www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall History of Byzantium

For those of you interested in History:

The Teaching Company puts together courses taught by the best experts in their respected fields and films the lectures. For a small fee one can buy copies of the lectures. I found one on the History of Byzantium:

http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/c...c=History%20-%20Ancient%20and%20Medieval

I have listened to those lectures and I would recommend them. Professor Harl is a great speaker and knows his subject well.

Andrew

Dare we trust anything that comes out of Yale?
Isnt it a protestant bastion gone astray?
Stephanos I

I think some of the best histories of the church and Christian doctrine are written by Jaroslav Pelikan who is a professor emeritus from Yale. There are always exceptions. Anything coming from academia should be scrutinized with a critical lens however IMO.

I found Professor Harl's lectures to be quite sympathetic to the Byzantines as I said. On the points where he touches on the religious aspects of Byzantium, I seem to recall he did so respectfully. That would be unlike for instance the Norwich books which while excellent histories, contain at points the authors own obvious prejudices.

I would probably avoid some of the teaching companies lectures on religion and scripture, in particular those by Ehrman and Johnson.

Andrew

Yes--Yale was once a "seminary" for the training of Puritan/Congregationalist ministers. It's long been unaffiliated with the church. Please don't generalize--there is a lot of good scholarship and research that come from that venerable institution. Besides--they have Thomas More's prayer book in the Beinecke Rare Book Library, complete with his own margin notes and prayers. Careful, if they hear you talking stuff about them, they may burn it! ;-)