1.

Historian David McCullough has said “we need history as much as we need bread or water or
love.” History is tremendously important.

When consulting a physician, it is crucial to have one’s medical history. Frequently, in

transacting business matters, chronicling one’s financial history is essential. History is vitally
important in religion; the Christian’s faith, indeed his hope of eternal life, depends upon history.

2. What is “history”? History is not what “shall be,” or what “is.” Rather, it is what “was.” The
construction of the pyramids is history. The founding of our nation is history. Your birth is
history. History was yesterday — even earlier today. When this sentence is closed with a period,
it will be history

3. How does one separate genuine “history” from the mythical? If the historical event was recent,
the testimony of eyewitnesses certainly will be relevant. Written documents can be helpful. In
our modern world, movie film or videotape could contribute significantly (e.g., in documenting
the tragedy of 9/11/01).

4. The evaluation of historical evidence is a science all its own, and historians frequently
disagree on the evidence. The credibility of documents, the reliability of witnesses, the
interpretation even of visuals can be controversial.

Characteristics of History
1. History Is Unique
History is rather like a movie film — a long series of individual frames, frozen in time. Once an
event transpires, no other event ever again will precisely replicate

2. History Is Unpredictable
One might reasonably speculate that eventually there will be military conflict between the United
States and Iran, or possibly with North Korea, but no ordinary human being can predict the
future with precision

3. History Is Unrepeatable
No matter how much the movies and television may fantasize about entering a “time-machine” and
returning into the past, it cannot and will not be done.

4. History Is Unalterable
No matter how men may wish it were otherwise, history is what it was. It cannot be changed.

Hitler’s death cannot be recast to have consisted of the peaceful demise of an aged, benevolent
gentleman in Argentina.
5. History Is Irreversible
From a personal vantage point, none of us can reverse the countless blunders that marred our earlier
days. Horrible acts cannot be undone; the bullet cannot retrace its path back into the pistol. Razor-
sharp, wounding words cannot be unwritten or unspoken.

Conclusion
When one is grounded in truth, he is not “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error”

- scholar Stephen Neill, one-time Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of
Nairobi.

- Wayne Jackson

Different views
History is the past (whether or not anyone recalls or writes about it); History is the active process of
studying and writing about the past; and History is what men and women write (an essay, an article, or a
book) following a systematic study of the past. History, in the broadest sense then, results from a multi-
faceted encounter between the past and the men and women who study it as well as write about it and
the reader of the results. Or, as the authors of a recent text write, "History is an effort to reconstruct the
past to discover what people thought and did and how their beliefs and actions continue to influence
human life." [McKay, Hill, and Buckler, History of World Societies, 3rd ed, 1992, p. 4]

. They are based on a critical analysis of evidence, secondary as well as primary. The evidence most
commonly used by historians are written records, but also valuable are other sources, such as, for
example, visual evidence or archeological evidence. In dealing with this evidence, historians exhibit an
imaginative appreciation of historical anachronism (i.e. the recognition that the past is different from
the present). They attribute causation to secular rather than divine factors. And they present the
evidence (the facts) according to a significant pattern and order determined by the judgment of the
historian. The collection of facts and their interpretation are thus woven together in the study of history.