When his wife challenged his historical formation, he began asking questions about why his version of history was not matching up with actual history. In fact, the title “civil war” was never mentioned during his formative years as a military kid who was taught history at several high schools. From the book’s marketing copy: “From his southern childhood to his service in the U.S., every part of his life reinforced the Lost Cause myth: that Lee was the greatest man who ever lived, and that the Confederates were underdogs who lost the Civil War with honor.” Seidule, a retired professor of history at West Point Military Academy, grew up as a Southerner and learned the history of the Confederacy from family, friends, and the institutions that impressed on him that the South didn’t lose the Civil War. Only an intervention from the resurrected Savior changed Saul’s “lost cause” into a better story. Paul, or Saul, before his name change, believed the vision of Moses and centuries of Old Testament traditions were undergoing revisionist history from followers of Jesus who began proclaiming a story about some crucified, heretical rabbi. As I read this moving memoir of a historian who grew up with an alternative vision of the Civil War, I thought about the life of the Apostle Paul.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |