We are going to have to move through material pretty quickly in the next several weeks. In order to expedite matters, I would appreciate it if you would read as much as you can of the first two books (not chapters) of Euesebius of Caesarea's History of the Church for Thursday's class. We are going to be looking at Eusebius' strengths and weaknesses as a historian. Please bring the book to class with you.
In my view, a good history should be interesting. Do Books I and II meet this standard? What do you find interesting in these books? Does Eusebius ever lose your attention? If so, why?
I personally found the readings very difficult. I didn't like how Eusebius jumps around from subject to subject. For example in book one, he starts out with the different names Jesus was called, moves to Jesus birth, then to the geneologies of Jesus, and somehow keeps moving onto the relationship between Herod and the infants of Bethlehem. The order in which he puts these items can be very confusing at times and it also makes me lose interest in the reading very fast.
ReplyDelete-Melinda Quade
I find the readings very interesting, because the book has pictures for most of the things he is talking about. He does jump around a lot and this causes me to lose interest, but the pictures perk my interest every time. I enjoy being able to have some kind of image that aids in talking about things. It helps to understand the more difficult ideas that Eusebius is talking about. -Kelly Longden
ReplyDeleteI found the reading to be somewhat difficult to read but it was certainly interesting. Close to the beginning he talks about the nature of Jesus and I think that is to help understand who Jesus was and how the early church's understanding of who Jesus was, was important to how it formed. He quotes the opening of John's gospel where it says that the Word was with God and the Word was God. He goes on to show that realizing that Jesus is one with the Father and that the Father does all of his work through Jesus... short story version: Jesus = God. He's not a messenger, he's not an extension he is the I AM referred to in the Old Testament. That was important to the early church and it was interesting to read even though it was a set-up to Eusebius' actual history. -Zach Kuhlman
ReplyDeleteThe books were a little difficult to read. They presented plenty of information, but in a format that I was not very comfortable with as he jumped around quite a bit as most people seem to agree with. The footnotes help to keep interest as well because (for me at least) it saves much time thinking about meanings of passages and I think they give a good description of what is going on. Overall I would say the books were well intentioned and not to say badly written, but the format and organization was certainly one I was not accustomed to.
ReplyDelete-Zack Krage