Talk:Cultural and historical background of Jesus/Archive 15

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March 2006 round of edits

Over the next few days I will be adding more specific information from critical scholars, specifically Fredriksen, Sanders, and Vermes. I am sure that whatever I add can be edited, but I ask people to wait until next week by which time I will have put out most of what I want to add. I am less familiar with Crossan and Meier, and if anyone has read them carefully and wants to add their views go ahead. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 17:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Jesus and Good Article Collaboration of the week

In case you haven't heard, there is a drive to improve the Jesus article from GA to FA status. I am personally inviting editors to read over the Jesus article, and please contribute whatever they can. Some editors have mentioned on the talk page that the cultural and historical background in particular is lacking. I hope you can join us.--Andrew c 04:21, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I do think this article can help improve the "life and teachings" and "historicity" sections of Jesus. Arch O. LaTalkTCF 04:43, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Jesus article, the cultural and historical background, and sources

There has been a long discussion of the Historical Jesus at Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus. It's divided into three subpages: Jesus as moral teacher; Jesus as apocalyptic prophet or messiah; and Jesus as Pharisee or Essene. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalkTCF 08:13, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I just created the subpage and updated the links to my comments above. We also have about 25 sources on different models of the historical Jesus at Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus/Sources. Some of these sources might be useful here. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalkTCF 08:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

recent changes

I can understand why some people prefer BC/AD in this article. It is a plausible position, although I reject it - with resepct - for two reasons. First, the bulk of this article concerns Jewish material, and second, there is an informal consensus here and at the Jesus page, and other pages, that articles on Jewish topics should favor BCE and CE, and articles on Christian topics should favor BC/CE. I would have no objection to the section on Christianity in this article using both BC/BCE and AD/CE. However, the bulk of this article is not about Christianity or Jesus, it is about Jews and Judaism. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

As for removing the Jewish template, I consider this virtually an anti-Semitic act. I am not accusing CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus of being "anti-Semitic" but you are being so unnecessarily contrarian it seems vindictive, and if you are actually decent people I beg you to pause and consider what you are doing. This article is very much about Jews and Judaism. That is a fact. To try to erase the connection with other articles on Jewish themes is nothing but an act of violence. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The "cultural and historical background" of Jesus is his being Jewish, and Judaism. To deny that or minimize it is not only meanspirited to Jews, it is historically and culturally inaccurate and defeats the whole point of the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion, BCE/CE is the better, more scholarly, usage, and is the common use by historians, Christian, Jewish or otherwise. I have now reformatted the dates in this article accordingly. -- The Anome 13:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I think we should use both systems, since the scholarly literature uses both. I think it confuses readers to arrive at an article that uses BC/AD, when they're used to BCE/CE, and that is confuses people to see BCE/CE, when they're used to BC/AD. As a Lutheran Christian who teaches a class for a Christian university on the life of Jesus, I have no problems with either notation. Sometimes I wish that "Denny the Short" had left well enough alone and we could all refer to time since the founding of Rome. ;-). Anyway, why not use both as we do on the Jesus page? --CTSWyneken 14:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, BC is the better, more scholarly usage, because BCE is a pretentious, pompous, ridiculous looking neologism used solely for the sake of a misguided, biased, "political correctness". But we don't go by opinions here, we go by policy. And in this case AD was here first. That is the agreement, hold to it, or do you want to see BC/BCE wars breaking out all over the place again??? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:40, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
BCE is a pretentious, pompous, ridiculous looking neologism used solely for the sake of a misguided, biased, "political correctness".?? So you think that people who don't believe that Jesus was divine should simply accept his divinity as a matter of form to avoid annoying you? --Leifern 15:33, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Leifern, with all due respect, Jesus' divinity is not what is at stake in Codex's statement. What is at stake is his fear of ideas that are new to him. All he is saying is, "This is not how I was brought up, it is new and I do not understand it ... therefore, I hate it iand it is bad." He is just a reactionary. It is kind of ironic though as you would think people drawn to an encyclopedia would go out of there way to learn new things. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

That is a ridiculous attack and mischaracterisation of my words. Please allow me to speak for myself and do not re-filter everything I say through your own prism. You have just fabricated a quote by me that I never once said or thought, and put quote marks around it. You are trying to give the impression that I am the only editor on wikipedia who prefers traditional eras nomenclature. However, the real Truth is that this debate has been raging on wikipedia on numerous pages and archives devoted to the question, poll after poll has been taken, and in every single running poll, support for BC over BCE runs at slightly over 50%, and does not even break down along any kind of easily discernible religious lines. So despite your mischaracterisation above, I do not feel alone in supporting tradition over politically correct neologisms. I have conceded the matter on this article, and do not understand why you continue to hound me here. I could just as easily have stacked the debate by spending an entire hour as you did, contacting well known BC supporters culled from the eras debate pages. But it is not that important to me, it's really kind of petty, and I don't have the time for such games. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
And yes, you are quite correct that I am a "reactionary" in the sense that I believe it to be often wiser to "react" instead of "act first". There's nothing wrong with being a reactionary, and I'm likely to continue being one. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Uh, okay, so I am wrong, but I am right. Okay by me. My main point was that you are a reactionary. I never said you were alone or even in a minority. I did not comment on whether no one or everyone shares your views, I only identified them as reactionary. Now, as to hounding you: my only concern is with your misrepresenting the history of this article, and disrupting a stable compromise, in pursuit of your reactionary point of view which, while it may be shared by many others, is not shared by most of the people who have worked on this article. Hounding you? Were I to hound you I would have gone to the various articles you have worked on and changed "AD" to "CE." I have never done that. There are other articles that use BC and AD and have a stable consensus and I respect that. Don't accuse me of hounding you, when it is you who came to an article I have been working on, one in which all contributors, since its first month as an article, have used BCE and CE, and then unilaterally and without discussion changed the date nomenclature. You did that, not I. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:39, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

No, not at all. This seems to be half of the problem right here, is a very few people mistakenly thinking that by simply reading the conventional and more common BC, they are accepting anyone's divinity. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
That's no kind of argument. You're trying to push your opinion with a misguided application of policy. What's this business about AD being here first? It's true that the original version of the article used AD, but that was two years ago and consensus dictates different usage now. If you think the Arbcom case justifies the changes you're making then I'm afraid you're in for a rude surprise. Mackensen (talk) 14:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
It IS an argument, becaue your claim that there is now a "consensus" is obviously a fabrication. I would not call the current state of affairs a "consensus". I would call it a "dispute", because you are attempting to circumvent policy. Anyone can look up and see that BC was here first, and for an article like this, it is infinitely more appropriate than the artificial contrivance of BCE. BC has been used for 1000 years longer than BCE. It's not going anywhere anytime soon just because a very vocal minority are telling everyone to start using something else all of a sudden. We have had a site wide ceasefire agreement for a year, not to edit war and to go with the first used format, and as long as the agreement was abided by, I had no problem with BCE appearing in some articles, but now, you are brushing that agreement aside, so the agreement is no going to be longer valid, if you can use specious reasoning like the above to get around the rules. As for the Jewish tag, I am not too concerned about that, it just happened to get caught up in my revert. But the breaking of the eras ceasefire like this, I am very concerned about. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Codex Sinaiticus, a stable consensus emerged here two years ago. for two years, a stable consensus. Why do you want to break that? What purpose is served. Also, you justify your changes based on dating conventions. You have in no way justified your removal of the Jewish topic template. Nor have you responded to my explanation of the inclusion of this template.' This template too has been part of the article for a long time. How dare you (1) unilaterally delete it (2) ignore my explanation (3) refuse to provide your own? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. --Strothra 14:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
He is being civil. How about you add to the discussion taking place here? I suspect Slrubenstein is well aware of policy. Mackensen (talk) 14:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, since you asked me to add, I feel that the Jewish tag should be added as Jesus was ethnically Jewish/Hebrew. I prefer to use the term Hebrew for ethnicity. Is there a Hebrew tag? I'm not sure. I still do feel, however, that Slrubenstein's last comment was not very cool headed and could have withstood a little more civility. I feel that there's enough of a controversy over Jesus's adherence to Judaism to merit at least a debate over the inclusion of the Jewish tag. I do admit that the debate here seems to be only coming from one side. --Strothra 15:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Steve - removing {{Jews}} is unreasonable, and feels anti-Jewish. As for BCE/BC - there is no rule which says that the first one should stay. Rather, there should be a good argument (and consensus) for changing it. BCE is more scholarly, it does not violate NPOV, and it is generally used for Jewish-related topics. Since this article is about the Cultural and Historical background of Jesus, it's about Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, born into Jewish society. Reagrdless of whether he was Messiah or God, he was still Jewish. Guettarda 15:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

