Arne Søby Christensen (born 1945) is a Danish

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

. He is an associate professor in history at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

Biography

Arne Søby Christensen was born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

in 1945. He received a cand.mag. in

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

from the

in 1975. His book ''Lactantius the Historian'' was published in 1980. From 1989 to 1998, Christensen was a member of the Danish Historical Society. Christensen received his PhD in history from the University of Copenhagen in June 2002. His

disputation Disputation is a genre of literature involving two contenders who seek to establish a resolution to a problem or establish the superiority of something. An example of the latter is in Sumerian disputation poems. In the scholastic system of e ...

was supervised by Ian N. Wood and Niels Lund. His thesis, ''Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths'', concerned the reliability of ''

Getica ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'' (), written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the ori ...

'' by

Jordanes Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on R ...

and the latter's alleged chief source, the now lost '' Origo Gothica'' by

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Christian Roman statesman, a renowned scholar and writer who served in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senato ...

. 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 The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...

sources. Christensen claims that the Greco-Romans knew nothing about the Goths until the 3rd century AD, and that archaeological evidence on Gothic origins is useless. On this account, Christensen recommended that the history of the

migration period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...

be rewritten. An English translation of Christensen's thesis was published in 2002 by

Museum Tusculanum Press Museum Tusculanum Press (Danish: ''Museum Tusculanums Forlag'') is an independent academic press historically associated with the University of Copenhagen, publishing mainly in the humanities, social sciences and theology. It was founded in 1975 as ...

. Christensen's thesis has generated much interest among scholars. It was praised by

Walter Goffart Walter André Goffart (February 22, 1934 – February 14, 2025) was a German-born American historian who specialized in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. He taught for many years in the history department and Centre for Medieval Studie ...

as a useful work. Anthropologist Peter S. Wells considered it a significant contribution to the study of ancient peoples of northern Europe. Ian N. Wood considered it an interesting work, although he thought Christensen went too far in denying Gothic elements in the texts. Sigbjørn Sønnesyn considered Christensen's theories suspiciously similar to

circular reasoning Circular reasoning (, "circle in proving"; also known as circular logic) is a fallacy, logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy, but a pragmatic defect ...

Michael Whitby Lionel Michael Whitby (born February 1952) is a British ancient historian of Late Antiquity. He specialises in History of the Later Roman Empire, late Roman and early Byzantine history and historiography. He is currently pro-vice-chancellor and h ...

dismissed Christensen's work as extreme and a mere footnote to what has already been written on the subject. 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.

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

References

Bibliography

External links

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of Arne Søby Christensen {{DEFAULTSORT:Christensen, Arne Søby 1945 births 20th-century Danish historians 21st-century Danish historians Living people Academics from Copenhagen University of Copenhagen alumni Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen