Michael Frost
Manly Daily Pg.26
21 Dec 2013
IN CASE you have wondered why we still celebrate Jesus’ birth in our increasingly secular society, his influence on history alone should be enough of an answer.
He was recently ranked the biggest name in human history. Ever.
So say the authors of a new book, Who’s Bigger: Where Historical Figures Really
Rank, who used “culturometrics,” a fancy term to describe quantitative data analysis, to figure out that Jesus stood above all.
Their top 100 was a bit of a surprise to most people. Everyone is overwhelmingly white and 97 are male, with the only women being Queen Elizabeth I (No.13), Queen Victoria (No.16), and St. Joan of Arc (No.95).
The top 10 people in history were (in order) Jesus, Napoleon, Muhammad, William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Adolf Hitler, Aristotle, Alexander the Great and Thomas Jefferson.
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Third Prize goes to Muhammad
Dante described hell for Muhammad
A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
Was never shattered so, as I saw one
Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
That maketh excrement of what is eaten.
While I was all absorbed in seeing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, saying: "See now how I rend me;
How mutilated, see, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weeping go,
Cleft in the face from forelock unto chin;
And all the others whom thou here beholdest,
Disseminators of scandal and of schism
While living were, and therefore are cleft thus.
A devil is behind here, who doth cleave us
Thus cruelly, unto the falchion's edge
Putting again each one of all this ream,
When we have gone around the doleful road;
By reason that our wounds are closed again
Ere any one in front of him repass.
- Dante's Inferno, Canto 28
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Nonetheless, as you enjoy Christmas Day, even if you’re not religious, spare a thought for the towering historical figure whose birth you’re celebrating.
His teaching about loving your neighbour, forgiving your enemy and caring for the poor has found its way into our collective consciousness and our legal system.
His view of God as a loving father shapes much of our thinking. His example of sacrifice and service has moulded many of our beliefs about human excellence.
All this is incredible when you consider that he was born in an obscure village, the child of peasants. He never wrote a book, never held office, never went to college, and never travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born.
And yet as James Allen once wrote: All the armies that have ever marched All the navies that have ever sailed All the parliaments that have ever sat All the kings that ever reigned put together Have not affected the life of humankind on earth
