to memorize, analyze and perform. Deuteronomy 4:32 – 40 The uniqueness of God 6:4 – 25 Greatest commandment : Jesus quoted 8:1 – 20 Don’t for get your God and His acts : Jesus quoted 29: 10 – 28 Covenant renewal