[Jason Jewell]

But to save you the time . . . the Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_Empire) discusses the process by which Cortes used Mayan translators: Spanish ==> Mayan ==> Aztec language.

[Jason Jewell]

Jim, scholars disagree on whether the Hebrews were monotheistic from the beginning or if they started with “monolatry” (the worship of only one God) and later moved to monotheism. Everyone agrees that they eventually ended up at monotheism, but the question is whether that was true at the time of Moses or if it wasn’t until the 8th century B.C. or so.

[Jason Jewell]

The classic history describing the conquest (and which is available online) is William Prescott’s “History of the Conquest of Mexico.” I believe I link it in the resources for that lecture, and it discusses the translation issue.

[Jason Jewell]

David, thanks for reminding me of this. I’ll see what I can dig up in the next day or two.

[Jason Jewell]

The communist government in China was not officially recognized by the UN at the time of the Korean War. The Nationalist government in Taiwan still held the UN seat and voted for the security resolution. If memory serves, the USSR ambassador was not present for the vote on that resolution for some unexplained reason.

[Jason Jewell]

We’re wandering pretty far from the topic of this thread. I suggest that a discussion on epistemology would be better suited for the “General Discussion” forum.

However, I hope that you can see that “Humans can only attain knowledge through the senses and/or reason” is not an empirically verifiable statement.

[Jason Jewell]

Squamousguy, before I reply to your specific comments, I’ll repeat what I noted in another thread some time ago. My summary of the Genesis and Exodus accounts,etc., in the lecture is just that: a summary of those accounts. I do not assert the historicity of any of the miraculous events in the lecture. I include them because familiarity with them is, in my opinion, important to cultural literacy. These stories, historic or not, have had a huge impact on Western civilization. If you get uncomfortable because I don’t include sufficient disclaimers if one kind or another (e.g., “Now of course none of this really happened”), that seems to be evidence of your own biases.

Now to your comments:

“So I meant that he [Ehrman] was willing to come to conclusions about the Bible and its contents regardless of standards/dogma/personal feeling, so long as he felt the evidence was sufficient (so I suppose, as I gathered, he was biased toward the most consistent and rational evidence).”

What is Ehrman’s standard of evidence? What does it mean to be “consistent and rational”? If you (or he) define these terms in such a way that they rule out in advance any possibility of revelation or some other religious component, and then you say that “consistent and rational” evidence (according to your definition) is the only allowable means of getting at some truth, this is evidence of a bias. It may or may not be true, but it is undeniably a bias.

Likewise if you define “liberty” as absolute individual autonomy, then of course Christianity does not support “liberty.” But this is not what “liberty” has meant to the vast majority of thinkers throughout the history of the West.

For every rhetorical question you ask of Christians, there is a comparable one that can be asked of empiricists/rationalists/secularists. These folks have accepted (on faith) a package of ideas that limit their thinking in certain directions. For example, take your statement “We do not see any supernatural occurrences today.” Really? Can you prove this? Do you have data for every event that has occurred in human experience in the last, say, ten years? If not, how can you make such an unsubstantiated statement? Is that “consistent and rational”?

I do not wish to bog the forum down in an extended discussion of epistemology, or anything not directly related to the content of the lecture series. I only wish to point out that the insistence on a “secular” presentation of Hebrew or Church history (by which, I assume, you mean one in which the truth of the stories in the Bible is explicitly denied) is just as biased as an insistence on a “Christian” presentation of such history.

[Jason Jewell]

Squamousguy, it’s a mistake to call Ehrman’s treatment of the gospels “unbiased.” (I’m fairly certain Ehrman would agree with me here.) He shares a particular set of biases with other scholars engaging in so-called “higher criticism” of the Bible and the “quest for the Historical Jesus.” They may happen to be biases with which you agree, but they’re still biases.

Your comment appears to indicate that you think either religion in general or Christianity in particular is antithetical to liberty, reason, and logic. Is this a bias?

[Jason Jewell]

I’ll give this a listen and reply back here soon.

[Jason Jewell]

The answer to #7 is in there. It’s the Donatist heresy.

[Jason Jewell]

I use a couple of chapters from it in one of my university courses, and on the whole I think it does a good job of laying out the language and methodology of the discipline.

[Jason Jewell]

Thanks very much, Samgheb.

[Jason Jewell]

Oskar, the topics covered in this series are for the most part the same you’d get in a traditional lecture series. You might be surprised at how few of these there are remaining, at least in the U.S. Many colleges and universities no longer offer Western Civ surveys. Those that do weight the lecture topics heavily to gender issues or some other thing that is trendy in the academy at the moment.

As far as the perspective is concerned, this series takes the opportunity to point out free-market economic ideas that connect to the topics under discussion more so than most traditional courses. It also gives greater emphasis to the role of Christianity in the West.

I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the lectures, and I look forward to your continued participation on the site!

[Jason Jewell]

Is this the sort of thing you’re asking about?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312535023/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0312535023&linkCode=as2&tag=thewesttrad-20

[Jason Jewell]

I’d suggest posting this question on one of the U.S. History forums where those professors will be sure to see it.

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