Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jesus as myth

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep and cleanup, removing OR and leaving sources. If that proves impossible, it should be relisted for deletion.. – Avi 22:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus as myth

This entire page smacks of original (albeit well-referenced) research. Yes, there are plenty of citations, often lacking in the most flagrant OR violators, but the article is rife with assertions like "If Christianity had originally evolved as a localised mystery religion, then not only should there be parallels between the scriptural narratives of Christianity and myths from the mystery religions, but there should also be parallels with more outwardly things such as religious rituals, and imagery." and "Aside from potential parallels with Gnosticism, which can be investigated more directly, other significant features of Pythagoreanism might have entered into early Christianity, and their presence would add support to a position advocating that significant parts of early Christianity, or all of it, derived from mystery religion." Again, it's an interesting read, and is even persuasive in its thesis, but that's the problem. It's an essay, not an encyclopedia article, and is irrevocably so. Delete as original research. JDoorjam Talk 19:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

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• Delete. Well-writen OR, but OR nonetheless. Fan-1967 19:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. It would be a shame to delete such a well written, carefully documented/sourced, and lengthy article that so many wikipedians have collaborated on for over a year. If there's any way to salvage this article and remove the WP:OR problems, please do so rather than just delete. Allisonmontgomery69 23:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: From the third paragraph, "The question of whether Jesus derives to some extent from myth (including 100% from it) requires academic analysis of the available evidence from times near-contemporary with the dates for Jesus' life, and on analysis of how reliable such evidence is, and what their biases are." The article then goes on to perform such an academic analysis. Again, yeah, it's well-written, but it's pure OR. I don't know how salvageable it is, given that "academic analysis" is in this article's DNA. JDoorjam Talk 23:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, with regret. Either OR is allowed, or it isn't ClemMcGann 00:09, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per WP:OR. And he definetly exists. -Royalguard11^Talk 01:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. To apply WP:OR here is inappropriate, and "It's an essay, not an encyclopedia article" is a false dichotomy. To discuss this (or any) subject matter without any analysis or criticism would be near impossible, and the result unreadable. Buster79 03:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. If Wikipedia can have an article on Holocaust denial, it can certainly have an article on the historical authenticity of a potentially mythological religious figure. The article is a description of a pre-existing and credible theory, and is in no way WP:OR. It is wrong to use the charge of WP:OR here in order to get rid of information that some people don't like. Big Brother 1984 08:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. It needs a POV tag for the meantime, but sources on the topic are certainly available in abundance (I can think of the Testimonium Flavium off the top of my head). There is no reason to delete this article, because it is not irredeemably condemned to being original research. Whoever wrote it, I can guarantee, would not be the first person to have written about the possibility that the Jesus figure is a myth. If just needs a bit of fixing, that's all. Byrgenwulf 08:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It seems that many of the unverified assumptions and "original research" in this article are actually from people opposing the subject. For example, "there is no formally peer-reviewed work advocating this extreme limit of the Jesus-Myth theory". That is absolute nonsense, there has been much scholarly work on the subject: for example, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the subject extensively. Simply because the subject of an article is uncomfortable to some people does not mean it should be deleted. The entire concept of a "Jesus-Myth" is just not one person's original research. The article should, perhaps, be renamed, though. Byrgenwulf 08:47, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Another Comment After reading this article carefully, it should be clear that this is not original research at all! It is, on the contrary, one of the more scholarly and well-written articles on Wikipedia. Statements like those offered in the nomination do not contravene original research policies. Here is a relevant quote: "However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia". I am beginning to wonder if this AfD is not the result of an ideological objection to the article, not the nature of the article itself. The idea that what is written there constitutes OR is preposterous. Byrgenwulf 08:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Yet another one This article has existed for over a year, and has had more than 500 edits by more than twenty editors, expressing many different points of view. Compare this version of the article to the current one. Look at the edit history. I cannot stress enough that this is not original research, and it is not