The Importance of Primary Sources When Studying History

Maybe the benefits are already agreed upon?

 

What you wrote is either self-evident to the reader, or simply incomprehensible. Thus, no comments are likely forthcoming...unless you simply want "dittos" or "??"

 

Martin, I don't usually scroll this far down into the BaptistBoard (mostly look at Baptist history and theology sections), but I noticed this and considered you have a thought-provoking question -- how much time do you spend reading/studying primary sources?

I've never given it much thought as far as the dispensation of time between the two. So I'm going to guess that it might be 50/50. I may start a little 'self-survey' to see whether this is in the ballpark.

Seems many of the projects that I do call for use of whatever meager resources I can get my hands on, primary or secondary. For example, I recently compiled Minutes of the Mt. Carmel Baptist Church Rusk County, Texas which is an investigation into the history of this church and a publishing of the four years of its minutes that survived. The minutes were a primary source (except they are a handwritten copy of the original) and I spent a lot of time with them. In addition, I followed up with association minutes, which I also consider a primary source. But I was also scouting for anything I could find where anyone might have mentioned Mt. Carmel (which wasn't happening much!), including the diaries/journals of an area plantation owner and his wife. I also wrote a Brief History of the East Texas Musical Convention and Sacred Harp in East Texas, and spent a lot of time in the ETMC minutes, other singing convention minutes, period newspapers, religious periodicals, censuses, etc. But I also probably spent nearly as much time researching the interpretations of genealogists in order to come to an understanding of who many of these people were -- the ones that no one knew or remembered anything.

For the materials I am compiling toward a history of feet washing among missionary Baptists, I am looking at a lot of church and association minutes. But I am also using a lot of secondary sources in which a later author mentions something about feet washing in a particular church, association, et al. context. The genealogical boom has proved an asset, in that a lot of people are printing old church records and even putting them on the internet. This brings up a negative side, though. When we are typing them, scanning them, etc. we may introduce errors not in the original (not that the original can't have an error, but it is an original error, not an introduced one). This brings up the need to look at the primary source itself, when possible. I found two transcripts of a paper that a missionary Baptist preacher wrote about his life, father, upbringing, etc. It mentions that his father (a pioneer missionary Baptist in Texas) did believe in foot washing (one transcript) and that his father did not believe in foot washing (the other transcript). The original handwritten letter is now missing, and I suppose I'll never know what he really believed (though I can posit an educated guess based on other factors).

So, anyway, lots of rambling to say I really don't know how I divide my time between primary and secondary sources. I really love reading studies by others to get their take on a subject, but it's hard to beat having an actual authenic antique document in your hands. Because I am actually compiling historical books, I may spend more time with primary sources than average.

 

Unfortunately, I don't get to read too many original sources...mainly because the sources of the time period I am interested in are in Greek, Latin, or French

 

Let that be a lesson to you. If you are going to read the pilgrims use the Bible they used.

 

We have no primary information about Jesus. He didn't write or dictate anything.

 

I would think that those who walked with Him and touched Him would be primary.

 

importance of early sources..

I agree that you cannot overestimate the importance of early sources. The early church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Clement, Ireneaus, and even Tertillian give us fascinating accounts of what the early church believed and taught.

It's also interesting to read Eusebius's "History of the Church" - which was written in the fourth century.

I think that many of us are sadly deficient in our church history. We tend to gloss over the first 1500 years from the book of Acts until the Reformation.

 

Martin,

Thanks for your post. I enjoy reading the primary material, too. As to early American history, there are several excellent primary resources. One thing I do tire of, though, and conservatives unfortunately are bad about doing this, is putting together a book of "quotes from the Founders". It is far too easy to take such quotes out of context so, even though they are often in support of my position I don't think they add any value to debate/discussion re Founders' intent. One thing that scholars help to do is to put it all into context, but even then you have to be careful of an agenda.

 

there are many great primamry sources out there that do not rely on the written word. In some instances the written word isn't available or is very biased. I am a curator who has in my care over 40 000 artifacts and the stories they tell, if you read them correctly, are about as true as you can get to getting an accurate picture of what really happened.

Secondary sources also have their place, you can check out their lists of primary sources in their bibliography or you can quote their point of view to either back up or dispute their own thesis.