Back to Course

History 1: American

0% Complete
0/0 Steps
  1. Lesson 1: Orientation
    10 Steps
  2. Lesson 2: The Banner of the Sun (Meso-America)
    13 Steps
  3. Lesson 3: Brave New World (The Early Explorers)
    11 Steps
  4. Lesson 4: The Colossus of Empire (The Colonies)
    11 Steps
  5. Lesson 5: Stability & Change (The Reformational Colonies)
    11 Steps
  6. Lesson 6: A City Upon A Hill (The Puritans)
    12 Steps
  7. Lesson 7: A Foreign War at Home (Wars of Control)
    11 Steps
  8. Lesson 8: Grace, the Founder of Liberty (The Great Awakening)
    14 Steps
  9. Lesson 9: Fathers of Independence (Adams, Franklin, Witherspoon, & Henry)
    11 Steps
  10. Lesson 10: Liberty or Death (The Declaration of Independence)
    11 Steps
  11. Lesson 11: Awesome Providence (The War of Independence 1)
    11 Steps
  12. Lesson 12: Awesome Providence (The War of Independence 2)
    11 Steps
  13. Lesson 13: A More Perfect Union (The Constitution)
    12 Steps
  14. Lesson 14: Federal Headship (George Washington)
    11 Steps
  15. Lesson 15: How Good & Pleasant It Is (Adams & Jefferson)
    14 Steps
  16. Lesson 16: Manifest Destiny (Settlers, Explorers, & War)
    11 Steps
  17. Lesson 17: Word & Deed (John Quincy Adams & Andrew Jackson)
    12 Steps
  18. Lesson 18: The Original United Nations (Expansion of the Early U.S.)
    11 Steps
  19. Lesson 19: Idols of Mercy (Revivals, Counterfeits, & Art)
    12 Steps
  20. Lesson 20: A House Divided 1 (The Age of Compromise & Divided Cultures)
    11 Steps
  21. Lesson 21: A House Divided 2 (Abraham Lincoln & Secession)
    13 Steps
  22. Lesson 22: The Second War for Independence (The War Between the States 1)
    11 Steps
  23. Lesson 23: Brother Against Brother (The War Between the States 2)
    11 Steps
  24. Lesson 24: The Lost Cause (Reconstruction)
    11 Steps
  25. Lesson 25: A New Normal (The West, Immigration, & Robber Barons)
    11 Steps
  26. Lesson 26: Theology As Biography (Theodore Roosevelt & Booker T. Washington)
    12 Steps
Lesson Progress
0% Complete

ASSIGNMENT:

  1. Read Emperor Pachacuti’s account of the god, Viracocha, as well as the selection from the old Incan myth, The Llama-Herder and the Virgin of the Sun.
  2. Write a short essay or discuss with your instructor: In what ways are Viracocha and Yahweh similar?

SELECTION: Emperor Pachacuti’s account of Viracocha (Translated by B.C. Brundage, quoted in Eternity in Their Hearts by Don Richardson)

He is ancient, remote, supreme, and uncreated. Nor does he need the gross satisfaction of a consort. He manifests himself as a trinity when he wishes,…otherwise only heavenly warriors and archangels surround his loneliness. He created all peoples by his word, as well as all huacas [spirits]. He is man’s Fortunus, ordaining his years and nourishing him. He is indeed the very principle of life, for he warms the folk through his created son, Punchao [the sun disk, which was somehow distinct from Inti]. He is a bringer of peace and an orderer. He is in his own being blessed and has pity on men’s wretchedness. He alone judges and absolves them and enables them to combat their evil tendencies.

SELECTION: “Viracocha: The Llama-Herder and the Virgin of the Sun” from Myths of the World by Padraic Colum

[Viracocha] lived amongst men, and he taught them many arts. He it was, as the priests of those who were here before the Incas say, showed men how to bring streams of water to their crops, and taught them how to build terraces upon the mountains where crops would grow. He set up a great cross upon the mountain Caravay. And when the bird that cries out four times at dawn cried out, and the light came upon the cross he had set up, Viracocha went from amongst men. He went down to the sea, and he walked across it towards the west. But he told those whom he had left behind that he would send messengers back who would protect them and give them renewed knowledge of all he had taught them. He left them, but men still remember the chants that those whom he left on the mountain, by the cross, cried out their longing:

Oh, hear me! From the sky above, In which thou mayst be,
From the sea beneath, In which thou mayst be, Creator of the
World, Maker of all men; Lord of all Lords, My eyes fail me
For longing to see thee; For the sole desire to know thee.