even particularly slanted. There are absolutely no grounds for deletion here. Byrgenwulf 09:07, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. This article is of long standing (originally it was entitled "Jesus-Myth"). The subject is entirely legitimate and well established. Unfortunately it is a target for extremist ideologues on both sides of the debate. Paul B 13:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Only two weeks ago the article looked like this [1]. The content and tone in dispute is very recent. It seems perverse to delete an article because ofwhat may be temporary difficulties. Paul B 01:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep The ideas propsed here are far from original research and often cited to particular people and quotes. Many of the documents referenced have their own wikipedia articles and full texts available. Please see talk page as some sources are there and not directly cited in the article, so perhaps a minor cleanup needed. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 13:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep POV needs to be enforced on this article, but the argument deserve to be kept as it is a legitimate doubt. Nova77 16:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Judging from google scholar search results, there seems to be a large body of published literature on this topic. Many of the items brought up by a google scholar search seem to have been published in scholarly journals. If there are problems with the current version of the Wikipedia article on this topic, then fix them, but do not delete the article. --JWSchmidt 18:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete It has citations, but it editorializes and theorizes, and does not cover facts (such as Josephus) without being immediately deleted. The article is too abrasive to e npov for both sides and it should be deleted, started anew, and made much shorter to limit those using wiki to editorialize.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wikilagata (talk • contribs) .
• Strong keep First of all, this is not OR. Yes, it says that "academic analysis" is necessary, but then it summarizes the analysis which has been performed by others, who are identified in the text, in notes, or in the reference section. I agree that the sources for some sections need to be identified more prominently, but that's no reason to delete the article. Second, it doesn't matter if any of us think the "Jesus as myth" theory is questionable, bogus, or even offensive. It's an idea that has had quite a few supporters for over a century. It has influenced books from The Golden Bough to The Da Vinci Code. It is encyclopedic and noteworthy. Third, the article does have some POV problems and probably always will, because the subject matter stirs up strong feelings in some people. But that's a reason to work on improving it and covering all points of view as fairly as possible. Maestlin 20:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Merge with Historicity of Jesus - I do not see any bigger difference between the themes of the two articles, and Historicity of Jesus is definitely better, because it does not give us an answer to the Jesus puzzle in advance.--Ioannes Pragensis 20:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment They are related but not identical. A better solution would be to summarize the contents of Historicity of Jesus and inform readers that there is a main article on the subject. Some notes to editors wouldn't hurt either. Maestlin 17:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment And what is their substantial difference? I see mostly similarities and still do not believe that it is reasonable to split the single theme into two articles. Moreover I feel that "Something as something else" is a bad title of an encyclopedic article.--Ioannes Pragensis 21:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment As I understand it, Historicity of Jesus is about the question of whether Jesus existed, and what evidence is available to answer the question. Jesus as myth is about using the tools of mythologists to analyze accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, which may or may not lead to the conclusion that Jesus never existed. Such analyses are often carried out by people who want to show that Jesus is totally fictional, but some have reached the conclusion that he was a real person, or possibly real person, whose life was mythicized. I acknowledge that the last viewpoint is not well reflected in the article as it currently exists, but that's a POV problem. The article title has been changed a few times recently; the current incarnation is not great, I agree. Do you have a recommended name? Maestlin 21:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The are several similar articles on Wikipedia concerning the life of Jesus.
  • New Testament view on Jesus' life - This article presents a description of Jesus' life, as based on the four gospels (Bible as only source of information).
  • Historical Jesus - A reconstruction of Jesus' life using all available information. It assumes that the gospels are mostly correct, but it points out textual inconstancies and attempts to place some information in historical context.
  • Historicity of Jesus - An examination of all available texts which mention Jesus (and text from that period which do not mention Jesus)
  • Jesus Myth - A theory which states that Jesus is most likely a mythical character since all of the elements of Jesus' story can be found in prior myths. This article also briefly mentions some information from the previous article to support this claim.

