#Origin definition free

In the New Testament, Jesus only preaches to a Jewish audience. In the November/December 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Dead Sea Scroll and early Christianity scholar Geza Vermes explored the origin of Christianity by examining the characteristics of the Jewish Jesus movement to see how it developed into a distinctly gentile religion. However, to understand the origin of Christianity, one must begin with the population of Jewish Christians who lived during JesusвЂ™ lifetime.

Today the concept of вЂњJewish ChristiansвЂќ may sound like a confusion of two religions. In some ways, the apocryphal tale about how history came to describe accounts of the past вЂњplays on what has been hiding in that word all along.вЂќД¬orrection: The original version of this story incorrectly described the origins of the words вЂњhistoryвЂќ and вЂњinquiry.вЂќ They do not share the same root.A turning point in the Jesus movement, Peter baptizes the Roman centurion Cornelius, the first non-Jewish Christian, in Jerusalem (Acts 10), as shown in one of five baptism scenes on a 12th-century baptismal font in St. вЂњThe narrative element has always been there,вЂќ Zimmer says. ThatвЂ™s why, even if the origins of the word вЂњhistoryвЂќ are clear, the question of who gets to decide which version of the past is the right one remains a contentious debate centuries after the term came to be. You havenвЂ™t heard my story yet,вЂќ that statement might have nothing to do with etymology but it can suggest a lot about race and whether an African-American viewpoint is included in the tales passed down in textbooks. Take the fact that similar plays on the word have been made by people in other marginalized groups too: When jazz musician Sun Ra quipped that вЂњhistory is only his story. And more importantly, the fact that it sounds plausible that there would be a link can still tell us something. But sociolinguist Ben Zimmer says thereвЂ™s evidence that the feminists knew as much at the time. And some critics pointed that out back in the 1970s, saying that the invention of herstory showed ignorance about where the word comes from. That is why feminists, for example, rejected the word history and championed the notion of herstory during the 1970s, says вЂ™s Jane Solomon, вЂњto point out the fact that history has mostly come from a male perspective.вЂќ The вЂњhisвЂќ in history has nothing, linguistically, to do with the pronoun referring to a male person. Yet it isnвЂ™t, humans being the imperfect and hierarchical creatures that they are and history being something that is made rather than handed down from some omniscient scribe.

#Origin definition free

Yet the word stands up just fine to that stress because the term story has come to describe such varying amounts of truth and fiction.ДЄs the linguistic divide has evolved since the Middle Ages, we have come to expect more from history - that it be free from the flaws of viewpoint and selective memory that stories so often contain. To someone else, that account might be as incorrect as the notion that storks deliver babies. To them, that account might be as correct as any note about a presidentвЂ™s birthplace. Take the notion of someone telling their side of a story. And plenty of stories defy easy categorization one way or the other. Plenty of stories - like the story of a personвЂ™s life or a вЂњtrue storyвЂќ on which a less-true film is based - are supposed to be factual. The distinction is still messier than that, of course.

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Histories, on the other hand, are records of events. That word can even be used to describe an outright lie. Stories are fanciful tales woven at bedtime, the plots of melodramatic soap operas. вЂњThat working out of distinction,вЂќ says Durkin, вЂњhas taken centuries and centuries.вЂќ Today, we might think of the dividing line as the one between fact and fiction.

The words story and history share much of their lineage, and in previous eras, the overlap between them was much messier than it is today. And from there itвЂ™s a short jump to the accounts of events that a person might put together from making inquiries - what we might call stories. The Greek word historia originally meant inquiry, the act of seeking knowledge, as well as the knowledge that results from inquiry. The short version is that the term history has evolved from an ancient Greek verb that means вЂњto know,вЂќ says the Oxford English DictionaryвЂ™s Philip Durkin.