the majority of archeology school are in christian schools

[badlands]

Most of them are in Christian colleges.

[Michael]

Irony is a wonderful thing, is it not?

Reuters suggests that God may have stopped the CERN supercollider from proving he exists.

[august]

Originally Posted by badlands

Most of them are in Christian colleges.

Says who?

[Alvin Eriol]

Originally Posted by Michael

Irony is a wonderful thing, is it not?

Reuters suggests that God may have stopped the CERN supercollider from proving he exists.

Kinda reminds me of a Larry Niven shortie, forget the title.

It seems in this particular galactic milieu, there had been attempts thru history to build a "rotating cylinder" type time machine (which by the way is considered plausible by many theoretical physicists). In fact a partially completed prototype exists in space somewhere. It seems one star empire is now at war with another, & a military theorist gains an audience w/ the emperor to suggest he use the device against the enemy. It appeared that there was a long history of "bad luck" associated w/ any polity or organization that possessed or attempted to complete the device; the theorist suggests that in order to prevent a time paradox, a thing that must not be, the universe (the Hand of Eru?) itself somehow contrives to frustrate the attempt, usually wreaking disaster on the party attempting to complete the time machine.

The theorist's strategy is to entice the enemy into getting posssession of the partially completed device and attemtping to complete & operate it themselves.

Sure enough, a calamity prevents the attempt from being made.

To view, use your mouse to select the text:

Almost as soon as the theorist finishes his presentation, the emperor's planet's sun explodes, destroying them all.

As a matter of fact, IIRC 2 or 3 yrs ago a physicist suggested that according to quantum theory, we are shortening the life of the universe by observing it & gaining knowledge of it.

[Michael]

Well, I cannot speak about the life of the universe, having very little knowledge of it, but August the idea that archaeology is closely associated with Christian schools at least seems plausible to me. Biblical archaeology is certainly a big budget industry within the scientific field.

[Alvin Eriol]

Once again, I do wish badlands would explain & qualify his OP premise a little more.

By just a quick search, I found, as I expected, that archaeology schools, including PhD programs, are widespread & seem to be in almost every publicly supported school.

Furthermore, many schools, e.g. most of the Ivy League, originated as church -supported &/or sectarian schools but have since become essentially independent or public. Are we including those cases as "Christian" schools, too?

It could be that some of the best known and most often mentioned archeology programs are associated with sectarian schools. Some, in Israel, may be Jewish religious institutes.

Could you offer us some explanation and backing for your premise, as well as an indication of why you feel it is significant? This statement borders on what they call a "non-falsifieable" or untestable assertion as it stands. However, if "Christian schools" is understood to be private, either church-supported, or independent but offers religious education in some flavor of Christianity, it looks to me as though your statement might not be numerically true.

(I wonder if Miskatonic U is a church school - Starry Wisdom, perhaps? - & if their archeology dept is planning any more expeditions? )

[Mark]

Originally Posted by badlands

Most of them are in Christian colleges.

What is your proof for that one? Most state university have an anthropology department--and in the USA given the intellectual traditions, archaeology will be lumped primarily with anthropology programs, or in the rare occasion, a Classics program.

[Michael]

Okay, I went way out on a limb here and tacitly supported badlands' statement. Frankly, I don't know that we could agree on a definition and badlands certainly has a penchant for sparking discussion with interesting comments.

I'll clarify my own point of view, however. I do think the field of archaeology owes a great deal to Christian education for several reasons.

First, the major universities in the U.S. did indeed start out with strong religious backgrounds, but that is true of most European universities, too. Theology, Philosophy, and Literature were all closely connected for centuries.

Secondly, most archaeological work was initiated by Christian countries for the better part of a century, as I understand it.

Now it's certainly very true that many non-Christian nations have strong archaeology programs (as Mark can attest, since he works in the Orient). China has become a major source of archaeological science and news, for example, but there is important work going on in Japan, the Middle East, throughout the Pacific region, and across Asia.

To me, it has always seemed ironic that many people have tried to use archaeology and anthropology to thwart the basic tenets of Faith (I won't say "Christian faith" because this issue goes well beyond belief system boundaries) while many specialists in those fields have come from strong religious families and backgrounds.

Christianity and other faiths have been able to show through careful science that many of the places and events named in their scriptures really existed and happened. The debates over how to interpret those facts notwithstanding, there is often more cooperation between Faith and Science than many skeptics concede.

