Description

This text provides a historical narrative from Ancient to Modern eras. It chronologically summarizes key information about historical eras, events, and civilizations and includes full-color photographs, works of art, and maps.

Reason For Teaching

The textbook provides historical context and sequence for the course, providing a framework for students to deeply delve into history through the analysis of primary sources—including art, literature, and music—created by influential minds in each era. The class will utilize this book to prepare students for the ideas they will encounter in college and life by learning to analyze historic events from a biblical viewpoint.

Disclaimer

This text is not written from a Christian perspective and espouses an evolutionary worldview. However, this course will not cover events before the time of Abraham as it will begin with an examination of the culture out of which God called Abraham. This text does contain images of archaeological discoveries and classical artwork that some families may prefer skipping over.

Description

This reference manual—also referred to as “Turabian”—provides templates for citations, footnotes, punctuation, and research in Chicago Style, which is easy to use and understand.

Reason For Teaching

Chicago Style is common practice and used in undergraduate and graduate humanities programs. This text prepares students for college-level writing tasks in history and the humanities. All papers assigned in this course will be formatted to the standards outlined in this manual.

Description

The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses is a translation of the famous Babylonian legal text estimated to have been written in the mid-late 1700s B.C. This historically significant text includes approximately 282 laws and penalties written during Hammurabi’s reign.

Reason For Teaching

The study of this book will help students understand the historical context of Abraham—Hammurabi is considered by some as a contemporary of Abraham—while also prompting exploration of the lasting influence of the Ancient Near East.

Disclaimer

This is a translation of the original text which includes Hammurabi refencing his gods and some extensive self-flattery. This text directly compares Hammurabi’s laws with the Old Testament; a variety of crimes are addressed with some rather harsh punishments.

Description

Originally written around 1400 AD, this classic medieval quest is a tale of honor and chivalry in the King Arthur legendarium and British mythology. The epic poem opens with the mythological account of Britain’s founding and proceeds to tell the adventures of Sir Gawain. This edition is translated by J.R.R. Tolkien and edited by his son, Christopher. The book also includes two other Medieval English poems translated by Tolkien, but students will only be reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for this course.

Reason For Teaching

This epic poem exemplifies the medieval qualities of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in theme and narration. Study of this text will allow students to build a historical context for the ideas, beliefs, and assumptions that fueled medieval British society. This primary document is considered one of the more famous pieces from the Middle Ages.

Disclaimer

Green Knight is beheaded. The lady of the castle attempts to seduce Sir Gawain, but he refuses her advances. (If parents prefer their students to not read the stanzas with that scene, the instructor can inform the parents of the stanza numbers to skip.) There is some magic.

Description

This modern text explores the connections between science, mathematics, and the arts. There is meaning, order, and beauty in the universe and the artists and scientists of the Renaissance embedded the quadrivium and language studies into their work. The sciences and the humanities are interrelated, but recent history has separated the two. Joining them is a mathematical ordering of our world that unifies faith and reason, arts, and the sciences.

Reason For Teaching

This text will allow students to explore the unifying force between the subjects—introducing them to the God-spoken mathematical principles that were celebrated in Renaissance art and allowing the students to carry this understanding into the modern era.

Disclaimer

The author discusses various perspectives of the different denominations of the Christian faith during the Renaissance.

Description

This is a clear and persuasive prose pamphlet written in the language of the common citizen during the American Revolution. The piece gives the moral and political argument to fight for American independence and form a new government separate from Great Britain.

If interested in a digital copy, The Project Gutenburg provides the text.

Reason For Teaching

Study of this text will allow students to interact with the ideas that influenced the founding of modern America, which in turn sparked related political ideas across all western civilization. Originally shared in homes and taverns before the American Revolution, this text was a clarion call to all citizens for liberty and stoked the fire of patriotism— significantly contributing to the historical development of modern society.

Disclaimer

Common Sense contains infrequent expressions which are now considered vulgar or offensive. At the time of publication, this language had different societal connotations.

Description

Possibly one of C.S. Lewis’s greatest novels, Till We Have Faces retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of Psyche’s sister, Orual. The story carries themes of loss, blame, betrayal, grief, and ultimately conversion. While Orual tells her story and attempts to argue against the divine, but she realizes that she is arguing against her own actions and self.

Reason For Teaching

Studying Till We Have Faces will allow students to explore both the continuity and change within the historical timeline and development of the western civilization. Lewis wrote this text as a keen observation on what we as humans fixate upon. Our dissatisfaction, anger, and blame are often directed at “the one behind the stories” (God), when it is our own weaknesses that threaten to destroy us.

Disclaimer

This work contains ancient mythology, mild peril, and themes of betrayal, loss, and grief.