Talk:John the Apostle/Archive 3

Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

St. John

I've noticed a trend to remove the title of "Saint" from the apostles and from St. Paul. I haven't edited any of the articles, however, I believe this should be raised as an issue. I understand that many take exception to the title of Saint; however, it's my undestanding that Wikipedia is fair and arbitrary concerning its presentation of facts. Thus, rather than skirt around the sensitivities of the few, it should reflect the terms utilized by the many.

I am afraid that the Christian denominations that make use of the term "Saint" far exceed the number of those who do not. It's simple mathematics: there are a billion Roman Cahtolics in the world; but what is more, there are 300 million Orthodox Christians as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Anglican Church also uses "Saint" as a term. At any rate, that is well over half the Christians currently practicing their religion on the planet and it seems to me this should count for something when we determine what terminology is used. We do not call Saint John, "John the Apostle" we call him Saint John. We do not call Saint Paul, "Paul of Tarsus" we call him Saint Paul. Look at the logical conclusion of this, what comes next, we call Saint George, "George Who Killed A Dragon In Libya"? I haven't made any changes, but I strongly feel this needs to be addressed. We should use the popular terms, not follow the narrow edicts of a loud few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pristuccia (talkcontribs) 23:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd like "Saint" in the titles of these articles because that's how these people are known: Saint Paul, Saint Clement, Saint John, etc. Leadwind (talk) 17:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

merge from john the evangelist

Let's merge John the Evangelist into this article. Leadwind (talk) 17:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

John the Evangelist and John the Apostle are two separate people, as far as we know, it has been speculated that they are the same people. The problem with the John the Evangelist article is that it has unreferenced material, and reading through it, it either comes from sources talking about John the Apostle, or sources that believe them to be one and the same. Plus, a number of resources seem to have been misread to be about John the Apostle. This article is riddled with John the Apostle information, and needs to be entirely redone. The problem is, certain churches claim them to be the same, but a number of scholars believe them to be separate. *Sigh* This article really needs to be fixed. AnOicheGhealai (talk) 18:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


It seems a Merge discussion has already taken place, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:John_the_Evangelist#Merge, and the conclusion was to keep them separate. 7 people opposing and 4 supporting. Go to the discussion and read the reasons given. AnOicheGhealai (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Galilee, Durham?

I just noticed that this article lists John the Apostle's birthplace as Galilee, Durham. I've never heard of this, Google hasn't either, and the user who made the change [1] has made an inappropriate edit elsewhere (although he did revert that one). I've undone this, since it seems so unlikely, but if by some odd chance it's correct, please let me know! ResPublicae (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC) Media:Example.ogg''''Bold text'

Language template

I had come here to revert User AngBent's edit removing the "Ancient Greek" template from the first sentence. It appears that User:Carl.bunderson has already taken care of the issue. In an exchange of messages I'd obligated myself to posting here regarding this issue. As the subject purportedly lived during the time frame given for the usage of Koine Greek, and Koine Greek appears to be recognized as an Ancient Greek variety, I believe that the Ancient Greek template should stay in place. If there exists some problem with catagorization of ancient Greek forms, that should be resolved at Ancient Greek before edits are executed removing the template. Tiderolls 19:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I recently changed "Ancient Greek" to "Koine Greek". User:Tide_rolls questioned this, and asked me to discuss here. The immediately preceding comment (written by Tide_rolls), suggests that this article follow whatever resolution is followed at the Ancient Greek article. So what does that article say?: "Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles the Classical" (though it also says that Hellenistic Greek is regarded as part of Ancient Greek...). How about the History of Greek article? It uses the schema Mycenaean, Ancient Greek, Koine, Medieval, Modern, as does the template "History of the Greek Language". Of course, no periodization is perfect, but these are the ones adopted by WP.
This article is about Ἰωάννης in the New Testament, and there is no question that the New Testament is written in Koine Greek = Biblical Greek = New Testament Greek = Hellenistic Greek. So why shouldn't we identify the language of the Greek name as Koine Greek? --Macrakis (talk) 04:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
It was not my intention to challenge your change, Macrakis. I simply did not have the knowledge of the subject requried to appreciate your edit without some explanation. Thanks for taking the time to help me. Regards Tiderolls 06:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Picture

Picture? - I am not a scholar but that looks incorrect... I agree the picture is really unflatering, but I went though a lot of the pictures and they are of same manner. I found this picture and by far the best I have found. I uploaded it to my flicker account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/47609085@N06/6945699027/in/photostream/ and edited it. It says all rights reserved but says that for my family pics also, so ignore it. I'm new to the editting process but befutiled as to how to upload pictures to the wiki page. Could someone who knows how, upload it for me? Replace that aweful profile pic for John. thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Valponcho (talkcontribs) 06:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I've relocated your post to the bottom of the talk page per WP:TPG#YES. I am not an image use expert, but we cannot "ignore" copyrights. Please see Wikipedia:Image use policy#Copyright and licensing. Tiderolls 06:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Valpocho: lol that is funny, because my cat photo which I own is copyrighted for some strange reason. They say All rights reserved on the pics I uploaded including the John the Beloved pic. See my bangle cat http://www.flickr.com/photos/47609085@N06/6361559799/ with copyright lol So you can't say John the beloved.pic copyright or not, Might be Flickr standard proceedure to do that. But you got to say. Current profile picture is way unflatering and might I say childish. John was a young man not a boy at time Jesus.

Again, I'm not well versed in image use but I believe that flickr allows one to alter the license of use for images that the uploader owns. As for images that you upload to your flickr account that you do not own you would have to get persmission from the image's owner to use the image on Wikipedia. It sounds more complicated that it really is but, as copyrights are included in Wikipedia's policies that cover legal concerns, the rules are somewhat inflexible. Tiderolls 20:10, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

"Church Fathers"

Who are these unnammed/unreferenced "Church Fathers"? That really is not encyclopedic. Please re-word to reflect neutral point of view. For example, one could say that "Council X" determined that "John of Patmos" is "John the Apostle".Ryoung122 23:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

For context, here's the sentence in the lead paragraph to which I assume you are referring: "The Church Fathers consider him the same person as John the Evangelist, John of Patmos, and the Beloved Disciple."
Anyways, you make a good point. "Early Christian writers" would be a more neutral wording. But there's also a second issue that needs consideration here: they didn't all agree with the stated position! Dionysius of Alexandria in the third century argued that the author of Revelation is not the same John who wrote the Gospel. He wrote that, "Some before us have set aside and rejected the book [of Revelation] altogether....For they say that it is not the work of John." (Eusebius' quote of Dionysius, Some discussion). Moreover, Eusebius also writes that "In regard to the Apocalypse [i.e. Revelation of John], the opinions of most men are still divided." (Reference) Clearly those who held such views were not of the opinion that John the Evangelist and John of Patmos were the same person.
It seems to me that the most that can be said here is that (a) some (many?)(most?) early Christians did identify these references to John as one and the same person (especially those who early on received Revelation into the biblical canon), and (b) as consensus gradually built across Christendom over the following centuries that Revelation belongs in the canon, an ever increasing majority of Christian writers adopted the view that John of Patmos and John the Evangelist are the same person.
Perhaps the lead paragraph should read "Many early Christian writers..." instead of "The Church Fathers...."? --Mike Agricola (talk) 01:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

John in Mormonism

There are a few problems with this section. First, it says "The Roman Catholic Church holds that John was the only one of the twelve Apostles who was not martyred", but goes on to provide a source to the Book of Mormon. This is problematic, but what does Catholic tradition have to do with Mormon belief anyway?

On a related note, it should be mentioned that the tradition of the tarrying apostle apparantly first arose many centuries prior to Mormonism, as evidenced by the mention in John 21:23. This needs to be included, but the actual quote refers to the Beloved Disciple, not directly to John. Later tradition, including the Mormon one, identifes the Beloved with John, but we need to make it clear that was not necessarily the case at the time the Gospel of John was written.--Cúchullain t/c 23:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In October 2007 this section was removed from the article. Why? Danielwellsfloyd (talk) 14:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Who cares what LDS teach about John? Lets keep this to really things, not 1800s fairtale bullcrap!User:not a user 14:44, 31 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.174.44.51 (talk)

Why not include a section on what the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah Witnesses teach about John? Maybe a section each for the Amish and the Christian Scientists would also be of interest. Oh! Let us not forget the Christadelphians! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.164.154.21 (talk) 21:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to add that. Ckruschke (talk) 18:57, 14 November 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

What's the difference between "Extra-Biblical Traditions" and "The Acts of John" sections?

After reading through these two sections and doing some minor editing on grammar and sentence structure, I noted that there are several stories here that are identical (even the wording) in both sections. In addition, the other stories are all basically "Acts". Thus I question the need for the "Extra-Biblical Traditions" section at all. So unless there are dissenting opinions, it seems clear that these sections should be combined - something which I'd be happy to do. Ckruschke (talk) 17:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

Note - Article Cannot Use www.Catholic.org as a Reference

Where does www.Catholic.org get its information from for its article? Wikipedia - namely this article which is identical to the feed at http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=228. The authors of Wikipedia that are citing this as a reference, are in fact, citing themselves as a reference. You cannot use www.catholic.org because it is cyclical loop back to this article... Stevenmitchell (talk) 05:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I have removed the references, and added {{citation needed}} for his death age/city. Elizium23 (talk) 05:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Aramaic text is showing up as ⟨

Hey, just wondering if this is a technical issue on my computer or if this is actually something that needs addressing? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:21, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean the Aramaic text in the lede sentence? It looks fine to me. Elizium23 (talk) 23:31, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
That's the one. Not sure why, but it is showing up as boxes, not letters. Do you know what would I change in my settings to fix this? Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:43, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
What operating system and browser are you using? Elizium23 (talk) 23:55, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
This link might give you some good information. Elizium23 (talk) 00:08, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Windows 10 and Google Chrome (don't hate me for the Win10 ;p). Thanks for the help, Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 00:21, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
Microsoft Knowledge Base: Windows 10 answers Elizium23 (talk) 00:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
That last one seems to have worked. Thank you again for the tech help. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 01:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)