Portal:History/Intro

The term history comes from the Greek word ιστορία, historia, which means "an account of one's inquiries," and is also the source for the English word story. History is a discipline that Christians and creationists view with realism (See: critical realism) as opposed to a postmodernism type of philosophy. History follows today from its Greek roots as an important field of study involved with recording, researching, and interpreting past events. Essentially the historian has five types of evidences from which a coherent hypothesis about and event can emerge. The evidences are then integral to the application of the historical method, and they are; (1) testimony (2) artifacts (3) contextual considerations (4) probability and (5) weighing of evidence. Understanding the past provides insights into the present, which in turn helps us make wise decisions about the future. Historical sciences are descriptive in nature, governed by probability and plausibility offering some form of exact description, namely the condition and location of ancient artifacts left in the past but found in the present. Archaeologists are field researchers involved with finding and unearthing these remains, recording the context in which they are found, and making judgments about their purpose and meaning. The types of artifacts studied by historians include ancient writings, pictures, statues, buildings, vessels, and numerous other objects. The study of such artifacts can help reconstruct the lives and events of former cultures or individuals. However archaeology is only one side of the coin when undertaking historical study of the past. To reconstruct the other side of the coin, a lot of gaps have to be filled, introducing a measure of tentativeness to the whole academic discipline of history.