Interpreting History

​Why do historians draw different conclusions about events in the past?

Historians use their KNOWLEDGE and RESEARCH to choose FACTS, give them MEANING, put them in ORDER, and draw CONCLUSIONS.

​Understanding Time and Place

Historians seek to make connections between events and people in a certain time or place. They look for central issues [main ideas or patterns] such as economics, culture, issues of power, war and peace. One way of connecting these events is through cause and effect.

​Cause and Effect

Events don't just happen all by themselves. One event often produces another event. Cause-and-effect relationships seek to explain why an event happened. But remember: an event can have more than one cause and more than one effect. Sometimes the relationship between events is unclear. Therefore, it is up to the historian's interpretation.

​Changes and Patterns

Historians look for change. Some changes happen quickly, some slowly.

​They also look for unbroken patterns in history. These patterns seem to happen again and again.

​Error and Chance

Some events appear to happen by error or chance. Historians interpret these events as having no cause and effect relationship.

​Nothings happens by chance

In contrast to what is written in the textbook, the Christian worldview upholds all history as orchestrated by God and nothing happens simply by chance. We humans may be surprised, but God is not surprised. God made the world and knew exactly what would happen.

​Bias and Personal Beliefs

When we study history we have to consider our own points of view, our frame of reference as a group, and biases that we or the authors of the sources of what we are reading may have.

​Ancient History and Values

​Historians also have different values and beliefs that may affect their thinking. A historian must be careful not to use modern values to evaluate history.

​History is sometimes called an on-going discussion about the past. Some events are ambiguous, they can be understood in multiple ways. As a result, historians will have different explanations for why an event happened or what it means.