The difference between the last two articles is that the Historicity of Jesus focuses on ancient texts, while the Jesus Myth focuses on ancient myths. The is certainly some crossover between these two articles, but I think is useful to allow them to exist separately, since they are not exactly the same thing. Big Brother 1984 11:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

• Article is not entirely written from a neutral point of view and suffers from multiple undue weight issues. For example, much of the "Parallels with non-Christian myths from the first century" subsection gives undue weight to material rejected by serious Egyptologists. For another example, the article as a whole does not adequately explain why the theory has been generally rejected by the academic community, thus giving the article as a whole a NPOV failure. However, I do not believe the article is inherently a violation of the NPOV policy, so am not now prepared to suggest deletion. Keep and clean-up is thus my recommendation. GRBerry 21:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• KEEP! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.214.109.178 (talk • contribs) .
• Strong keep This is not OR but rather an extensive overlook of literature and theory that discusses this idea. --WhitneyGH 20:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.38.224.173 (talk • contribs) .
• Very Strong, Keep Excellent article, completely consistent with a good encyclopedia. Just because it is a controversial topic does not mean that information like this is not important, quite the contrary. Someone took a great deal of time to write on this topic and did an admirable job. When this article is viewed from the perspective that right-wing religious extremism of all faiths is severly impacting the earth today, it is essential to have "fair and balanced" information on all aspects of religion, religious practices, and religious figures. --Tim Bach 03:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Tim Bach user contributions
• Delete or seriosly overhaul. This is no encyclopedia article but an essay arguing a point (probably very persuasive to those unacquainted with historiography). If, as some here have argued, this bad quality is only a recent phenomenon, I'd ask these editors to roll-back that process and restore the former balance. Str1977 ^{(smile back)} 14:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and Improve Good canidate for a collaboration. --Banana04131 17:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep-there are those who do doubt his existence, afterall, christianity is just another personality cult like mohammadism.--Tomtom9041 21:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• KEEP!!! Just because this is not a commonly known belief, doesn't mean that it isn't well researched, and it is actually very likely true. It would be a shame to delete this, especially considering some of the pages that are not being considered for deletion from Wikipedia. Shameful.

