Stephen Sorensen

“Great scholars are survived by the debates they engender.”
– Alfred Hiatt (2009)^{[1, p.351]}

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery,
it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
– Michelangelo (but maybe not)^[2]

Hello,

My name is Stephen Sorensen and I am the creator of Ctruth. I created it to better organize my studies and to make it easier to share them with other people. At the core of my studies is the two part question, “what do people (myself included) think happened in the past, and why do they think that?”.

It’s October 28th, 2020 today, so it’s almost been 2 years since I started this. I think the website has served its purpose and I don’t plan on stopping it anytime soon. It’s been extremely useful in being able to visualize ideas more clearly. Same goes for being able to share my ideas and findings with other people. Instead of repeating myself or typing up the same thing I’ve typed before, I can just share an article I wrote that summarizes my thoughts on the topic. I also have commenting available all over my website and on every YouTube video so that people can respond and share their thoughts.

I gained a greater interest in historical studies after stumbling upon Fomenko’s New Chronology, a controversial theory that human civilization dawned within the past 1200 years. I found it to be fascinating and it got me thinking a lot more about why people think what they think. I don’t hold any heavy convictions about how valid or invalid Fomenko’s New Chronology is, but I have been steadily chipping away at it over the past few years. Due to this interest, there are a lot of references to Fomenko’s New Chronology throughout Ctruth content.

I currently volunteer the majority of the time I put into this website, meaning I don’t get paid for my time. I want to change this so I can do this work full time and not need to worry about doing unrelated work to be able to live. You can help me achieve this goal by supporting Ctruth in any number of ways:
– Donate directly to Ctruth
– Become a Ctruth patron
– Buy Ctruth merchandize
– Watch Ctruth YouTube videos
– Read the articles on the Ctruth website
– Comment, like, and share Ctruth content

I have a vision for what I want to do with Ctruth outlined as the Ctruth goals.

I mostly post on my website here, or on Facebook, but I do have other profiles across the internet if you’re interested in connecting with me elsewhere. Here’s my current list:

Academia.edu

Coursera

EdX.org

Facebook

Khan Academy

LinkedIn

Youtube

Quotes

The following collection of quotes was amassed while I studied. They are quotes which I find inspiring or interesting or both.

“In our time there is a great danger that those who talk most readily about historians and scholars may not know too much about history and scholarship. Housman’s homosexuality or Wilamowitz’s erratic behavior with his father-in-law Mommsen are easier to describe than Housman’s achievements as an editor of Manilius or Wilamowitz’s understanding of Aeschylus. Equally, it is easier to criticize Eduard Meyer’s political pamphlets during the First World War than his analysis of the papyri of Elephantine or of Egyptian chronology.”
Arnaldo Momigliano (1982)^{[4, p.10]}

I have not yet been able to review Momigliano’s article itself and so I have cited the work in which I found it. This quote makes me think about what it takes to fully comprehend what someone else has done in scholarship. A person’s comprehension is limited by their knowledge-base and comprehending what your predecessors and contemporaries have already done is an important part of scholarship.

“…knowledge is required to prepare a work of scholarship, but only ignorance gives the courage to publish it.”
E. J. Bickerman (1968)^{[5, p.7]}

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References:

[1] – Hiatt, Alfred. “Diplomatic Arts: Hickes against Mabillon in the Republic of Letters.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 70, no. 3, 2009, pp. 351–373. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20621898. Accessed 17 Jan. 2021.

[2] – https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michelangelo. Accessed 17 Jan. 2021.

[3] – James Cecil Macdonald. “Chronologies and Calendars” (London, 1897). Accessed Jan. 2021.

[4] – Baumgarten, Albert. “Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews: A Twentieth Century Tale” (2010). https://books.google.com/books?id=4KlQKyRnx8IC&source=gbs_navlinks_s. Accessed 29 Jan. 2021.

[5] – E. J. Bickerman. “Chronology of the Ancient World” (1968). Accessed 29 Jan 2021.

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