As for the AD/BC debate, I feel that AD/BC is certainly more commonly used in both common terms and academic ones. I was trained, however, in more classical schools of thought regarding history and historical methodology and do recognize that many new members of the field prefer such terms. --Strothra 15:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Strothra, I appreciate your making substantive comments in a constructive way. Please bear in mind that my initial comments came after the template was removed, restored, and removed again; my second comment came after three other people had added their views and Codex Sinaiticus once again deleted the demplate without responding to any of the now several comments. Be that as it may, I want to respond to your comment. There is no "Hebrew" template to my knowledge but the best historical information we have suggests that (1) Jesus considered himself to be a Jew and (2) what "Jew" meant during Jesus's life is not the same as what it means today. Of course, one could say that Christianity in the second century was very different from what it is today. The solution - one that de facto has been adopted by the Wikipedia community and I think with good reason, is not to have different tags for different moments in history (e.g. one tag for contemporary Judaism, one for Second Temple Judaism, one for First Temple Judaism, etc. ... or one for post Reformation Christianity, one for post Concils of Nicea Christianity, etc) but rather to have one tag, but to be as inclusive as possible within it. I think this article clearly belongs within an inclusive "Jews" tag. But I think this misses the real issue, which is whether or not these tags are exclusive identifiers. They are not. Please note that I have restored the "Jew" tag twice. I have never deleted the "Jesus" tag. I see no reason why we cannot have both tags. From my perspective, what is wrong with CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus is not just that they remove the "Jew" tag without any discussion or explanation - it is the implication that only one tag is allowable. This is to my mind an aggressively uncompromising position. Be that as it may, the "Jew" tag is entirely justified and appropriate, because this article explicitly covers the views of historians who argue that Jesus' life must be understood in the context of his being Jewish, not just ethnically but religiously. You personally may reject this view, but our (we editors) views are not the issue here. There are well-regarded historians who take this view, and this article is dedicated to providing an account of it. So the "Jew" tag only mkaes sense. You may say that this is just one point of view and that other views should be represented. You would be correct. Those other views are in fact represented in other articles espectially Jesus and Christology. Moreover, you will discover that those articles do not have the "Jew" tag. Nor have I or anyone else tried to put it in. Only in this article - and now CrazyInSane and Codex Sinaiticus want ths "Jew" tag deleted from the one article that is about the Jewish Jesus. If this does not offend you, well, that is your business. But if you cannot see how this attempt to erase the one discussion of Jesus in his Jewish context from Wikipedia could be offensive to Jews and is a clear violation of our NPOV policy (in this case, it is the collection of Jesus related articles, representing various points of view, that together comply with NPOV), then what can I say? I urge you to reconsider. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

