Quotes of the Year

On Chronology:

The historian's first task is to get the sequence of events right. The more important issues, like explaining the events and explaining their significance, must wait until the chronology has been established. - Jona Lendering

Chronology in history is what perspective is in painting, without it there would be a confusion of images which would rather perplex than edify. - Thomas Lewin

On Jesus and History:

A Jewish Jesus is a halakic Jesus. - John P. Meier

There's only one reason to die on a cross. Because it pleases the Father. - Rocky Branch

On Writing:

Strictly speaking, every sentence in a story nine centuries old should include the word perhaps... but that would be boring - David Howarth

Hemingway wrote more than eight hundred pages of "The Sea Book" and rewrote them more than a hundred times [but] he decided to publish just the epilogue about the old fisherman, which he called The Old Man and the Sea. - Garrison Keillor