Talk:Jesus/Archive 114

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More non-European Jesus pics?

There are plenty of non-European pictures of Jesus out there, but the lion's share of the pics in the article are from Europeans, wrongly suggesting that Christianity is a European-only religion when most Christians are in Latin America, Africa and Asia (says the World Christian Encyclopedia, among other reputable sources). Some particularly great non-European Jesus art is from Japan's Sadao Watanabe, while a huge compendium of alternative and international Christian art can be found here. The objection that some are offended by non-white picture of Jesus is so historically spurious and utterly hypocritical (i.e., I can bend history to make Jesus look like a contemporary me, but not a contemporary you) that it doesn't merit serious concern by Wiki editors. Beyond that, I don't see any substantial reason to severely limit this article's pictures to European depictions.Wikibojopayne (talk) 06:15, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

We pretty much know Jesus was not a white person, but unfortunately the greatest number of widely-known and -recognized historic artistic masterpieces tend to depict him as such. And we do want to make sure that we don't overburden the article with pictures. If you could suggest a few specific images you would want replaced with other specific images, that would probably help the discussion a lot. John Carter (talk) 15:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind we can only use free images. Fortunate for us, we have a vast depository of free images available to us already. Browse http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Jesus and see if you can't make some suggestions. If you have other images in mind that are not hosted on the Commons yet, and you need help figuring out their licenses to know if they are free or not, I'd be glad to assist in that area as well. On Wikipedia, we have a do-it-yourself sort of ethic, because anyone can edit. So it is probably better if you find images yourself instead of telling us to find them for you. Sadao Watanabe is too contemporary, and I'd wager, unless there is some art of his that was published when he was 9 years old, most likely the bulk of his work is still under copyright protection. Japanese copyright law gives protection to the artist for 50 years after their death, so we couldn't use the images until 2046 (unless some of his work was released under the name of an organization, not an individual). The blog you linked to again appears to have very contemporary work which most likely is protected by copyright still. Again, I'd be glad to help figure out copyright on specific images, but I'd urge you to search through our existing images on the Commons, or present actual examples here. Part of the limitation of our images may be institutional bias towards western culture, but also the limitation of using free art, as all of the art from the Renaissance and such are public domain. -Andrew c ^[talk] 16:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Rose on the third day?

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I thought the information box at the top right of every article was for facts only. Since facts are verifiable, I don't really see how "according to the new testament, he rose (from the dead) on the third day" fits in there. There's a whole section for the alledged resurrection, but it is irrelevant as a verifiable event and therefore has no place in the box. Same with the "temporarily" above the place of rest part of the box. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.212.238.143 (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The reason is because the Bible is one of the most, if not the most accurate historical text in the world by many historians standards. Therefore if listed in the Bible, Jesus rose on the third day, then it is considered a fact of his life.

The above unsigned comment isn't the case, at least in terms of Wikipedia policy. As for the original comment, it is a verifiable fact that the New Testament says that. If you don't believe me, open up the New Testament and check it for yourself. I believe the qualifying phrase "According to the New Testament" makes it clear we are presenting that religious perspective, and not a historical "fact". It is a bit sticky because there is a strong traditional view about Jesus, and there are historical views, and it appears editors have tried to balance them in one infobox (look at the birthplace section where we have 2 birthplaces based on the 2 views). It may be more problematic to remove one POV and only present the other, but if you have suggestions on how to make things clearer, or how to present conflicting traditions.. -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest to remove it altogether since it doesn't make much sense to treat this article in a different light or to lower the encyclopedic standards in comparison to other articles just because it is a sensible subject. Honestly, when trying to make some research about a historical figure one finds that the infobox isn't reserved for verifiable facts only, which I think is the best virtue about information boxes in the first place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.212.238.143 (talk) 21:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

But wouldn't a good encyclopedia report on Christian belief? Wouldn't an encyclopedia report on popular conceptions? On Wikipedia, our NPOV policy allows for us to give coverage to all notable views. Are you saying the idea of Jesus' resurrection isn't notable? Wikipedia does not limit itself to content that is simply verifiable facts in the way you present. Our content must be verifiable, but really, you think we are going to have a problem verifying that the NT discusses the resurrection? That it isn't verifiably a central belief to most of the 2 billion or so Christians on this planet? This isn't the historical Jesus article, so we can't simply limit ourselves to such historically verifiable content. Would we not discuss popular mythological traditions in an infobox on Osiris (such as parents/siblings)? What do others think? Would anyone object to the phrase's removal from the infobox? -Andrew c ^[talk] 22:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I would object, for the reasons stated by Andrew and also because the ressurection of Jesus is stated to be true in a vast array of reliable sources, ancient and modern, and is therefore more verifiable than most historical events. LewisWasGenius (talk) 22:48, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Ancient sources are not reliable. Expessily ones that have had hundreds of years and hundreds of reasons to be changed. Please link some of these "vast" modern sources (blind faith does not count) 122.58.184.203 (talk) 08:51, 20 October 2010 (UTC) Dirty great green murloc

You're missing the point, it is verifiable that Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. It is also verifiable that Hindus generally believe Krishna was born 3228 BCE. While it is not verifiable that either of those things happened, it is completely accurate to say "Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead," "Hindus believe Krishna was born 3228 BCE," and so on. We don't have contemporary sources to actively counter those (as we do with L. Ron Hubbard), so there is no reason to object to that. Jesus isn't just a historical figure, but a mythic one as well, and dropping the mythic aspect of the article is pretty much censorship to force someone else's religious views on others. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:08, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

This is getting silly. No major critical historian thinks the NT is the most or even one of the most accurate historical sources of its day, far from it. (But neither is the point that ancient sources are unreliable ... contemporary sources can be unreliable too. the point is: this is NOT a question for wikipedia editors to discuss. We find verifiable books and articles expressing significant views on these matters, and present these views.) So the anonymous editor is also completely wrong about Wikipedia presenting verifiable facts. Wikipedia is not about presenting verifiable facts, it is about presenting verifiable views. According to one major view, Jesus was resurrected shortly after dying and I have no problem noting that in the infobox as one major view. In fact, we used to have a c. year of death and then in parentheses a note that many believe he was resurrected afterwards. I don't understand why anyone would find that presentation of the most notable views to be a problem. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

"Judaism rejects..."

"Judaism rejects assertions that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh.[20]"

This is not true. It would be accurate if it said, "Mainstream Judaism rejects assertions..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by I.love.words2006 (talk • contribs) 17:47, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Consider it done! LewisWasGenius (talk) 18:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Messianic Jews, so-called, ar Christians. people who accpt jesus as the messiah and as divine and as savior are Christians. This article gives LOTS of space to Christian views. Why try to dillute the jewish view? just accept it: not everyone is a Christian. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:50, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The only question that comes to mind it is verifiable through any independent reliable sources whether historically any Jews may have accepted him as a Messiah in some way. I have never actually heard that any have, mind you, but for all I know some group may have done so in the past. John Carter (talk) 23:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course there have been caes of Jews who accept Jesus. They become Christians. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

^This. Virtually all of the early Christians were also Jews, and it was only after the church had grown fairly large that it was even established that Judaism was not required to be a Christian. I'm not trying to "dilute the Jewish view". I guess the questionn is whether we consider Messianics to be Jews, because they say they are, or non-jewish Christians, because most Jews consider them to be such. We list the Mormons as a Christian denomination, so why not list the Messianics as Jews? LewisWasGenius (talk) 15:22, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It is phrased "Judaism rejects", rather than "Jews reject" precisely because Judaism/Jewishness is both an ethnicity and a religion. Individual Jews may have any opinion, including belief that Jesus is the Messiah. In that case they become Christian Jews, but no longer profess Judaism the religion. Paul B (talk) 11:39, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that some Messianic Jews still profess Judaism, or claim to. LewisWasGenius (talk) 20:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The policy is that we identify groups according to their own self-identification, with very few exceptions. If there is a group that self-identifies as Messianic Jew, then we refer to them that way. We do not announce (as Slrubenstein is doing) that we know better what they really are, and that they will be called Christians regardless of how they wish to be called. Noloop (talk) 18:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I do not think I ever said that we should not identify them as Messianic Jews. if they wish to identify themselves as Messianic Jews, so should we. Where did I say otherwise? That they are also Christians is a separate matter. As Paul B pointed out quite constructively, Messianic Jews are making a claim about their ethnic identity when they call thmselves Jews. The "Messianic" signifies that their religion is a form of Christianity, and not Judaism. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:55, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

We can identify Messianic Jews as Jews because they identify as Jews. We cannot identify them as Christians, unless they identify themselves that way (and we can back that with a reliable source). There are a few exception to this principle, but I don't see any reason to think this case is an exception. Noloop (talk) 23:57, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, we prefer to identify all religious groups based on independent secondary or tertiary sources. The Encyclopedia of American Religions, maybe the best extant source on that subject, specifically includes all the MJ groups it lists in the categories for Christians, so in this case I think we would be justified as counting them as Christians. And, for at least the classifications, which are the creation of the writer of that book, I think it qualifies as a seconsary source.John Carter (talk) 00:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Whatever. The original question was whether there are some Jews who consider Jesus the messiah. The answer is, yes. There is a group that identifies as "Messianic Jew" that is both 1) Jewish, and 2) accepting of Jesus as Messiah. Whether they are also Christian is, I guess, an interesting question. It has no bearing on whether it is consistent with Wikipedia policies to say that Messianic Jews are Jews who accept Jesus. Noloop (talk) 04:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

No, that was not the original question. The original question was about Judaism, not Jews. Jews can be atheists, or Buddhists, or even Roman Catholics, while still being Jews in the ethnic sense. The term Judaism, however, refers to a belief system - a religion. Paul B (talk) 09:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation overkill

The second paragraph ends with what seems to be an example of Citation overkill. The line in particular I am speeking of has 11 citations and looks like this "Roman Empire.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]" If you don't think this is a real problem look at the wikipedia policy on it here: Citation Overkill. I understand that this is a very controversial article and as such it is necessary for all information to be well backed up with references to reliable sources but, clutter is also an issue. As far as I can see there are two possible options to solve this. Either regroup the citations in such a way that there is only one or two links with the complete list of citations at the bottom. Or, go through and choose the most reliable and appropriate citations and only use them.meitme (talk) 15:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This has come up before, but I guess my changes were reverted and nothing ever came of that last discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jesus/Archive_111#Exagerate_Number_References_of_references_on_certain_statements -Andrew c ^[talk] 15:10, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I would be in favor of moving back to your edit with all of the references combined. meitme (talk) 19:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Is there no guide in the Wikipedia policies on the limit of citations , e.g. say 5? looks like there is!Peaceworld111 (talk) 19:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a trivial issue. Do lots of citations "look funny?" Maybe, but who cares about looks? I know good scholarly articles that will provide fifteen citations for one claim. In part it is giving credit where it is due, in part if is helping guide people to further reading, in part it is helping establish the claim. Al of these are good things, and I jut do not see clutter as an issue. Wikipedia is not paper, people's screens will not superimpose numbers over words - people can just read the article.

Why waste time worrying about really trivial things like this when, there are many more scholarly books that are not cited in th8s article, or there are related articles that are poorly researched. Shouldn't we be reading top scholarly books and articls in order to improve the content of articles? Slrubenstein | Talk 23:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation overkill? On controversial articles, or even those articles with only he potential for controversy, there is no such thing as "citation overkill". And yes, I agree with Slrubenstein, this is really trivial. Just my $0.02. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Heavythump, 23 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Jesus dies in 33CE

Heavythump (talk) 07:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a source? The 33 CE date revolves around the idea that He died at the age of 33, but was born 1 CE. However, most scholars now place His birthyear a few years earlier, so the 33 CE date doesn't stick if we hold onto the "died at 33" bit. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:11, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I think most scholars place the birth of Jesus sometime around 4-6 BC and his death around 30-33 AD. There is NO consensus that 33 AD was THE actual year of his death. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 06:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Years lived

The content on the front page alleges that Jesus lived from 5 B.C. to 30 A.D. In the Bible, specifically in the new testament, it mentions several times that Jesus lived 33 years. The evidence on the front page refutes that and does not line up with the Bible. SANPres09 19:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonny12boy (talk • contribs)

You aren't looking closely enough. We are simply rounding to the nearest multiple of 5. The c. before the year stands for circa which means "approximately". Scholars don't know for sure when he was born or died, so instead of trying to give exact dates, and only present one side, we round to give a rough time frame. -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Even taking the 33 year figure as fact, we still wouldn't know exactly what to put as birth or death dates. If you like, you can read the figures given as "5 BC to 28 AD, or 0 AD to 33 AD, or something in between". LewisWasGenius (talk) 20:05, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, please don't read it with a year zero. ;P -Andrew c ^[talk] 20:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

My bad, 1 AD to 34 AD. I should know that by now... LewisWasGenius (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

We do not take anything as fact. In the section "according to the Gospels" we can report what the Gospels say - that is four points of view in one section. Elsewhere we report the views of notable historians, who vary on the dates. By the way AD should go before the year. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, WP:ERA indicates that placing AD after the year is perfectly acceptable. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 22:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Islamic family tree

I've just noticed that out of focus islamic family tree of Jesus has got back in the article. The last time it made an appearance, there was no consensus for its inclusion [1] but Md iet seems to have stuck it in anyway. It's in the Jesus and Islam article - I can't say it adds anything here. There's no explanation of it in the text, and any explanation would be way too top heavy - both of which are reasons there was no consensus for it last time. The existing caption just seems to be an excuse to link to a bunch of unrelated articles. Also, it really is out of focus - it's not just my specs. Thought I'd start a discussion rather than just hoick it out, but I'm minded to do just that.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I see I'm not the only one of that opinion. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it has gotten back in. The user has posted it on Moses and Jesus in Islam as well. JanetteDoe (talk) 22:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Ehrman

I had some edits reverted, that refuted the claim that Bart Ehrman made regarding the "consensus" of biblical scholars on some authorship issues. There are many more legitimate sources than the ones I used on this point. A large number of sources verify that many scholars hold to a more traditional view on authorship and that the gospels are reliable historically. Bart Ehrman's claim can be directly refuted with the claims of other scholars. My additions were well sourced, and one can't just go in and delete these claims as though they don't exist. So who is right? I am open to balancing these views somehow, but representing Ehrman's view as the consensus is badly misleading.RomanHistorian (talk) 16:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Please, do NOT restore material that has been removed in good faith. This is called edit warring, and is a form of disruptive editing. I'm pretty sure you know that by now, right? I find it hard to work in good faith with disruptive editors. I'd be glad to discuss this further, but I don't have time now. Perhaps we should go to our sources, and quote specifically the passages in question. I believe Ehrman's assessment regarding "Most critical biblical scholars" is accurate, and if you can find examples otherwise, they either are not critical biblical scholars or they are in the minority (most does not mean "all"). -Andrew c ^[talk] 16:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Please do not delete material that has been added in good faith. If anything that is less defensible than my adding of material.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

From the policy page: If another editor has good reason to object to such a change, they may revert it. This is known as the bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle, and is not edit warring. An edit war only arises if the situation develops into a series of unconstructive, back-and-forth edits. Re-adding material is never OK. -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The Ehrman citation comes from "Jesus, Interrupted", and we cite no page number. Thumbing through it, I can only assume the citation is referencing p. 13's "In my lectures I talked about why historians have problems using the Gospels as historical sources, in view of their discrepancies and the fact that they were written decades after the life of Jesus by unknown authors who had inherited their accounts about him from highly malleable oral tradition... There was nothing at all novel in what I discussed--it was standard scholarly material, the kind of thing that has been taught in seminaries for over fifty years. I learned all this material while I was at Princeton Seminary myself." An additional source. Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament, p. 109: "Yet most modern scholars do not think that the evangelists were eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus..." And so on. -Andrew c ^[talk] 16:54, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

So Ehrman doesn't even say that most scholars doubt the traditional eyewitness accounts. Why then is that used as a reference for this claim? If it were true, why wouldn't the atheist Ehrman have used that fact? It would have been useful for his argument. His claim is dubious anyway, as the author of Luke/Acts claims explicitly to have used written sources ("from those who were from the first eyewitnesses") and the accounts of living eyewitnesses, not just a "malleable" oral tradition. Raymond Brown's works seem to come from between 16-32 years ago. And even if Brown were right, his claims would only be relevant to Matthew and John, as Mark and Luke were never claimed to have been eyewitnesses. So why is his claim used to doubt the traditional view on Mark and Luke/Acts? In any case, he is wrong, unless his doubt on "eyewitnesses" (Matthew and John) having written the gospels constitutes the opinion of something like 51% ("most") scholars in Brown's heyday of the 1960s-1980s, which I could accept, but even then it would be more of a balance. It seems these citations do not say what the article says they say.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

As for your citations, I've looked into them. They a) are only referring to Luke, not all the gospels, and b) Gurthrie is from 1961 (and Gurthrie's explanation of the strong opposition to the tradition dates from 1922), and c) Brown says elsewhere the same thing Ehrman is saying. -Andrew c ^[talk] 17:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Gurthrie isn't much earlier than Brown. As for Luke, it would seem then that my sources would agree with both Brown and Ehrman, since neither Brown nor Ehrman claims that scholars hold that Luke didn't write Luke (or Acts for that matter). Presumably ditto for Mark. In any case, the claim that "most scholars doubt the traditional authors" is not supported by the sources you quote yourself.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

