Ancient world provides context

I am pleased to provide one of many possible responses to Sheryl Bradshaw's request for reasons why social studies courses should study the time before Christ. As an instructor who teaches biblical literature at Southeast Missouri State University, I would say that the Bible is a foundational text of American culture.

Three-quarters of the Bible, the Old Testament, dates to the time before Christ. The parallels between the flood in the Gilgamesh Epic and the biblical flood should be well known by now. One cannot appreciate the monotheistic nature of the biblical creation accounts unless they are contrasted with the Babylonian Enuma Elish. First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Isaiah cannot be understood apart from the history of the Mesopotamian empires of Assyria, Babylon and Persia. One cannot understand the New Testament without understanding the Greek and Roman empires before the birth of Christ.

Every time I explain ancient history that I learned in seventh grade to college students, I wonder why our social studies classes are not spending more time on the ancient world.

As to how we know about the ancient world, it is the same way we know about the American presidents: through written and material artifacts. While scholars may disagree about how such evidence should be interpreted, there is pretty much agreement on what constitutes such evidence. One lifetime is insufficient to study all the writings and archaeological evidence we have from the time before Christ.

KERRY H. WYNN, Cape Girardeau