Monday, September 30, 2013

History is Bunk


History is bunk. History that is bunk is the history told by men. However, speaking biblically, history is the wonderful story that God is telling. The world is a stage and we are the actors. That story is beautiful, true, and there is no bunk in it. Since God is the storyteller, it’s only natural that His book is the ultimate history book. The Bible is the word of God and it’s the only reliable and infallible source of history. The Bible tells us that men are fallible and so that puts everything that they write and say up for grabs. We should be skeptical of it all.
            The Lord is writing a story but He’s writing it in a logical universe that He is actively sustaining. A leads to B and we can discover them. That means that there is a proper technique to conducting the pursuit of history. Oddly enough, it essentially consists of getting as close to the event as possible and trying to mitigate the damage of human bias.
            Ideally, you should desire to find original source documents. Things like the Declaration of Independence are original sources. Other sources are things like letters, tax returns, proclamations, and journal articles. History is not found in accounts, but in account books. These are sterile documents that give us a glimpse in to the time. Sometimes these things cannot be found. Archaeologists have to deal with studying cultures who’s records are largely nonexistent and who’s languages are lost to the ages. But the key is always to get close either by going to the location or by speaking with those who know more than you.
            It’s easy to trust History. ‘He has a Doctorate in History, he must be right’ or perhaps, ‘forty million history books can’t possibly be wrong, can they?’ But ultimately the study of history is less exact than we’d like to admit. Any teenager will learn this quickly in high school. The web of gossip that grows in high school is pervasive and deceptive. Human beings are prone mistakes. Add a thousand years between you and the event and you are going to get a muddled mess! History is the daughter of Time. Times obscures and defines events.
            Humans also have a compulsive need to twist facts. Everyone has their own bias or worldview. That’s what they use to interpret the world around them. But, when something doesn’t fit into their system, it has to either be changed or jammed in. Any account of history will necessarily be shaped by the presuppositions of its author and of his sources.
            In Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time, the protagonist coins the term “tonypandy” for fictitious or twisted accounts of history. There are many such instances of tonypandy that are cemented in humanity’s history books. The book, The Daughter of Time, specifically addresses the claim that Richard II murdered his two nephews. One piece of tonypandy that irks me is the idolization of Christopher Columbus. In this case, it’s an amnesia of facts and the construction of a neat narrative that makes Americans feel good. Another one that Americans use to pat themselves on the back is the Boston Massacre, which was no massacre at all. Atheists love to pretend that John Calvin was an oppressive theocrat and they love to pretend that Nicholas Copernicus was this great man standing up to religion in the name of science. Neither of these men were who our atheist friends would like them to be.
            History has many variables and it has many lenses through which we can view these variables. But, since God’s writing the story, I say that we look at things through His lens. The Bible is God’s thoughts on history and it should be our lens. The Bible is also unique out of any other textbook. The Bible prophesies the future. It tells of the glorious and final end that the Lord is driving all things towards. Let’s remember that some tonypandy isn’t worth being the hill that we die upon. However, the hill of Christ, His work, and His resurrection is a hill most certainly worth dying upon.

Matthew Stanley

3 comments:

  1. True Stanley, a very good post. History is perspective bolstered by bias and opinion. Some Americans say they won the 2nd World War; many British and other Europeans may have a difference of opinion over that! And the great divider of opinion in the UK is that of the history and legacy of the British Empire. To some, particularly those whose ancestors and families made their success and wealth during that time, the empire is the best thing that ever happened because they prospered from it and then of course the idea that it promoted education, science, learning, the beginnings of a global language (ahem!), global trade, better communications and the spreading of British civilisation and Christianity. Of course, if you are black or Indian or Chinese or Irish, or even Australian or South African, your perspective may be fundamentally different. Then we can talk about slavery, genocide, famines, ethnic cleansing, wars of conquest, land grabbing, brutal repression and the plantation system which made many people's lives brutal and short. The same reality, different perspective. And, unfortunately, both are right in their opinions, even though they are talking about the same thing. So perspective can be completely different and oppose another perspective but still be right, What of morals? That's another story altogether. We may say the same about politics and religion too.

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  2. Forgive me ignorance, but in what ways would Europeans disagree with the American narrative of WW2? I mean, we turned the tide of the war and nearly beat Stalin to Berlin. I'm genuinely curious what you think we Americans like to overlook (because Americans do have a habit of that).

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  3. Well, it wasn't just Americans in the push to Berlin, for starters! Turned the tide of the war is most accurate, but sometimes Americans can say they won the war; which when many British and other people died defending their countries, can sound arrogant and dismissive. However, the fact that Americans gave us aid and fought against Hitler will always be appreciated by British people. It is, as ever, a far more convoluted and complex topic, than the soundbites we hear that almost always end in arguments and downright nastiness. You and I never fought in wars but both my dad and Granddad where involved in conflicts and potential conflicts. We can be grateful for that and for those who fought for our freedoms we so readily take for granted.

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