1961 isn't much earlier than 1996? "most scholars doubt the traditional authors" wasn't in the article. The sentence we are arguing about is Most critical biblical scholars conclude the authors of the gospels wrote decades after Jesus lived, were not eyewitnesses, were not neutral reporters, and based their work on some of the same sources, and thus do not consider the Gospels ideal sources in historical research. You changed "lived" to "crucifixion", added "in some cases" and the parenthetical about Luke regarding sources, and added "Scholars are divided on the question of who wrote the gospels, with some scholars agreeing with the traditional view and others doubting it." while removing content related to eyewitness, being neutral, and the historical idealness. It's not clear to me that you actually dispute the veracity of any of these other claims, but still removed them only to add the notion about traditional authorship, which is unrelated to the basic premise (that the gospels, while the best sources we have on the historical Jesus, aren't ideal). Adding the notion related to tradition doesn't make them any more reliable. So scholars are divided on whether an actual man Luke, a physician and companion of Paul, can be attached to the gospel, it doesn't change the fact that Luke was not an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry, and that he wrote from his own religious perspective (wasn't simply a neutral reporter). I've read the before and after of the paragraph in context, and your changes seem off topic, and only an attempt to add a nod towards the traditional view in a place where that isn't appropriate (or that the tradition isn't really being attacked in the first place). -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Given that so many good sources from noteworthy scholars disagree with Brown (I have cited only a small fraction of the mainstream, well regarded scholars who disagree with Brown) then it can hardly be taken as true that "most" hold this view. What does he mean by "most" anyway? 51%? 90%? It can hardly be an overwhelming majority. He could only be referring to two gospels anyway, so how does that translate into "most scholars doubt the traditional view". Several points on the sentence in question are not addressed in the quotes you use. Besides, the premises you suggest are dubious. What exactly is an "ideal" historical or biographical work in the ancient world? Do Roman historians just disregard massive chunks of Tacitus or Cicero because they aren't "ideal". There is no such thing as an impartial, unbiased observer. Was Luke unbiased? Of course not, he had a theological view. In this respect he was no different from Ehrman, or any scholar with a less atheistic viewpoint. Nor are they different in this regard from any other historian, ancient or modern. If there were objective truths we could cite, one source would be enough. There isn't so it isn't, thus we use many sources, because everything, even a view on something factual in nature like the view of "most" scholars is still just an opinion, though maybe an informed one. My real problem on this point is not using the testimony of Brown or Ehrman but the suggestion that there is more certainty on this than there really is. Some scholars may think the gospels are unhistorical in certain areas (or overall) but they don't "know" this and even then many scholars would disagree with the skeptics. There was another reference to scholars 'knowing' that Jesus didn't predict his own death. How exactly is it we can promote conjecture that many scholars would disagree with to the point of objective fact?RomanHistorian (talk) 20:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

First, let's drop the "most scholars doubt the traditional view", as the text in the article never said that, and I don't want our article to say that. Next, I still don't understand your concern despite you saying " My real problem on this point is not using the testimony of Brown or Ehrman but the suggestion that there is more certainty on this than there really is." You think both Brown and Ehrman, when making claims about "what most scholars hold" is wrong, based on a straw poll of individual sources you gathered yourself and the 50 year old Guthrie text (even though, the text is ONLY REFERENCING the "traditional view of Lucan authorship", not the topics of author bias, eyewitness, etc). I don't believe you've established that we can't go on Ehrman or Brown's summary of contemporary scholars in these fields. As Ehrman points out, this is basic material taught at seminary in the past 50 year. At this juncture, I'm hoping a 3O will jump in soon, or else I might seek one. -Andrew c ^[talk] 20:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Most critical biblical scholars conclude the authors of the gospels wrote decades after Jesus lived, were not eyewitnesses, were not neutral reporters, and based their work on some of the same sources, and thus do not consider the Gospels ideal sources in historical research. How about "Most biblical scholars conclude that the authors of the gospels wrote between 70-100 AD, that the authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used the Gospel of Mark and the Q document as a source." How about that? The wording before was in a non-neutral tone and included superfluous information. "Not neutral reporters" and "do not consider the Gospels ideal sources" are weasel words, especially since no ancient (or modern) author was neutral, nor wrote "ideally" by modern standards.RomanHistorian (talk) 21:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Andrew, because I know the point you are making and I think it ultimately is a good one, I found a source that says more directly that the view among scholars is more diverse, with many scholars holding to the more traditional view, while others holding to a more indirect form of the traditional view.RomanHistorian (talk) 07:57, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

But, this isn't the appropriate place in the article to discuss "traditional authorship" and I dispute the notion that the previous wording had anything to do with that topic, and feel your insertion is off topic. Ehrman's point is the gospels aren't ideal sources, but using scholarly methods, historians can still find reliable content in them. You seem to dispute this basic point, or want to remove it or soften it for whatever reason. I think it does set a good tone for the pargraph and section, and removing details about author bias and lack of eyewitness seems to be hiding the problematic aspect of the gospels (something that is clearly presented in the lead of Historicity of Jesus). Anyway, I know scores of people are watching this page. Can we get a 3O? -Andrew c ^[talk] 14:25, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

3O here. I think the Roman's latest revision is a big imporvment, but not perfect. The statement that "most biblical scholars believe" the Q-document theory is misleading, considering that that view is not (as far as I can tell) held by Catholics or many evangelicals, who make up the majority of Biblical scholars. Perhaps it would be better to say "most secular scholars", if that is indeed the case. LewisWasGenius (talk) 15:15, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your support, I truly appreciate it. I understand that my edits weren't perfect, I simply intended them as an improvement that could be further improved and I certainly think they should be. As far as I understand, almost all scholars, even the most conservative, agree with Q/2-source theory. I was myself skeptical for it for a while but had to concede that this is the view held by the vast majority of scholars (90%+) of just about any religious/ideological viewpoint. I think we should just agree on this point as I don't consider it one of the disagreements regarding these edits.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. The content in question isn't talking about Q, unless you take based their work on some of the same sources to mean only Q (even the Augustinian, Griesbach and Farrer hypotheses posit same source reliance in some cases). That said, the critical biblical scholar, and "catholic priest" John Meier describes the "standard view in NT research today" giving details similar to Ehrman, and says the two-source hypothesis (which includes Q) is the view "most commonly used today". Critical biblical scholar scholar Raymond Brown, and "catholic priest", describes Q as a source "posited by most scholars" and "remains the best way of explaining the agreements between Matt and Luke...". So I appreciate the 30, I'm a bit confused on where you are getting your information. We should be following sources. Good mainstream, scholarly sources that accurately summarize what "most scholars feel". Scholars who study the historical Jesus. As this is what the section is about. I agree with SLR that since we have a section on Christian theology, we should watch out for that POV creeping in to other parts of the article (and I know there is a grey area). I think the general wording in the previous version is along the right lines, and that Ehrman is a good source, and is accurately representing the material. It would be inaccurate to add that this is stuff that only "secular" scholars believe (and I bet you'd find a couple of editors over at "historicity of Jesus" who would scoff at the idea that these sources and that conclusions they draw are "secular", but I guess that is beside the point.)-Andrew c ^[talk] 04:11, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Th section is what critical Biblical scholars think. Christian vis are well-represented in this article. there is no reason to inject them into every section. Ehrmann's views are pretty much mainstream Critical Biblical Scholarship says. That believing Christians, including Christian priests, theologicans, and others who read the NT, think otherwise is fine and is represented in the article. But let's not mix up views. This section is not what Catholic or evangelical scholars think, that belongs in the views of Catholics and evangelicals. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

So like I said, the article should read "most secular biblical scholars" not "most biblical scholars". LewisWasGenius (talk) 17:26, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that the section on the historical-critical Jesus issue should be the domain of atheist scholars and that the views of Christian scholars (who are, of course, the vast majority of biblical scholars) should be ignored. As you can see with the quote I added last night, Ehrman's view on this issue is not quite representative of "most" scholars though maybe most liberal scholars. As my point below mentions, I agree that the views of theologians/priests should not be mentioned here, but the view of scholars (whether Christian or atheist) should be represented here.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

How do you define "secular biblical scholar"? There is a scholar/theologian/priest divide. Within the "scholars" category there is an atheist/Christian divide and a conservative/moderate/liberal divide. I am not sure which type of person you are talking about. I agree that we shouldn't include the views of theologians or priests on this historical-critical question. However, I don't agree that we should only include the views of atheist biblical scholars (like Ehrman). Since I am guessing this isn't what you are advocating for, I am not sure that specifying "secular biblical scholar" versus "biblical scholar" has a whole lot of use.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

The term is "critical," not secular. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you have the point exactly right here.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Roman, my last comment was directed at Slrubenstein, not you. I think you commented while I had the page up, so when I clicked edit and added mine in at the bottom it ended up in the wrong place. My concern is with the attitude that the views of "biblical scholars" and the "Christian viewpoint" are mutually exclusive. Slrubenstein seems to be saying that this section should present exclusively the secular viewpoint, in which case I think that the article should not attributed to "(implied all) biblical scholars". LewisWasGenius (talk) 18:54, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, but I don't agree that the section should present exclusively the views of atheist/agnostic scholars.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but if it is going to do so, then that should be made clear. LewisWasGenius (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I have never said "atheist" and I have never said "secular." I have said "critical." To write, "Slrubenstein seems to be saying that this section should present exclusively the secular viewpoint" after I have repeated that i said "critical, not secular" is not just a non-sequitor, it is unconstructive and disruptive and shows your lack of good faith in trying to improve this article. WP demands that all articles provide multiple views. Two people can be devout Protestants and might share the same view of Protestantis, yet they may have very different views of the Bible. Two people may both have identical views of the Bible, yet one may be Cathokic and another, Protestant. Two people may have the same views of the Bible and one may be Christian, the other atheist. What matters here is not one's views of gOd, or of Christianity, but of how to study the Bible. Let us divide views this way.

Nd it does not mtter whether most Bible scholars are Christian or Atheist. NPOV demands we include all significant views. So the views of critical scholars must stay.

What I am saying is that wll significant views must be respresented, and it is clearer to readers to give each major view its own section or its own parageaph in he lead. We need a section the work of critical Bible scholars. I do not care how many of them are Christian - it could be quite a lot. It doesn't matter. What matters is the view. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:45, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "critical". If you mean "marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws" then this is about the same as "secular", with the inclusion of some liberal Christians. If you mean "characterized by careful evaluation and judgment", then the views of more traditional scholars should be included as well. Are you saying we should have a section for critical scholars as opposed to irrational scholars, or that we should have a section for scholars critical of the Bible as opposed to those favorable towards it? I agree with the second, but think that such a section should be labeled as such. LewisWasGenius (talk) 14:37, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I mean we should have a section for those scholars who identify themselves as critical scholars. There is no need to guess. But if one were to guess, one might say that your definition of "secular" is how many secular people would define "religious" which is why both the words religious and secular are not very helpful here. (of course, a definition that applies to Christians cannot also mean secular, unless you are now using secular in the sese of "secular clergy.') Your second definition is really simply the definition of any kind of scholar, which is why I think it is important to distinguish between critical scholars and Christian scholars. I'c say that Christian scholars make certain assumptions that involve specific theological positions, but I wouldn't for that reason call them "irrational" I am not sure why you do. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether a section for those who exclusively self-identify as "critical scholars" is necessarily what we're looking for, because some scholars who would fall in that range might not use such terminology. Otherwise, I tend to agree with Slrubinstein here that there is some reason to include a separate section for those scholars who either belong to a different, non-Christian, faith tradition and those comparatively modern Christian scholars who may be able to view the matter a bit more objectively and dispassionately than scholars who are more closely tied to their own personal Christian beliefs. John Carter (talk) 18:16, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with John. It would be good to present the perspective of people who take a generally less favorable view of the bible, however, it is problematic to call these "critical scholars" because that term is ambiguous. LewisWasGenius (talk) 19:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew that we shouldn't go into too much depth on this issue here. I think Andrew is right in suggesting that this article shouldn't even deal with the question of authorship of biblical books. There are other issues that are more specific to these topics and this issue should be discussed more there. The section we are talking about here is the view of non-theologian scholars, and as such is directly relevant on the question of the historical legitimacy of some of these claims. To designate this section as the 'skeptics' section, as though this is a similar playing field with the same types of questions as the theology sections, would be to cast doubt on the very legitimacy of these claims. I agree that we should, in this section, include the views of skeptics, although only in so far as their views make up a critical piece of the non-theologian view on this issue. Non-skeptics should be given due weight here as well. I don't agree that we should have a separate section for skeptic scholars and non-skeptic scholars. Since this really should be a pretty small section in the entire article, we should merge the views to describe the view of critical scholarship as a whole, preferably in only a few sentences.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

This is all gotten a bit off topic. I'm confused why we are even discussing scope of this section. It is about the "historical Jesus", meaning the Jesus which can be reconstructed using modern historical methods. There is a large literature on this subject. It is easy to identify the major scholars in this field. It is not broken up into the false dichotomy "skeptical vs. nonskeptical". We have many examples of "believing Christians" who are skeptical over whether historical methods can establish whether certain words or actions can be attributed to the historical Jesus. This seems like an attempt to fit in the POV of biblical literalists into this section. While we can acknowledge there is a small group of conservative scholars who argue most if not all of the gospel accounts are historical, we have to take into consideration weight issues. This simple is not a major force within the field, so in a summary section about the topic, so minor views won't be presented as equals with the mainstream. So, to focus this on content, is there any serious problems with the previous wording which was sourced to Ehrman which was discussing the general difficulties with using the gospels as sources from the POV of a historian? -Andrew c ^[talk] 14:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

What do you want to change?RomanHistorian (talk) 15:15, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

As I see it, the main problems with the current wording are:

• "these scholars have constructed a Jesus different in ways from the common image found in the gospels" is vague. What is the "common image", who are "these scholars", and how is their version "different"?
• "Scholars conclude the authors of the gospels wrote decades after Jesus' crucifixion, in some cases using sources" is also vague. What is the significance of this? What does "in some cases using sources" mean? The real question is whether the authors were in fact eyewitnesses, which is disputed.
• A bit farther down: "The Gospels report that Jesus foretold his own Passion, but the actions of the disciples suggest that it came as a surprise to them." I do not understand the use of "but" here. Are we saying that the fact that the disciples were suprised contradicts the Gospel account?

The previous version had problems with NPOV and confusingly used the term "most critical scholars". LewisWasGenius (talk) 16:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, especially on the NPOV issue.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Ehrman is not reporting his private opinions. He is paraphrasing the consensus that prevails in academia and in mainline seminaries, the very same consensus that one reads about from every major, mainstream historical Jesus scholar (Sanders, Vermes, Theissen, Crossan, etc.). There's a vast gulf between what academics say about the Bible and what lay Christians believe about it, and this gulf creates repeated headaches on WP, as well-meaning editors refuse to believe the academic consensus, or even that there is an academic consensus. As far as the evaluation of the gospels goes, Ehrman is specifically spelling out the reasons why the gospels are not ideal as historical sources: they were written late by non-neutral non-eyewitnesses, with two gospels using a third as a major source. As for the term "critical scholars," it means scholars who employ higher criticism. That's the body of work that Erhman accurately summarizes in his many books. Higher criticism is mainstream, so critical scholars are mainstream scholars are scholars who think that lots of the gospel material is ahistorical. It must be hard to find out that your views on the Bible are at odds with the academic consensus, and I can't think of a good way to make it any easier. Leadwind (talk) 03:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Founder of a Jewish restoration movement

From what I know, the idea of earthly Jesus as a political leader is not shared by "most contemporary scholars", besides that actually repeats the previous sentence. This misleading mob believe ultimately evolved into a well-known charge of anti-Roman sedition and execution as alleged "King of the Jews". Deserves a chop out. Twilightchill t 18:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I cannot find anything in he lead that says he was a political leader. As to leader of a Jewish restoration movement, perhaps you do not understand what that phras means. As to your second sentence I must say I read it three times and still have no clue what you are trying to say. If English is not your native language maybe a friend can help explains things to you/review what you wrote - or you can work on the Wikipedia in your own language. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:56, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

There are no historical evidences that Jesus belonged to the Jewish restoration movement or that he was the King of the Jews. These charges were brought up by mob to influence Pilate's decision. The canonical gospels mention "Render unto Caesar..." in particularly, showing that Jesus had nothing against Romans per se. Not to mention, that he was building the future non-Jewish Christian Church institute. Twilightchill t 09:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The leading description in contemporary historical Jesus research says that Jesus led a Jewish restoration movement (see esp. Sanders). Leadwind (talk) 02:42, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Disputed vs. debated

I'd like to open this change up for feedback. I believe that "debated" is unnecessarily vague here. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 00:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

"Disputed" is better. There is, for example, no "debate" about whether the two contradictory birth narratives are historical. Historians agree that they're not. If non-historians or sectarian historians think they are historical, that disagreement doesn't amount to a "debate," just a refusal to go along with the academic consensus. Leadwind (talk) 02:39, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is an interesting take on the so called "academic consensus" that keeps coming up. [2] Hardyplants (talk) 03:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I can understand why academic consensus is the last thing a minority-view editor wants to hear about, but if you want WP to be based on something other than academic consensus, then that's a conversation for another page, not this one. Leadwind (talk) 04:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you miss the point, the academic consensus you are referring to is narrow group that is based on self references to each other. It does not acknowledge that more scholars hold other views. Hardyplants (talk) 04:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

That's like saying that the scientific consensus on evolution is just a narrow group based on self references to each other: they're called biologists. To their permanent shame, they completely ignore the religious leaders who deny evolution!

Note that there is a dispute, but no genuine debate. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:58, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No, there is no genuine debate within the scientific community about evolution, except maybe how fast it can occur or how any one specific taxon has evolved. Hardyplants (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

But there is no such consensus about Biblical matters, we should present the major different views and not use a "so called" consensus to exclude other major view points. Hardyplants (talk) 05:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

That's like saying there is no consensus about evolution because scientists and ministers don't agree!

