History of Worldviews (12) (ELCA)

History of Worldviews
For Classes:
Bible Worldviews (12) (ELCA)

Basic History of Christianity

Authenticity of Scripture

Dead Sea Scrolls

• Founded in 1947
• Quern Cave
• The complete text of Isaiah
• Earliest manuscripts that have ever been found

New Testament Copies Found

• 5300 Greek New Testaments
• 10000 Latin New Testaments
• 9300 Other Early Manuscripts
• 633 Homer's Iliad (comes second)

"the competence of the New Testament documents would be established in any court of law."
- Simon Greenleaf (Harvard University, Cambridge)

Historicity of Christ

• A.D. 93 Josephus refers to Jesus twice in the Antiquities of the Jews.
• Tacitus A.D. 112 wrote of Jesus (Christ's) and of His followers called Christians.

Resurrection and History

• The mention of major historical figures in the Gospels
• 500 people witnessed the resurrection Christ.
  • First Corinthians 15:6
• Transformation in the lives of Christ's disciples lives!!!
  • Scared to Courageous!
  • Eleven of the thirteen disciples were martyred

Purpose in History

• Creation, Fall, Redemption
• Linear Conception of History
  • Creation (Beginning)
  • Restoration (Directed by God towards a specific end)
• "Direction, as always, comes from God"

Basic History of Islam

History of Islam

• Muhammad the founder and prophet of Islam was born circe A.D. 570
  • Extremely "religious"
  • (A.D. 610) Muhammad believes he was visited by the angel Gabriel
    • He went away to think.
  • He believed that he was visited by the massager Gabriel.
    • Began to write the Koran.
  • (A.D. 622) Muhammad disagreed with the worship of tribal deities. This led to a clash and migration to Medina. (Hijra)
    • He struggled with the idea of idol worship.
    • Believed in monotheism.
    • Led to a "civil war" of religion and fled to Medina.
  • (A.D. 629) Muhammad and 10,000 followers capture Mecca and establish Islam.

Division of Islam

• Sunni
  • Leader of Islam is the be elected by popular vote
  • 80% of Muslims worldwide
• Shiite
  • Leader should be from the bloodline of Muhammad
• Sufi
  • Mystical and spiritual side of Islam

Important Terms

• Islam - Submission
• Muslim - One who submits
• Historical Determinism - History is not made up of chance happenings, but that Allah superintends history throughout time.
• Jihad
  • Striving in the way of the Lord (Allah)
  • A divine institution of warfare to extend Islam into the Dar al-hard or to defend Islam from danger.
    • While it may be only a fraction of Muslims are expressive militants, a much larger number manifest emotional, vocal, and monetary support of Jihad
    • September 11, 2001 shaped our view of Islam in the modern age.

III. Basic History of Secular-Humanism
    "Man's destiny is to be the sole agent for the future evolution of
    the planet"
    –Julian Huxley
   A. Historical Evolution
       1. History is to be understood in terms of unguided evolution and
        the guidance of human ingenuity and intelligence.
   B. Who shapes history?
       1. Humanist Manifesto II  teaches that humanity is a dynamic
        force in history. "no deity will save us."
       2. Ideologies Shape History
           a) Humans in and of themselves do not shape history rather
            their ideologies do. Ideologies evolve and certain
            ideologies are more effective than others. Some ideologies
            are no longer relevant.
   C. Evolution of Man
       1. "New species will not come out of a painfully slow random
        process of biological evolution, but though the rapid and
        guided advances in Technology."
   D. Humanist are optimistic because:
       1. The belief that life evolved from non-life to life and
        evolving upward and onward for 3.6 billion years.
       2. They deny the existence of God, "there is no room for the
        supernatural"
           a) No Heaven or Hell
           b) No Ultimate Hope
                Hope comes from oneself and, therefore, there is no
                hope.
IV. Basic History of Marxism-Leninism
   A. Historical Materialism – The methodological approach to the study
    of society, economics and history that looks for the developments
    and changes in human societies through economic analysis.
   B. Economical Determinism – Economics is the major driving force in
    History
   C. Communism is Inevitable
       1. Salvation for the Marxist lies in the consummation of the
        historical process in a one-world utopia.
            "My government shall supply my mean. Government shall
            control everything, every aspect of life."
       2. "Communists must know that the future belongs to them."
        - Lenin
   D. Dialectic Applied to History
       1. Thesis – Bourgeoisie – High/Upper Class
       2. Antithesis – Proletariat – Working Class
       3. Synthesis – Communism – Equal?
            The Synthesis becomes the Thesis. When one has a new
            thesis, one has a new antithesis as well.
V. Basic History of Cosmic Humanism
    "God wants us to become Himself (or Herself, Itself). We are
    growing towards godhood. God is the goal of evolution, it is God
    who is the source of the evolutionary force and God is the final
    destination. This is what we meant when we say that He is the
    Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end."
    – Scott Peck
   A. Evolutionary Godhood – The belief that the divine is the source of
    evolutionary force and that we are going towards godhood. 
   B. Irrelevance of Christianity
       1. According to Cosmic Humanism, the cosmic process is an
        evolution from religion to religion.
       2. The Christian Worldview might have helped us in our quest for
        godhood a thousand years ago, but today is hopeless outdated.
VI. Basic History of Post-Modernism
    The Anti-Worldview Worldview
   A. Historicism – The view that past beliefs morals and truths can
    only be understood in relation to cultural/historical periods in
    which they arose.
       1. History is Fiction
           a) If history is fiction, then Mother Theresa and Adolf
            Hitler cannot be used as examples of good and evil.
           b) There are no facts! There are only various degrees of
            fiction.
       2. Historicism and the doctrine of the fiction of history forms a
        paradox.
   B. Revisionist History – Rewriting the past to serve an ideological
    purpose to empower oppressed social groups.
   C. Nihilism – The belief that life has no ultimate meaning.
        There is truly no hope.