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Articles on the History of Science and of Christianity
A collection of articles based on my research into some of the contentious topics in the histories of science and Christianity.
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The Myth of the Flat Earth: Contrary to popular belief, every educated person in the Middle Ages was well aware that the Earth is a sphere and the Church did not suggest otherwise. Here is a look at this myth of alleged Christian dogmatism and how it got started. |
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The Mythical Conflict between Science and Religion: The conflict hypothesis began as part of the reaction against religion in the nineteenth century with the work of John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. Despite the fact that it is utterly rejected by all practising historians of science, it lives on in the popular imagination and is incredibly hard to kill off. This article examines some common misconceptions and exposes White's errors and omissions. |
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Did Christians Eradicate Pagan Learning? We often here about the alleged Christian destruction of pagan literature. I have examined the original sources and found the accusation of widespread library burning is baseless. However, heretical Christian works, and magical and astrological texts faired as badly under Christians as they had under pagan Emperors. |
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A Historical Introduction to the Christ Myth This article first compares the idea that Jesus never existed to the theory that Shakespeare did not write his own plays. It then examines the various authors who, over the last century and a half, have tried to sell the idea that Jesus never lived. |
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The Emperor Justinian's Closure of the School of Athens: Almost every popular history of philosophy or science mentions that Justinian closed Plato's academy in 529AD. This is portrayed as the end of ancient science and the start of the "Dark Ages". This article examines the legends about this event and asks what really happened. |
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Frequently Asked Questions about the Inquisition: There can be little doubt that the Inquisition is one of the most notorious institutions in history. While some of that ill fame is warranted, a great number of myths and legends have sprung up about its workings. This FAQ, with a bibliography and references, gives the historical facts about the Inquisition in its various guises. |
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The Mysterious Fate of the Great Library of Alexandria: An awful lot of ink has been splashed around about the destruction of the Great Library. You can blame Christians, Moslems or Julius Caesar depending on your taste. But the only way to find the truth is a careful examination of the original sources. This essay goes over them with a fine-toothed comb and finds that while Christians and Moslems were almost certainly innocent, the Romans just might have a lot to answer for. |
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Deconstructing Copernicus: The great work of Copernicus, his De revolutionibus, is one of the most misunderstood books in history, largely because hardly anyone has actually read it. This essay examines the arguments Copernicus uses and his stated motivations so as to discover exactly what he did achieve and just how important his religious beliefs were in inspiring the conceptual breakthrough of heliocentricism. |
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The Decline of Witch Trials in Europe: The witch craze is one of the most controversial subjects in Christian history and for good reason. It killed far, far more than the Inquisition and is the best example of how religious beliefs can have catastrophic consequences if taken in the wrong direction. This essay tries to debunk some myths about witches and asks how the trials came to an end. |
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Science and the Church in the Middle Ages: Progress in science is often assumed to have ground to a halt during the Middle Ages under a blanket of clerical disapproval. This essay is an overview of the intellectual and social state of science at the time, the Church's generally positive attitude and now science interacted with religion during this period. It provides a preview of some of the themes explored in my book God's Philosophers. |
© James Hannam 2009