[august]

Originally Posted by Michael

Well, I cannot speak about the life of the universe, having very little knowledge of it, but August the idea that archaeology is closely associated with Christian schools at least seems plausible to me. Biblical archaeology is certainly a big budget industry within the scientific field.

Oh, it's plausible, but I'm wondering if it's actually true, or if this is just a random post-and-run speculation. Did someone actually count up all the programs in existence, then categorize by religious affiliation? And is this for the US, or world-wide? Are we factoring in nation of Egypt schools? Nation of Israel schools? Nation of Iraq schools? Nation of China schools?

And how do we define "archaeology school?" There are not a huge number of free-standing schools specializing just in archaeology, unlike, say, music conservatories or law schools.

And are we just talking Biblical archaeology? If so, then it doesn't seem as much of a stretch, although again, the Universities of Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, Cairo and Tel Aviv would probably not qualify. Or are we including programs that specialize in native American archaeology, prehistoric archaeology, Chinese archaeology, etc. etc.

Also, how do we define "Christian?" In its broadest (and only accurate) sense? Or in the widespread unofficial definiton used today, i.e. "Christian... just not counting Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, LDS, Mormon, Mennonite, Amish, Quaker, Shaker, Huegenot, Christian Scientist, Anglican, Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox?"

For what it's worth, when I was choosing grad schools in archaeology, I looked at 100+ brochures and catalogues, and only remember a tiny handful that were church-affiliated, and all of those would never have called themselves "Christian," but rather "Catholic." And in undergrad school, I participated in an intercollegiate archaology program that shared students, faculty and resources, and of the 30 or so schools represented, I don't recall any being church-affiliated. Conceivably a few may have been, but I sure don't recall any. One guy was a religion major, but he was from Princeton.

Likewise, there are a number of church-affiliated colleges locally, but none have archaeology programs - they're all undergrad liberal arts schools. Additionally, there's a Lutheran Seminary and a non-denominational university that focuses on evangelical missionary work....but again no archaeology.

[Alvin Eriol]

Michael, I think you touched on an important point re religious motivation for archeology. A lot of early Biblical archeology was motivated by a desire to prove the Bible, or at least those parts that imply something that could conceivably be supported or refuted by archeology. By the same token, some either undertook field work, or interpreted studies already published, with an eye toward debunking Biblical assertions.

Interestingly, thus far I have not heard of any broadly accepted archaeological findings that directly contradicted Biblical assertions as commonly understood. In some cases, archeology has shed light on the meanings of obscure passages that had puzzled Bible scholars, such as regarding Abraham's tomb purchase.

One well-known sect who holds to a particular version of ancient history peculiar to themselves, in due course established an archeology department in a university that sect controlled, I have read, for originally the express purpose of discovering archaeological support for their scriptures.

Not only does a comparable motivation exist in Judaism as well, but it would seem that Israeli archeology has a political dimension as their claim to the land is based in their view on Scripture which describes historical events testable to some degree thru archeology. Add to that the hotbutton issue of looting and illicit sales of artifacts in a land where one can hardly scuff one's feet without kicking some millenia-old history, and the attitude of certain denominations of Judaism toward presumed Jewish dead however ancient. Thus, Israeli archeology tends to be controversial & contentious.

I'm not one myself, tho I take an amateur's interest in the subject, but I gather archaeological methodologies are usually what they call in analytical chemistry fairly "strong positive" but "weak negative" methods. By that I mean that in some cases a discovery and a scholarly examination of the discovery & its context, by accepted scientific methods, could prove a narrowly defined hypothesis that may be based in part on legend, historical writings or chronicles, or scripture. However, the lack of such finds does not rule out the genuineness of the legend, scripture, or history, because there is no guarantee that artifacts witnessing a given situation or event would have been preserved & found.

In any event, I think those who set out with a goal of either proving or disproving some ancient writings or legend are considered by the general archaeologcal community to lack the necessary objectivity to properly analyze and understand the data found in the field.

[Mark]

There is no denying part of archaeology got started in divinity schools that
were working on what we would call now Biblical archaeology. In the USA at least though, I don't see how you would make the claim most archaeology comes out of religious schools though.

Best, MEH

[august]

Originally Posted by Mark

In the USA at least though, I don't see how you would make the claim most archaeology comes out of religious schools though.

Best, MEH

Aha - after much thought on this and intensive research, I think I may have discovered a means how. You could go to a website that has a forum, log in, type it into a box, and hit enter, thereby making the claim.

[Michael]

Of course, it has to be a special forum.

I do love archaeology and all of its mysteries.