There is a consensus. In fact, there is one consensus among secular/progressive scholars and an entirely different one among biblical literalists. This is the case for both evolution and the historical accuracy of the Bible. In both, there is a dispute that is not amenable to debate because the literalists have a prior commitment. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 06:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Your incorrect, there are many different and contradictory view points among "secular/progressive scholars", If the so called consensus was as monolithic as you seem to believe it is, these contradictory view points on just about every major topic they study would no exist, the field is ripe with mostly speculation. Hardyplants (talk) 07:17, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

There is debate among them, but only dispute between them and the literalists. As a parallel, consider the fact that there is much debate among biologists about the details of how evolution works but only dispute between them and the denialists. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 07:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure you understand the topic if you believe that it is a strictly ether/or issue, seems to be a straw-man argument. Hardyplants (talk) 07:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Hardyplants is right that there is no consensus on some topics, such as whether Jesus expected an imminent apocalypse. Jesus Seminar says no, the majority says yes, but there's no consensus. On the topic of whether either of the incredible and contradictory birth narratives is historical, yes, there's consensus because there's no historical reason to credit either one and reasons to doubt each. As good editors, we should differentiate for our gentle readers between details on which there's consensus (Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, not the way Luke says, nor the way Matthew says) and details on which there isn't (did he think the world was about to end?). Leadwind (talk) 14:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

First, there isn't a consensus that the infancy narratives are ahistorical amongst critical scholars, although they are probably the most heavily doubted. Many scholars accept different parts as historical (such as the claim that Jesus was born when Herod was tetrarch but not when Quirinius was governor of Syria), while others accept them outright and attempt to show that they don't contradict (in ways that are sometimes conjectural and sometimes not). My point is that there is no "consensus" even with regards to the infancy narratives, not unless you restrict the scope of what constitutes a "scholar" sufficiently enough to leave out most scholars. Second, this is a bit of an extreme example, as no sections in the gospels (nor probably the entire New Testament) are doubted as heavily as these. Most debated sections aren't as disputed as these.RomanHistorian (talk) 15:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 23:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As I was the one who made the change originally, I would like to restore it, although I can't tell above what the consensus is. It's not a huge deal, but I do think the original is better. I don't see a material difference between the two versions, other than the original is more reflective of the debate. "Disputed" versus "debated" mean the same thing in this context, although "debated" is a more neutral term. Both mean there is disagreement and doubt, though not a consensus (nor even a majority view) that all "disputed" sections are questionable. Maybe in some sections many (either a majority or minority of) scholars dispute claims (either for or against), but in others scholars "debate" whether a section might have been 'colored' or 'shaped' in a particular way, while in others a minority of scholars disagree amongst themselves on various points. I don't see what the issue is with that change. As for "different" versus "some", they also mean the same thing. The only difference is that "different" suggests that different scholars see different parts of the New Testament as useful. Even different skeptics disagree amongst themselves as to what is useful. Many of these sections are accepted by other scholars. "Some" implies that there are some parts with a consensus, but the scope is limited to this. "Different" implies that there is consensus on some parts, and majority-agreement on others, while others are accepted variously by different scholars.RomanHistorian (talk) 15:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd hate to seem contrary, but I felt compelled to revert [this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jesus&action=historysubmit&diff=394181442&oldid=394178250] bold edit. It's the second one in the last day, so I'm going to put away my revert-o-gun before open warfare breaks out, but both of these edits were bold and biased.

Jesus is a sensitive subject, so those who make bold changes, especially the sort that alter the balance of the article, really shouldn't be at all surprised or hurt when their changes are initially rejected. In fact, it may well be a good idea for them to first bring up their proposed changes here, just to save some wear-and-tear on the article history (not to mention those revert-o-guns). What's it going to take to shift editing of this article more towards a consensus basis than "what can I get away with this time"? Dylan Flaherty (talk) 20:58, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to undo your change, for obvious reasons. I think we should have other people weigh in on this. The two reversions are here and here. I think these (or some modified form of them) should be included in the article. They are certainly relevant to the topic. For the first edit, the paragraph discusses the distance between eyewitnesses and the writing of the gospels. The fact that many scholars hold that the writers may have been eyewitnesses or close to them is certainty relevant. I worded it to include scholars who doubt the traditional authorship, but hold that the authors were part of some apostolic community (such as the "Johnnie Community") and thus were writing in a manner the apostles may have once taught. It is certainly true that many scholars hold this view. Actually I think a decent majority of scholars hold to either the traditional view, or that the traditional view was wrong but that the authors were linked in some way to the apostles. I don't think this edit should be controversial. As for the second, I added it because the first part of the paragraph inferred that the historical Jesus people were trying to draw a picture of the "real" Jesus, whereas the second part of the paragraph juxtaposed against the first half infers that either the historical or theological Jesus were the "true" Jesus. I don't think this is a controversial point either. The historical Jesus people are drawing a picture that isn't intended to be theological. They aren't concluding that the theology is false, nor are they even addressing the question. They are concluding all that ordinary historical methods could conclude without the introduction of supernatural explanations.

What does everyone else think?RomanHistorian (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Roman, on the one hand, I'm very glad you were willing to come to Talk and explain your edit, whereas RossNixon simply edit-warred. On the other, you're cheating by canvassing for supportive editors. Is this the Christian thing to do? Does our Bible teach us to lie and cheat to get our way? Think it over. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know there was any problem with "canvasing". I assumed it was preferable to letting this sit here and get little attention.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You did it twice. And please don't pretend to be ignorant of the rules. You've been here much, much longer than I have. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 06:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

No, you did it three times, and each one was targeted because of their history of favoring your views. This is a clear violation. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 06:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

As one of the three, I must say I've been staying away from this article because it's unlikely to be dealt with properly without the full-time attention of more than one editor. I really don't have time to determine whether disputed or debated, or some or different, is a better phrasing, sorry. Roman's first insertion is a sourced and necessary POV, the second one is not sourced and might not fit its section. The notifications are not a clear violation of canvassing because there is a continuum and they meet two points (limited, neutral) and fail two points (partisan, unannounced). Nor am I going to guess how long Dylan has been here. It is better to pick battles carefully, and I'd say start an RFC if you want more input. JJB 00:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

El Papa

I just removed a paragraph about what the Pope thinks, because he is not an expert on history or historical research. His expertise is on Christianity and as an authority on Catholicism. I have no objection to including his view but it belongs in "religious views." Slrubenstein | Talk 20:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, he certainly wasn't speaking ex cathedra, but on the other hand, it's not like he's some layman sharing an irrelevant opinion. As Farsight points out below, he's talking about the impact of historians upon our modern view of Jesus.

I'll see if it works in the section you recommended. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

If you read the comment carefully, he was not actually commenting on history, but rather of the usefulness of historians' modern research in understanding scripture. That is, at least, the impression I got from it. Though I'm not really for or against inclusion of the paragraph anyway.Farsight001 (talk) 20:49, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

"he's talking about the impact of historians upon our modern view of Jesus" - the question is, who aqre you referring to when you say "our?" Certainly not mine. I would bet that for many Jews the Jesus portrayed by modern historians is far more meaningful and engaging than the Jesus of the NT. Benedict dos not have to be speaking ex cathedra, he is speaking as the leader of the Catholic Church and his views are that of a Catholic. I am not sure they belong here either - maybe in an articel on critical scholarship on Jesus there can be a section on Christian responses where this quote would fit. But it does not ad to our understanding of the historian's view of Jesus at all. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:10, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Scholars conclude.. gospels written xx-100AD

Several days ago I made a bold edit to Jesus#Historical_views, changing the date range of 70-100AD to 50-100AD. Andrew C rightly reverted this as I had not justified the change. When checking for supporting evidence, I found that Acts_of_the_Apostles#Date (ref #13)had a good reference, http://www.errantskeptics.org/DatingNT.htm, citing dozens of scholars dates for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Based on the average date given for each Gospel, which was 65AD for the synoptics and 86AD for John, I changed the date range to 60-100AD. For an unknown reason, my edit summary was deemed insufficient for Dylan Flaherty, who said "here comes the expected reversion". I restored my edit with further explanation in the edit summary, but apparently this also was not good enough and I was now "practically edit warring". Does anyone have any problem with my current edit, or this explanation? Thanks. ^rossnixon 02:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

As you said, it was a bold edit. When you make a bold edit, you are acting in advance of consensus, hoping it will support you. When it doesn't, you fully expect to have your bold work reverted, giving you a chance to explain yourself in Discussion and try to gain a consensus. That's BRD in a nutshell and we're following it now. However, you weren't following it when you reverted back to your rejected version instead of coming here to explain it. Reverting instead of discussing is, as I suggested, a bad step towards edit-warring. And, no, when you're the bold editor, edit comments are not sufficient for discussion.

I looked at your source and did not find it to be reliable. It is an apologetics web site, and is neither scholarly nor objective. It provides a highly non-random sampling of dates, which allowed you to cherry-pick a fringe view to support. Note that we don't use averaging because it gives undue weight to fringe views. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 13:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

What is our source for the later date? LewisWasGenius (talk) 14:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I like to imagine that Wikipedia is to some extent self-consistent, so I started by looking at the primary location of this information. The section there dates it as no earlier than 60, and possibly later than 100. The estimates in the first half of the 60's are so far on the edge that they need to be attributed to a specific pair of individuals, and anything predating them has been removed as fringe. The range of 70 to 100 is pretty mainstream. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 23:47, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

There are two problems with that. First, we do not use Wikipedia as a source. We can, of course, use the sources of Wikipedia. Secondly, the article you linked to dates Acts, not the gospels. There is a table in Dating the Bible, but it does not seem to have good sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Acts is contemporaneous with the gospels (as it was written by the author of Luke) and is what Ross brought up. However, you're right that we should focus on the gospels themselves, and also that we should look at that Wikipedia link only as a summary of reliable sources, not as a source in itself.

To that end, I recommend, this section, which covers the gospels and has no shortage of reliable sources cited. It supports the 70-100 range. The earliest date mentions is 60, and only in the context of being an extreme view. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 01:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I just checked my source again, following a link on their fron t page, it states "In a court of law the testimony of one expert is often offset by another with a differing opinion. The same thing happens in the academic community as to when the New Testament books were written. However, in the court of public opinion the testimony of several hundred New Testament scholars far outweighs the opinions of radical scholars, skeptics and nonbelievers. We have provided the opinions of several hundred conservative and liberal scholars in the links below to establish the weight of theological opinion against radical views as to when the New Testament books were penned." ^rossnixon 01:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I assume then we agree that a source that uses argumentum ad populum and that attacks opponents with a an ad-hominem is inherently dubious? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I see your point. To establish a date range, all relevant scholars should be consulted. However this would only extend the second date (100AD), as they prefer later datings. It would not alter the earlier datings close to 60AD, which have substantial support. Can anyone suggest reliable scholars that would extend the second date to 110AD? ^rossnixon 01:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Where did you get 50 from? Dylan Flaherty (talk) 01:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Purely from memory. But I'm not pushing for that. Instead I'm pushing for liberal and conservative's average dates to be included. From my reference above, some scholars support 37-50 for some gospels; but the averages are Matthew 65.9, Mark 67.9, Like 67.9, John 86.3. So if we are rounding figures and wanting to include most views, then 60-100AD is reasonable. ^rossnixon 02:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is this isn't a "present both sides as equal" situation. This is, open up a text book by a conservative Catholic scholar and you'll find the "consensus" view that Mark was written around 70, and Matt. and Luke 10-20 years later, and John a bit after that. Source: Raymond Brown's Introduction to the New Testament. This can be confirmed in other texts, such as Meier, Ehrman, Harris, Koester, et al. Yes, there is an extreme conservative sect arguing for earlier dates, and yes the liberal John Robinson argued for earlier dates, but we have to consider weight here. There are also very liberal scholars who argue for 2nd century dates (not to mention some of the myth people) should we include their views as well, if we are including the fringe conservatives? No, we should not go into that much detail in this article, and just list the mainstream, majority view, as found in normal texts. -Andrew c ^[talk] 02:51, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Just a minor note: in a section named Historical views the history scholars' view is the topic of interest, and anyone agreeing or disagreeing with them might be interested in what those scholars say, and oppose to that. This means that criticisms against some common historician view can also be mentioned in that section, but after the scholar opinion, up to and including "conservative sects" and "popular view". Everything must be sourced and NPOV balanced as usual. As usual Wikipedia is neutral, although we individual editors might snicker spitefully for various reasons. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 11:23, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Re JAT Robinson, here's a citation that might be useful for putting his work in context. "[H]is later books, which argue that all the Gospels, incl. Jn., are very early, have not carried widespread conviction." "Robinson, John Arthur Thomas." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005. Robinson gets mentioned over and over on WP pages because he made the boldest and best attempt to establish the gospels as early and apostolic, but he failed. Leadwind (talk) 15:32, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a good contribution. NPOV requires us to include all significant views including majority and minority ones, so I do not object to including Robinson - I think we should include him - but we need to make clear it is a minority view and this quote from this source does a fine job of establishing that. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should mention the outer limits as well.-Civilizededucation^talk 17:13, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, as long as they are significant and we have a reliable source that enables us to identify the view as mainstream, majority, or minority. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Offensive Picture at bottom of page

I've just noticed a picture at the bottom of the page of a donkey, with the caption "A photograph of Muhammad." I'm new to editing really, so I can't remove the photo... can someone else please remove it, as it is pretty offensive. -User:TheLastSamurai101 —Preceding undated comment added 05:28, 11 November 2010 (UTC).

Good call. The same pic has also been transcluded to a number of other articles too. I tried to remove it but could not figure out the way to do it. Reported it at WP:AN/I.-Civilizededucation^talk 07:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't see the picture you are referring to. Has it already been removed? Wdford (talk) 16:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it was formerly on the Prophets in the Qur'an template, and so appeared in all articles that used the template. Paul B (talk) 18:18, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 24.180.173.157, 20 November 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Please change the following baised wordings

Change "Many scholars hold that the writers of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John were either apostles and eyewitness to Jesus' ministry and death, or were close to those who had been." to Some scholars hold that the writers of the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John were either apostles and eyewitness to Jesus' ministry and death, or were close to those who had been.

FF Bruce is cited twice and Lee Strobel is not a reliable source as he is mostly an apologist with no contribution to scholarship on the historical Jesus. Please remove him.

"Scholars also hold that many of these works were likely written down during Jesus' ministry or shortly after his crucifixion while other works came from eyewitnesses who testified to the writers of the gospels"

Few believe that they were written during Jeus' ministry and it is debatable if the author had access to eye-witness. We should not use Bruce and Gregory like they represent the majority.

24.180.173.157 (talk) 15:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

We recently went through all this, without ever reaching a fully satisfactory solution. The inherent problem is with the definition of "scholars". It might be best to write "secular scholars". If we're just going to say "scholars" without qualifying it, then a lot more than "some" believe that the gospels were written by Apostles or close associates. As to the second, good catch. As far as I know nobody thinks that they were written during Jesus's ministry. "Shortly after his crucifixion" needs to be clarified. Do we mean "a few years" or "a few decades"? LewisWasGenius (talk) 16:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Here we go again. When even the best authors hold minority views, it's only fair that we label them as minority views. The stuff coming from IVP, etc., is promotional in nature and doesn't represent the majority view. It's fine to have it in here as long as it's balanced fairly against the majority viewpoint. Leadwind (talk) 17:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that we don't even know what the majority/minority views are. Whenever these issues come up, the text in question is usually cited to one the same few scholars on each side, who all tend to present their view as the majority one. What is our basis for even making statements about "some", "most", or "many" scholars? LewisWasGenius (talk) 18:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The requested change should not happen until a consensus is reached.   — Jeff G.  ツ 18:44, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Can we atleast tag it with a NPOV or Undue weight tag? 24.180.173.157 (talk) 03:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

There is some confusion as to how "majority" views are determined. Defenders of minority views will tell you that we shouldn't even try to determine what the majority views are, but they can't cite policy to back themselves up. The actual policy is to be found on WP:WEIGHT. We use commonly accepted reference works to determine the majority view, and we give the majority view favored treatment. Until we've determined the majority view, we can't even balance the article's secondary sources correctly. Leadwind (talk) 15:57, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

higher criticism and Christian scripture

This whole section needs work as it, predictably, leans far to the traditional in terms of its scholarly balance. Defenders of the Christian POV have put in a lot of material here about the purity of the NT works, but that's a tangent. The integrity of the texts doesn't guarantee anything like their historicity. I suppose the idea is that if we say something nice about the NT and nothing bad, then that's a win for the pro-Christian side. The real question is: how much of what the NT says about Jesus is historical? Or, what does higher criticism say about the NT? We should lay out the majority view here, as determined by the historical-critical method: lots of books weren't written by who we traditionally thought wrote them, some of the books are forgeries (written under a false name), all the books contain early Christian elaboration that's not authentic to Jesus, the books contradict each other on issues such as whether Jesus suffered on the cross and whether one is saved through Christ's atoning sacrifice or by God's forgiveness, etc. And we should also lay out all the positive stuff: there really was a Jesus who was baptized by John, had disciples, preached the coming kingdom, etc.

We should also let the minority make it's case strongly, that John really did write John after all, etc. And the minority view should get minority-view treatment.

This is yet another section where the clear majority view is obscured in favor of tangential information that's less threatening to a minority POV. Leadwind (talk) 17:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

What is your basis for saying that those things are the majority and minority views? They may well be, but if so we need to be able to reliably source that here. LewisWasGenius (talk) 18:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:WEIGHT. We determine majority views by what we find in commonly accepted reference texts. We balance relative weight among competing views by referring to disinterested secondary and tertiary sources. In particular, I use university-level textbooks (Harris, Theissen & Merz) and Encyclopedia Britannica Online, which line up nicely with secondary-sources: Sanders, Vermes, Ehrman, etc. Leadwind (talk) 15:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I was just wondering what our "commonly accepted reference texts" were. Up to now I have mainly seen citations from people like Ehrman or Strobel, who are hardly neutral or authoritative. LewisWasGenius (talk) 01:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a good question. The whole point of commonly accepted reference texts is to provide the right context for secondary sources such as Ehrman and Strobel. I use Encyclopedia Britannica Online and Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. For balance issues, I also use the textbooks I have. Leadwind (talk) 02:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Colterne, 21 November 2010

{{edit semi-protected}}

Please add the following two books and one link to the references section and external links section respectively. Thank you so much.

