The Most Important Events in Human History

             The most important and pivotal events in the universally accepted human history, arranged chronologically. Each of these events still have repercussions in today’s modern world. Events related to Christianity are highlighted in bold text. Everything is connected. Read up on each of these events to see why they are of such importance to the modern world.

These are just a few of the major events. I’m sure you could probably add many more.

The use of the BC/BCE and AD/CE temporal designations are just to keep everybody happy.

ca 10,000 BC/BCE: The invention of agriculture. Obviously.

ca 3200 BC/BCE: The invention of writing. Obviously.

6^th or 5^th Century BC/BCE: The life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. The exact dates

of his life are disputed.

ca 4 BC/BCE – 30 AD/CE: The life of Jesus of Nazareth.

ca 49 AD/CE: At the Council of Jerusalem, the leaders of the young Church decided to

accept Gentiles into the Church without requiring them to undergo circumcision.

70 AD/CE: The Roman military destroys the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

217 AD/CE: The Jian’an Plague kills about 2,000,000 people in China.

313 Ad/CE: The Edict of Milan in which Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity.

325 AD/CE: The Council of Nicea is held in what is now Iznik, Turkiye. The council

condemned Arianism and clarified the church’s christology.

476 AD/CE: The fall of the Western Empire.

541 – 549 AD/CE: The Plague of Justinian kills up to 100,000,000 people in Europe and

West Asia.

            Ca 570 – 632 AD/CE: The Prophet Muhammad and the birth of Islam.

735 – 737 AD/CE: A smallpox epidemic kills about 2,000,000 people in Japan.

800 AD/CE: Charlemagne is crowned as Emperor, uniting church and state.

1054 AD/CE: The Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

Churches.

            1066 -1071 Ad/CE: The Norman Conquest of England. The strong central state

government which developed persists until this day. 

            1095 -1300 AD/CE: The Crusades. Cultural and religious resentments and hatreds caused 

by this series of wars persist until today.

1346 – 1353 AD/CE: The Black Plague (bubonic plague) kills about 25,000,000 to

30,000,000 in Eurasia and North Africa.

            1378 – 1417 AD/CE: During the Great Western Schism, the Roman Catholic Church split

into political factions over who legitimately held the office of the papacy, resulting in multiple

competing popes in Rome and Avignon, France.  

ca 1440 - 1456 AD/CE: Invention of the printing press. Printing of the Gutenberg Bible.

1492 AD/CE: Cristobal Colon (aka Christopher Columbus) discovers America.

1492 – 1614 AD/CE: The Reconquitsa, in which Muslim rulers were driven from Spain.

1517 AD/CE: The start of the Protestant Reformation.

1611 AD/CE: The production of the King James Version of the Bible.  This Bible, written in the English which was spoken at the time, made the Bible available to any English speaker who could read. 

ca 1760 – 1840 AD/CE: The industrial revolution.

1789 – 1799 AD/CE: The French Revolution.

1914 – 1918 AD/CE: World War I caused between 15,000,000 to 22,000,000 deaths.

1918 - 1920 AD/CE: The Spanish Flu pandemic kills between 17,000,000 to 50,000,000

people worldwide. Some extreme estimates say as many as 100,000,000.

1939 – 1945 AD/CE: World War II. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs caused up

to 246,000 deaths. About 6,000,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. World War II caused

between 7,000,000 to 85,000,000 deaths.

            1960 to 1990 Ad/CE: The development of the internet.

2019 AD/CE: The COVID- 19 pandemic kill up to an estimated 36,000,000 people.

Subjects in the Labels List (Labels Which Begin with the Letter A, range aa to al)

