Talk:New Testament view on Jesus' life

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NOTE: Some related discussion on this article can be found at Talk:Jesus in the Christian Bible, the talk page for a previous version and location of this article. Tomer^TALK 08:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 NPOV in "Early Background" 2 The {} sign/s 3 Early life 4 Sexuality and love 5 Cleanup results 6 New title? 7 OR 8 Repeated reversions 9 Teachings 10 Merge 11 Overhaul

[edit] NPOV in "Early Background"

I have placed this NPOV dispute based on the explicitly one-sided discussion of Mary's perpetual virginity, as illustrated in the quotations "the eroneous Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition" and "the King James Bible, which is the inerrant, inspired Word of God".

Furthermore, I think this entire article is in need of more detailed references. The article seeks to detail the New Testament claims of Jesus and life. It seems natural that references to the New Testament would be placed alongside each of these statements. Currently, these references are very few in the article. cgb8176 February 5, 2006.

Agreed. I've cleaned up the obvious POV slant but others may want to work further on it. archola 05:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

===>Took off POV tag I believe that the text as it is addresses your concerns, so I took off the tag. Of course, I would agree that more references would be nice. -Justin (koavf), talk 17:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The {} sign/s

One or more of the sign/s: {{NPOV}}{{expansion}}{{Cleanup}} placed on this page without any discussion, explanation or reasoning have been removed pending further discussion. (The category Category:Bible stories is now up for a vote for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Bible stories) Thank you. IZAK 10:46, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why should this article be merged with another one? A simple statement of the rationale would be helpful. Wesley 03:53, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Early life

I moved this section (including the Early Life heading) from the main page to here because it has almost nothing to do with the New Testament view of Jesus' life.

The Evangelists do not describe much of Jesus' life between birth and the beginning of his ministry, except that as a young teen he instructed the scholars in the temple. The apocryphal Infancy Gospels describe the child Jesus performing miraculous works. The 19th century Russian scholar Nicolai Notovich suggested, based on a document he saw and copied in a Ladakh monastery in the Kashmir region, that Jesus traveled the world, including India, as an adolescent and youth, and was exposed to religious traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. While the monastery Jesus is alleged to have studied at by Notovich in India was not built until the 16th century, and there is no independent evidence confirming that particular story (in particular, there is no evidence of the existence of the document Notovich studied), there are still persisting minorities in some circles who say that references to a man named something like Issa place Jesus even in the holy Hindu city of Kashi. However, the evidence proffered here, too, has been deemed by most to be unreliable. These theories are not considered orthodox by any major Christian church.

If it isn't already in another more appropriate article (and given the amount of duplication that abounds I suspect it is), it probably should be. Wesley 03:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sexuality and love

I moved this section (including the "Sexuality and love" heading) from the main page to here because it has almost nothing to do with the New Testament view of Jesus' life.

The Bible does not explicitly indicate that Jesus had any romantic relationships, and most scholars and Christians think that he had none. Jesus is reported to have praised the value of celibacy, saying that some have made themselves "eunuchs" for the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:12). This was not uncommon at the time; although most Jews married (including those who were Pharisees), others, like the Essenes, promoted celibacy.

Some contrary interpretations are based on the references in the Gospel of John to "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 13:23, 19:26, 21:7,20). The most common interpretation of this phrase is that it refers to John the Apostle, and that it simply refers to an especially close friendship. This is supported by the particular verbs chosen in the Greek text, φιλέω or ἀγαπάω, which refer, respectively, to human friendship, and to spriritual, divine love—the love that God has for people. (Greek has a separate word for romantic love). However, from at least the 17th century a minority of people have used these references to argue that Jesus was homosexual. For example, defending his relationship with George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, when it came to trouble the Privy Council, King James I of England allegedly said "Jesus had his John, and I have my George."

Advocates of this theory also point to the almost naked youth who follows as Jesus is led away from Gethsemene, after being arrested following his moment of anguish (Mark 14:51-52). It has also been argued the phrase refers to Lazarus, given Jesus' statement in John 21:21, which seems to imply that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" would not die. Support for this theory was bolstered by the discovery of part of the Secret Gospel of Mark.