• Damon W. K. So, Jesus' Revelation of His Father: A Narrative-Conceptual Study of the Trinity with Special Reference to Karl Barth. (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006). ISBN 184227323X
• Damon W. K. So, The Forgotten Jesus and the Trinity You Never Knew. (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2010). ISBN 9781608996315

• Meditation on Jesus and other resources by Damon So

Colterne (talk) 00:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Thanks, but as described in the linked guidelines, the References section is only for listing sources that have been used to create or verify the content of the article, and External links should be few and should be supported by talk page consensus. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 01:42, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

trimming skeptical material

I'm trimming material that's outside the majority view in an effort to give proper weight (esp. not too much weight to a minority viewpoint). So for example all the stuff about Price thinking maybe Jesus wasn't executed during Pontius Pilate's term, it doesn't deserve coverage unless some good, disinterested tertiary source tells us that it's really a live issue in the field. See WP:BALANCE. Leadwind (talk) 02:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

This also falls under WP:FRINGE. Twilightchill t 00:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Legacy

Can we either get rid of this section altogether, or restore the version that existed a cople of years ago which at least was concrete and included negative with positive?

• Through the Christian faith, Jesus has had a direct impact on Western culture and an indirect impact on many other cultures.[citation needed] - well, Jesus and Christianity were originally Eastern; why not say he had a direct impact on Eastern cultures? Also, this sentence is about Christianity, not Jesus - okay, but then lets say a bit more about the ngative influence of Christianity.
• Today many followers of other religions also know about Jesus, and his teachings, such as the "Golden Rule" influence them.[citation needed] - a pretty banal sentence that communicates very little, especially as Jesus's golden rule was just one version of a verse from the Hebrew Bible many Jews it seems considered very important. If we want to talk about Jesus' legacy (rather than Moses's, or the Jews') isn't it his "turn the other cheek" philosophy that distinguishes him from Jewish beliefs?
• For scholars, Jesus is a leading figure of the past. - reaaaaaaalllllly? I would say that specialists in 1st century Judea and Galilea consider him to have been highly memorable among his followers, but not a leading figure. I am sure many people do think he was a leading figure of his day, just not historians. At best this is a deceptive sentence.
• Most people's deeper interest in the life and teachings of Jesus springs not from historical study, but from faith in the present Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world.[234] - isn't this like saying that most Christians believe in Christianity? I mean, really? You may as well just say, "most people who are interested in Jesus are Christian," another banal statement.

This paragraph is pretty uninformative and unencyclopedic. I was fine with the section the way it was, ut if others were not, well, nothing is better than this. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:29, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Something like Cultural influence would look nice, then it would be possible to briefly describe his impact on history and popular culture. Twilightchill t 07:59, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I reverted to a previous version, as the current one was even worse. And yes, it is unencyclopedic as it stands. I have no complaints if it is removed. ^rossnixon 02:13, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I am for removing it. Any poossible cultural influence of Jesus is essentially the influence of Christianity. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Unilateral deletion of etching by Adi Holzer

Adi Holzer is per German Wikipedia notable. There is no policy that I know of that says a picture illustrating a topic must be by a notable artist. If that were the case many of our illustrations/photographs would have to be removed. How many Wikipedia photographs are by "notable" photographers? Very few. If the etching is removed it should be removed with editor discussion and agreement.

I see that several articles have added pics of works by Holzer [3], so there should be discussion on whether the pics are useful despite the possibility that they may be promotional.(olive (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC))

In almost all of the articles where they were added, the pictures seem to have little or nothing to do with the text in which they are placed. The images seem to be added by this user, so perhaps we should get his input. I am all for keeping them if they illustrate a point made in the article, but in most cases these do not seem to do so. LewisWasGenius (talk) 21:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Information

All Christian mythology aside, did Jesus actually exist (based on scientific evidence)? And if so, what did he do? Was he really a man with morals far ahead of his time? - 93.97.255.48 (talk) 18:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

By scientifically, do you mean, "we've found hard evidence?" Not really (but there hard evidence isn't for a lot of people, we don't have the bones of Genghis Khan or the tomb of Alexander the Great). But considering how hard it was to spread information back then, it'd be hard for a large number of people to become convinced in the existence of someone that was made up within a century; and Occam's razor would go with "there probably was some guy named Jesus from Nazareth, because that has less holes than the idea of a group of people making him up and fervantly convincing a bunch of people of his existence in a couple of decades."

The gospels actually do have to be used as a source of information about Jesus, and that's not a Christian claim, any more than claiming that the Dhammapada has to be used as a source of information Siddhartha Gautama is a Buddhist claim, because it's close to contemporary and reflects what was believed at the time. This doesn't mean the source is taken wholesale as history, but what's in the gospels that can be found in history are accepted as probable. For example, the gospels claim Jesus wandered around Judea preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven, and there are records that people that wandered around preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven in first century Judea, so it's quite possible that Jesus did that. The gospels say he was cruficied, and we have hard evidence that the Romans crucified plenty of people, so we can assume he was crucified at some point. Whether he was God is not a historical matter (since history is incapable of making a statement either way), it's a matter of faith.

The question of "morals far ahead of his time" assumes that true morality exists, that it can be defined, that it has been defined, that it can be quantified, and that it advances over time. That question cannot be answered without dealing with those obstacles first. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Very well said, although we should be careful not to turn this into a forum. Dylan Flaherty 20:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I figured a detailed answer instead of pointing to the FAQ would result in less off-topic discussion. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed and very much appreciated. Dylan Flaherty 20:24, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

As the article says "the historicity of Jesus is accepted by almost all Biblical scholars and classical historians". This is true even among non-Christians and atheist scholars. The idea that an historical Jesus did not exist has very little scholarly repute. If it's not a fringe theory, it's pretty darn close. Mamalujo (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Dylan Flaherty 20:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The opening few paragraphs of the "Historicity" section are confusing. The article should clarify right away which scholars (or schools of thought) hold this view and what distinguishes it from the "Jesus of the Gospels" Ekulio (talk) 04:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Possible year of death

On the last sentence of the section it says "Most Christians commemorate the crucifixion on Good Friday and celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday." While true, a citation is needed for this. Also, I think it would be correct to change the wording to "Many Christians commemorate..." Again, only a source would be good enough, but as far as I know, only Catholics and a few Protestants actually commemorate Good Friday. Wingtipvortex (talk) 16:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary to show this since those holidays commemorate the death and resurrection by definition. It would be more appropriate (and simpler) to reword it to something like "Good Friday is the traditional day to commemorate Jesus' death, and Easter Sunday to commemorate his resurrection" and cite sources to that effect. You can pretty much just use the dictionary. Ekulio (talk) 05:06, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't Catholics make up the majority of Christians? I mean, given the population of Catholics is 1.166 billion alone.... OneofLittleHarmony (talk) 04:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Zubair71

The user is trying to force an Islamic POV on the article, which is not acceptable. The user is implying that Christians are mushrekin because they believe in the Trinity, which means the user has absolutely no clue what Trinity means. --λⲁⲛτερⲛιξ^[talk] 17:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I think Zubair71 is quite right. Instead, the other three editors are trying to force their POVs to include some misguiding material in islamic views section. I support changes done by Zubair71.

--Danieltommy 22:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Well Danieltommy, please tell us specifically what material currently in the article is misguiding? Also, can you be specific about what is missing? A vague comment is hardly constructive. So far, no one - including Zibair71 - has explained what is wrong ith the current version. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:09, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Lanternix or User:--λⲁⲛτερⲛιξ

Absolutely not. I did'nt force any POV on the article against its spirit. I just include that content which is relevant to the title "Islamic Views" about Jesus. Lanternix (--λⲁⲛτερⲛιξ) may not agree with "Islamic Views" and "Judaism Views" and many other paragraphs of this article, but he/she should not spoil the spirit of the article and its paragraphs. Anybody can see, that its Lanternix (--λⲁⲛτερⲛιξ) who is trying to vandalize the article. --Zubair71User_talk:Zubair71 16:15, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I reverted your change. I did so for two reasons. First, you inserted material about Islamic views before the "Islaic views" section. This is redundant and wastes space in a long rticle. All material on Islamic views belongs in the Islamic views section.

Second, I removed this sentence: "Islam forbid the association of partners or relatives with the almighty God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd)." Here is why: the sentence is about Islam, not about jesus. ince the article already makes it very clear that Islam views Jesus as a man and prophet, it is clear to all readers that islam does not view Jesus as a partner or relative of God. Again, this sentences is unnecessary and wastes space in an already long article.

Zubair71, your edit has ben rejected now by at least three different editors. Are you at all familiar with th BRD process at Wikipedia? It is now clear to you that your edit goes against consensus. The burden is now upon you to change the minds of other editors through reasoned discussion on the talk page. If you cannot convince other editors to support your proposed changes, then the article will not change, plain and simple. If you can convince other editors, or reach a compromise, we will change the article. It now all depends on your ability to engage in a collaborative dialogue with other editors on this talk page.

I sincerely hope you will not simply continue to impose your change on the article ... the only people who do things like that are disruptive editors and trolls. I sure hope this is not true about you! Slrubenstein | Talk 12:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi all. I am Gao Wei from China. I want to say something regarding debate on this section of the article Jesus. As the section title is islamic views, hence let moslims give their POV. If Slrubenstein has any objection on this one sentence "Islam forbid the association of partners or relatives with the almighty God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd)", then remove this one sentence only and don't revert the whole section islamic views. Slrubenstein is trying to impose her POV in this section. Other edits done by Zubair71 are very true and realistic, thanks. 郜伟,中国 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.80.149.146 (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There were no other changes, except to repeat a point already made. Please specify: in the current version, what important fact about the Islamic view of jesus is actually missing? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:08, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein please compare both, the present section islamic views and the edits done by Zubair71. You reverted and removed more than 5 important sentences edited by Zubair71. I think you can just remove that one sentence ... "Islam forbid the association of partners or relatives with the almighty God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd)" ... and keep other edits by Zubair71. May be he will be satisfied to end this debate? thanks. 郜伟,中国 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.80.149.146 (talk) 15:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course I compared both and as I already told you, in my view those five sentences were NOT important because they either repeated invormation already in the article, or introduced unnecessary material. Am i wrong? maybe, but you will have to convince me. Try convincing me. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Again, in their changes to the article some Muslim users here are trying to allude to some accusations against Christianity and Christians that are NOT TRUE and REJECTED BY CHRISTIANS Specifically, by saying that "Islam forbid the association of partners or relatives with the almighty God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd)" they are implying that Christians are mushrekin, which is simply NOT TRUE! I studied Islam and Christianity extensively, I know very much about both religions, I speak Arabic as first language, I read the Holy Bible 4 times and I read the Quran twice. I know very well what I am talking about. If you want a lesson about Trinity in Christianity I would be happy to give you one. However, rest assured that we Christians believe in ONE GOD, and we do NOT believe that God had sex and had a son, as the Quran wrongly implies out of lack of knowledge from whomever wrote it. Plus, as Slrubenstein already explained, that sentence does not directly deal with Jesus in Islam; it's just one more offense against Christianity and - this time - placed in the wrong place. --λⲁⲛτερⲛιξ^[talk] 18:59, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Lanternix, your arguments really are not relevant here, they are a distraction from the main point. "Islam forbid the association of partners or relatives with the almighty God (shirk), emphasizing the notion of God's divine oneness (tawhīd)" is simply NOT about Islamic views of Jesus; th rticle maks clear Muslims think Jesus was a prophet. This statement is perhaps about Islamic views of Christianity and it dos not matter whether the view is correct or incorrect (no editors' views ever go into an article so it doesn't matter how many times you reead the Quran or the Bible, you are practically confssing to violationg NOR) - any and all discusion belong in an article that addresses Islam's view of Christianity. This is not that article. Please stop bringing this up; it only leads to a pointlss tangent. Just drop it.

The only question is whether Zubair added anything new and relevant to Islam's view of Jesus 郜伟,中国 says yes. Well, let's see specifically what that is? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Christmas

The article says that most of the east has adopted christmas to be on december 25, except for armenia. This is obviously a lie, since the eastern orthodox church celebrates christmas on the 7 of january. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.72.135.166 (talk) 12:34, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not kno who originally added this to the article. But I checked the source (The Catholic Encyclopedia) and the source does not support hat we had in our article. I rewrote the sentence to reflect more accurately the main points of the CE article. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit request)

{{edit semi-protected}} Please change "setled" under Chronology>Possible year of birth (2nd paragraph, toward the middle) to "settled", as the former is a spelling error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk • contribs)

Done. Thanks for catching it. --Nlu (talk) 11:22, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

"Salvation" & "reconciliation" in lede

If one is not familiar with Christian theology, what could one make of:

"who provided salvation and reconciliation

?

I find these terms somewhat unclear - and even the links they point to give several interpretations of their meanings. Readers should not need to follow links to understand what sentences in the lede mean - particularly not when more specific language is available. One common conception is that he atoned for the original sin of Adam & "opened" the way to eternal life in heaven with God. As far as I understand, this is common to all major branches of Xty. More specific language is needed to make the lede understandable to non-Xns and to keep it from sounding like jargon and/or a Xn tract. --JimWae (talk) 19:48, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

According to the person who reintroduced these terms into the lede "these terms are not vague, they're specifically defined ideas in theology" -- which seems to be an acknowledgement that the terms have been specifically defined for a Christian context.--JimWae (talk) 20:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "atoned for the original sin of Adam" is any more clear to someone unfamiliar with Christian theology than are "salvation and reconciliation". carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 20:15, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

According to WP:JARGON: "Avoid introducing too many new words for the purpose of "teaching the reader some new words" that are specialized to a field, when more common alternates will do. Wikilinking as a mechanism for explanation (rather than a parenthetical in the article) is poor form, especially if done repeatedly." The lede is supposed to be the most accessible part of the article. While "atonement" is also part of Xn theology, it is not jargon because it is being used in the same sense as the ordinary sense of the word.--JimWae (talk) 20:19, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Your logic is that because the words are wikilinked, the reader needs to access those articles to understand them? That's absurd. You will find numerous wikilinks in many introductory paragraphs. ParaRaride (talk) 21:20, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

No, try reading my comments again. The meanings of these words are clear only when used within a Xn context (and even there we have some different interpretations) - not to an international reader. Anyway, such detailed theology ought not be in the 2nd sentence of the article, and the crucifixion is much more appropriate for the 1st paragraph of a general-audience encyclopedia. --JimWae (talk) 21:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

It is not "detailed theology", it explains why Jesus is notable, because Christians believe him to be the savior of the world. Details such as the crucifixion are not as important as this point. ParaRaride (talk) 00:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Savior of the world, eh? Without further knowledge of Christianity, there is no evidence of anything that the world needs saving from, and how Jesus can help. Christians who write this stuff really need to step outside their cliched world. HiLo48 (talk) 01:58, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The crucifixion serves to identify him. He is notable because so many believe that he was God & that he rose from the dead. The detailed theology is Xn exegesis, this is not a Christian encyclopedia, and Xn exegesis ought not be the 2nd sentence. Outside Xn theology, "Saviour of the world" is unclear, as are salvation & reconciliation.--JimWae (talk) 01:43, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with JimWae and Hilo on this one. The extra wording about reconciliation is unclear, and only understandable if you already grasp the concepts, which are reasonably specific to Christianity. Without them, the article seems to make perfectly clear why Jesus is notable without drowning the reader in jargon. @Bunderson or any other editor intent on including that info in the lead, is there another way you can rephrase the content which gets your message across without those issues? Jess_talk|_edits 06:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Personally I'm not tied to the current wording; I just question whether talking about original sin, as Jim suggests, is any clearer to non-Christians. I'm open to changes, but I don't know if that one is an improvement. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 07:42, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

As far as I was aware, the current proposal is to simply remove the section on salvation and reconciliation as here. Perhaps I misunderstood. Are we still considering talking about original sin in the lead? If so, do we have specific wording to propose? Jess_talk|_edits 07:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Please remember that this article is about Jesus, not Christianity. I cefrtainly agree that Jesus is notable principally because of Christianity, and I have restored an earlier version of the first paragraph that summarized the views of the three Abrahamic religions. This version states that most Christians agree he was the son of God and God incarnate. It seems to me that these two claims are enough to explain why Christians consider Jesus important. I am not saying these are the only reasons, just sufficient for the purposes of the first paragraph. As for the later paragraph, in the intro, that goes into more detail on Christian belief, I urge all editors to remember that this is a long article and that we cannot put in everything - not even everything we consider important (surely, there are many who consider every detail of the Gospels equally important and I won't argue with them - I just don't think this article can or should go into such detail). This article has, for as long as I can remember, striven to stick close to elements of the Gospels and those things most Christians agree on and the minimum necessary to establish Jesus's notability. We should have a prominent link to Christology and traditionally, this article has emphasized the "Jesus" and that article has emphasized "the Christ" since one article cannot cover everything. Please bear this in mind when editing this article - what content is more about Christianity, or more about Christ? Such things fit beterinto these other articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Jesus is notable because Christians believe he saved the world, not because he died and rose again. Believing someone rising from the dead does not make them notable, as there are numerous narratives about people rising from the dead in the Bible. ParaRaride (talk) 03:58, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Saved the world from what? My understanding is that he allegedly saved it from something else that it part of Christian belief, but not a globally known fact. You cannot define a religion in terms of another piece of theology. It has to be an explanation that works for someone who knows nothing of Christianity and has no relevant beliefs. HiLo48 (talk) 04:08, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Nicene-based groups

"and not all Nicene-based groups believe that Jesus is the Son of God and God incarnate who was raised from the dead." Which Nicene-based groups could this refer to? How could a group accept the Nicene creed and not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, God Incarnate and was raised from the dead? ~~

I concur with the PP. The Nicene creed explicitly states

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

If you don't believe this, you're not an adherent of the creed. Prtwhitley (talk) 08:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

repetition

The introduction is meant to introduce th article; details belong in the body.

