Will Durant

The Story of Civilization: Caesar and Christ

p. 134, from a chapter titled “The Oligarchic Reaction: 77-60 B.C.”
…but a new freedon was breaking down the old ‘patria potestas’ and the ancient family discipline. Roman women now moved about almost as freely as men. They dressed in diaphonous silks from India and China, and ransacked Asia for perfumes and jewelry.

p. 328-329
For two centuries Italy enjoyed an “unfavorable” balance of trade–cheerfully bought more than she sold…Meanwhile the wholesalers had agents buying goods for Italy in all parts of the Empire, and foreigh merchants had Greek or Syrian drummers touting and placing their goods in Italy. By this double process the delicacies of half the planet came to please the palate, clothe the flesh, and adorn the home of the Roman optimate…

In addition to all this there was a substantial import trade from outside the Empire. From Parthia and Persia came gems, rare essences, morocco leather, rugs, wild beasts, and eunuchs. From China–through Parthia, or India, or the Caucasus–came silk, raw or manufactured; the Romans thought it a vegetable product combed from trees and valued it at its weight in gold…Sixteen Roman coins, dating from Tiberius to Aurelius, have been found in Shansi.

p. 537
The most extreme of the Jewish sects was that of the Essenes. They derived their piety from the Chasidim, their name probably from the Chaldair aschai (bather), their doctrine and practice from the stream of ascetic theory and regimen circulating through the wrold of the last centure before Christ; possibly they were influenced by Brahmanic, Buddhist, Parsee, Pythagorean, and Cynic ideas that came to the crossroads of trade at Jerusalem.

The Story of Civilization: The Life of Greece
p. 575
Commerce was the life of Hellenistic economy. It made the great fortunes, built the great cities, and employed a growing proportion of the expanding population…The routtes from China passed through Turkestan, Bactira, and Persia, or over the Aral, Caspian, and Black Seas. The routes form India passed through Afghanistan and Persia to Seleucia, or through Arabia and Petra to Jerusalem and Damascus, or across the Indian Ocean to Adana (Aden), then through the Red Sea to Arsinoe (Suez), and then to Alexandria.

Notice how not only is Rome mentioned, but also Jerusalem as being of some importance on the trade routes. Perhaps, to borrow an EC word, a “rethinking” may be in order even for me, in that maybe Jerusalem wasn’t quite so backwater as I had thought it was. Certainly it seems to have been more open to knowledge and influences then may have Jones, and preterists in general, is giving them credit for.

This is a pretty typical argument made by preterists of the various flavors they come in. It’s a tricky situation for me, because while I don’t think that end-times theories are worth dividing over (with the possible exception of full preterists), I think their ideas are very wrong and, in this case, not based on facts.

For example, in listening through some audio book versions of Will Durant’s books about the history or civilization, I learned a thing or two about how large the ancient world of that time really was. For example, he mentions how trade between Rome and China had begun long before Christ, and how even before Jesus was born there were Buddhist missionaries in Egypt.

But if Jones and EC are supporting preterism (not surprising, considering the McLaren has compared ‘Left Behind’ to ‘Da Vinci Code’, “But frankly, I don’t think it has more harmful ideas in it than the Left Behind novels. And in a certain way, what the Left Behind novels do, the way they twist scripture toward a certain theological and political end, I think Brown is twisting scripture, just to other political ends.”), I wonder what that says about them and what they are trying to do.