{"id":19702,"date":"2018-10-24T22:41:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T05:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=19702"},"modified":"2018-10-24T22:41:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T05:41:28","slug":"where-did-the-history-of-the-world-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/where-did-the-history-of-the-world-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Did the History of the World Begin?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As I painfully trudged through Peter Frankopan\u2019s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World<\/em>, it was interesting to learn about his new take on the history of the world. He claims\u2026\u201cFrom the beginning of time, the centre of Asia was where empires were made. The alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia, fed by the Tigris and Euphrates, provided the basis for civilisation itself\u2014for it was in this region that the first towns and cities took shape. Systematised agriculture developed in Mesopotamia and across the whole of the \u201cFertile Crescent,\u201d a band of highly productive land with access to plentiful water, stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean coast.\u201d[1]<\/a> Asia being the center of history was fascinating, especially just returning from Hong Kong and Beijing. Reading that Asia was the center of raw goods, trade, and religion reminded me of the book we read before going to South Africa called How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind<\/em>. In the book, the author highlighted evidence for Africa being the birthplace of Christianity, while Frankopan argues that Asia is the center for religions, including Christianity. By this time I am extremely confused, which didn\u2019t take much since I was already half asleep from the droning of all the historical accounts being detailed.<\/p>\n

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This lead me to do a little more research on the book, which lead me to the following excerpt from Anthony Sattin\u2019s review of The Silk Roads: \u201cThis \u201cnew history of the world\u201d is a strangely myopic one for it starts by ignoring thousands of years of documented human achievement to look at the rise of the Persian empire. But Frankopan is quick to make a point of this apparently arbitrary opening: he wants to recalibrate our view of history, to challenge assumptions about where we come from and what has shaped us. The traditional view, taught in our schools and supported by the layout of many of our museums, is that we are the heirs of the glorious Romans, who were in turn heir to the Greeks, who, in some accounts, were heirs to the Egyptians. Seen in this way, the Mediterranean well deserves its name for it is literally the middle of the world. Frankopan disagrees with the Eurocentric view and places the centre of the world some way to the east, beyond Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, in\u00a0Iran\u00a0and the \u201cstans\u201d.\u201d[2]<\/a> Obviously this reviewer disagrees with Frankopan\u2019s new centering of world history in Asia, which confirmed my confusion regarding how Africa plays into the history of Christianity and world religion. I already struggled to get through a history book, even though I can hear the history buffs in my ear saying, \u201cmake sure you learn history or you will be in danger of repeating it.\u201d Unfortunately, this book did not help convince me to power through any more history books than I absolutely have to. It was interesting to view history through the perspective of the silk roads, and some of what I read caused me to double take at times, but overall it did not capture my attention like many of the other books we have read.<\/p>\n

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One of the quotes that actually caught my attention was\u2026\u201cIt was not only goods that flowed along the arteries that linked the Pacific, Central Asia, India, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean in antiquity; so did ideas. And among the most powerful ideas were those that concerned the divine.\u201d[3]<\/a> This caused me to daydream a little about how ideas about God developed and spread around the world. The author talked about how cults came in contact with established religious beliefs and ideas about the divine became rather competitive. This does not seem too far off of how people are introduced to the idea of Creator God today. It seems like the competition for ideas about the divine are as diverse and plentiful as ever, with many people developing very unique concepts of who God is to them. I have not pondered this concept of ideas about God, or the divine, as a competition, but it clicked when I thought about all of the spiritual ideas competing for the attention of our young people today. Not that older folks are not exposed to this competition as well, but I feel like our young people are especially vulnerable to the competition of ideas about God and faith. I believe the One True God has the power to win this competition for the hearts of all people, young and old, and I believe we are called to be His mouthpiece in speaking the Truth in Love![4]<\/a> If for not anything else, this book did launch me down this interesting and productive rabbit trail\u2026and helped with my afternoon nap J, for this I will be thankful.<\/p>\n

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____________________________________<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World<\/em>, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 1.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2] Anthony Sattin, The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan Review \u2013 A Frustrating Trail<\/em>, The Guardian, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2015\/sep\/29\/silk-roads-peter-frankopan-review<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [3] Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World<\/em>, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 27.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [4] Ephesians 4:15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I painfully trudged through Peter Frankopan\u2019s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, it was interesting to learn about his new take on the history of the world. He claims\u2026\u201cFrom the beginning of time, the centre of Asia was where empires were made. The alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia, fed by the Tigris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,762],"class_list":["post-19702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-frankopan","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19704,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702\/revisions\/19704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}