Some material in the current intro (e.g. the historical value of the Gospel of Thomas) belongs in the article but is too fringe for the lead. Also, there is a lot of repetition between the first paragraph and a later paragraph on Christian views. There should be one paragraph on Christian views, and no repetition. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Details such as being crucified are important enough for the lede. Oddly, the first paragraph does not mention this, one of the most common connections one makes with Jesus. Details about theological interpretations such as salvation, atonement, & reconciliation may possibly belong in the lede -- but not in the 1st paragraph --JimWae (talk) 20:32, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Basically a good job but I made a further edit, see my comment above please. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:57, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the 2nd sentence is too early to get into "Messiah foretold in the Old Testament" and objections to it. Messiah is religious jargon just as not-easily-accessible as "reconciliation" & "salvation" - perhaps moreso. Outside Abrahamic religions it is not clear what "Messiah" means - and even within them it means different things. That he was crucified is central to identifying him, and that billions (apparently even many non-Xns) believe he rose from the dead indicates his notability. Messiah *might* belong further down in the lede.--JimWae (talk) 19:30, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

The logic is, it is the simplist way to introduce the salient religious views. If other people agree with you, I have no objection to deferring all discussion of religious beliefs beyond the Christian belief that he was son of God and God incarnate, for later. As for crucifixion, this is mentioned in the following paragraph which I think is appropriate. He is important not because he was crucified, but because many people think we was/is God. I do NOT mean to say crucifixion is unimportant, just that it is not so essential that it has to be in the first paragraph. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

While Jewish views are highly important, if they are included in the 1st paragraph, then how do we not include the views of other religious groups in that paragraph too? Besides, putting "Messiah foretold in the Old Testament" (and objections to it) in the 2nd sentence not only introduces jargon, it introduces other complexities (why was he promised/foretold?), and is just plain getting ahead of ourselves in terms of the narrative of Jesus. Focussing so early on the views of various other religions does not represent the balance of the article, and overshadows the secular/historical viewpoints that are in the article --JimWae (talk) 05:27, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

If other people agree with you, I have no objection to deferring all discussion of religious beliefs beyond the Christian belief that he was son of God and God incarnate, for later. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:51, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

proposed change

I'm not sure how to make my own section. Other prominent scholars, however, contend that Jesus' "Kingdom of God" meant radical personal and social transformation instead of a future apocalypse.[27] I propose that another line be added. "or that it meant an eschatological(or future) Kingdom at Christ's return. My source is Herman Ridderbos -Coming Kingdom. He's a fairly well known theologian in many Reformed circles. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Kingdom-Herman-N-Ridderbos/dp/0875524087/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1294992023&sr=8-2

Maybe the correct term would be semi-eschatological, but we want the article to be readable, now don't we. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobwhiz (talk • contribs) 08:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The Holy Trinity

Not to be referred to as "a Trinity". The correct way is "The Holy Trinity". It has to be fixed in the main paragraph —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.223.4.33 (talk) 19:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

'Holy' sounds POV. Should stay as is. DeCausa (talk) 19:33, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Real Person...?

This seems biased from a Jesus-was-a-real-person perspective. How do the experts know he was real? The Bible was based on oral tradition and to my knowledge there were absolutely no writings about Jesus at the time he lived. Isn't that a little strange? Imagine no biography written about Bill Gates during his lifEtime... --The Great Farrier 04:33, 1 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Great Farrier (talk • contribs)

This has been discussed ad nauseum in our 112 archived pages of this talk page. There are two quick links in the archive box talking about the historicity of Jesus. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 04:37, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Carl - ad nauseum means that the argument is giving you nausea. For your own comfort, please retire and leave to others the chance of giving polite responses to a newbie. You're good at the put downs, but not good at actually discussing your religion. Not a great advertisement for Christianity. HiLo48 (talk) 05:04, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Hilo48 - No, "ad nauseum" means that the argument has been continuing to the point of nausea, that it's been discussed over and over and over again, hence why the phrase is synonymous with "ad infinitum" 74.248.147.254 (talk) 20:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about truth, it is about verifiable points of view. This simple principle is what holds Wikipedia together and virtually all stupid comments are stupid because they reject this principle and think WP articles are somehow about the truth. If we were more efectiv in explaining to readers this basic principle, we would have fewer unconstructive comments like the above.

This article presents a wide aray of views. It never says Jesus was real; it says that most historians make some use of the Gospels as historical documents, and most historians agree about a handful of facts about Jesus' life. And none of this is about "proof" because academic history is not about proof. What we have repeated - not discussed, just repeated, which is what makes this so tireson - ad nauseum is that this is what most historians think. "We" are not claiming anything is true.

A constructive comment could be: "Here is a significant view that us inrepresented in the article. I know it is significant because of x or y, and here is a reliable source." Unless someone can say this, or something like it, they simply have no cause to sugest any bias in th article. All they are really saying is "the article does not emphasize my personal opinion" and all of us should be striving NOT to make such comments. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:49, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

If you don't believe Jesus existed, why would you be reading about him? Seems to me the only reason to post contention is to be contentious. Prtwhitley (talk) 09:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe Zeus, or Godzilla were real creatures, but I read about them.

Elbiee (talk) 22:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Briefly, there are non-Christian sources that confirm Jesus' existence. Also, it's clear that his followers didn't quite know what to make of the startling things he said, like that you have to hate your father to follow him. If the early Christians had made Jesus up, they wouldn't have invented so many unusual statements that they would later have to back-track on. No committee could have generating the original and arresting turns of phrase that this Jesus guy churned out. The gospels show a young church twisting Jesus to fit their needs. If he were made up in the first place, they wouldn't have had to twist. But don't listen to me. Look in the commonly accepted reference texts. If they say that it's an open question whether Jesus existed, then we'll question whether he existed. Leadwind (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no proof Jesus existed just as there is no proof Julius Cesar existed. Historians do not try to prove whether someone existed or not. They have written texts, which they interpret. In some cases (Cesar) their interpretation will include that it is highly probably that he lived, the evidence is very strong. But that is not proof (any more than a court finding soneone guilty of a crime is not "proof" which is one big reason most industrialized countries outlaw the death penalty). Historians think it is probably Jesus lived, for a variety of reasons. But that is not proof, they do not claim it is proof, this is simply not a scholarly way to talk about history.Slrubenstein | Talk 23:26, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Unbalanced Religious Perspectives section

It seems odd that the biggest sub-section (or at least equal with Christianity) is the Jewish one. Of all the religions covered Judaism has the simplest perspective: he's not the messiah. Seems unbalanced to give so much space to something that could be said in one sentence, whereas the Christian and Muslim perspectives are incomparably more complex. DeCausa (talk) 17:28, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It deserves weight because Jesus was Jewish, many historians argue that his teachings must be understood in the context of Judaism, and because Christianity claims legitimacy in part based on Jewish writings. Jesus and his followers preached and continue to preach to Jews. You might say that they preach to gentiles as well, but the salient diference is: when they preach to Jews, they claim that the Jewish religion itself justifies faith in Christ, messiah and son of God. This makes Judaism a special case. (That said, I have no particular objection to augmnting the section on Muslim views if anyone things anything significant has been left out) Slrubenstein | Talk 23:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

But all the sub-section says in a rather long-winded way is 'he's not the messiah'. If it said something more, it would be interesting. But it doesn't and it's not. It's out of all proportion. It only needs the first two sentences. The rest of it is someone going off on their hobby-horse. It's just not interesting or providing worthwhile information. It's really just about the quality of the writing: it's poor because it's verbose and is a long way from summary style. DeCausa (talk) 23:54, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a very reasonable approach. But please understand that the contents of articles is often the result of a long process of negotiation among a divers group of editors - this is the "wiki" in wikipedia and one of the things that makes our articls different (many would argue, in a good way) from Encyclopedia Britanica. There are a grea many people - perhaps more than you are aware of - who argue that Judaism is heterogeneous and that while some (even many) Jews may reject Jesus as Messiah, "Judaims" itself does not, and in fact it is Judaism that proves that Jesus is Messaiah, and there are Jews who accept jesus as Messiah and God claiming thy do so because they are Jews. All of this is made ven more complicated because Judaism has no creed nor does it have a centralized leadership (quite unlike Roman Catholicism or even the Church of England.

Thus, although I personally find the passage on Yeshu in the Toledot Yeshu excessive or even unnecessary, the fact that you and I may agree about this does not mean I can support our deleting it because I know many editors feel that this document reflects an important Jewish view of Jesus ... some think it is the authoritative Jewish statement on Jesus, and some think it is not about Jesus at all, so we really have to provide as concise a section as possible as to what the Toledot Yeshu says and why it is controversial.

Similarly, since many pople argue that Judaism is heterogeneous and therefore there is no one "Jewish view of Jesus" I think it is a good idea that the section provides a quote from a classic text that virtually all Jews accept as having some authority. And I think it is also important to list the various Jewish movments to show that hoever heterogeneous, on this there is agreement. You know, Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism and Calvinism and Lutheranism, and Unitarianism, although all Christian, have different views and a non-Christian may think that as they are all "Christian" their views on Jesus are the same. This article ought to make clear where these forms of Christianity differ. So someone may think that Reform Judaism and Orthodox Judaism, which are as different, or almost as diferent, from each other as Unitarianism and Roman Catholicism, have different views on Jesus ... and it makes sense for an encyclopedia article that more people in the world (including people in countris where there are no Jews, or very very very few), makes clear that all the major Jewish movements (so diferent in so many ways) agree on this.

Finally, since many Christians claim that Judaism supports the claim that Jesus is the messiah and that in fact one can be Jewish and worship Jesus because Jesus is the Jewish messiah, I think it is necessary to explain - as briefly as possible - why Jews disagree, or at least write something that will include links to other articles that explain this in detail.

Maybe there are other things in this section that really are unnecessary. But I strongly believe tha because of the singular relation between Judaism and Jesus, at least the above points need to be covered, consicely but clearly, in this section. A lot of people who are interested in Jesus might already know he was a Jew or, upon reading this article will learn he and his original followers were Jews, so I think we should give them the chance to learn this stuff as well. The four or five paragraphs we give are not with this in mind excessive.

Go ahead and improve the quality of the writing, make it less verbose - but do not cut any of this content. If you think you can say it all, and clearly, but with fewer ords, that's great!! You seem to be making two very different kinds of comments: first, that most of the content is unnecessary, and second, that the content is poorly written. As to the first point I disagree strongly. But if your main point is the second one, well, great - improve the writing!Slrubenstein | Talk 20:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply and background. It's very dispiriting to read, and the background it describes is everything that's wrong with Wikipedia. In effect, sectional interest has distorted the balance of a piece, resulting in a sub-section only of interest to and written for a specific narrow audience. I have no interest in getting involved in any edit-war with these people and will back out. DeCausa (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry you are dispirited. You and I have different views of hat is wrong with Wikipedia. Wikipedia is NOT paper, and moreover it is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and anyone (with access to a computer and internet) can read, which is why NPOV is our core policy. We emnbrace sectional interests, as long as all POV's represented are significant and taken from a reliable source. The whole point of our NPOV policy is that you and I (and many other editors) have very diferent views as to what whould be in the encyclopedia, which is why as long as an editor can explain who a view is significant to and provide a reliable verifiable source, it goes in. If you added informative content that came with a citation to a reliable source, and I deleted it because I do not share your interesats - well, that would be something very wrong.

You think the section is written for a narow interest because in includes stuff you are not interested in? Well, having read the introduction to the whole article (providing the only information about the Jewish views YOU find interesting) you could just skip the section on Judaism entirely, right? Just imagine how much narrower this encyclopedia would be if we deleted all the material you considered unimportant. If you want to edit at WIkipedia, understand that your views comprise a narrow interest too. Arguing that some people's views are narrow and sectional simply because you personally find thm uninteresting ... well, it sounds a little hypocritical. Why mope over the fact that one section of an article is not of interest to you? I bet whole articles are not of interest to you! And there is nothing wrong with that! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I get dispirited when I see articles that are lacking what I know to be significant views, because we do not have editors who have read a wide range of reliable sources and who do not care to do the research. If you think your complaint is "everything that is wrong with Wikipedia," I respectfully suggest WP simply is not the encyclopedia for you. Why not consider EB? There are many other encyclopedias out there. What's wrong with WP is when its articles fail to live up to its own avowed policies, not when it violates them! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Article featured in the media

This article was featured in the media: Jesus of Wikipedia. Maybe we could put some infobox up on the talk page noting that. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 05:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not a regular slate reader and not registered, but someone who is might want to respond to the zoomba woman that, although the article page is protected from non-registered users, anyone can still write a post to our talk page dissecting a paragraph and explaining why it is unintelligible. I do not share that view, but if someone can explain what makes any paragraph (or go through each one, one step at a time) and explain what makes it unintelligible, maybe registered users could figure out ways to improve the article. Personally, I think this article, like several articles we have on controversial topics, is one of our best. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Reference 95

"At the height of his ministry, Jesus is said to have attracted huge crowds numbering in the thousands, primarily in the areas of Galilee and Perea (in modern-day Israel and Jordan respectively).[95]" 95 = "In John, Jesus' ministry takes place in and around Jerusalem." That reference doesn't really validate the claim that Jesus attracted crowds numbering in the thousands. Shouldn't it (A) have a good reference and (B) clearly describe where the claim is coming from as well as scholarly criticism of the claim (If it only came from John, then I doubt its believed by historians). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.66.27.226 (talk) 21:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Is the biblical 'feeding of the 5,000' the reference that's needed? Just a guess - I'm no expert on Christianity. DeCausa (talk) 01:41, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

A primary source won't do. There's got to be a reference from a secondary source or tertiary source. I checked Sanders but couldn't find anything. But the historical Jesus did evidently draw crowds. Leadwind (talk) 01:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Must be fairly easy to find a secondary source making reference to the '5000' DeCausa (talk) 02:12, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Whenever I see some material being cited from a primary source, I see a clue that there may be something wrong with it. Otherwise, it should have come from a secondary source. And when the primary source happens to be the NT,....-Civilizededucation^talk 06:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

My bad. I added secondary sources for Jesus drawing crowds but then took them back out again. It is well-established on this page that the "gospel Jesus" section is a special exception to WP policy. Instead of relying on secondary sources, in this section we allow ourselves to construct a composite picture of Jesus based on four different sources, the way Christians traditionally have done. Personally, I have long considered this whole section to be OR, as we're synthesizing primary sources to construct a vision of gospel Jesus that suits us. If you think this material needs expert citation, I agree with you. If you think you're going to convince the editors assembled on this page that this material needs expert citation, I doubt you're right. Leadwind (talk) 16:01, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

View of Jesus by atheists

I've just reverted an addition by User:Jason Quinn with information about how atheists view Jesus. It seemed unnecessary - one would assume that atheists don't believe that anyone's G-d exists. Also, there seems among those not inclined to religion to be such a variety of beliefs - he was a good man, he never existed, he was a freedom fighter, he is a compilation of several people, there was a real person but he didn't say any of the things attributed, he was made up later etc etc etc that other than 'well of course he's not G-d, G-d doesn't exist', there doesn't seem to be a standard view. I'm not sure this article benefits from a collection of views from a cross-section of atheists. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Elen:If not here, where else would you put it? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 14:17, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what Elen would suggest, but I'd place this material at Jesus myth theory. Haploidavey (talk) 14:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, didn't even know that existed. Good idea. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 14:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not a good idea. What it is is a convenient way to try to "sweep under the rug" a point of view that people don't want in the article. Basically, you are saying that not even a couple sentences about the non-Christian view of Jesus belong in an article on Jesus. Could an article get a worse pro-Christian bias than that? Jason Quinn (talk) 14:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Jason: Why should it be here at all? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 14:19, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

From what I saw (it's early, I didn't go to bed til 4 hours ago), it looked kinda synthesized. Also, do we have an atheist views bit in Krishna? Views on him would be more consistant, after all. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:23, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Synthesized? The content of what I wrote is supported almost by definition of the groups involved. A Google search easily shows that the material I added is non-controversial. As far as Krishna goes, let's stay on topic. Maybe the atheist view should be on the Krishna page. Let's decide this first. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheists, non-theists, naturalists, and secularists are somewhat split on the existence of a historical Jesus. They would mostly contend that, if Jesus existed, he did not possess any divine or supernatural characteristics. They would reject, for instance, the notion of a virgin birth, the performance of miracles, and a resurrection. In the non-Christian view, there is also a diverse opinion regarding the teachings of Jesus, with some viewing his teachings as good and others as immoral.

I view User:Elen of the Roads' revert of my edits (quoted above) to be biased and preventing an accurate, neutral introduction for the Jesus article. On first revert, the user states that the material was reverted because it was "not a suitable addition at that point in the article". The sentences under contention were inserted into a paragraph summarizing other group's opinion's on the historical Jesus such as Jews and Muslims. It completely lacks merit to claim that that this is not the right point in the article to include the views of the non-religious. A previous user also reverted a previous addition to the article of the material claiming that the view of is a "fringe" group, which is both naive and insulting. The non-religious represent a large fraction of humanity and are not a "fringe" group. In fact, in many countries they are the majority or close to it. Their point-of-view is warranted. Thus, there are only two options: move the whole paragraph out of the introduction, or delete the paragraph in its entirety. I think deleting the paragraph would not cover the subject appropriately and do not entertain that notion. That leaves only the question of moving or keeping it in the introduction. Unlike, Elen of the Roads, I think this material is appropriate in the introduction. It gives the non-Christian perspective on Jesus. Moving it out of the introduction is intentionally biasing the article such that readers will be less exposed to the point of view that Jesus was not divine. Wikipedia is meant to give a well-rounded view of a subject. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:34, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

If it were to stick, I would suggest a modification of your synthesis version such as here. I notice a push for a fringe view as representative of atheists, secularists, etc. --Ari (talk) 14:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

This would be acceptable. I changed my earlier use of the word "evil" to "immoral" in my recent edits as I feel it is less incendiary but still captures the range of opinion involved. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you meant by a "push for fringe view as representative of atheists, secularists, etc." but I just want to comment that there is a large difference between being a fringe group and being a group pushed to the fringe by a domineering majority. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is what was meant; I understood it as "promoting a fringe view out of those who are atheists". Indeed, representing all atheists with their various views seems difficult. The only thing that can probably be said is that atheists think that since there is no God, there is a "son of God," either.

