Difference between revisions of "World History Homework One Answers - Student Eighteen"

Revision as of 01:27, February 7, 2009

Michelle F

Sorry it's late.

1.What do you hope to accomplish with this course?

I hope to polish up my knowledge of World History enough to take college exams.

2. Look at the estimated dates in the three tables. Pick any one that you dispute, or are most interested in, and discuss it briefly.

I don’t see how the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs could be mainly authored by David and Solomon and possibly placed at an earlier date than Genesis, according to the 3rd chart, when, according to the 2nd chart, Israel was not established under David until 1000 B.C.

3. Write about any aspect of Hammurabi's Code, such as its similarity or differences with the Ten Commandments, or its role in making the society (which society was it?) a success.

Hammurabi’s Code was rather restrictive on society. It had rules for everything: how much a skilled artisian would be paid, based on his craft, how much a physician would be paid if the surgery he preformed went well, how much he would be penalized if it went poorly. If he was operating on a freeborn man’s son, and the son died, the physicians own son would be killed. If a builder built a house and it collapsed on the owner and killed him, the builder would be killed as well. These kind of rules don’t create good circumstances for population growth, or good relations in the trade market. There were even rules for what you could do if you wanted to throw your son out of your house. Such an amount of rules, extending into private business and family, is not healthy for society. Government should not be so intrusive.

4. List the major ancient empires from the lecture in approximate chronological order, and identify which one you like best, and why.

Sumer, Babylon, Israel, Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, Egypt. Of these, I like Egypt best, because their pyramids throw a major wrench in the theory that we are evolving and getting smarter as time goes on. The precision of them and the enormity is astonishing. It is debatable whether we would be able to accomplish such a feat today.

5. What controversy today can be traced back in origin to something in this week's lecture, such as current Middle East conflicts?

Israel’s struggle to hold on to their land. It took them 40 years of wandering in the desert to actually get there. Between Babylon, Assyria, and later, Rome, the Israelites have been fighting other nations to keep the little land they had. Today, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon are trying to take their land.

6. Describe the three kingdoms of ancient Egypt, and mention what you like most about the culture or achievements of ancient Egypt.

The Old Kingdom; a time of security, prosperity, and pyramids, the Middle Kingdom; when the Pharaohs were strong, the culture prospered and the religion was shared by the king and the people, and the New Kingdom; in which the Egyptians extended their empire and built bigger and better buildings and cities. This last kingdom was followed by a major decline, after which the Persians conquered Egypt. I am surprised that an empire that so thoroughly rejected God was able to last for two and a half thousand years.

H2. Do you see a key role for language or religion in determining the rise and fall of ancient empires in this week's lecture? Give at least one example.

No, which surprises me. I would have thought that the nations who turn from God would not last quite as long. To the contrary, some of those nations have lasted longer than the God-fearing ones.

As for the languages, I don’t see much of a connection between them and the rise and fall of nations. I think that there is more connection between the way the languages are used (speaking skill) than the language itself. A difficult language actually has some advantages. It makes it harder for other cultures to influence a nation when few people besides the nations own citizens know the language. I t enables the ruler to control information that goes in and out by controlling who knows outside languages. It is also not easy to send many spies into a nation if it is time-consuming to learn the language.

H4. Write about anything in the lecture.

I find it appalling that today’s culture is so set in their anti-Christian ways that they have changed the way dates are written, instead of A.D. (which represents Anno Domini, or, in the year of our Lord) they now refer to them as “the common era”, or, C.E. To be so bigoted that you are determined to change such a simple, innocent, historical statement, is not a good thing. It shows faulty logic. It was decided that the words “under God” on coins was merely saying that our nation was founded on a belief in God. How is “Anno Domini” any different?