As for the dating system, please see my original comment at the top of this page. Count words and you will see that relatively few address Christianity; relatively few address Jesus, and they do so in terms of the context of Jewish history. By far the bulk of the article is about Jews and Judaism. Wikipedia allows the use of both BC and BCE. A couple of years ago there was an extensive debate and an unofficial compromise was worked out that BCE/CE would be favored in Jewish articles and CE/AD in Christian articles. More importantly, the contributors to this particular article, which I repeat is mostly about Jews and Judaism, worked out a very stable compromise in favor of BCE and CE two years ago. This stable compromise should be respected. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Please show us where this "stable compromise" was worked out. ALl I see is a furious debate on this talk page dating to around ONE year ago. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, Codex, just how much research and content have you contributed to this article? Do you really care about contributing to the article, or just making trouble in order to force your own POV on others, who instead spend there time, you know, reading history books and working on content? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't tell you how many times I have seen this fallacious argument trying to shame me for not editing article A while I was busy contributing to article B. But for some reason, it never makes me feel ashamed, if that's what to was upposed to do. Or was that an invitation to me to devote more scholarly attention to this article? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I truly appreciate your substantive reply and, to a greater extent, I appreciate your willingness to enlighten me on some of the background there. My knowledge of this time period is, to my own chagrin, limited which is why I was hesitant to comment in a substantive manner myself. --Strothra 15:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You are more than welcome, I appreciate your inviting me to spell it out. Codex says my remark above is a fallacious argument. I will leave that for others to decide. What is certainly fallacious is his claims about the history of this article. So let me correct Codex's misrepresentations of the history of the article. I wrote part of it as part of the Jesus article in 2004. I used neither AD or CE and just provided the years (as I would say that this is 2006, not AD 2006 or 2006 CE, in ordinary conversation). Other contributors to the Jesus article added information and used AD. In other words, AD was not the original convention because there was no original convention; different contributers followed their own taste and there was no consensus (nor was there any initial conflict over this). By August 2004 the Jesus article was way too long for most servers. It was decided to spin off articles, and this article was spun off at 13:54, August 18, 2004. If you look at that version, you will see that sometimes AD is used, other times no notation is used (this is a rough guide to identifying what parts I wrote and what parts others contributed). Shortly thereafter, Cheese Dreams began editing the article. In addition to adding AD everywhere, she also added a lot of false content. The result was a protracted set of edit wars, primarily over content and not dating convention, until Cheese Dreams was banned from Wikipedia. During this banning process, I and a few other people went about reconstructing the article. It was at that time that it was agreed to use BCE and CE This is stated clearly in the added tag placed there on 03:47, November 20, 2004, Note: It was not I who placed this tag, it was User:FT2. Although many people have worked on this article, I think it is fair to say that after me FT2 contributed (by sheer volume) the most content to this article. I do not know FT2's religion. I do know that User:Wesley is a Christian; he made two edits on November 20 2004 and he kept the BCE/CE tag and kept to the agreed-upon convention. User:Mpolo also made a number of edits and maintained the consensus about the dating convention. Even CheeseDreams, before she was banned, abided by the consensus concerning dating. User: Amgine also made a number of edits, and maintained the consensus. I believe it was User:John Kenney who removed the tag concerning dating - but he continued to use BCE/CE in his edits; his removal of the tag I think signaled that a firm consensus had been established. This was in November 2004, the same month the article was created as a stand-alone article, and 18 months ago. User:Ben Standeven went on to make many edits and kept to the consensus. Yes, I am sorry I said two years ago, I was just subtracting 4 from 6 - but if the consensus emerged only 18 months ago it is because the article did not exist beofre November 2004. So I, FT2, Wesley, Amgine, John Kenney, Ben Standeven, as well as Jayjg, Rdsmith4, Curps, and Everyking, who worked on the article through February 2005, also continued to use BCE/CE exclusively. On February 9 User:Neutrality unilaterally changed CE to AD, violating the concensus; User:Violetriga reverted Neutrality and other subsequent contributoers, like User:Blainster and yes, even User:Jesus is the Christ, maintained the consensus. So I would say that (1) there was no uniform standard when the article was first created and (2) a consensus to use BCE and CE exclusively was established the month that the article was created, and was maintained and enforced thereafter. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of the existence of a rule that articles on Jewish topics must use BCE/CE. At any rate, it is most clearly arguable that this article, which is tying a discussion of first century Judaism to the founder of Christianity, is at least as much a Christian topic as a Jewish one, even if it doesn't discuss Christianity directly. But the rule, as I understood it, was "don't mess with dates if they're consistent." As Slr explains above (while I was originally typing this comment and got edit-conflicted), this article has been at BCE/CE for a long time, and this has been the consensus position for a long time. As such, whoever changed it to BC/AD was in the wrong, and it should remain at BCE/CE. As to the "Judaism" template, this seems weird to me. Sure, the article is about Jewish stuff. But its title proclaims it to be about Jewish stuff in relation to Jesus. To put a Judaism template on the article seems odd to me. If the article were titled something like Palestine in the First Century, a Judaism template would be appropriate. But the article is explicitly tied to Jesus, and as such, it is about the Jewish background of Christianity, not about the Jewish world of the first century AD. I'm not sure the Judaism template is appropriate. john k 16:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
"In relation to Jesus". Who was, throughout his life, a Jew. Guettarda 16:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Eh. Lots of people who were Jews don't have the Judaism template in their article. Woody Allen, for instance. Jesus is significant because he founded Christianity (or became the central figure of the Christian religion, which developed after his death), not because he was a Jew. john k 16:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Woody Allen's claim to fame is as a movie director, not as a religious figure, so the comparison is iffy. However, there do seem to be a lot of Jewish individuals notable for their significance to Judaism who apparently don't have the template, such as Hillel, Rashi, Maimonides, Nahmanides, Rabbi Akiva, just to name a few. In fact a closer look at "what links here" for Template:Jew shows *no* individuals linked to this template. The topic of this article however is not about an individual per se, but the "cultural and historical background" which is of course Judaism. It at least doesn't seem inappropriate, and it makes sense, to have both templates, Judaism and Jesus, in this article. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
You are of course right that this is not Jesus (one might add that Hillel and Akiva are important religious figures in Judaism, and that Jesus is not an important figure in Judaism, but since we basically agree, there's no point going into this). But I still think that the Judaism template is problematic, and I think part of the problem is that this is a rather odd article. It makes sense to have separate de facto sub-articles like Historical Jesus (although in practice that article kind of sucks) and Christology, and so forth, to deal with different aspects of Jesus. But this article doesn't really fill that role. It is an article about first century Judaism and Palestine, which ties in to Christianity, in some ways. Are there any other articles on wikipedia with a similar nature? I can't think of any off the top of my head. We don't have, say, Cultural and historical background of Nazism. Salient features of that background are discussed in the Nazism article, and those which we can't go into detail about are linked to their own articles, which discuss them in light of themselves, not in context of Nazism. This seems to me to be the appropriate way to go about these things. It seems to me that the material directly relating to Christianity probably ought to be moved back into the Jesus article, and that the rest of it should be moved to a neutral topic like Late Second Temple Judaism, or something. Just look at the intro - nothing is bolded, and it opens with a quote from E.P. Sanders. Is this like any other wikipedia article ever? The content of this article is mostly really good, but it seems problematic to me that it's being discussed only (supposedly) in the context of Jesus. john k 20:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree with you, the context is beyond Jesus. And yes, there's good content here but it's a bit of an oddball article outside the WP norm. The subject is more about the conditions that led to the emergence of a new religion, Christianity, rather than about the individual, Jesus. Most of the content probably should be merged back into the various articles above you mentioned, though realistically those articles are bursting at the seams and this just seems to be spill-over. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 21:21, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure by the same token nobody who wants the template would mind if a link to Cultural and historical background of Jesus were put into the Jewish template, right? The same arguments would work for that, of course... ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