I still don't understand why this should be included; it says Jesus is a central figure in Christianity and has a role in Islam. It goes without saying that those who are not Christians or Muslims he doesn't matter much. Otherwise, we'd have to state "Shiva is a deity of Hinduism. To non-Hindus, Shiva doesn't matter." Duh.Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 16:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Jason, thanks for pitching in. I think your instincts are right, but I don't support adding your text. With all due respect to atheists, this is way too much text to spend on them in the lead. Of all the things you can say about Jesus, you want to spend two or three sentences on what atheists think? Why? Our duty as editors is to cover material to the extent that our sources cover it. If you read about Jesus in mainstream sources, you might read about Jewish opinion or Muslim opinion, but you are unlikely to read about atheist opinion. Furthermore, the "non-supernatural" Jesus that the proposed wording describes is simply the historical Jesus. My overall problem is that I don't really like this text in the first place. It feels like we're doing the scholar's work of assembling evidence for a synthesized text. For example, does some authority tell us that atheists are split about whether Jesus existed? Or are we supposed to take the assembled citations of evidence that opinion is split? Is there a scholar who tells us that atheists are split on the moral value of his teaching? Maybe we should try to assemble a workable section in the body, prove that we have enough material to say anything worthwhile, and then maybe summarize it in the lead. Leadwind (talk) 16:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Like other commentators I see no point in an 'atheists view' section, because there is no atheist view as such - apart from the fact that he obviously can't be the son or prophet of a non-existent God. It's perfectly possible to be a theist and to believe he didn't exist, so the non-existence theory is not even distinctive to atheists. One could even say that theists are 'split' on the issue. All the others are simply the range of views that anyone who is not constrained to subscribe to a particular religion's dogma about Jesus might hold . Paul B (talk) 16:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I have a number of problems with the material that Jason wishes to add. Christianity, Judaism and Islam derive from the same source, so their commentary on each other is significant. The accommodations that other religions (eg Hinduism) make can sometimes be of interest, but it is a mere truism that atheists don't believe in God, and I can see no real point in mentioning that here. The actual statement does seem to be classic WP:SYNTH - we have multiple sources covering the claimed different viewpoints, rather than the necessary one source necessary to verify the statement without synthesis.

As it stands above, the last point is also massive synthesis, and very over simplistic - there are an entire range of views from the non-religious, nothing like this simplistic (and in origin religious) divide. However, rewritten, the information that certain philosophers believe his teaching to be wrong/unethical (immoral and evil are both words derived from Christian teaching, so should perhaps be avoided) could usefully go in the Other Views section.

As a tiny aside, a Naturalist (which redirects to Natural history is a person who studies living things and their environment. The concept makes no assumption as to their religious beliefs. David Attenborough is on record as not being a religious man, but the same is not true of all naturalists, even today.Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:09, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe that WP:SYNTH is being abused as an argument against my edit and I am not paying those arguments much attention, as references could be found to back up my edits, or slightly revised wording, to any level desired. The more important question which has been raised is, does the material belong in the first place? I can see this both ways and am still thinking about each position. I am willing to table the motion at present. Thanks for the comments. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:33, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

gospel-Jesus section

I just deleted referenced material from the gospel-Jesus section. I hate deleting good material, but doing so is in line with what the assembled editors decided on this section long ago. According to the discussions we've had about it before, the gospel-Jesus section is supposed to be a summary of the gospel material on Jesus without expert opinion. We don't weigh in on what's historical and what's legendary. If we don't use historical knowledge to question the gospels, we also don't use Christian tradition to support the gospels (e.g. explaining contradictions). This section is supposed to be just what the gospels say.

If I'm wrong and we're supposed to include Christian and historical perspectives, then the whole section is bound to change. But it doesn't make sense to include traditional and expert opinion in one area (genealogies & family) and not everywhere else.

That said, I think this whole gospel-Jesus section should just go away, and everything useful in it should be covered in the historical Jesus section or in the Christian views section. The gospel-Jesus section is a synthesis of primary sources. Leadwind (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

White picture of jesus

I'm down with white representations of Jesus as the main pic that people see on the page, but not when his race/color isn't discussed at all in the article (a link to the "Race of Jesus" page is not enough). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.117.170.50 (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

so what do you propose? More than one picture? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Obviously the right answer is no pictures. None exist that can be sensibly claimed to be real. Every picture that exists is part of the myth of Jesus, something the adherents have made clear in the section above they don't want in this article. HiLo48 (talk) 17:41, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

hm. Polemic won't help. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:01, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would help to emphasise a little more that these are traditional - rather than in any way representational - images. In Historical Jesus (I think the article is still called that) they avoid using paintings (or they did) because none of the painted Jesi ever looked Jewish. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:12, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

"Jesi"??? lovely... In any case, it's already emphasized: it has a caption saying it's a window. You won't find that for photographs. And I don't see the point in emphasizing it more: anyone with a basic education knows that they didn't have iPhones or DVDs at that time... We don't even know if George Washington really looked like he does on the One. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 19:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

What is the point of including pictures at all when we know they are not real representations? Presumably all the pictures exist because someone thinks it make Jesus look like a nice person, and that's obvious POV. HiLo48 (talk) 21:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

you can say the same about Washington. See above. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. But that's not an answer. Why include pictures when we know they are not real? HiLo48 (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

And as for mentioning Washington, his article has a portrait that can be presumed to have been made of him at the time and face to face. We know his ancestry is English. Not much doubt about what he would have generally looked like. Jesus' image is a whole different ballgame. HiLo48 (talk) 22:40, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, we have a pretty good idea what ethnicity His brother was... :P Seriously though, why not use a Chinese Jesus? Just as valid as whitey. We have a kinda consistant image in the case of Washington, but we don't for Jesus (any skin or hair color, with or without beard). I thought we had a pic of one of those forensic reconstructions around here somewhere, but I can't find it. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Richard Neave did a reconstruction. See here or, more completely, here. It is, however, not an image of any particular person, but rather of a typical semite male in Jesus' time and of his age. The image is not free, so we cannot use it here. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Neve's reconstruction s just another fiction. The problem is this statement: "What is the point of including pictures at all when we know they are not real representations? Presumably all the pictures exist because someone thinks it make Jesus look like a nice person, and that's obvious POV." Of course they are points of view. But if HiLo48 admits they are points of view then she has already explained the point of including them in the article. Wikipedia is not about "truth" e.g. what Jesus "really" looked like, it is about verifiable views. NPOV demands we include all significant views of Jesus. Now just because we are all literate and are using words to write an encyclopedia, does not mean all people are literate or fully literate. But writing and language are not at all the only ways for people to express their point of view, and many Christians have been no- or semi-literate, and for many, it has been precisely through images of Jesus that their views have been expressed. So NPOV demands we include them. I would propise a brief section, linked to the longer article, on Jesus in Art History, that says a bit about how pictorial representations of Jesus have reflected diverse views of him. Isn't this our core mission, include all significant views? Slrubenstein | Talk 11:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I would go with something like that. There isn't one Jesus in Art article, there are several (see Christian_art#Themes) but the idea of putting in a link would be good.The pictures tell us how people have chosen to portray Jesus. If we could put together a few images, we could show without the need for a stack of text that people have chosen to portray Jesus naturalistically and in a symbolic style, as both man and G-d, and as many different races ([4] contains a lot of images, although I suspect many are copyright. Elen of the Roads (talk) 12:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The relevant article is Images of Jesus. There are no 'real' pictures of almost all biblical figures (and other religious leaders, such as The Buddha). In such cases it is usual to use images from art history. This article is no different from, say, Moses in that respect. Paul B (talk) 14:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

We do have to recognise though that this is an issue for many people. The Byzantine depictions of Jesus at least showed a man with dark hair and a swarthy complexion. The Renaissance tendency to depict Jesus as a little blond boy, or a man with long red hair and blue eyes is somewhat extraordinary. And a link to the images article is a good idea - in fact, I'd say stripping a fair few of these pictures out would be a good idea, as they are really just prettification. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Jesus, according to Christians is the miraculous son of God, not someone born by ordinary means, so 'race' is as fluid as divine will wants it to be from that point of view. There's no reason why Christian artists should not give him blonde hair - or even green hair! But in reality very very few Renaissance artists depict him blonde (except as a baby) or blue eyed. Most notable Renaissance artists are Italian and Spanish. They portray him in a way that links to their own audience - even often giving some figures modern clothes. It's part of the meaning of the images that these characters are not 'alien', but linked to the lives of everyone. What's wrong with prettification anyway? Paul B (talk) 19:07, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

If editors insist on including pictures as examples of how different artists have portrayed Jesus throughout history, so be it, but stick them all together under a heading to that effect. Don't scatter them throughout the article in the way we would with real representations of a current or recent living, very famous person. The "art" idea sounds to me like just a newly thought up excuse to keep the pictures after other reasons have been shown to be inappropriate. HiLo48 (talk) 22:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Newly thought up? Don't be daft. As I said, this is identical to virtually every article on major biblical figures and early saints, of whom no lifetime pictures exist. The interspersing is also the standard peresentation in all those articles. It fits how images are generally used in Wikipedia. Check out any featured article. No-one actually thinks that these are like photographs, so I see no basis to your argument. Paul B (talk) 09:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

So, if we know they're not realistic, then say so, clearly and obviously. What gets me here is that you all want to keep lots of inaccurate images, and will keep coming up with new excuses to do so. It's just like the multiple interpretations of the Bible. Someone criticises one aspect, and the response is always "Oh no, what's really meant is...." It's exactly what put me off religion in the first place. That similar things may be done for other religions simply strengthens my point. The images are not realistic. Say so. Right at the start where the very first picture is. Or, another suggestion. Get rid of them. HiLo48 (talk) 11:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you know anything about art? Art is not always concerned with 'realism'. And art about spiritual topics uses symbolism heavily. Do you think Jesus and the apostles went around with a golden disks around their heads? Halos are symbols of saintliness. In any case, since you did not meet the historical Jesus how do you know that any one image doesn't look like him? This has nothing to do with justifications of the bible. I honestly don't know what you are getting worked up about, but I do think we should restore the old lead image with its caption. This was changed with no explanation in this edit [5]. The old image had been there for a very long time and the caption addresses some of your concerns. This is what it used to look like [6]. Someome removed the "no undisputed image..." sentence and then someone else changed the picture, which now appears in the article twice, since it's used for the the Christianity template box too. Paul B (talk) 15:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The Neave reconstruction is non-free media, however Wikipedia does have copyright permission for it's use in the Jesus and the Historical Jesus articles and the image was in this article in 2007. It was deleted primarily on the grounds that it did not represent a notable point of view and that the article is for how people imagine him to be not what he could look like. Three editors supported keeping it and one supported deletion but it was deleted anyway. The discussion, which includes how academics view the image, can be found in the "BBC image." section on this talk page.Wayne (talk) 09:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's put the Naeve picture back in. I can't think of a better, contemporary reconstruction. Leadwind (talk) 15:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I was opposed to its removal in the first place but as I recall the discussion was rather fraught. It is an image of a real person, since it's built from a specific skull, so we can't really say it's necessarily typical. Paul B (talk) 15:55, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Support that, and combining any other pictures into a gallery. As Paul B points out, people have depicted Jesus in a way that fits in with the culture they are painting for, and the most we can use these pictures for is "this is how people wanted to portray Jesus." Although, apropos of nothing, I do think if he really had green hair or two noses, someone might have mentioned it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I remain strongly opposed to that "reconstruction". What the heck is it supposed to be a reconstruction of? It's just some random guy. Completely worthless. Yes, other pictures have "depicted Jesus in a way that fits in with the culture they are painting for" -- and unlike a pseudo-reconstruction of some unrelated random guy, which (of course) also doesn't represent what he actually looked like, showing those culturally specific portraits actually does fulfil a valuable encyclopedic function. And unless there is sourced critical commentary on the "reconstruction", using it as mere illustration will never possible pass WP:NFCC. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:03, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Further: I would support going back to the Ravenna mosaic as mentioned above, but the caption "No undisputed record of what Jesus looked like is known to exist" was silly. It's pragmatically wrong: it implies that if there are no "undisputed" records, there must at least be some "disputed" ones. But those obviously don't exist either. And "no records are known to exist" is also wrong: it implies that there might be records and we just don't know about them. The truth is not that we don't know whether there are any; we know with almost 100% certainty there are none, and there couldn't possibly be any. (That's semantically something else: Known unknowns vs. unknown unknowns, as Mr Rumsfeld would say [7]). Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the "undisputed" phrasing is a bit silly, but there is one "disputed" image - the Turin shroud. Also there are supposed records of his appearance - it's just that no modern scholar takes them seriously. We need some such phrase, otherwise we get repeated objections. Paul B (talk) 19:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

One red herring brought up here has been the "other religions do it too" argument. Such arguments are always dangerous. They can lead to a whole bunch of bad articles. But anyway, I thought I'd look. Well, not surprisingly, Islam has no images of Muhammad, presumably out of respect for that religion's ban on such images. Judaism has none of its God. Buddhism has a handful, but we all already know that there is a fairly standard representation of the Buddha, so they are similar, and what he really looked like is not an issue at all in that religion. Hinduism has four pics of statues showing different deities and different incarnation. So none of these articles is anything like the one on Jesus. Can we drop that argument and move on please? HiLo48 (talk) 03:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

HiLo48, look at the article on Muhammad and you'll see plenty of depictions of him. Also, it would be good for everyone to read FAQ 1 and FAQ 2 on the Muhammad talk page. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This is not a red herring at all. Those articles are about religions, not individuals. Religions are systems of ideas, not people. As well as Muhammad look at Gautama Buddha, or Lao Tzu, or Krishna, or Moses. Paul B (talk) 11:37, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

You're right of course. I didn't look in the right place, did I? Sorry about that. HiLo48 (talk) 05:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

HiLo writes, "What gets me here is that you all want to keep lots of inaccurate images, and will keep coming up with new excuses to do so" - so, HiLo still does not understand or doesn't care about NPOV. Sorry, but this policy is non-negotiable. If you don't like it, go someplace else. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I cannot see anything else in that post but a personal attack. Perhaps you didn't explain yourself well. I care hugely about NPOV, hence my concern about the presence of any of these images. It's those who want the pictures that are happy to clutter an otherwise good article with obviously biased pictures. HiLo48 (talk) 22:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

HiLo, how many times do we hasve to repeat ourselves. This article is no different from any other one. The pictures are not "biassed" in any meaningful sense. However, if you have suggestions for other better images, make them. Paul B (talk) 13:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

user: Paul B makes some great points about prettification that I never thought about before and user: Fut.Perf is absolutely right about the ‘worthless reconstruction of some random guy’. I believe that all of the pictures of Jesus on this article are fine reflecting all the prettification that anyone could ever want… but its really all about the infobox… because it’s the main pic, the main enchilada and unfortunately there is no neutral picture for the heading of this page. Thus for all intensive purposes, there really shouldn’t be a pic in there… because what these images are doing are making people upset since there are so many different views of Jesus. A portion of Christian black people are pissed seeing a white pic of Jesus, All Christian white people would be pissed if they even saw a black Jesus pic (yeah, I said it), part of those Christian white people are pissed because the Jesus pic doesn’t look ethnically Jewish. Another portion of Christian white people would be pissed if they did see Jesus ethnically Jewish. Wow, down to the nuts and bolts of it… this really is a race issue… Because the Islamics don’t care, and neither do the Judaists. Bottom line, the infobox should have NO image, because if you really want to get NPOV, then as a white male, I vote putting black Jesus as the infobox image. Jasonasosa (talk) 23:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Most critical scholars believe that other parts of the New Testament are also useful for reconstructing Jesus’ life;[11][12][13][14]

What other parts of the NT -- besides the 4 gospels -- are about his life? Even if there are a few, does that merit being the 4th sentence in the article? JimWae (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I also don't get that part of the sentence nor the relevance of at least some of the citations connected to it. --Ari (talk) 08:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think, perhaps, the sentence used to say "Most critical scholars believe that parts of the New Testament are useful for reconstructing Jesus’ life"[11][12][13][14]. Yes, I think I recall somebody stuck in those extra words (making the myth stuff somewhat relevant after all)JimWae (talk)

I made a change, resulting in:

The primary sources for information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels,[8] and most critical scholars find them[9][10] useful for reconstructing Jesus’ life and teachings.[11][12][13][14] Some scholars believe apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel according to the Hebrews are also relevant.[15]

There is no need to force-fit New Testament into that paragraph - it was doing that which led to "parts of" & hindered the meaningfulness of the sentence JimWae (talk) 09:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Strangely, one clause in the sentence had been relegated to a footnote. I moved that clause back into the body of the text, where it says that the books that most critical scholars refer to are the synoptics. We need to be clear what we're doing with this paragraph. For a devotional reading, all four gospels are used and John might be the most important one. For a critical reading, the synoptics are our main source of information about Jesus, and very little is gleaned from John (virtually nothing about Jesus himself). It would be OK with me if this paragraph were about a devotional reading of the four gospels, but currently it's written and referenced as a critical reading. Leadwind (talk) 14:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Can someone investigate noe 15 - I mean, actually read the books cited? I know some people think Thomas is useful for reconstructing Jesus' teachings, but not his life. Somewhere, some more change in language may be required. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

page 371 of http://books.google.com/books?id=zFhvECwNQD0C&pg=PA352&hl=en#v=onepage&q=thomas&f=false mentions Thomas in regard to info about historical Jesus --JimWae (talk) 20:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

SLR has a good point. Yes, Thomas is used by scholars exploring the historical Jesus, but it contains only teaching and no biography: no birth, baptism, miracles, crucifixion, or resurrection. Leadwind (talk) 18:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Our article says scholars find the gospels "useful for reconstructing Jesus’ life and teachings" and that "Some scholars believe apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel according to the Hebrews are also *relevant*." The source says "The four... Gospels are not the only texts *about Jesus*.... Some scholars argue as *relevant*... such texts as the Gospel of Thomas". Yes, Thomas is a source for the teachings not his life, but Thomas is relevant to "his life and teachings" by being relevant to his teachings, though it is not relevant "to his life and to his teachings". I do not think it is a big issue, in comparison with others that need to be dealt with, but if people think it important to point out that Thomas is relevant ONLY to his teachings, perhaps a note could do the job. JimWae (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I followed the book to a brief review of the Oxford dictionary of the Bible. This is just what I mean - snippets are not reliable sources. Someone has to read the book, not some lin taken out of context. Otherwise we are misusing the source. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Harrowing of Hell

I haven't plowed through the archives of the talk page, but I'm wondering if there's been discussion on the Harrowing of Hell. I am somewhat dismayed to find no reference at all to this particular legend, that for more than a millennium was an accepted part of christology. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 16:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The "Christian views" section is extraordinarily thin. There's a lot more to say about Christ. I'd be up for expanding the section, and then there would be room for the harrowing of hell. We could at least briefly summarize a lot Christological content with links to main pages. Leadwind (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I've made a minor textual addition and placed the link for the article in a hatnote as well. Drmies (talk) 17:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, thanks for reverting. You could have moved it to Jesus#Religious_perspectives, or you could have considered that the account is in the end, of course, based on and certainly not contradicted by scripture. Drmies (talk) 18:03, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

describing sources of information

On 24 Jan '11, a minor edit was reverted, w/statement: (Reverted good faith edits by Jvol; I don't get the problem nor does the replacement make sense ("most frequently quoted"????).

