In his conversion story, “Surprised by Joy,” C. S. Lewis explains how his close friend, Owen Barfield, demolished his “chronological snobbery.” Lewis defined chronological snobbery as “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.”

In Lewis’s time, much of academia was already convinced that every past generation formed a staircase of progress, leading (of course) to enlightened modernity. And since Lewis’s death, many intellectuals have only become more convinced of their own perch at the pinnacle of history. These days, we barely even notice the snobbery.

But it’s time to notice, especially in archaeology. An article last week in The New York Times describes new evidence for the Chinese great flood, an event which ancient records say coincided with the rise of China’s first imperial dynasty. For many years, Western academics have considered this flood a myth—on par with Noah’s Flood in Genesis which, unsurprisingly, they also dismiss as fiction.

But several new dig sites have unearthed inscriptions that refer to just such a flood along the Yellow River, almost 4,000 years ago. And a team of geologists led by Qinglog Wu of Peking University in Beijing says they’ve found evidence in the rocks of a natural dam that trapped several cubic miles of water. When the dam collapsed, it sent a deluge downriver large enough to wipe out a civilization—just as the Chinese legends suggest.

Western experts were less than enthused at the news. The Times quotes several prominent archaeologists who scoff at the discoveries as attempts to read too much into Chinese myths. Dr. Paul Goldin of the University of Pennsylvania derides what he sees as a “fixation” among Chinese archaeologists with “[proving] that all the ancient texts and legends have some fundamental truth…It shouldn’t be every archaeologist’s first instinct,” he says, “to see if their findings are matched in the historical sources.”

Continue reading BreakPoint –  A Flood of Evidence: Chronological Snobbery and Archaeology →

In the months and even years leading up to this year’s Rio Olympics, much of the news about Michael Phelps, as of this recording the nineteen-time gold medal swimmer, was bad. In September of 2014, he was arrested for driving while under the influence in his hometown of Baltimore.

It seemed that Phelps’ best days, both in and out of the pool, were behind him.

But that’s not how it turned out, and I think you can guess why.

As you probably know, Phelps carried the American flag during the opening ceremonies on Friday August 5. Then, as of this recording, he’s added three more gold medals to his impressive lifetime total, now numbering 21.

To put it mildly, both of these were unlikely less than two years ago.

As Phelps told ESPN, following his announced retirement in 2012, he struggled to “figure out who he was outside the pool.” In his words, “I was a train wreck. I was like a time bomb, waiting to go off. I had no self-esteem, no self-worth. There were times where I didn’t want to be here. It was not good. I felt lost.”

Like a lot of people struggling with similar feelings, he self-medicated.

In the immediate aftermath of that DWI arrest, he cut himself off from family and other loved ones and “thought the world would just be better off without me . . . I figured that was the best thing to do — just end my life.”

That’s when a friend came to his rescue: former All Pro linebacker Ray Lewis, whom Phelps considers a kind of “older brother.” Seeing the hopelessness and despair in his young friend, Lewis, an outspoken Christian, told him, “This is when we fight . . . This is when real character shows up. Don’t shut down. If you shut down we all lose.”

Continue reading BreakPoint – Michael Phelps is Driven: An Olympian Finds His Purpose →