67 common-law husband and wife. The findings of renewed investigation and DNA testing suggest that he did and the resulting descendants should be considered in Jefferson’s lineage. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello, has accepted the new research while the Monticello Association, the Jefferson lineage society, has been reluctant to do so. Why do these things matter? The relationship between Jefferson and Hemings takes on significance historically for many reasons due to their respective races and economic relationship, but beyond that, the relationship of people descended from them matters for very personal reasons of identity. The fact that my grandfather left school after eighth grade to provide for his mother and sister, yet lived out the American dream, of which I am a benefactor, means a great deal to me. It tells me something both about the stock I come from and the nation in which I live. For many like me, history takes on meaning because in an often impersonal world, it provides meaning and identity for us. For those of us who follow Christ, we recognize that history has eternal value. The Christian faith is predicated on actual historical events that provide the foundation for the faith itself. As the Apostle Paul wrote, if Christ was not raised from the dead, our “faith is empty”(1 Cor. 15:14). The Christian religion is based on the historical story of Christ coming to earth as a baby; ministering, teaching, and healing broken lives for approximately three years; dying a grisly death on a cross because the Jewish leaders would not accept Him as the Messiah; and raising from the dead after three days just as the prophecy foretold. If Christ did not do the things recorded in Scripture, then He was not the Messiah and there is no reason to believe. For Christians, then, history takes on an eternal significance because it verifies what we believe, and it is the truth upon which we base our lives and our eternity. Yet there is a broader, less personal question, that must be addressed when we consider history. Is there meaning in the study of the past? If so, where is it found? Philosophers of history have grappled with these and similar questions for generations — really since the beginning of recorded history. The earliest historians — it is generally accepted that the Jewish historians were the first true historians because those of civilizations before them tended simply to chronicle events — noted that events happened for reasons and that the events themselves meant something. The Jewish historians, in particular, recognized that history had meaning because of the existence of God. Since He had created the universe and created man to live in it, the events of man must have some meaning.
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