             This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with the letter A. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

a capella, A Contract with God, AAR, Aaron, abandonment of position, abba, abduction, ability, Abingdon Press, abjad, Abner, abortion, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln, Abram, Absalom Jones, absolute truth, abuse of power, academics, Academy Awards, acoustics, acrobatics, acrostics, acting, action figures, activism, actor, actress, Acts, Acts of the Apostles, AD, Adam and Eve, addiction to pornography, adolescents, Adolf Hitler, Adonai, Adoniram Judson, adoption, adoptionism, Adrian Peterson, Adrienne Barbeau, adultery, adults, advertisements, advice, aeronautics, affective disorders, Affirmation Declaration, Africa, African American, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Afrikaans, afterlife, age, aging, agnostic, agnosticism, Agrippa, Ahab, Ahaz, Ahaziah, Ahmadinejad, AI, AIDS, Air Force, airline, airplane, Akiane, Akira Kurosawa, Akkadia, Al Sharpton, al- Qaida, Alabama, Alabama A&M University, Alabama football, Alabama State University, Alabaster Box, Alaric, Alaska, Albania, Albanian, Albert Einstein, Albert Pujols, alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous, Aldous Huxley, Aleister Crowley, alternate spiritualities, Alexander, Alexander Campbell, Alexander Kazembek, Alexander the Great, Alexandria, Alfred the Great, Algeria, Algonquian, Alice Cooper, alienation, Alistair Crowley, Allah, allegory, alligator, Alon Nil, and alphabet.

Why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus?

             Acknowledgment that there was an actual Jewish man named Yeshua who lived in the areas of modern Israel and Palestine (the Herodian kingdom of Judea) during the first half of the first century is almost universal. Virtually no reputable scholars will deny that. That he existed is the only fact on which almost everyone can agree.

So, why are there so few contemporary historical references to Jesus? Well, the truth is there if you look. The best way to get noticed in those times was to be born wealthy or to be politically connected. Or, to cause trouble for those people, the ones who mattered.

Jesus was a nobody because he was not a Roman citizen. Almost none of the Jews of that day were.

Jesus was a nobody because he was from a hick country town. None of the residents of Nazareth mattered until it came time to pay taxes. They were considered to be uneducated, unsophisticated, and to have very odd strong speech accents.

Nazareth was a worker’s residential village of about 200 to 400 people. None of its residents were wealthy or politically important in any way.  John 1:46 echoes what was probably a common sentiment: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"

The town is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament, the Jewish Talmud, or the writings of contemporary historians like Josephus. The town was ignored and its residents were ignored.

A literal translation of the Greek text of John 1:46 reads like this: “and said to him nathaniel out of nazareth is able any good thing to be says to him philip come and see.” (There was no capitalization, punctuation, or spaces between words in these texts.)

At first, Jesus was ignored and rejected even in Nazareth. He was considered to be odd and just a carpenter. One time, his brothers went to get him before he embarrassed the family. Mark 3:21. They thought he was Ἐξέστη.

Ἐξέστη means to "to stand out of,” here meaning out of one’s mind, losing one’s senses, becoming irrational, out of one’s wits, or overwhelmed.

After he became established as a respected teacher, Jesus’ ministry was primarily in the rural towns among the poor people. All the Jewish wealth and power was concentrated in Jerusalem.

            It was not until the final three years of his life that Jesus was noticed outside of Nazareth. He soon became a very hot topic of intense discussion and he was quickly disposed of when he became a problem for the people who mattered.

If I had been born in biblical times, I would have probably not have lived very well or very long

             If I had been born in biblical times, I would have probably not lived very well or very long, because of these things:

a.      Because of childhood ear infections and chronic tinnitus, I would probably have been deaf.

b.      Childhood tonsillitis, measles, or mumps, or any infection, could have led to death.

c.       My teeth would have been filled with cavities.

d.      Because of cataracts, Fuch’s dystrophy, and macular degeneration, I would have become blind.

e.      Because of insulin resistance I would have eventually suffered from diabetes.

f.        The bone spur which cut my rotator cuff would have rendered my shoulder useless.

g.      My osteo-arthritis would have frozen most, or all, of my joints.

h.      My damaged meniscus in my knee would have given me a limp.

i.        The stones in my gall bladder, which led to gangrene, would have killed me.

j.        The mycoplasma pneumonia would have killed me. Or any number of respiratory diseases.

k.    My bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome would have rendered my hands useless.

l.     My numerous pre-cancerous skin lesions would have eventually converted to full-blown cancer and led to my death.

m.   Chronic allergic rhinitis would have led to a miserable existence.

n.   You get the picture and you can probably add many of your own ailments to the list.

.

            Television programs and movies about the Bible usually depict everyone as basically healthy. By our modern standards, they absolutely were not. The Bible names a few diseases and ailments, but does not touch on the common limitations the people of the time had to tolerate. It does encourage people to avail themselves of whatever medical treatments are available as a wise use of what God has provided.

            Medical knowledge during the biblical period was, by our modern standards, very limited and elementary. Paul advised Timothy to use a "little wine" for his frequent stomach ailments. Medicinal plants are mentioned, including a fig poultice for a boil (Isaiah 38:21) and the balm of Gilead for healing wounds (Jeremiah 8:22). Luke, the author of the books of Luke and Acts, was a physician (Colossians 4:14). God can work for healing by using doctors and medicine. We are never told to ignore medical advice or to indulge in strange fringe or extreme types of diets.

The concept of Christian bodily stewardship comes from the knowledge that we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and each of our bodies can be viewed as a Temple of the Lord. This implies that taking care of your body is a Christian obligation.  We do not own our bodies. We have been "bought with a price"— the blood of Jesus Christ.

Proper nutrition, physical activities, weight loss, proper rest, presenting a positive and healthy image to others, and avoiding the use of harmful substances are all biblically encouraged. There is a one biblical warning about the concern for physical health. It is possible to become so obsessed with fitness, appearance, or health that these things become idols and replace God in our hearts. He must be the focus.

 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 10:31; Romans 12:1; 1 Timothy 4:8; Proverbs 23:20-21; Exodus 20:8-10.

Science in Antiquity: Part 10

 

Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 1500 BC/BCE: 1. Chinese mathematicians work on permutations and probability theory.

            2. Hindu writers mention ants being attracted to a patient’s urine as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1550 BC: 1. In Myanmar/Burma, copper is made into bronze.

            2. An Egyptian physician, Hesy-Ra, mentions frequent urination as a symptom of diabetes.

Ca 1750 BC/BCE:  Babylon: square and cube roots, linear and quadratic equations, Pythagorean Theorem.

Ca 1800 BC/BCE: 1. Bronze is in use in China.

            2. The Berlin Papyrus 6619, found in Egypt, describes algebra.

Ca 1890 BC/BCE: The Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, found in Egypt, speaks of applied mathematics: ship construction, beer concentrations, worker efficiency, Pythagorean triples, etc.

Chanting the Lotus Sutra

 

chanting the Lotus Sutra

only his lips

are busy

This is a poem written by Master Sheng Yen (1930 – 2009), a Chinese Zen Buddhist monk. His criticism is of mindless, repetitive chanting with the mind being somewhere else. This was his final poem. He seems to be saying that real Zen enlightenment cannot be achieved by merely repeating a string of words, by performing a certain prescribed action. Distracting busy work.

The Apostle Matthew spoke on this subject twenty centuries earlier. "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words". Matthew 6:7 in the NASB. Meaningless repetition is just what it seems to be to unbelievers, just a string of words. Busy work with no actual effect on the world.

Christians can easily become mindlessly trapped in the busy work tar baby (look it up) of doing churchy things, attending worship services, singing in the choir, volunteering, providing funds for worthy social activities, working in a child care program, watching Christian movies and reading Christian books, Christian political involvement, running a food and clothing bank for the poor, social justice activities, organizing and attending meetings and events, maintaining a church library, participating in disaster relief programs, yada yada yada.

None of these things are wrong or inappropriate for a Christian, but they must never be allowed to replace or crowd out the truth. The truth is this: Jesus died on the cross and overcame death for me, for you, and for every single individual on the Earth. This was his gift to us, it is the one spiritual gift which every Christian possesses, and it is the one gift which we are commanded to repeatedly give to others. The paradox is that, when we give it away to others, we still possess it.

Subjects in the Labels List (Numbered Labels)

        This blog is ακωλυτως, unhindered. (Acts 28:31) Any subject is fair game. Below is a listing of the LABELS which begin with a number. All can be searched from the list which follows the last posted article on this page or by using the SEARCH button at the top of the page. Most will call up multiple postings in which they appear.

        1 Chronicles, 1 Corinthians, 1 John, 1 Kings, 1 Peter, 1 Samuel, 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Chronicles, 2 Corinthians, 2 John, 2 Kings, 2 Peter, 2 Samuel, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, 501

(c )(3), and 666.