John, I am not saying there is a rule about Jewish articles using BCE/CE. Please reread what I wrote, I never said that. I said that this is an unofficial compromise reached by a number of people involved in a heated debate. It certainly is not binding, although I think there is sense to it. As to Codex's question above, I personally would not object. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, glad to see you weren't saying that. I agree with you, though, that this article has long been at BCE/CE, and that this shouldn't be changed. john k 16:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Would you all mind hearing an outside voice? If not, I think that if someone finds something offensive, and there is an unoffensive alternative that makes sense, you should just go with the unoffensive material, that being BCE/CE. Thanks, Thetruthbelow(talk) 16:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Given that the BCE/CE format has been in place for a long time, I think it should stay. I don't see who it should offend, especially as the "C" can be read as either "Christian" or "Common". Both conventions can be used and both are valid. In this case the BCE convention is clearly more appropriate precisely because the Jewish context is the main subject. As for the template, what's the problem? The cultural background of Jesus was Judaism. That's what the article's about. Admittedly, we are speaking of Judaism within the Roman empire, following the influences of Persian and Hellenistic culture and in the context of Roman power-politics. But all these non-Jewish traditions are relevant only because of the way they are interpreted, absorbed or resisted from within Judaism. Paul B 17:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Paul B, there is no compelling reason to change the long-standing "BCE/CE". --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 17:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree as well. I don't mind if articles on religious Christian topics use BC/AD, but given that BCE/CE is denominationally neutral (and that C may stand for Common as well as Christian) and increasingly commonly acceptable notation, there is no reason to push it down the throat elsewhere. ←Humus sapiens ну? 18:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
My dear friend, Humus! you thought of this too! and 20 minutes before I did! How ideas travel from you to me! I mean, I didn't even look at your prior post when I posted mine! shalom, --Drboisclair 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
As a Christian scholar I do not feel that it is rude to Christians to adopt the BCE/CE descriptions of these two blocks of time. Christians can be happy that it is our Lord's birth that is the meridian that separates the two eras, whether we call them His era or the time before His era. BCE/CE may be a neologism, but not all neologisms are bad. I myself prefer the BC/AD labels, but out of respect for other people and with a concern to be inclusive as true learning is, I feel that in this article it should retain BCE/CE. As Christians we are taught to attract other people to Christ through sensitivity. This squabble does Christianity a disservice in my opinion. Let us respect one another and compose articles jointly rather than one-sidedly. We would be attracting people to our faith rather than repelling them by being tactful and compromising. I think that SIRubenstein makes a fair and reasonable case for his position.--Drboisclair 19:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

BTW!!! If you want you can consider BCE to be "Before Christ 's Era, and CE to be Christ 's Era! It is all in how you look at it!--Drboisclair 19:23, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

We've had long edit wars over this in the past, including serial bans for JGUK. I think it is a massive waste of time to reinvent the wheel. Consensus at the time was BCE/CE and I suggest we stick to this now. JFW | T@lk 20:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little late for this party, what with the American holiday of Memorial Day and all. It always amazes me that people can be so passionate about an aribitrary dating system, and even more passionate about which arbitrary label to use for the same arbitrary dating system (ie, both AD/BC and BC/BCE have the same starting point, which was probably NOT the year that Mary gave birth to Jesus). I see nothing wrong with BC/BCE. If that is the consensus, then sobeit. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 17:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

