Home › Bible Study Links › Background of the New Testament › Historians modern & ancient

Historians modern & ancient

  1. Modern histories
    1. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1782, rev. 1845) – vol. 1 | vol. 2 | vol. 3 | vol. 4 | vol. 5 | vol. 6 | vol. 7 | vol. 8 | vol. 9 | vol. 10 | vol. 11 | vol. 12
    2. De Imperatoribus Romanis (On the Roman Emperors)
    3. Greek and Roman Cities of Western Turkey by Michael Greenhalgh
    4. Outlines of Roman History by William C. Morey (1901)
    5. Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries by Rodolfo Lanciani (12th ed., 1898)
    6. The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia by William M. Ramsay (1904)
    7. A History of Roman Literature: From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius by Charles Thomas Cruttwell (1877)
    8. Ancient Rome From the Earliest Times Down to 476 B.C. by Robert Pennell (1891) (4.6Mb)
    9. Jerusalem: Topography, Economics, and History from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70 by George Adam Smith (1909). Vol. 1 | Vol. 2
    10. A Smaller History of Greece from the earliest times to the Roman conquest by William Smith (1897)
    11. Private Life of the Romans (1903, 1932) by Harold Johnston, rev. by Mary Johnston
    12. Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire (1906) ed. by William M. Ramsay
    13. The Cities of St. Paul: Their Influence on His Life and Thought – The Cities of Eastern Asia Minor (1908) by William M. Ramsay
    14. The Church in the Roman Empire Before A.D. 170 (9th ed., 1909) by William M. Ramsay
    15. “American Archaeologists in Turkey: Intellectual and Social Dimensions” (1996)
    16. Archaeology in Turkey, 2004-2005

Ancient histories

  1. Herodotus — The Histories (covering roughly 700–475 BCE) – Greek text (you will have to configure the display) | English text (scholarly version, with commentaries & notes) | English text (quick-reading version)
  2. Xenophon — Anabasis (covering 379–371 BCE) | Greek text (you will have to configure the display) | English text
  3. Polybius – The Histories or The Rise of the Roman Empire (in Greek and English, covers c. 220-146 BCE) | Intro. to Polybius
  4. Josephus (37 to after 100 CE)
    1. Jewish Antiquities (Antiquitates Judaicae) – English | Greek | Greek & English in parallel columns
    2. The Jewish War (De bello Judaico)– English | Greek (book 7 only) | Greek & English in parallel columns
    3. Life of Josephus (Josephi vita) – English | Greek | Greek & English in parallel columns
    4. Against Apion (Contra Apionem) – English | Greek | Greek & English in parallel columns [TOP]
  5. Livy (59 BCE – 17 CE) – History of Rome – Latin text | Eng. transl.
  6. Pausanias (c. 110 to 180 CE) – Description of Greece – Greek text | English text | biography of Pausanias (115-180 CE)
  7. Pliny the Elder (c. 23 – 79 CE) – Natural History – Eng. transl. | Latin text
  8. Pliny the Younger (c. 61 – 112 CE) – Letters – Eng. transl. | Latin text
  9. Plutarch (c. 46 – c. 120 CE) – Parallel Lives
    1. Alexander – Eng. transl. | Greek text
    2. Pompey – Eng. transl. | Greek text
    3. Caesar – Eng. transl. | Greek text
    4. Brutus –Eng. transl. | Greek text
    5. Antony –Eng. transl. | Greek text
    6. Cicero –Eng. transl. | Greek text
    7. Crassus –Eng. transl. | Greek text
    8. Galba –Eng. transl. | Greek text
    9. Otho –Eng. transl. | Greek text
  10. Strabo (c. 64 BCE – 24 CE) – Geography – Greek text | English text
  11. Suetonius (c. 69 – after 122 CE) – The Twelve Caesars
    1. Julius Caesar – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    2. Augustus (Octavian) – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    3. Tiberius – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    4. Gaius (Caligula) – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    5. Claudius – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    6. Nero – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    7. Galba – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    8. Otho – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    9. Vitellius – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    10. Vespasian – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    11. Titus – Latin text | Eng. transl.
    12. Domitian – Latin text | Eng. transl. [TOP]
  12. Tacitus (c. 55 – 117 CE or later)
    1. History – Latin text | Eng. transl. (Starts with death of Nero, 67 CE, and ends with the defeat of Civilis, 70 CE)
    2. Annals – Latin text | Engl. transl. (Starts with Octavian/Augustus after Actium, c. 30 BCE, and ends with the trial and death of Thrasea during Nero’s reign, 66 CE)[TOP]
  13. Lucian (c. 125 – 180 CE) – Life of Demonax – Greek-English text (starts on p. 158) | English text
  14. Cassius Dio (c. 160 – 230 CE) – Roman History (Intro. and Index) Covers from the founding of Rome, 753 BCE to the death of Avitus, 229 CE)
    1. LCL, vol. 1 – Book 1 | Book 2 | Book 3 | Book 4 | Book 5 | Book 6 | Book 7 | Book 8 | Book 9 | Book 10 | Book 11
    2. LCL, vol. 2 – Book 12 | Book 13 | Book 14 | Book 15 | Book 16 | Book 17 | Book 18 | Book 19 | Book 20 | Book 21 | Book 22-29 (very fragmentary) | Book 30-35 (very fragmentary)
    3. LCL, vol. 3 – Books 36 | Book 37 | Book 38 | Book 39 | Book 40 |
    4. LCL, vol. 4 – Book 41 | Book 42 | Book 43 | Book 44 | Book 45
    5. LCL, vol. 5 – Book 46 | Book 47 | Book 48 | Book 49 | Book 50
    6. LCL, vol. 6 – Book 51 | Book 52 | Book 53 | Book 54 | Book 55
    7. LCL, vol. 7 – Book 56 | Book 57 | Book 58 | Book 59 | Book 60
    8. LCL, vol. 8 – Book 61 | Book 62 | Book 63 | Book 64 | Book 65 | Book 66 | Book 67 | Book 68 | Book 69
    9. LCL, vol. 9 – Book 70 | Book 71 | Book 72 | Book 73 | Book 74 | Book 75 | Book 76 | Book 77 | Book 78 | Book 79 | Book 80
  15. Philostratus (c. 170 – c. 247 C.E.) – Life of Apollonius of Tyana – Greek-English text: vol. 1 and vol. 2 | English text only (but indexed)
  16. Roman Law Library – in Latin, with English translations

Want to dive deeper?

Historiography is an examination of the principles historians over the centuries have debated and worked out for determining and describing what really happened in the past and explaining why it happened. Here are some of the basic issues involved.

  1. Every account is an interpretation of what happened; none of them is completely objective. In fact, we should assume that historians who make the biggest claim to objectivity may have blind spots that are alarmingly large. Others may be the hired publicists of powerful rulers and whose accounts amount to little more than highly “spun” propaganda. Good historians will reveal their own agendas as well as identify the agendas of their sources.
  2. Explanations of past events are dependent on the amount of information available to the historian. The further back in time we venture, the less information we have about each period. But sources are not just literary. They may include data from archaeology, geology, climatology, sociology, geo-politics, macroeconomics, and many other fields.
  3. The most reliable historians are those who identify and make direct quotations from their sources. We should not become dependent on historians who just tell stories about the past without revealing where their information comes from,
  4. Reliable historians sift through their sources and explain why they depend on some and reject or discount others. Conflicting testimony often occurs when different witnesses report events or speeches or other messages. Experts can help us to distinguish liars from truth-tellers and ignorant speculators from people in the know.
  5. Because memories fade or get embellished over time, sources closest in time to the actual events tend to be more valuable to historians than sources more separated from those events. The more a story passes from one person to another, the more it can change as people exercised their own “poetic license.” Referring to sources helps to avoid this tendency.
  6. Even among sources contemporary with the events, historians must distinguish between sources that were actual participants in the events, from sources who were eyewitnesses of those events, from other sources who were only reporting what they heard others say happened.
  7. As much as possible, readers must always keep in mind each historian’s own point of view and biases. The best historians have developed enough self-awareness and transparency to admit and even identify their own biases and tendencies.
  8. Historians differ as to the amount of “creative writing” they do. What does a historian do when they find a gap in the data available to them? Do they identify what is missing and offer speculation regarding what happened in the gap, or do they fill in the gap without telling us we have left what is documented and entered what is mere guesswork?
  9. Many historical interpretations intentionally eliminate all supernatural elements. If they are among the so-called “scientific” rationalists, they intentionally exclude the possibility that miracle could have happened or that God could intervene in natural events or human interactions.
  10. More recent historians are not necessarily better than older ones. Because all of the related disciplines are constantly expanding and accumulating data, the most recent histories ought to be better than older ones. But other factors intrude, such as the tendency for historians to follow whatever is the latest trend or the urgent need to publish something provokative or uniquely speculative.
  11. Comparing multiple accounts engenders increasing confidence regarding what actually happened. This means that historians using more than one source are likely more reliable and that we should seek out more than one historian if we want to know what really happened.

Studying history can be hard work! Yet we will experience a much better understanding depending on how diligent we are to think through these issues and refine our methodology as we progress.

Sources for further study

For purchase
For online reading

Disclaimer: You may find a lot in the following articles that you disagree with. Wikipedia is designed to permit anyone in the world to make any edits they want to each article.

  • “Historiography” (Wikipedia article)
  • “Historiography” (Britannica article)
  • “Historiography of Early Christianity” (Wikipedia article)

    • INSCRIPTIONS     NT HISTORY     IMAGE DATABASE     NT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES     NON-LITERARY WRITINGS (NT)     ONLINE NT COMMENTARIESs’ Fallacies: