Arne Søby Christensen
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Arne Søby Christensen | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1945 (age 80–81) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History |
| Institutions | |
| Notable works | Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths |
Arne Søby Christensen (born 1945) is a Danish historian. He is an associate professor in history at the University of Copenhagen.[1]
Arne Søby Christensen was born in Copenhagen in 1945. He received a cand.mag. in history from the University of Copenhagen in 1975.[2] His book Lactantius the Historian was published in 1980.[3] From 1989 to 1998, Christensen was a member of the Danish Historical Society.[4]
The basic contention of this book is that nothing in the first third of Jordanes's Getica has anything whatsoever to do with a history of the Goths.
Christensen received his PhD in history from the University of Copenhagen in June 2002. His disputation was supervised by Ian N. Wood and Niels Lund.[2] His thesis, Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths, concerned the reliability of Getica by Jordanes and the latter's alleged chief source, the now lost Origo Gothica by Cassiodorus.[2] In his thesis, Christensen claims that the Origo Gothica and Getica are entirely fabricated accounts without any foundation in Gothic oral tradition, being instead based upon a dubious synthesis of Greco-Roman sources. Christensen claims that the Greco-Romans knew nothing about the Goths until the 3rd century AD,[2] and that archaeological evidence on Gothic origins is useless.[6] On this account, Christensen recommended that the history of the migration period be rewritten.[2]
An English translation of Christensen's thesis was published in 2002 by Museum Tusculanum Press.[7] Christensen's thesis has generated much interest among scholars.[8] It was praised by Walter Goffart as a useful work.[9] Anthropologist Peter S. Wells considered it a significant contribution to the study of ancient peoples of northern Europe.[10] Ian N. Wood considered it an interesting work, although he thought Christensen went too far in denying Gothic elements in the texts.[11] Sigbjørn Sønnesyn considered Christensen's theories suspiciously similar to circular reasoning.[12] Michael Whitby dismissed Christensen's work as extreme and a mere footnote to what has already been written on the subject.[13] Dick Harrison considered Christensen's book interesting, although he criticized its rejection of archaeological evidence and refusal to respond to the views of dissenting scholars.[14]
Selected works
- Kristenforfølgelserne i Rom indtil år 250, 1977
- Lactantius the Historian. An Analysis of the De Mortibus Persecutorum., 1980
- Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths: Studies in a Migration Myth, 2002
