Chapter 2 "Can we know anything about history"

This chapter talks about uncertainty in history, how history is affected by the biases of authors, propaganda, and sometimes written with purposes in mind. It's pretty much impossible to get an objective historical account of something. The example she gave was that there is even a small portion of people today who believe that the holocaust didn't happen.. sketpicism formed even a couple of decades after the fact (very recent historically speaking).

This reminds me of a killer whale documentary i saw :D. it was set in Eden (i think in australia) where "legend" has is that the humans there used to hunt along side of killer whales, cooperating to bring down large whales. The killer whales would eat the tongue, and the people would take the rest of the whale. The story goes that the killer whales would swim to town to signal fishers to follow it while other killer whales surrounded and led a whale towards a bay to be trapped. However, one day a killer whale got beached, and a person decided to kill it for meat, and ever since, the killer whales never went back. There are still about 4 people on earth who recount these days with their personal experiences. That's where the controversy of history came in.. There were consistent first hand accounts, but enough time had passed that people questioned its validity.

I agree with the author that it's really hard to learn which historical accounts to trust. But I think that's where faith plays an important role. One thing that struck me was how the author talked about a time she talked with a non-christian about why she was christian. She basically mentioned 2 things: that christianity was "intellectually robust", and "existentially satisfying". meaning that there was enough historical basis to be captivated, and enough personal experience to solidify the faith. I find the same is true in many testimonies. We learn the Word of God, and we experience Jesus' love in our lives. For me, the switch flipped when my little brother was born when I was 9. "unconditional love" that the bible taught made sense. Scripture made sense cause God is love. But at the same time, the fact that sermons or passages or conversations "challenge me" really points to a truth to me. "Intellectually robust" It's good to question history, and especially important to think about the bible in its place in history. How/when was the bible written/formed? What was going on when Jesus was on earth? But just as important, what's going on today in your own life that makes sense in this spiritual context?

I find that we believe in the objectiveness in history if it seems realistic to us modernly. If we still hunted with killer whales, we'd believe what happened in australia. If we believe in Jesus today, of course the bible makes sense. If not, you could listen to however many personal accounts you want, but the history won't speak unless you seek.