A claim that ("most frequently quoted"????) doesn't make sense reveals a hightened emotional state on the part of the editor making the revert. Stating that the gospels are frequently quoted is easily verifiable and crystal clear. (the 4 question marks in the explanation also illustrates the hightened emotional state at time of revert). The bible is the most printed book in human history. What other source could be a credible challenger for "most frequently quoted"?

In marked contrast, there are several other sources of information that could be claimed to be "primary sources".

I'm not married to that specific wording ("most frequently quoted") but it is considerably more neutral, clear, and verifiable than the claim that the gospels are the "primary sources for information regarding Jesus". What does "primary" mean here, exactly? Does it mean "most credible"? by whose definition? Does it mean "most conclusively scientifically proven"? (if so, then let us say so and quote sources). Does it mean "most authoritative"? (if so, that would be a highly subjective POV thats not sourced - a clear violation of wikipedia best practices). Does it mean "most widely accepted" or "most popular"? (even worse). Does it mean "most often quoted / studied"? (a much more quantifiable claim). If so, then why not simply say so?

The statement, "The primary sources for information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels," violates wikipedia policy because it is vague and unsupported, presents a weasel-worded opinion as an established fact. The statement "The most frequently quoted sources for information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels" or "The most often cited sources of information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels" or "The sources of information most often quoted regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels" or similar wording more closely follows wikipedia standards of verifiability and Neutral Point of View.

Until a clear refutation of this reasoning has been presented here, please don't change this not-particularly-controversial 3-word edit. -Jvol (talk) 16:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Surely when as a new user you read through the five pillars and read our NOR policy, you learned what we mean by primary source. If you have forgotten, try WP:PSTS. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:54, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

What we mean by "primary" when used in mainspace is a different question from whether a source is WP:PRIMARY or not.

Describing the gospels "The primary source for..." clearly means something different, and we really need a secondary source to back up that claim. --FormerIP (talk) 17:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Policy on page WP:PSTS specifically states, "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."

The claim that the 4 gospels are "the primary sources" of information is a controversial interpretive claim that is specifically disallowed by the policy quoted. No secondary source material is quoted to support the claim.

By wikipedia's definition, the gospels are secondary sources ("at least one step removed from an event"). The English-language gospels -most derived from King James version- are, at best, translations of translations of original writings whose dates of writing are unknown. Of the originals, none have been confirmed or corroborated as having been written during the life and ministry of Jesus, and may well be transcriptions of oral histories. The earliest existing texts are from at least a century later.

Other sources have as much independently verifiable claim to being primary sources as the four canonical gospels do.

The statement "The primary sources for information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels" is original analysis, specifically disallowed by the quoted wikipedia policy. Jvol (talk) 17:43, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

...and stop calling me Shirley. (apologies to Leslie Nielsen. RIP) Jvol (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay Jvol, how about "principal?" Slrubenstein | Talk 19:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

While I am not convinced that there is anything wrong with "primary", I have changed it to principal per your suggestion. It is factually true and far less clumsy and meaningless as "quoted" seems to be. Jvol, when your change has been repeatedly reverted you do not leave a message on talk and assume that is justification to revert it back to your change. Your change of the consensus version was objected to, so we must reach a new agreeable consensus on it before you revert it. --Ari (talk) 10:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Ten references?

• Ten references? In the lead? Come on. "[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]" —Zujine|talk 23:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent Slate Article discusses history of Jesus in Wikipedia

The internet magazine Slate discussed the interesting history of this article. Is it okay to add this link here? If not, I'm sure someone will delete it http://www.slate.com/id/2281294/ Ern Malleyscrub (talk) 12:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Islamic views of Jesus as Messiah

The historical perspective/Islamic views section does not mention that Muslims believe that Jesus is the "Masih", the Arabic word for Messiah. It is in the very first sentence in the Jesus in Islam article linked. I think it is a very important point that should not be left out. It does mention that he is to return to fight the false-messiah, which I suppose implicitly states they believe him to be the Messiah. But I petition a more obvious inclusion of the fact. 66.129.58.144 (talk) 00:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Keep up the good work. Leadwind (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Allegations of "improper synthesis" in the section on "Trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate"

The section titled "Trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate" is tagged with "improper synthesis?". I don't see any discussion of this allegation on this Talk Page. Can whoever inserted the tag explain what the concern is? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 02:07, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you remove the template. I removed an uncited interpretation from the section. We don't subject the gospels to historical criticism (or Christian interpretation) in this section anyway, so we wouldn't want that sentence even if it were cited. Otherwise the section looks fine to me. I'd like the first line to start, "In Mark..." so that the reader knows this is Mark's account, until we get to Matthew's. Yes, I know there's a citation, but as a point of style the running text should be sufficient. Leadwind (talk)

Date discrepancies

In the "Historical View" section, the text states:

"The principal sources of information regarding Jesus’ life and teachings are the four gospels. Scholars conclude the authors of the gospels wrote a few decades after Jesus’ crucifixion (between 60–100AD), in some cases using sources (the author of Luke-Acts references this explicitly). A great majority of biblical scholars accept the historical existence of Jesus."

But then just two paragraphs down in "Constructing a historical view" you can read:

"Most Biblical scholars agree the Gospel of Mark was written about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans under Titus in the year 70 AD/CE, and that the other gospels were written between 70 and 100 AD/CE.[155] The historical outlook on Jesus relies on critical analysis of the Bible, especially the gospels."

Is it just me or are those two different range of dates for the same thing? If the article is making a subtle distinction between them, I don't get it. It seems like these should be the same.66.129.58.144 (talk) 00:41, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Those should be the same. There's serious debate over whether Mark was written just before the Temple fell (70) or just after. I'd say the most common ranges are 65 - 100 or 70 - 100, and we should use the same range both times. Anyone have a preference? Leadwind (talk) 22:07, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Since this is an approximate range, we may as well be inclusive and go with 65-100, unless someone has a reliable source indicating that current historical though rules out 65-70. 66.129.58.144 (talk) 04:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The two references now agree with each other (assuming that year 65 is considered around year 70). Leadwind (talk) 02:06, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

historical Jesus section

Anonymous IP asked us to fix some date discrepancies in the historical Jesus section. His request brought the section to my attention, and I gave it a bit of a clean up. Leadwind (talk) 02:04, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Talmudic view

A contemporary summary of the Talmudic view seems like something worth having, worth more, in fact, than any direct citations of the Talmud. Klinghoffer, as near as I can tell, has no idea who the historical Jesus really was, but as long as we use him to summarize the Talmudic view for us, it seems like a legitimate use of the information. Leadwind (talk) 14:29, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Then you are encouraging a massive misrepresentation of the Talmud. Klinghoffer is not a Talmud scholar and his views are fringe. The Talmud is a sixty three volume compendium on several centuries of debate - you might as well ask a member of the teamsters' union (by which I mean: not a lawyer or legal scholar) to summarize "the Supreme Court's" (meaning, not the current Supreme Court but the past 200 years of decisions, including dissents) view of race. Well, maybe a real top-flight Supremem Court scholar could pull this off, but Klinghoffer is not a scholar, he has no credentials, and the text I deleted was just absurd. Read the article on Yeshu - the paragraphs I removed are not even consistent with what our actual Wikipedia article says. In short, there is no single talmudic view (it is a compendium of views), and Klinghoffer is not a reliable source or a significant view and thus falls far short of our criteria for inclusion, and the text that was added was a massive misrepresentation of the Talmud. Why would you support that? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I support it because I'm not in any position to question Klinghoffer's assessment. Do we have a reliable source that disagrees with him? Leadwind (talk) 15:27, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

My point is Klinghofer does not meet our criteria for reliable source. To answer your question, read Daniel Boyarin and Jeffrey Rubenstein, major Talmud scholars, cited in the main articles on the topic. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

No one besides Klinghoffer offers a summary of how the Talmud portrays Jesus. And Klinghoffer is summarizing content, not making any original historical analysis. What makes his view "fringe"? If he's just summarizing what the Talmud says about Yeshu, that's pretty straightforward. If he thinks that the Talmud accurately reflects the historical Jesus, that would be fringe. Leadwind

(talk) 15:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

What are Klinghoffer's credentials? Where has his book been reviewed? He is not offering a summary, he is making original historical analysis. It is fringe because it ignores and diverges from what all leading scholars actually do say. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Sanhedrin 43 says a sorceror named Yeshu was stoned. But there is no clear evidence that this Yeshu is Jesus. Yeshu is neither the Hebrew nor the Aramaic name for Jesus, it is a diferent name that has two consonents in common. According to th Gospels and every historian I know of, Jesus was crucified, not stoned. This is only one reason why most Talmud scholars believe this passage explicitly does not refer to Jesus. That makes the view fringe. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Sanhedrin 43 clearly refers to Jesus, just not accurately. For those following along, this passage refers the "Yeshu the Nazarene," a sorcerer with disciples, who was executed and hanged before Passover. Jesus was from Nazareth, was accused of sorcery, had disciples, was executed (probably) before Passover, and hanged. If this Yeshu is not Jesus, I'll eat my hat. It's not a historically accurate account of Jesus, but then neither is the Gospel of John, and it's clearly (meant to be) about Jesus. The explanation that "Yeshu" is not etymologically connected to "Joshua/Jesus" is a red herring. The rabbis regularly invented insulting names for the people they wanted to discredit, like they did with Simon bar Kokhba after his revolt failed. You and I disagree about the significance of the Yeshu entries in the Talmud, but my university-level textbook on the historical Jesus refers specifically to Sanhedrin 43. It's mainstream to view the Yeshu references as referring (inaccurately) to Jesus. I understand that it's no help to Jewish-Christian relations to report on how the Talmud treats Jesus, but the mainstream view is that these stories do refer to him. Some of the stories seem to have originally been about someone else, but they've been altered so that they're now about Jesus. If Klinghoffer is reporting what the Talmud says about Jesus, that's pretty straightforward information that no one else is giving us and that we have no reason to doubt. You don't like what he says, but it's within the mainstream. Leadwind (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Jesus was the Grecianized form of the rather common name Yehoshua (in modern English, Joshua, rather popular among the Jews). Yehoshua was consistantly used to refer to Jesus, only once has Jesus been refered to as Yeshu, and that Jewish commentator was regarded as mistaken. It is only in modern Hebrew that Yeshu is used to refer to Jesus. Yeshu matches the first letters in yimmach shemo vezikhro, "May his name and memory be blotted out," this is the interpretation that medieval Rabbis took. Also, Yeshu occurs multiple times in the Talmud, refering to different individuals who met different fates at different times, which supports the idea that it is an acronym and not a mispelling of Yehoshua. The addition of "ha-Notzri" after Yeshua was a later addition according to Jewish commentators, but ha-Notzri appears consistantly after Yehoshua. The main force behind the "Yeshu = Yehoshua" interpretation was Ramón Martí in his anti-Jewish work Pugio Fidei.

If Yeshu is indeed being used as a name instead of an acronym, there is the issue that Jesus was a common name then. There's also the issue that Jesus wasn't the first or only person claiming to be the messiah. Sanhedrin 43 says that "Yeshu" had five disciples, Matthai, Nakai, Nezer, Buni and Todah. Matthai was also a common name, so even if we say that it was a Matthew, it doesn't mean the Matthew. There is no evidence that Todah is Thaddeus, who was known as Jude in Hebrew anyway. Nakai, Nezer, and Buni don't equate to any of the names of Jesus's disciples, which were common names at any rate.

There is plenty of evidence that Yeshu isn't the Christian Jesus, and this evidence counters the superficial evidence that it is. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ian, nothing you say tells against the common conclusion that Sanhedrin 43 refers inaccurately and unflatteringly to Jesus, at least to the Jesus that the rabbis imagined. My reliable source (a university-level textbook on historical Jesus, which reviews early Christian and non-Christians sources about Jesus' life) says Sanhedrin 43 refers to Jesus. What's your reliable source that says otherwise? Again, Klinghoffer is in line with my textbook. What's the reliable source that disputes Klinghoffer? Leadwind (talk) 18:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Rubenstein and Boyarin, both of whom are actually credible Talmud scholars and historians. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Which university level text book exactly? And what are they basing their information on? Because (in the modern era) Adin Steinsaltz, Gil Student, Hyam Maccoby, and Dennis McKinsey, and (before that) Jehiel Heilprin, Jacob Emden, Rabbeinu Tam, Nahmanides, and Yechiel of Paris do not think that Yeshu originally refered to Jesus, and that only later did anyone assert that it does. The Talmudic bit about Yeshu was written well along enough that it would have been known that Jesus had twelve disciples. The idea that it doesn't refer to Jesus is older than the idea that it does. The differences in the story mean either: the Rabbis made some big mistakes and were completely unfamiliar with rather common knowledge (ask any random peasant "hey, how many disciples did your God have?" and they'd be able to explain "twelve") OR the account was about someone else, and the idea that it refers to Jesus was started by a medieval anti-Semite. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

All right, I may have to concede defeat here. Personally, I see the case as crystal clear, but it's the opinions of RSs that count, not my own. FTR, my textbook is The Historical Jesus by Theissen and Merz, 1996. They cite Dalman, Klausner, Maier, and Thoma. Individual scholars are bound to disagree, but does anyone have a disinterested secondary or tertiary source that describes the dispute at second hand? WP:WEIGHT says that when there are sources on opposite sides of an issue we look for second-hand descriptions of the dispute. And personally, if you think that Yeshu isn't Jesus, could someone name any historical figure that matches "Yeshu" better? I would really change my mind if someone could explain who Yeshu is if not Jesus. He's s sorcerer named Yeshu (later identified as the Nazarene) who has disciples and who is executed around Passover? Who is that if not Jesus? If that's now how the Talmud portrays Jesus, how does the Talmud portray him? Leadwind (talk) 16:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You're being a bit reductionist. Again, Joshua/Yehoshua was a really common name for that time and plcae, and there were a lot of people claiming to be the messiah back then. It's like assuming that any given "John Smith" from the 1800s fought in the American Civil war just because of this guy. The "ha-Notzri" ("the Nazarene") bit was a later gloss, bringing that up is like bringing up the Priory of Sion while reading Chrétien de Troyes. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Wait, did you just say that Sanhedrin 43 refers inaccurately to Jesus? Occam's razor then says: it isn't Jesus! You cannot have it both ways: if the depiction is not an accurate account of Jesus, why then would you also say "who is that if not Jesus?" You know the sixth book of the Bible describes a guy named Yehoshua who also performed miracles? Must be Jesus! At least he has the same name as Jesus (unlike yeshu, who does not have the same name as Jesus)

There is also a kind of implied arroagance in the question, "If that's now how the Talmud portrays Jesus, how does the Talmud portray him?" Why should Jewish sages living in Babylonia in the fourth and fifth centuries care to portray Jesus at all? What do the Church Fathers say about Honni the Circle Drawer? Or Rabbi Akiba? Who in the New Testament represents (however inaccurately) these notable people? Slrubenstein | Talk 12:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You are also every person referred to in the Talmud is a historical character. Much of the Talmud is aggadot, you know. Also, none of the people you cited are Talmud scholars. I am not talking about Orthodox Rabbis, I am talking about people with PhDs trained in research on the Talmud. I don't think a Talmud scholar - i.e. an expet on a text written in Babylon, where there weren't even any Christians (or hardly any) hundreds of years after the Gospels were written - would be accepted as an authority on the Gospels. Is an expert on the US Civil Rights Movement by that virtue also a credible authority on the French Revolution? I don't see how. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

S43 refers inaccurately to Jesus, just like the Gospel of John refers inaccurately to Jesus. They are two religious accounts of a historical figure, both distorted by religious intent. Just because they're inaccurate doesn't mean that the authors didn't have Jesus in mind. As for lots of people claiming to be the messiah, Jesus didn't, and S43 doesn't accuse him of such, so that's beside the point. So here's my question again: "if you think that Yeshu isn't Jesus, could someone name any historical figure that matches "Yeshu" better?" In other words, if Yeshu is not Jesus, who is it? Leadwind (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

My point is, your whole argument is circular. You only conclude the portrait is inaccurate, because you have assumed with no evidence that the story is about Jesus. But that is actually what you have the burden to prove. Given the nature of the Talmud, it is hard to be sure why it would even include a discussion of Jesus at all, and there is nothing in Snhedrin 43 to suggest they are seeing Jesus. It is like the Shroud of Tourin - you see jesus because you want to see Jesus, and for what it is woth if you want one more clue about the often tense relationship between Jews and Christians, it is the insistence that the Jews' sacred texts are about the Christian's messiah. It's enough to claim that the Hebrew Bible prophesizes Jesus - at least we can all agree that this is a matter of interpretation. But the Talmud?