- The tone of the article has a clear 'agenda'. The agenda is to discount the historicity of Jesus. As such it should be re-written and merged with Historicity_of_jesus. The additional misuse of the title of this article amounts to a type of vandalism when cited in other Wikipedia articles dealing with (for example) Christianity (See also, Jesus as Myth], Christ (See also, Jesus as Myth] and other similar materials. The article is not balanced, but is rather an essay that attempts to debunk christianity. Is the information important? Yes. However, the title is inflamatory and biased as is the overall tone of the article. Would we permit articles entitled "General Relativity as Myth", History as Myth", Israel as Myth, Moses as Myth, Exodus as Archaeological Myth? I don't think so. This article, as titled, sets a dangerous precedent. John Charles Webb 10:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Comment The reason to include "myth" in the title is to differentiate it from the main article on Jesus, since that article seems to take the POV that Jesus was a real person despite evidence to the contrary. It is only inflammatory to people who believe this myth is represents a real historical figure. If billions of people believed that Zeus was a real person, Wikipedia would probably have a page titled Zeus Myth. But since everybody agrees that Zeus is a mythological character, there is no need to specify that an article with the POV that Zeus is myth takes that position. If there was a theory that Zeus was a real person, there would probably be an article titled "Zeus as an historical figure". But, since most people think that Jesus was a real person, an article which discusses the mythological origins of Jesus' myth necessarily has to specify this in the title. And the reason that this article is different from the Historicity_of_jesus article is that the Jesus Myth article focuses on the mythic origins of Jesus, whereas the other focus on ancient texts which mention Jesus (and the texts which should have mentioned Jesus but do not). The Jesus Myth theory certainly is a logical extension of the facts mentioned in the Historicity_of_jesus article, but the latter discusses history whereas the former discusses a particular theory concerning origins of the Jesus myth. Big Brother 1984 12:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Reply The use of the word "myth", in this instance, reveals a bias. A balanced presentation would provide enough information to allow the reader to determine whether or not Jesus is a myth. The title implies that the matter has already been decided. The Jesus Myth essay, standing alone, implies an endorsement of a particular point-of-view. If I drafted an article entitled "The Democracy Myth" then the title alone implies the tone of the content. The Wikipedia articles are designed to present un-biased verifiable information. If someone wishes to propose a new naming convention, they can do so on Wikipedia:Naming_conventions while also publicising the proposal at Requests for comment and the Wikipedia:Village Pump, as well as at any related pages. Once a strong consensus has formed, it can be adopted as a naming convention. (portions of text quoted from Wikipedia Naming Guidelines) Also, part of the definition of the word 'myth' is: A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology. A fictitious story, person, or thing. As such the article's title (as well as its content) is biased and in violation of Wikipedia Policy. John Charles Webb 18:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Reply to the Reply By that same logic, the page on Holocaust Denial should be renamed since it is implying that "Holocaust Deniers" are denying that a real event occurred, assumedly in order to push some sort of anti-Semitic agenda. The article is called "Holocaust Denial" not to indicate a POV, but rather to identify a fringe theory and separate it from mainstream views on the Holocaust. It is a page about the theory. And while it is true that the proponents of the theory certainly have a POV, the article need not necessarily have a POV. All it need do is describe the theory, and cite some of the claims which support it (with accompanying criticism of the theory where justified). This is what the Jesus Myth article does ... it describes the theory, and explains some of the key components that make up the theory. Any page which describes a theory has to explain that theory's POV. You couldn’t write an article an evolutionary theory without explaining that POV any more than you could write an article on Creationism without explaining that POV. Does that mean that neither of these articles should exist? Are we really prepared to remove all articles which describe a theory from Wikipedia simply because they explain a POV? And concerning the name, do you have a better suggestion? Would you prefer "Jesus Denial"? To me, that would be a POV. However, the title “Jesus Myth” seems to be a fitting name for what the article describes – the theory that just about every element of Jesus’ life story has roots in prior myths. Big Brother 1984 11:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
    • "'Reply to Replies'" The article does cover a scholarly postion, Jesus as a myth. There is nothing wrong the the title. However, the issue is with how often the article transcends and ignores scholarly viewpoints and just throws in random parallels and assertions. The article needs to be restarted from scratch.User:Wikilagata

• Keep. The Jesus Myth position is a real, studied position on the historicity of Jesus. If the concensus is that changes need to be made to make the article a record of the Myth position than an argument for it, then the edits can be made without a serious reduction of content or value. But deletion is extreme nonsense. --Writer@Large 12:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep- This line of reasoning is as valid as any other. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.51.253.249 (talk • contribs) .

• Note that in accordance with WP:NOR, if the article is a line of reasoning then it is a reason to delete, not to keep. GRBerry 01:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Is the page on Evolution a "line of reasoning"? What about the pages on Creationism, Christianity, General relativity, the Geocentric model, the Kennedy Assassination, or the Moon hoax? Wikipedia is chocked-full of pages which describe theories. I agree that in each case a NPOV should be taken in describing the theory, but I disagree with anybody who claims that these pages shouldn't exist. The person who nominated this article for deletion is the one expressing a POV. It is an attempt to eliminate information about a theory hat they don't agree with. And that shouldn't be allowed. I fully support the creation of a "Criticism of the Theory" section in the article (If anybody can think of a valid criticism, that is.) Big Brother 1984 11:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep and Continue to Develop - This position, while not accepted by a majority, has significant amounts of valid research to support it, and should be presented as an alternative theory for students of the history of religion. It should continue to be updated and edited to provide neutral and historically verifiable content when possible, and seriously considered speculation, when lacking. If we remove this article, Wikipedia will be the poorer for it. -ColoradoGirl —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.231.34.213 (talk • contribs) .
• Keep. I came to wikipedia today specifically to research the position of scholars who suggest possible links between Jesus and other figures such as Horus and Mithras, and thanks to this article I was able to find what I needed. If there are elements of the article that can be improved, that would be great, but by no means should it be deleted entirely. 210.89.149.89 10:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
• Very strong keep, minor edit and expand. I would add in discussion of comparisons with Hercules, Jesus as a hero, and are the gospels novels or plays, as well as discussion of fish and Christ. I am coming to the view that xianity has always understood christ to be mythical - fully god fully man - and historicism is a post enlightenment invention. I am sure there are many earlier commentators on this issue than listed here. If you check Catholic dogma I understand they state the idea of a historic jesus is a heresy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.12.187.227 (talk • contribs) .

