Tag Archives: History

Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels

Posted on by

Revelations isn’t really a book about the Book of Revelation. Professor Pagels devotes her first chapter to that spooky entry in the New Testament, but then veers off into discussions of the history of the early church. Nevertheless, she argues that the Book of Revelation was written around 90 C.E. by an itinerant preacher known as John of Patmos (not, as some believe, John the Apostle). 

John of Patmos was a Jew who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. According to Professor Pagels, he wrote the book as a piece of anti-Roman propaganda, in response to the fact that Rome had colonized Judea and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. The Romans are the villains in the Book of Revelation. The number 666 is probably a numerological translation of the full Latin name of the emperor Nero.

The author of the Book of Revelation borrowed from earlier prophesies in making up his particular story of the Beast, Armageddon, etc., for example, the prophesies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. And there were many other writings that claimed to be divine revelations. Most of these differed from the Book of Revelation — they were usually concerned with how to be saved, not with the end of the world. 

Unlike its competitors, the Book of Revelation became an official part of the Bible when the New Testament was codified in 325 C.E. It appears to have been included for political reasons. It was useful to the men who were organizing the Catholic Church to have a story that could be used against their political enemies, i.e. the Christians that church leaders like Irenaeus and Athanasius considered to be heretics. The early leaders of the church were a quarrelsome, unprincipled bunch who did whatever was necessary to suppress opposing views.

This is a depressing book. Generations of innocent people have been scared and even scarred by a horror story that purports to describe a coming apocalypse, albeit one with a happy ending for a few true believers (us, not them). To borrow from Nietzsche: “What cruel and insatiable vanity must have flared in the soul of the man who thought this up”. (8/24/12)

Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller

Posted on by

Examined Lives tells the life stories of some famous philosophers. There are six ancients (Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Aristotle, Seneca, Augustine) and six moderns (Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, Nietzsche), but no one who lived after 1900. 

Some of these philosophers had lives that were relatively interesting, since national leaders and religious authorities used to care about what philosophers had to say. Some of them were hired to give advice and some were persecuted for the advice they gave. But even these twelve philosophers are mostly interesting because of what they said, not because of the lives they led.

The author is mainly concerned with whether the philosophers lived up to their ideals and their advice. Did they live the way they said a person should live in order to have a good life? Not very often. His main conclusion is that being a philosopher and examining your life is no guarantee of having a life worth living. Or, to be a little unkind: having a life worth reading about.  (4/27/12)

American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

Posted on by

Friedrich Nietzsche has probably affected more people than any other philosopher, except Karl Marx. American Nietzsche describes the effect Nietzsche has had on generations of Americans, including philosophers, theologians, journalists and literary critics, as well as ordinary citizens. Many have considered him to be a kind of prophet, or at least a kindred spirit.

Nietzsche expressed strong opinions on ultimate questions, and his aphoristic, feverish style has supported many interpretations. I didn’t realize that he greatly admired Ralph Waldo Emerson and how similar their views were. First came Emerson, then Nietzsche, then pragmatists like William James and John Dewey. Walter Kaufmann made Nietzsche popular again after World War II and Richard Rorty tried to synthesize Emerson, Nietzsche and Dewey, among others. It’s quite an interesting story if you enjoy intellectual history.  (3/25/12)

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, translated by Stuart Woolf

Posted on by

Primo Levi’s memoir of his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp was originally published with the title If This Is a Man. It is written in a matter-of-fact style. The facts speak for themselves.

Levi says that survival was mainly a question of luck, although the captives had some freedom of movement, which allowed many of them to “organize” ways to improve their chances.

Aside from the most obvious questions, this book raises some questions for the reader: How would I react to living in such conditions? How am I reacting to the conditions I’m living in now? 

Levi writes: “It is lucky that it is not windy today. Strange, how in some way one always has the impression of being fortunate, how some chance happening, perhaps infinitesimal, stops us crossing the threshold of despair and allows us to live. It is raining, but it is not windy….Or it is raining, windy, and you have the usual hunger, and then you think that if you really had to, if you really felt nothing in your heart but suffering and tedium,…well, even in that case, at any moment you want you could always go and touch the electric wire-fence, or throw yourself under the shunting trains, and then it would stop raining”.  (3/1/12)

The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War by Fred Anderson

Posted on by

Professor Anderson is the author of Crucible of War, a 900-page history of the Seven Years War and its effect on North America. This is a shorter version of the same history. It’s not a great book, but it tells an interesting story.

Like most Americans, I know very little about the Seven Years War. For example, I didn’t realize that: the French and Indian War that occurred in North America between 1755 and 1763 was one part of the Seven Years War, which is considered to be the first “world war”; an inexperienced George Washington, leading a troop of soldiers as a representative of England, tried to remove the French from the area now known as Pittsburgh, and this failed attempt was the spark that set off the global Seven Years War; various Indian nations engaged in complex diplomatic relations with both the English and the French, and Indian warriors were crucial  participants on both sides of the war; The Last of the Mohicans was based on a battle and subsequent massacre that occurred near Lake George in upstate New York; the battles fought in America and Canada often involved thousands of troops and sometimes fleets of warships; in 1763 the victorious English formally declared all of the territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi to be, in the words of one cartographer, “Lands Reserved For The Indians” (we know how that worked out).

According to Anderson, the French and Indian War had two major effects: revolution and westward expansion. The victorious English concluded that they could “exercise power over the colonists without restraint”, while the colonists, having participated in the victory as loyal Englishmen, concluded that they were “equal partners in the empire”. These conflicting views helped set the stage for the American revolution a decade later. And, with the disappearance of the French, the Indians lost an important counterbalance to the English, in particular, access to French-supplied guns and ammunition. The colonists wanted more land and the Indians lacked the power to resist.

Hence, Anderson’s subtitle: “the war that made America”.  (8/2/11)