Reflections on learning about history of the Ancient Near East

"The term 'Near East' is not widely used today. It has survived in a scholarship rooted in the nineteenth century when it was used to identify the remains of the Ottoman empire on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Today we say Middle East to designate this geographical area, but the two terms do not exactly overlap, and ancient historians and archaeologists of the Middle East continue to speak of the Near East, as I will do in this book."

- Marc van de Mieroop's "A History of the Ancient Near East (ca. 3000 - 323 BC)", 2nd edition (2007), page 1

So I recently finished reading a book called "A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 - 323 BC" (2nd edition). This book is by Marc van de Mieroop, and it is one of the few books to cover this time period that is available on Amazon.

So why did I study this particular time period, you might be wondering? What exactly is the "Ancient Near East," anyway; and why would anyone read about it?

Reflections on learning about Spanish linguistics

So I recently finished reading "El español a través de la lingüística: Preguntas y respuestas" ("Spanish Through Linguistics: Questions & Answers"), edited by Jennifer D. Ewald and Anne Edstrom. You might guess from the Gringo names that this book is written by Gringos for Gringos. If so, you'd be mostly right - this book is written largely by American scholars of Spanish, for American students of Spanish linguistics, at American universities.

This book is written largely by Gringos for Gringos

This book actually has about 30 different authors, only about one-third of whom have anything resembling a Spanish name - for either their first or last names. These chapters are written almost entirely in Spanish, and are thus geared towards students of Spanish beyond the beginning levels, who are already familiar with the basics of Spanish grammar. Nonetheless, these essays are, by and large, written by Gringos for Gringos - explaining difficult Spanish words with the equivalent English words in parentheses, and answering the kinds of questions that are most likely to come from Gringos learning Spanish as a second language - rather than from native speakers of Spanish, for whom the grammatical features discussed are familiar and taken for granted, and not something that would be looked upon as strange. Why, then, did I place such value on learning it? Put differently, if the Spanish of native speakers is the most instructive for second-language learners (and it usually is), then why would I read something written largely by people who aren't that way at all?

David Hume and “The Wealth of Nations”

"Commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbors, and of servile dependency upon their superiors. This, though it has been the least observed, is by far the most important of all their effects. Mr. Hume is the only writer who, so far as I know, has hitherto taken notice of it."

- Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations," Book III, Chapter IV

Most people today have never heard of the Scottish philosopher David Hume, a great figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. But many people today have heard of the man who was probably his best friend - a man who was greatly influenced by his philosophy (political, economic, and otherwise), and influenced him in his turn. That man was his fellow Scotsman Adam Smith.

Statues of David Hume and Adam Smith

This is not to say that Mr. Hume's accomplishments were just in economics, or that Adam Smith was the only person that he influenced - he influenced many people, in the natural sciences and elsewhere. However, I shall focus this post on economics, and his influence on Adam Smith; and leave the coverage of his empiricism - and his other contributions to the philosophy of science - to others.

Adam Smith

Latin America became independent because of Napoleonic Wars – (well, partially)

" ... the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers ... "

- The Monroe Doctrine, expressed by James Monroe (then the President of the United States) in his Seventh Annual State of the Union Address (2 December 1823)

What does Napoleon have to do with Latin American independence?

When Napoleon's troops went to occupy Spain and Portugal, they set off a chain reaction of events that had massive effects on the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Latin America - including, eventually, independence. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Napoleon Bonaparte

My search for the Hebrew Bible in the original

"And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left."

- The Hebrew Bible, "The Second Book of Moses Called Exodus," Chapter 14, Verses 21 and 22 (as translated by the King James Version of the Bible)

I am an amateur Biblical scholar (emphasis on the "amateur"). I have been trying to learn Greek so that I can read the New Testament in the original one day. (Any observations about being a shameless nerd are readily agreed with.) Many are surprised to learn that the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament were originally written in Greek (rather than Hebrew), and a number have asked me why. The reason is actually that Greek was the international language of the time. It was the language that people published in if they wanted to reach a wide audience, and that was the case with the early New Testament.

By contrast, the Old Testament really was written in Hebrew - or at least, most of it was. Scholars believe that some of it may have originally been written in Aramaic - a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew. In the words of my church's Bible Dictionary: "The original language of most of the Old Testament is Hebrew, but a few portions ... were written in what is popularly called Chaldee, but more correctly Aramaic." (Source: Entry on Bible itself)

My church's edition of the Holy Bible

I then didn't have any plans to learn either Hebrew or Aramaic; as they are difficult languages for English speakers, and my primary Biblical interest was in the New Testament. Nonetheless, I thought that as long as I had a copy of the New Testament in the original Greek, I might as well complement it with a copy of the Old Testament in the original as well. Thus, I looked into what version to get; and found that this was easier said than done.

History's horror stories: The “grand experiments” with communism

Americans have rightly been interested in their own country's history for a long time - both for the moving stories it contains, and for the secrets of its success. But we have long been interested in the stories of less successful countries as well, and we have a never-ending fascination with historical horror stories like those found in Nazi Germany. It is well that we pay them attention; because along with a careful study of the secrets of our own success, it is good to have a healthy knowledge of the causes of other countries' failures; and how the terrible events so tragically found in other countries could have been allowed to happen.

Iron Curtain, 1949 - border between the two Germanies

In that spirit, I set out to talk about another of history's "horror stories" - a story not as well-known as that of Nazi Germany, but one of vital importance nonetheless; which may be even more topical in this day, due to the expanding socialism found within our own country today. I speak of the experiences of other countries with the horrors of communism.

War of “every man against every man”: Thomas Hobbes and the state of nature

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes once said that the state of nature is a "war of every man against every man." Many have not wanted to believe it (even great democratic philosophers like John Locke), believing that even if men are better off with civil society, life before civil society wasn't all that terrible. "I'm not violent like that!" many say, taking their own aversion to violence as representative of everyone else. "Humanity by nature is peaceful!"

Thomas Hobbes

And even in the book where Hobbes himself made this statement, he acknowledged that "it may seem strange to some man ... that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore ... desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by experience." Thus, he meets this challenge head-on with the following argument: