Introduction to Course

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Introduction to Course
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What is Western Heritage?

• Components of the Western tradition
• Primary influences
• Hebrew spiritual legacy
• Greek philosophical, linguistic legacy
• Secondary influences
• Roman legal, linguistic legacy
• Germanic legal, cultural, linguistic legacy

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What is Western Heritage?

• Heritage
• Inheritance
• We have received something
• Ignore, reject, or embrace it?
• Squander it or build on it?
• Tradition
• Function
• Limitation

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The Liberal Arts

• Subjects for free people
• They help us wrestle with fundamental questions
• What is the nature of reality?
• Who or what are we?
• What is our place in the universe?
• How do we know what we think we know?
• How should we live?
• Does life have meaning?

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The Liberal Arts (2)

• How do we study the liberal arts?
• We ask the questions
• We see how others have answered them
• We figure the out the implications of their
  answers
• We evaluate their answers Biblically
• You need the (Western) liberal arts, whatever
  your career path is

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The Liberal Arts (3)

• Philosophy
• History
• Literature
• Visual arts
• Architecture
• Music
• Theater

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Creation to Charlemagne

• Primeval period
• Hebrews
• Cradles of Civilization
• Near Eastern Empires
• Early Aegean Civilization
• Greeks
• Romans
• Early Middle Ages