Please read Book III of his History of the Church. What do you see in this book that would be particularly worth adding to an essay on the strengths/weaknesses of Eusebius as a historian? Was there anything you found particularly interesting in this book?
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
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In reading Book III of Eusebius' History of the Church, I still found it relatively difficult to maintain focus while reading it. The numbering system makes it kind of difficult for me to focus. Regardless, I still found chapter 7, The Predictions of Christ, to be really interesting. I feel like Eusebius does a brilliant job explaining these predictions in a simple manner, because I was able to understand them clearly. I especially liked when he specifically pointed out the historian's point of view. That made that specific point stand out quite a bit to the audience.
ReplyDeleteIn this book, I feel like there might be a few weaknesses to how Eusebius is as a historian because of how short most of these chapters are. I think it causes the reader to think that Eusebius did not know that much information or chose to leave some of it out.
One example in Book III that would fit into the strengths of Eusebius would be how he cites his sources. The example that I will give is how he cites Josephus. Not only does Eusebius cite Josephus, but he explains who he was and what he lived through. Eusebius also quoted lines from Josephus's work. This is all shows Eusebius's strengths as a writer in citing his sources and really giving the reader insight about his sources.
ReplyDeleteI really found the story of Domitian' persecution of Christians really interesting. Eusebius describes him as Nero's successor in hostility to God. I found this interesting because Domitian's father, Vespasian, did not persecute the Christians. Another interesting part was when Domitian called in two grandsons of Jude. They admitted that they were descendants of David and showed Domitian that the were hard working men who did not have a lot. They also told Domitian about God and heaven. After this, Domitian let them go and had the persecutions of the Christians cease. I found this story to be very intriguing.
Eusebius is becoming slightly easier to read, but I still feel he is long winded. I was particularly confused by his descriptions of the book of Acts. Does he not believe it should be a part of the new testament? Are there churches that feel that Acts shouldn't be in the bible? If I am reading it correctly this is what he is saying.
ReplyDeleteEven though I feel Eusebius is long winded I do appreciate his detail. I feel bad that I do not remember Josephus from the bible. Apparently he is a really important dude. Any maybe it is just me, but I have never heard of this Origen character. I would very much like to learn more about him. I hope that we can discuss him more at length in class on Thursday.
I don't think Josephus is mentioned in the Bible - he was a first century Jew who wrote down lots of history of the Jews and first century Christians. I remember my mom having a book of Josephus' writings - it was bigger than War and Peace.
DeleteThe book hasn't really gotten any easier for me too read yet. How wordy he is still makes it fairly easy for me to lose focus while I'm reading and kind of miss what it is that I am actually reading. It's not entirely a bad thing that he is as wordy as he is. As it kind of ensures that you will be able to understand exactly what he wants you to understand if, of course, you are able to read it without losing focus.
ReplyDeleteIt was not easy to read. There was a lot of martyring happening. It was really wordy. I think it was about the same as the first two book. I could see closer to the end of the book that the reading was getting easier. I thought the Apostles Who Married part was interesting because Clement makes fun of them. It was an interesting side to see of the Apostles.
ReplyDeleteIn Book III I found it very potent that Eusebius isn't the only source for material. He relies on Josephus as well.
ReplyDeleteThe use of Josephus' first hand account of the Siege of Jerusalem was very chilling. Food being so scarce that family will fight amongst themselves to eat, or having everyone in Jerusalem barge into your home because they think you are hoarding food. An even worse fate would be to be tortured because you had food. How about the brigands who stole clothes from the dead then tested their swords on the corpses? Some of them even tried their steel on those who weren't dead!
At least those people suffered a better fate than a woman and her child. This mother was so hungry she killed her own son for a little food to eat, then hid half of the body she didn't consume! This begs the question; which half of her son did she consume first? Especially since the partisans came looking for the "food" to which the woman shown them the child. Of course they left her alone with stomachs more empty than before, at least I assume, since they threw up anything inside of them.
I found this section not to be that bad for reading. The part of Eusebius Part III I focused on was on page 113 The Writings of John. When we were reading and discussing The Book of John in class made this part more understandable because the author says why the books were put in order the way there were. It also talks that John writes about the beginning of Jesus mission for instance he writes about stuff Jesus did before John the Baptist was put in jail. Matthew, Mark, and Luke only recorded one year up to the Imprisonments on John the Baptist and it was done at the beginnings of their writings.
ReplyDeleteI find it super interesting that no one has talked about how Eusebius thinks it’s crazy for 2 Peter to be a book of the Bible - and yet today - it’s in our Bibles! I love how he words it as the “so-called second epistle” of Peter. One of his weaknesses as a historian would be how much personal bias he puts on this topic. Obviously Eusebius was wrong in this area because the Church ultimately decided that 2 Peter was a part of the Bible. Possibly humility would be another of Eusebius’ weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteIn Book III, Eusebius continues to show his strength for citing his sources. I especially like how he cites Josephus and his work Jewish War. I like this because I did not know much about Josephus before reading this, and he goes into detail about who Josephus was before he starts to cite his work, which I find very helpful.
ReplyDeleteA weakness he continues to show is his wordiness. There are multiple sentences that he could easily shorten up. I know history is all about words, but Eusebius takes it to the extreme.
One strength that Eusebius shows is his citing of sources. He uses Josephus as a primary source and goes into pretty good detail about the experiences Josephus had.
ReplyDeleteHe really starts to show some weaknesses though, as we see some of his personal bias, like how he didn't even think 2 Peter should have been included in the Bible. He also remains quite long-winded. We talked about this in class on Tuesday about how he used a style of a sophisticated Greek writer, which in turn made his writings really difficult to read and stay focused on at certain times.
Kent Johnsen
ReplyDeleteBook 3 is not easy at all. Not only does his wordiness continue, but also the fact that hisnbias starts to appear now and then. However, he is getting stronger in the fact that he's no linger relying on his own, but he does have other sources. Without Josephus, most of his writing would still be taken with a grain of salt. I second India though, why does he question 2 Peter (or even 3 Peter) as "so-called"? Is he questioning authenticity as inspired or the authorship?
I too had trouble understanding book 3. I felt like everything I read just went over my head. The part I found interesting was the background on Josephus and his writings. I really didn't know much about him before reading this part of the book
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