Thoughts and Theology: The Salem Witch Trials

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Salem Witch Trials

6 comments:

Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...: Yes, as I learned in my history classes, history is selective.; July 8, 2008 at 3:44 AM
Abbey said...: I think history is taught completely wrong in most schools. Sure you can memorize a list of dates and people, but there is so much more to history than that. What was a person's beliefs? How did that affect his life and choices/actions? How did this affect society? I think that those are the kind of questions that people should be looking for instead of selecting random things to study. It makes it so much more interesting, and I've found that I remember it better than the traditional way of memorizing facts and date.; July 9, 2008 at 3:26 PM
Jeff said...: When I was going to school, I used to think it was so stupid to have to remember a bunch of names of dead people, and a bunch of dates. All those dates were anyway, were a bunch of numbers.

I agree with you, Abbey. I think it should be taught in a more practical manner. But more importantly, Revisionists have taken out many vital components of our history, and so people come out having learned a very skewed and biased historical perspective.; July 9, 2008 at 10:21 PM
Jeff said...: Russ,

One thing I like about the Bible is that it doesn't sugar-coat its heroes. It reveals the warts and flaws and shortcomings of the people that it reports on. It doesn't try to exaggerate their qualities.; July 9, 2008 at 10:25 PM
Abbey said...: Yeah, but that's for a reason. So many of the OT Bible characters were pictures of the One who was to come, yet they fell short. They weren't the ones.; July 11, 2008 at 6:32 PM
Jeff said...: Abbey,

Yeah, but that's for a reason. So many of the OT Bible characters were pictures of the One who was to come, yet they fell short. They weren't the ones.

Certainly. However, I was thinking more in the line of those who say that the Bible is a bunch of myths. If you wanted to make up a religion, you probably would make your characters larger than life, and make them appear super-human. For example, the non-canonical Gnostic gospels (the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary, etc.) reportedly present an image of Jesus as the ultimate wisdom teacher, a kind of mysterious Jewish Zen master.; July 11, 2008 at 11:44 PM

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