In 1218, Muhammad II, the shah of Khwarizm, received a visit from three ambassadors on behalf of Genghis Khan, the leader of the Mongol Empire to the east. The visitors bore magnificent gifts and, more important, the offer of a treaty between the two powers that would allow the reopening of the lucrative Silk Road […]

In June 1838, Lord Auckland, the British governor general of India, called a meeting of his top officials to discuss a proposed invasion of Afghanistan. Auckland and other British ministers had become increasingly concerned at Russia’s growing influence in the area. The Russians had already made an ally of Persia; they were now trying to […]

Growing up at the Macedonian court, Alexander (356322 B.C.) was considered a rather strange young man. He enjoyed the usual boyish pursuits, such as horses and warfare; having fought alongside his father, King Philip II, in several battles, he had proved his bravery. But he also loved philosophy and literature. His tutor was the great […]

In Genesis 1, God creates the world with the divine, truthful Word, generating habitable, paradisal order from the precosmogonic chaos. He then creates Man and Woman in His Image, imbuing them with the capacity to do the same—to create order from chaos, and continue His work. At each stage of creation, including that involving the […]

When their eyes are opened, Adam and Eve realize more than just their nakedness and the necessity of toil. They also come to know Good and Evil (the serpent says, referring to the fruit, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be […]

My son figured out that he was naked well before he was three. He wanted to dress himself. He kept the washroom door firmly shut. He didn’t appear in public without his clothes. I couldn’t for the life of me see how this had anything to do with his upbringing. It was his own discovery, […]

Remember, as discussed earlier, that the Genesis stories were amalgamated from several sources. After the newer Priestly story (Genesis 1), recounting the emergence of order from chaos, comes the second, even more ancient, “Jahwist” part, beginning, essentially, with Genesis 2. The Jahwist account, which uses the name YHWH orjahweh to represent God, contains the story […]

Chaos and order are two of the most fundamental elements of lived experience—two of the most basic subdivisions of Being itself. But they’re not things, or objects, and they’re not experienced as such. Things or objects are part of the objective world. They’re inanimate; spiritless. They’re dead. This is not true of chaos and order. […]

The scientific world of matter can be reduced, in some sense, to its fundamental constituent elements: molecules, atoms, even quarks. However, the world of experience has primal constituents, as well. These are the necessary elements whose interactions define drama and fiction. One of these is chaos. Another is order. The third (as there are three) […]

Two stories of Creation from two different Middle Eastern sources appear to be woven together in the Genesis account. In the chronologically first but historically more recent account—known as the “Priestly”—God created the cosmos, using His divine Word, speaking light, water and land into existence, following that with the plants and the heavenly bodies. Then […]