Honestly, if you think Sanhedrin 43 is an inaccurate portrait of Jesus, I really think you have to admit that Matthew is an inaccurate portrait of Akiva. Akiva's father's name was Joseph. Akiva was a sage who argued with the Pharisees. He communed directly with God. He had many disciples. One of his close companions betrayed him. He was killed by the Romans. Why Matthew's portrait of Akiva is so inaccurate a portait can have many reasons - distortion in transmission, revision for theological reasons, etc. But obviously it is about Akiva. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, wait, now I see what you're talking about Leadwind, because there obviously was only one person ever to have a name that sounds anything like Yeshua, Yehoshua, Joshua, or Jesus. The waiter at the Mexican restaurant is my God, who is mentioned in the Talmud, as well as the Book of Joshua. Because duplicate names NEVER occur in history, which is why in addition to being a college student from South Carolina, I'm also a retired English octegenarian cricket player, a Scottish accountant turned journalist in New York, a prize winning author, and an Australian windsurfer. Those differences? It's not that these are different people, it's just inaccuracies in refering to the "real" Ian Thomson. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, now people are getting all mean on me, so I suppose the conversation's over. I can make my case without hyperbole or invective, but my fellow editors cannot. No one will answer my question about who Yeshu is (if not Jesus). Refusing to give an answer is an answer in itself; that will be my consolation prize. In any event, I can see I'm outgunned. And if in the end we don't tell people about the negative treatment Jesus gets in the Talmud, that's no big tragedy anyway. Leadwind (talk) 13:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The question "Who is Yeshu" has already been answered: he's one of the people that Jewish priesthood did not like, who is mentioned in the Talmud. You're not really asking the question, but rephrasing the assumption that he is Jesus as a question.

The following is a message from Facebook I sent to someone concerned about my actions here, and I think it sums up the situation:

First, I do acknowledge that the Gospels vary in the names of the disciples, Jesus's demeanor before execution, Jesus's relation to God, the years of ministry, year of birth, geneology, and some other issues. Throw in the books that didn't make it and there's even more variation. However, there are enough consistancies between one work and the next that noone has suggested that they refer to different individuals (I understand you're not doing so as well).

There are more differences than similarities in s43 to any of the accounts of Jesus, and the similarities can be explained.

The evidence that Yeshu in s43 is Jesus:
1. Similar names
2. "ha-Notzri"
3. Disliked by the Jewish priesthood
4. Executed on passover
5. Followers

The counter evidence:
1. Yehoshua (Joshua, Jesus) was a name quite familiar to the Talmud's authors and was a common name. They use the names "Yeshu" and "Yehoshua" at different points, not interchangably but consistantly (Joshua is used in s43, even). Yeshu fits an acronym for yimmach shemo vezikhro, "May his name and memory be blotted out," and the four other "Yeshu"s mentioned in the Talmud all fit a description of someone whose name the Talmud's authors would have liked to forget. Furthermore, Yehoshua has been used by Jews to refer to Jesus until the modern era (c.f. Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Melachim 11:4).
2. This was spotted as a later interpolation shortly after it appeared, and only appears in one (younger) line of manuscripts.
3. A number of people were disliked by the Jewish priesthood at the time. It's one of the many nails Life of Brian hit right on the head.
4. It's only a 1/354 chance on the Jewish calender to be killed on Passover. No more amazing that the coincidences astrologers like to think they found. I will admit that this isn't as common as the name, but this is the only point that begins to stick. The method of execution differs, though. Lynching (the method used in s43) would have been more appropriate for a Jewish execution, but the Romans (who carried out the sentence) crucified. There's also no claims about the body being stolen from its grave after or anything of that nature.
5. The number and names of the followers is completely at odds with other accounts. Granted, the accepted accounts do differ on a couple of names, but only a single name comes close to any of the accepted ones. At least the number of disciples would have been extremely easy for the Talmud's authors to ascertain, and they could have learned a few names beyond Matthew (the other three now-accepted gospel authors, Thomas, James, Jude). In deed, with the proselytizing nature of Christianity at the time, it would have been hard for them to not know, and would have been a chance to equate Christianity with paganism.

Further evidence that Yeshu in s43 is not Jesus:
With only one exception, Rabbis took the interpretation that this was not Jesus until after the Christians became aware of the text. The first Christian to write about the text took the interpretation that it was about Jesus, but he was writing an anti-semitic work, so his interpretation is a bit suspect. Scholars that followed him had the same intention of bashing Judaism. After that, Theosophists took it up to try and argue that Jesus lived in 100 BC and was a world-wandering immortal Atlantean wizard raised by the Comte de St. Germaine to became Apollonius of Tyana. Their interpretations are suspect as well (but entertaining). It is only thanks to Joseph Klausner's admittedly Zionist and revisionist work that secular scholars began to look at the idea of Yeshu being Jesus, and even Klausner admits that the core material is not about Jesus and that Yeshu was a later addition. In this day, the claim that Yeshu is Jesus openly relies on eisegesis instead of contextual reading. Other modern scholars, like Adolf Neubauer, admit that they have to fudge with names to get them to match, and their work is not supported by philologists.

At this point, the only thing that begins to stick is "killed on passover."

I am not arguing in the interest of Christian traditions (or I would agree that Yeshu is Jesus), but for secular scholarship. If I am arguing in favor of any religious tradition, let it be Judaism (even if I'm not Jewish).

Ian.thomson (talk) 14:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Leadwind, it is quite unfair for you to write, "I can make my case without hyperbole or invective, but my fellow editors cannot." The reason this is unfair is: you have no case, and you have never made any case. You start by believing San 43 is referring to Jesus. That is not a "case," that is just blind faith. You ask, who else could it refer to, if not Jesus, which is truly a bizarre question. It refers to someone named Yeshu who was stoned.

My real problem with you - and please do not suggest i am being mean - is that you make claims about the Talmud with total disregard for any of the quite serious scholarly research on the Talmud. Klinghoffer is not a scholar, let alone a serious scholar, and Thiessen is not a Talmud scholar. I mentioned two very serious scholars of the Talmud to you: Rubenstein and Boyarin. Did you go read their work? Did you even read the Wikipedia article on the Talmud? If you had even just read our article on the Talmud, you would have seen that mainstream Tlamud scholars believe that a great many of the stories are not about real people but rather homilies meant to make ethical or theological points. And as Ian as so convincingly - but to humor you, repeatedly - explained, Yeshu can refer to any such person named Yeshu, or a stand-in for Yeshu. Even if the story is about an actual person who the Priests stoned (which would have had to occur before Roman occupation, or in the Galilee and not Judea) it ... is .. a .. story ... about ... some ... guy .. named ... Yeshu. Yeshu is not the Hebrew name for Jesus, and it is not the Aramaic name for Jesus. Who then coudl it be? Well, let me ask you, Leadwind, do you have a list of the names of ALL Jews who lived in the kingdom of Judah or the Kingdom of Israel or the Hasmonean kingdom or any state where Jews were sovereign i.e. unoccupied by Greeks or Romans, and thus where stoning actually occured? Provide me with your complete list of names of Jews, and then we can start asking which one it was. The Talmud is in fact filled with the names of people who are not mentioned in other sources. Why is it so surprising to you that the Yeshu refered to in San 43 might not be refered to in other documents? in fact, this is the norm, not the exception. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:11, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

SLR, I hope that this exchange hasn't expended the good will that we've enjoyed as fellow editors. Despite our efforts to be fair and clear, we're evidently talking past each other. Seeing which way the wind is blowing, I am no longer trying to get the Klinghoffer material added, so this thread has reached its proper end. Editors who are following this exchange are invited to read the "critical views" section of the Yeshu page. Determining whether that section generally confirms one view or another is left as an exercise for the reader. Leadwind (talk) 15:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough Slrubenstein | Talk 15:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see how Talmud scholars could be RS's on points related to Jesus. For example, I know of some non RS internet claims that large parts of the Jesus story are drawn from Krishna, some parts-the story of the adulterous woman in particular, from Buddha. I don't think such claims could have any scholarly credibility if they came from specialists on Krishna or Buddha. However, they would have immediate credibility if they came from NT scholars. Similarly, in this instance, Talmud scholars would not be RS's because they cannot be expected to identify Jesus even if he were in the Talmud. They are not experts on Jesus. For this point, to my way of thinking, only NT/HJ scholars / scholars of religion / anthropology / history who have done some work on Jesus would be fulfilling the RS requirements. If we have sources like that making this point, I think we should note it in the article.-Civilizededucation^talk 02:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see how Jesus scholars could be RS's on points related to the Talmud. Talmud scholars know Hebrew and Aramaic, and the historical context in which the Talmud was redacted, and the sources on which it is based. Another scholar with expertise in the new testament, which was written in a different language, in a different part of the world, and at a different time, would not be RS's because they cannot be expected to understand the Talmud. As for identifying jesus, just what esoteric knowledge does one need to be able to tell when someone is referring to Jesus? Every Sunday sermons are broadcast on the radio. When these sermons refer to someone called "Jesus," do I need to consult with a New Testament historian to find out whether or not the sermon is refering to the same Jesus as in the new testament? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:13, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite see how Jesus scholars could be RS's on points related to the Talmud. I am somewhat perplexed as to how you could not see this point. I have also given an analogy to illustrate the point that only NT scholars can be RSs on points related to Jesus even when we are discussing texts or traditions related to other religions/fields. To my mind, the story of the massacre of innocents has an exact parallel in the traditions associated with Krishna. There are several other parallels too. And the story of an adulterous woman seems to be a simple cut and paste operation from Buddha. But still, we would not note any claims in this regard if they came from Buddha scholars. Would we? Perhaps you do not see this argument because it is possible that you may be unfamiliar with these traditions. However, the point that Buddha scholars would not be an RS for this claim should be obvious. Similar is the case for the Talmud. And in this case, NT scholars have a better claim to have an understanding of the talmuds because numerous NT scholars have studied the talmuds, investigated it, to find what it may say about the historical jesus. There is disagreement among them whether the talmud does say anything/anything of value, what does it say, etc. So, it is not as if that NT scholars are unfamiliar with the talmud. Secandly, numerous NT scholars are profound scholars of ancient languages like greek, hebrew, coptic, aramaic, etc. And if they can gain expertise in the context in which the NT was written, which was earlier than the talmuds, and had a similar setting in the sense that both are jewish settings of roughly the same period, it becomes unreasonable to think that NT scholars could not understand the talmuds. As far as what esoteric knowledge could be required to identify jesus, well, if no expert knowledge is required, how can the NT scholars, who are the acknowledged experts on Jesus, make a mistake when they identify him in the talmuds? Several NT scholars do claim that it is jesus there.-Civilizededucation^talk 02:45, 5 February 2011 (UTC)If you still don't see how jesus scholars could be RSs for references to jesus in the talmuds, please note that NT scholars have investigated numerous other ancient sources for their reconstructions of the historical jesus. They have investigated sources like philo, josephus, seutonius, pliny the younger, tacitus, et al and more. If they are RSs for adducing the meaning of all these sources, how could they be non RSs in the case of talmuds only?-Civilizededucation^talk 05:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, any NT scholar who also established himself or hersef as a Talmud scholar would be ... a Talmud scholar. I do not know of any, though. At this point you are just pushing your own POV and OR. NT scholars like anyone else can make whatever claim they wish about the Talmud, that does not make it cerdible scholarship, it is still a fringe view. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:14, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no need for NT scholars to establish themselves as talmud scholars when speaking about jesus, even when it is from the talmuds. If talmud scholars say anything in this regard, they would have to get themselves established as saying something serious, and they would have to get this recognition from NT scholars. If talmud scholars say something about jesus, and NT scholars don't take it seriously, then whatever talmud scholars say about jesus would have no academic credibility. I see that you have not made any meaningful counterargument and resorted to making an allegation, two allegations actually. It would show that you have no counter argument. It is you who is pushing your POV, based on your OR. The fact that you are sticking to your point even when you have no counter argument to make shows that you are committed to a fixed conclusion, and are unwilling to move from that conclusion even when your conclusion becomes untenable in the face of reason. It appears you have only convoluted arguments to make. Anyone who knows anything about NT scholars would have known that they are familiar with the settings of the talmuds and are easily capable of swimming in ancient languages of that time and period. You have no meaningful argument to make.-Civilizededucation^talk 00:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Why has all that stuff about "the Talmud view" been added to the article based on personal websites and sources like Zola Levitt? And why is Toldot Yeshu even mentioned? It has no religious significance in Judaism. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:35, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless there are any policy-related objections in the next day or so, I'll remove the material. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Although I did not put up the toledot yeshu thing there, I have been reading around on this issue. Among the sources which I investigated, I find that they say the toledot yeshu appears to have been constructed by the jews as a way of warding off missionary pressures. Regardless of the in/accuracy of the jesus image there, this story has shaped the jewish perspective of jesus for some centuries now and it seems that the image derived from this story still persists to a large part. There is some effort from modern jewish scholars to reclaim jesus as a jew. This is based on modern historical jesus reconstructions in which jesus is an upright jew, fully respects jewish law, is concerned only with jews, did not found the church or christianity and did not have anything like that in mind, christianity was started only by peter/cephas and paul of tarsus etc., jesus resurrection,divinity etc. is only a later construct and such.-Civilizededucation^talk 02:11, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't answer any of the questions raised. Why has all that stuff about "the Talmud view" been added to the article based on personal websites and sources like Zola Levitt? And why is Toldot Yeshu even mentioned? It has no religious significance in Judaism. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the sourcing issue, I think the user who put in this material should be consulted first. As far as the validity of this material is concerned, I think it does belong to that section, even if the present sourcing is not up to the mark. I too could make an effort to find some better, scholarly sources. Regarding the point that the toldedot yeshu has no significance in judaism, i think that no type of yeshu has any religious significance in judaism. Looking at the section heading, I had the impression that it was about jewish/judaism's view/perspective on jesus. It is obvious to me that the jewish/judaism's view has been shaped mostly by the toledot yeshu story. As such, I think it is an integral part of that section. Is this closer to discussing the issue which you have in mind?-Civilizededucation^talk 04:08, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Sources need to be good, but I can't see a reason not to mention Toldot Yeshu. It seems to bear directly on the question of Jewish opinions of Jesus, at least historically. If there were a separate section on historical opinions, it would go there, but we only have one "Jewish views" section. Leadwind (talk) 04:24, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The toldot yeshu image seems to be very much current among jews. It is only some modern jewish academic scholars who are trying to reclaim jesus for jews (based on historical jesus images as outlined above) and to change the jewish perception of jesus. It's not as if they have succeeded in doing so already. The non academic jewish scholars/rabbis and most jews continue with the toledot yeshu. IMO.-Civilizededucation^talk 06:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

evidence? I have spent years studying the Tanach and Talmud and other Jewish texts, and never heard of the Toledot Yeshu until I got to Wikipedia. I have listened to countles divrei Torah and drashes, and sermons, and have participated in interfaith dilogues and services, in Reform Conservative Orthodox, and Hassidic settings, and never heard anyone bring up Toledot Yeshu. I think Rambam's statement pretty much sums it up. Of course there are plenty of books by rabbis and other Jewish scholars on the topic but they never claim more than to represent the author's own opinion. Funny, how Christian editors often find it hard to believe that Jews just do not have a doctrine on Jesus (as if he must matter so much to everyone), or that Jews might have individual views or a collection of diverse minority views but no single doctrine ... why would anyone think there has to be on "Jewish view?" It is not like we have a pope or anything, you know. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:00, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I think much of this can be seen in "CHAPTER 14 Jewish Perspectives on Jesus". In Delbert Burkett. The Blackwell Companion to Jesus. If any points remain, I shall try to clarify it from some other source. And I do think that although jesus may not mean much to most non christians, jews do seem to have a perspective on jesus, even if it be mostly negative, and even if it be unpalatable or outlandish for most christians. And Rambam statement?-Civilizededucation^talk 15:24, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Civilizededucation, Wikipedia doesn't care what "Jews" think about Jesus. Jews have 14 million opinions about Jesus. The section in question is Judaism's view. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

CE, you're right, but probably not right enough. Yes, Toledot Yeshu is relevant, but it doesn't get a lot of coverage in our sources, so it doesn't deserve a lot of coverage on WP. If there were no opposition from other editors, we could easily add in a line or two, but the opposition is going to be significant. You might find that your time is better used finding other ways to improve articles. In principle, you're right. In practice, I wouldn't recommend fighting this fight. Leadwind (talk) 15:34, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussing the Toledot Yeshu is a bit like choosing the story of Barlaam and Josaphat to represent mainstream Christianity's view of Siddhartha Gautama. We kinda need to emphasize that it's an old text, not a modern doctrine. There are positive views of Jesus by Jews (even if they are not in agreement with Christianity), and a lot of neutral views. We probably should include something to the effect that Jesus is a non-issue to many Jews, and better cover the variety of views among those who do have opinions. Anyway, I've gotta go grab lunch. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Toledot Yeshu is just a polemic book; as explained already, it has no religious authority or significance, and therefore is irrelevant to Judaism's view of Jesus. We don't need to emphasize anything at all about it here in this small overview section. Instead we need to stick to mainstream statements by significant religious groups/authoritative religious works, as was the case in the article for three years. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)