• Delete. Original research. And note the number of anons or newly-registered voters. AnnH ♫ 22:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I never really thought about this article as a candidate for deletion before, but I guess it must of gotten worse over time or something, the analysis of the nominator and the "brief analysis" below certainly seem convincing. Homestarmy 00:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep-it's a theory and people have the right to know about it. I have the right to knowledge!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.16.78.104 (talk • contribs).

[edit] a brief analysis

A Critical Analysis of the opening words of the "Jesus Myth" Wikipedia Article

- The article begins with (text) "The idea that" which presupposes the article's unstated premise. (Who's idea?) (Quote) "The idea that elements of beliefs about Jesus, and the Jesus narrative in the New Testament, are actually syncretisms from myths of his era is a theory usually associated with a skeptical position on the historicity of Jesus." (end quote). - The second sentence (quote) "When taken to its extreme - the idea of Jesus as myth rather than having any genuine historic existence - its advocates often refer to beliefs about Jesus as the Jesus-Myth." (end quote) The sentence is a fragment and has grammar issues. Is Wikipedia going to contain articles discussing 'ideas"? (again who's idea?). - The third sentence which is the beginning of the second paragraph elevates "idea" to "theory" (quote) "The theory is based on apparent similarities between early Christian accounts of Jesus and pre-existing mystery religions, and at the more extreme limit of the theory (that Jesus is 100% myth) is also based in part on the lack of extant evidence about his life outside the Gospels. The extreme limit of the theory has not found widespread acceptance among Bible scholars and historians." (end quote). (How did we get from "idea" to "theory" - is this unsupported original research?). - The third paragraph begins (quote) "The study of whether or not Jesus might be a purely mythological requires academic analysis of the available evidence from times near-contemporary with the dates for Jesus' life, and on analysis of how reliable such evidence is, and what their biases are." (end quote) (What "study"? and another grammar syntax nightmare). - Continuing (quote) "The purpose of this article is not (sic) provide said (sic) academic analysis, but rather to provide an account of research that has been performed into the subject thus far." (end quote). (A total account NO, a biased account, yes! Affirming sources Josephus are glanced over or summarily dismissed without analysis).

These errors in logic, grammar, sytax and bias are (opinion) pervasive. Clearly the article is not neutral, it has an 'agenda' and the agenda is the debunking of Christianity. It makes statements that are unsupported by reliable sources and forces 'conclusions' upon the reader that are unsupported by the logical (?) flow of the article or available materials. I also strongly suggest that the author(s) familarize themselves with the term Midrash. John Charles Webb 03:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Who's idea?
  • As with most theories, it has been contributed to by many proponents. If you read the entire article, you will discover who some of those advocates are and what they contributed. It is not the job of the introduction to list them, just as (for example) the Astrology article introduction does not list any particular people who believe in it. On the talk page it has been suggested that since some sources such as John Mackinnon Robertson are absent, a list of notable proponents be created
• The third sentence elevates "idea" to "theory"
  • A theory is a subset of an idea. If you read the first sentance more carefully, you will note that it is stated that this particular idea is a theory.
• What "study"
  • Study as in "consider in detail and subject to analysis"
• Affirming sources Josephus are glanced over or summarily dismissed without analysis
  • A more detailed analysis of the authenticity of Josephus can be found here: Josephus on Jesus. This article is linked to twice.

It seems to me that the bulk of your concerns would be more suited to the talk page of this article. In particular the following sections:

• Introduction Discussion
• Title Discussion

210.89.149.89 09:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Keep as per above. -- Zorro CX 22:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.