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Item To hell, heaven, and back again: language, religon, and the varied meanings of Yellowstone(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2024) Taylor, Joshua James; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mark FiegeThis thesis examines the history of language and Yellowstone National Park from the early nineteenth century through the second decade of the twentieth century. I examine how the language used to describe Yellowstone's many features changed over time and how that language reflected the larger culture and the change that took place over time.Item The Eastern foundations : Near Eastern influence on the Ionian Presocratics and the transmission of Eastern religious ideas to Ionia(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 1998) Camac, Steven; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: David CherryIn the Ionian town of Miletus, at the beginning of the sixth century B. C. E., Thales emerged as Greece's first philosopher. After Thales came Anixamander and Anaximenes of Miletus, Xenophanes of Colophon, and Heraclitus of Ephesus. As a group, these philosophers are the Ionian Presocratics. In Early Greek Thought and the Orient. M. L. West showed similarities between early Greek philosophy and Near Eastern religious ideas. But West’s work is not widely accepted. It also raised more questions than it answered. How were Near Eastern ideas transmitted to Ionia? How do they fit into Near Eastern concepts? How was Ionia different from the rest of the Greek world? Strong Near Eastern influence on Ionian Presocratic philosophy must have come from consistent contact with the Near East. Similarities in the ideas of different cultures are not evidence of a transmission of ideas: all that this shows are parallels. To go beyond parallels requires pinpointing the routes of transfer. The Archaic ivory carver is singled out as a medium of transfer for religious ideas. Ivory carvers had a knowledge of both Near Eastern and Greek religion. As ivory carvers traveled throughout the religious centers of the Aegean, they spread Near Eastern religious ideas to Greece. The transfer of the Phoenician alphabet to Greece demonstrates a transfer of ideas. The transfer of the alphabet shows both that there was an intimate level of contact between Greeks and Phoenicians, and that the two peoples communicated complex knowledge effectively, Ionia's cultural and political context exposed it to Near Eastern ideas. The author argues that Ionia adopted Anatolian religion, making it religiously part of the Near East. Ionia's elite families inter-married with the Lydian aristocracy thus closely connecting Ionia to Lydia. Also, political conquest by Lydia and Persia opened Ionia to Anatolian and Iranian culture. Near Eastern influence on Ionian Presocratics demonstrates that Greeks and people of the Near East communicated complex ideas. Transmission of Near Eastern ideas to Greece provides compelling proof that the foundations of Ionian Presocratic philosophy are Near Eastern.Item Religion and public order in the 1790s(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2008) Callaway, Patrick Michael; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Billy Smith.The connection between the founders and relationship between church and state has become increasingly important in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Entire books are regularly published on the private religious thoughts and practices of many of the founding fathers; often times these works exist in order to support a closer relationship between Christian practice and piety and the government. Just as often, published works also draw on the ideas of the same founders in order to support a more concrete separation between religious thought and practice and governance. These "culture wars" are an emotive part of the present day political discourse; however, this thesis argues that attempts to fight the culture wars though the thought of the founders is factually erroneous and misguided because the context of the founders and their debates have been overly simplified or just plain lost. The link between religion and the political culture of the 1790s was a practical matter of governance and support for a larger ideal of consensus, not an expression of cultural preference as is common in present-day political discourse. The connection between the governing structure under the Constitution, a blessing upon that government from God, and the inculcation of Christian ideals into the public that support both religion and the government became increasingly important as the range of political and social opinions expanded in the 1790s. Contemporary political thought that places the intent of the founders at the center of political debate ignore the significant divisions among the founders' political, philosophical, and religious ideals. There is little unity in thought among the founders; they virulently disagreed about religion, politics, and the connection between them. Arguing the present day culture wars through the lens of the founders is emotive and politically effective, but without a full appreciation for the larger historical and intellectual contexts of the early republic and the concerns particular to that time an appeal to the wisdom of the founders on religion and its connection to American politics, this claim to political legitimacy is of dubious intellectual validity.