Ancient World sources

I have had many requests for the bibliography for The Story of the Ancient World. The complete and extensive bibliography is bound into the book, as with all Nothing New Press books. But the books which were of the greatest help were:

The Defender’s Study Bible KJV by Henry M. Morris
Josephus:
Complete Works
translated by William Whitson
The Annals of the World by James Ussher, translated and edited by Larry Pierce
A New System, or an Analysis of Ancient Mythology by Jacob Bryant
The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World by George Rawlinson

In
each of these works, the history related by the Old Testament was esteemed accurate,
and the light they shed on the ancient world was invaluable. Any of the details
of ancient history which emerge in Ancient World, then, which may seem surprising
to modern readers because they are little known in our day, are not new, but
were taken from one or more of these five sources, and have in some cases
been supported, often unwittingly, by modern books which deny the historicity
of the Old Testament. 

Of course, Josephus was a Jewish historian
who wrote the history of the Jewish people from Scripture and Jewish
tradition for a Roman audience in the first century ad, who has been considered authoritative
for millennia.

Annals was written in the 1600s by a classical and biblical scholar of the first water, James Ussher. The exactness and logic of Ussher’s chronology continues to be upheld by those who hold to the historicity of the Old Testament, who study this question anew.

A New System was written in the 1700s by an accomplished classical scholar, who taught at King’s College in England, and who was the private secretary to the Duke of Marlborough. Until the rise of darwinian theory and long ages to civilization, this work of extensive scholarship was commonly cited in many academic works dealing with ancient history or mythology.

George Rawlinson’s seminal work, Five Great Monarchies, was written in the 1800s, and was the standard academic work on ancient history before the darwinian theory of long ages to civilization displaced it. George Rawlinson was the professor of ancient history at Oxford University and the author of many academic works on ancient history. His brother, Sir Henry Rawlinson, lived in the Near East for many years, made many of the breakthroughs in cuneiform translation, transcribed and translated the Behistun inscription, and is known as the Father of Assyriology.

Why aren’t these exact scholars more well- known, why aren’t their conclusions more well- known, and why are their works (mostly) out of print? They took Old Testament history as authoritative. They counter darwinian theory. They have not been disproved, but discarded.

My grandfather left me his set of Rawlinson’s Five Great Monarchies, which I received as a young mother, and whose sources and bibliography served as the blueprint for the ancient history library I have amassed in the twenty years since, and which has served as the backbone for the Story of the Ancient World bibliography.

2 thoughts on “Ancient World sources

  1. Hi Ms MIller,

    The Annals of the World is a great resource. I was amazed at the ammount of interesting information included in it. I cannot wait until I receive my copy of your book!

  2. “Secular” ancient history is tied in so tightly with biblical ancient history that it was surprising to me to learn to how great a degree. Truly, they could not be separated without much violence being done to “secular” history, which is exactly what has happened. There are so many little stories and surprises of ancient history which I could not include in the book, but which I am looking forward to blogging about (as soon as I finish unpacking my library, LOL). Christine

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