3 RR warning

Please note that as of 14:34, 29 May 2006 Codex Sinaiticus has reverted three times. If he reverts again within a 24 hour period he will have violated the 3RR rule. The purpose of this rule is to allow heads to cool and allow for discussion. I hope that my last comments, in response to Strothra, reveal my good-faith effort to follow Strothra's advice that I cool down. The above section now expresses a range of views by several people. I hope we can have more cool-headed and good-faith discussion before any more reverts. I certainly will not revert again (at least not for the next day!) Slrubenstein | Talk 15:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm certainly well aware of that, man, there's no nee to warn me, notice I have not re-reverted a fourth time in the past half hour that the article was changed to BCE. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Your welcome. And you did an excellent job of stacking this debate. Congratulations! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Funny. You make a unilateral and unjustified change without any explanation (and, when pushed, give an explanation that misrepresents the facts vis. that the article has used BCE/CE since its first month of inception, and that all contributors of content to the article accepted this i.e. there was consensus) and seem utterly uninterested in any discussion. Then, I encourage discussion (among other things, inviting notable Christian editors to chime in, as well as people who have disagreed with me). You certainly could have encouraged even more discussion. Don't accuse me of "stacking" the debate. I made it a debate whereas you are uninterested in debate and care only for unilateral POV pushing action. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Another perspective on the BC/AD vs. BCE/CE debate

Another problem with the "BC/AD" thing is that "Anno Domini" is Latin, and "Before Christ" is English. In order to be consistent you would have to have the time before with the same letters as the time after in order to be consistent: "Ante Domini"--> "Before the Lord" and "Anno Domini" --> "In the year of our/the Lord". Of course, you could have it AC/AD to be consistent. Why not let it be BCE/CE. We can either take it as Common Era or Christ's Era.--Drboisclair 19:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I can maybe see "Christian Era", because at least that accurately and honestly describes it for what it really is, i.e. an Era used by Christians (who historically and traditionally have always preferred to call it AD). If you ask me, you'd think it would sound much more offensive, insensitive and incorrect to take an era blatantly used by Christians, and proclaim that to be "Common Era" for the whole world -- even the non Christian countries, who might otherwise date their eras from some other event. But go figure. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
For me and my understanding it is the "Christian Era": I am at peace in considering that for myself. If someone else wants to think of it as "Common Era" that is good for them. It is interesting that the English have a way of presenting royalty: H.M. can mean His or Her Majesty for the reigning monarch. HRH can be used for Prince Charles or Princess Anne: "His or Her Royal Highness." Amazing things abbreviations are!--Drboisclair 20:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
How about AC/DC? (Ante Christus/Domino Calendaria [Before Christ/The Lord's Calendar])? If we get enough English speaking Muslims contributing, we might get a discussion over using Islamic dates. Personally, I think we should dump the whole thing and go for a secular dating system with a semi-arbitary start point before human history. I think the astronomers have one. It would have the advantage of all historical dates being positive. WLD 20:36, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
BCE/CE is good for the above reasons. Even the People's Republic of China has adopted the Western Calendar with either BC/AD or BCE/CE. BCE/CE is fine. Yes, the Muslims began their calendar with the Hegira in,what 722 CE? --Drboisclair 20:42, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad you noticed AC/DC was not entirely serious. However, a problem with BCE/CE is that that particular dating system is centred around the approximate year of the birth of a person who is rather important to at least one of the major religions currently on the planet, which can, possibly, make it difficult to accept for people of other faiths, or of no faith. I am serious in saying that a secular system is preferable, and one where all historical (as opposed to geological) dates are positive, which makes dealing in dates/eras BCE/BC easier to understand. The astronomical 'calendar' I was thinking of is in fact the Julian Day Number (JDN), which counts days from 12 noon GMT 4713 BC, which is not immediately practical. 4713 BC is not before recorded history anyway. Since it is unlikely a more rational calendar system would be generally adopted within my lifetime, the point is moot, anyway. WLD 08:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

SV comments

Professor Steven asked me to chime in. I havent read all the discussion, but it looks like as Steven puts it:

"the "cultural and historical background" of Jesus is his being Jewish, and Judaism. To deny that or minimize it is not only meanspirited to Jews, it is historically and culturally inaccurate and defeats the whole point of the article."

I disagree with this in several ways, mainly with regard to the ultimately trivial issue of which date system to use. This should be clearly outlined at the WP:MOS, and standardized to one system. Yes, the usage of BC/AD represents a Christian influence --one moreso than the other apparently. It would require work for me to learn the subtle distinctions enough to care either way, so both parties' particularities seem ridiculous to me. This is not a new Wikipedia debate, and localizing it to this article, and further to the very issue of Jesus and his Jewish ethnicity and culture doesnt help matters. We lack a truly universally agreeable system, and given convergent trends are no doubt bound to develop some widely acceptable secular system (I would almost rather use Star Trek dates myself).

Steven, I understand the importance of Judaism and ancient Jewish culture and politics in understanding Jesus. In that sense, I understand how one might have a Jewish-centric view which sees "the whole point of the article" as being an exploration of Jesus as a Jew. But Jesus was also a part of the culture of the Roman Empire, Arameans, Assyrians, Mediterraneans, etc. Though Jesus never renounced his Jewish origin, Christians and Jews both understand that Jesus was rejected by most of the Jews of his time. Does this change anything with regard to which 'camp' Jesus belongs? Its a ridiculous question. The only problem here lies with the insane notion that a pan-theistic philosopher (the favorite of Western civilization) hailing from the then-crossroads of civilization might belong to any one culture --even the culture of "Christianity" which claims him. So, given any binary choice of black or white, I will only enlighten people to the concept of color depth. Again the most universal is the only acceptable choice, and the Common Era system is it.-Ste|vertigo 21:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The point behind the template, IMHO, is to connect people interested in one article with another. I think the Judaism template is appropriate -- as would be a Roman and a Greek. The problem is one of crowding. (of course, I hate article info boxes my self...) Is there a reduced set version of this one we could use here? --CTSWyneken 21:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with BCE/CE. It *is* in mainstream academic use with many authors, it is recognised, and part of the reason for that is that the debate over whether BC/AD is felt to be chistian-centric has been thrashed out in academia and judaica already off the internet, and it's clear a significant proportion of people at least feel BCE/CE is more desirable. As a reference text, I'd suggest we follow that too. FT2 (Talk) 10:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. "Significant proportion" does not mean a majority (or a plurality, if you prefer). As I've stated elsewhere, on this talk page, my preference would be for a dating system that is not centred/centered about a religious personage. WLD 18:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
The point is that there should be a standard which follows Wikipedia's fundamental NPOV policy. While it may be reasonable to debate which particular terms are more neutral than others ("insurgency" for example) there's no need to have this debate over and over again with regard to particular terms which are standard form. This needs to be resolved at WP:MOS/dates and numbers, and a thread should be started at wikien. This is for sake of standardizing things and preventing things from fragmenting further by dwelling in unnecessary debate. It has nothing to do with what people think about Jesus and where he belongs - it has to do with using NPOV terms -at least the most NPOV terms we have available. -Ste|vertigo 21:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
People seem to agree on using Common Era notation. On the issue of the Judaism tag, I would suggest that it be replaced with a cut-down template that is less Judaic and more Jewish. Isnt understanding Jesus' Jewishness separate from understanding his Judaism? Judaism as both religion and culture has too much depth to claim as a full prerequisite or even a parallel reference to understanding Jesus background. When we were first using topical templates, I argued that their inclusion should be limited in organized and rational bounds. And isn't Jesus a topic in Christianity? Why isnt the Christianity template included, hence referencing Jesus as a subtopic within Christianity? Its simply a structural paradox, so Im inclined to be as inclusive as possible. -Ste|vertigo 22:01, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
You wouldn't believe how many MB worth of archive pages there are full of debate on exactly this question, Steve... And the debate continues on, even though a slight majority agree on using BC / AD in every poll ever taken so far. If you want to jump in the fray over there, check out all the Eras archives of the Mos section first. What you said about "People seem to agree on using Common Era" couldn't be more incorrect, if you mean site-wide. Not a vast majority, but still a majority feel that "CE" exudes more of a POV look to an article. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:06, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a Democracy - polls are taken not to guage which view is correct but to ascertain the spectrum and scale of divergent POVs. Hence, even if fundamentalist Christians ransacked the article and swarmed the polling pages to assert Anno Domini over Common Era, they would still have to lose out according to NPOV. Thems the rule - the main one in fact. If people havent been thinking along these lines, its because theyve been inclined toward biases in language and terminology rather than toward NPOV. Its as simple as that. -Ste|vertigo 22:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
My gosh, how did YOU get to decide that BC (used for centuries) is POV and CE is NPOV, and that most people are "wrong" and need to be "educated" by you? Wikipedia may not be a Democracy, but it does operate by consensus, and is also not an oligarchy. I strongly suggest you stop rehashing the whole debate here yet again for the umpteenth time, and take it to the MOS page. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Hear, hear. In my opinion, both BCE/CE and BC/AD are (irredeemably?) tainted with a POV. But, if BC/AD are to be replaced, I would prefer not to use the politically correct mish-mash that is BCE/CE and use a dating system that is not Christ- or any other personage- centred. Using years from the foundation of Rome (AUC) would be better, but probably too western-centric. Years from the epoch of the Julian Day Number would be my slight preference. In the absence of a rational system being available, I would vote for leaving well alone, and using BC/AD. WLD 08:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Yea, right. Why don't we invent out own dating system starting with the birth of Jimmy Wales (the BJW/JW system)? That way, there will be no confusion at all! Back to reality: both systems are established. Both can be used. In some contexts one is clearly preferable to the other. Personally I wish the inventors of BCE/CE had left it as BC/CE rather than insisting on both sides changing, then 90% of the dispute would vanish, since we rarely use AD anyway. But they didn't, and we can only work with established conventions. Paul B 08:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
As I said, my preference would be for a non-personage centred dating system, which one based around the birth year of Jimmy Wales clearly would not be. It is not true that we can only work with established conventions (in the general sense). Obviously, there is the Wikipedia injunction of 'no original work', but the Julian Day Number epoch is not original - it was conceived by Joseph Justus Scaliger in 1583, which you would know having read the Julian date article. Some say the idea of the Julian Period antedates this by about 400-500 years, as Robert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford writes of the period of 7980 years in 1176, (see Twelfth-century origins of the 7980-year Julian Period: American Journal of Physics -- January 1983 -- Volume 51, Issue 1, p. 73) and a previous Bishop of Hereford, Robert de Losinga also mentions it in 1086 (see New evidence concerning the origin of the Julian period: American Journal of Physics -- November 1991 -- Volume 59, Issue 11, p. 1043). The use of Julian Day Numbers is extremely well known to astronomers - it is an established and useful convention in their field, so its use elsewhere is not beyond the pale. I commend it as an example of a more culturally neutral dating system. It is open to criticism, but, in my opinion, less so than BC/BCE. Wikipedia establishes its own conventions in any case - such as the conventions on which variant of English spelling to use in articles and so on - the Manual of Style is a collection of such conventions, so choosing another convention is not unprecedented. Please note, I am not saying that we should summarily change all dates to years from the Julian Period epoch - simply commending such as system for consideration. Perhaps I should 'be bold' and do it anyway, but somehow I don't think that would wash. WLD 10:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Again this is off topic - I would prefer to use Stardates.
Well, according to the Stardate FAQ here [1] (which is the most popular theory of Stardates), the stardate epoch (the date they start from) is probably 2162-01-04, making current dates negative. While I applaud the sentiment, I suggest that if changing dates, it would be best to change to a scale where all historical dates are positive. WLD 20:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
AS for being off-topic - I sometimes think the off-topic parts of discussions are the most interesting. WLD 20:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Common Era notation, referred to here as "BCE/CE" despite its "personage-centered" basis - call it "centrage", its still more universally acceptable (secular, nonbiased, NPOV) than BC/AD. Im sorry if some of you feel like NPOV is some sort of opinionated imposition. It is not - its the basic philosophy which guides the way we write about all articles. Its not 'who died and made you Mr. NPOV' - a more proper statement shoudl be 'if nobody stands up for NPOV, then evil wins.' -Ste|vertigo 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

As pointed out above by User:Codex Sinaiticus, polls on Wikipedia consistently show slightly greater than 50% support for the BC/AD usage - so BCE/CE style is not more universally acceptable. I'll say again - if changing from BC/AD, why not change to something secular and rational? In my opinion, BCE/CE is neither. WLD 20:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

West London Dweller, with all due respect if you want to move for a new policy, by all means do so but not here. The style guide currently allows both AC/BC and CE/BCE. The very first version of this article had inconsistent dating. Within a couple of weeks a consensus among contributers emerged to use CE/BCE. This is permissible within our policies, moreover, once a stable consensus emerges - and to repeat, it emerged within the first few weeks of this article's existence - it should be respected, that is what it says in our guidelines. So there is no debate right here, right now. You are raising a larger issue and if it merits discussion it merits discussion at a different venue. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

The convention on Wikipedia is not to change the style of the era names from that of the orginal author - see [2] - specifically "When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change.". The original, first version of the article here [3] does indeed have inconsistent dating, as you say, but, and it is a big but, it uses 'AD' or nothing (which is acceptable for positive dates). It does not use CE/BCE at all, so I get the impression you are being slightly disingenuous here. No matter. As you report a consensus among the contributors emerged to use BCE/CE, that can be argued to be a "substantial reason".

As it happens, I had already decided to move discussion on the relative merits of BC/AD and BCE/CE elsewhere, so your advice is redundant. I still find it strange that scholars, having made the decision to move from using BC/AD, moved to a still Christo-centric system that still suffers from a lack of year '0', and has negative dates - all major flaws. I suppose one should never underestimate the power of human foolishness. Pax Vobiscum. WLD 14:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

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