Alternatively, it has been suggested in a number of pseudohistories, including Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Jesus the Man (by Barbara Thiering) that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. The Gnostic Gospel of Philip (believed to be late by many scholars) states that Jesus kissed her on the mouth.

None of these alternative theories are supported by mainstream scholars (Wilson Jesus: the evidence, p. 87) or by mainstream Christian churches.

Again, this section has almost nothing to do with the "New Testament view on Jesus' life", but probably has its place in some article about Jesus, and may even be duplicated.

Ok, this is me formally asking for someone to explain why the 'Sexuality and Love' section belongs in an article entitled "New Testament view on Jesus' life. Please. Others, please note the dates of the reverts and attendant explanations on this page. Wesley 04:27, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is me formally asking for someone to justify it not being in the article. CheeseDreams 08:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I did so when I first deleted it (see above), but here's a more complete justification. The description at the top of the article says, "This article presents a description of Jesus' life, as based on the four gospels." This description is slightly narrower than the article title but not by much. Most of the article gives a rather direct account of the gospels' account of Jesus' life, with occasionally some commentary. This section is almost entirely the hypotheses and speculations of various people, and has very little connection with the "New Testament view on Jesus' life." It's a relatively well written section, and it very well might have fit better in whatever article it was originally hammered out, but it doesn't seem to fit here. Wesley 17:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, its a section discussing the curious references related to the matter that are in the bible, and what it is interpreted to mean. By your argument, I would be justified in deleting the entire article, since it is the hypothesis of the writer of those portions of the article as to what the new testament actually says. CheeseDreams 19:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hrm. You have a point, although it seems a rather large stretch. The paragraph about his purported marriage to Mary Magdalene at the very least doesn't claim any biblical support at all, at least as it stands now, which would place it entirely beyond the bounds of this article. Any comments on this from any other contributors? Wesley 22:39, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

On second thought, there is a rather vast gulf between 'interpreting' the New Testament as saying, for instance, that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and 'interpreting' the New Testament as saying that Jesus was a homosexual. The first is agreed by nearly everyone who reads the text that the text means at least that much, while the latter is the interpretation of a very small minority, and a recent interpretation to boot. The section should be moved to another article, or left out entirely. Would you like to suggest where it should be moved? I would still welcome comments from any other contributors. Wesley 04:40, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is no more gulf than saying Jesus was born in a stable rather than in a cave (which was the preferred choice by early christians). Or saying that there were 3 kings rather than 3 magi (which is more accurate to the greek). Or saying that the Temple incident was at the start of Jesus' ministry (John) at the end (the Synoptics) or both. Or saying that there was 1 person outside the tomb, or some guards, or 2 angels. Etc. CheeseDreams 12:07, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, read the text from the Secret Gospel of Mark. And note that (although it doesn't state it in the article) Clement (who wrote the letter) feels the need to state that it doesn't contain "naked man with naked man" as if there was strong suspicion that it did. CheeseDreams 12:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I admit I'm not familiar with the Secret Gospel of Mark. But, as it's not part of the New Testament, it's irrelevant to the current article, at least under the current title. I wonder, is its authorship more certain than the authorship of the Gospel of Mark itself, or the authorship of the other gospels? The stable vs. cave 'discrepancy' isn't one, since stables were often placed in caves at the time. Magi probably is a better translation, but I would need to look at it again. Regarding the Temple incident, it's at least plain that all the gospels record at least one such incident. The issue of Jesus' sexuality doesn't really come up in the Gospels though, although his birth does, the kings or magi do, and the temple cleansing do. Wesley 05:10, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Some scholars think that the Secret Gospel of Mark represents the original version of the Gospel, later versions having had some passages excised for whatever reason.

Its authorship is about as certain as any of the gospels (which is not really saying that much). The style is reckoned to match Mark well, and is thought by the majority (though disputed by a large minority) of scholars to be genuine.

Its not a whole gospel just two paragraphs. There may be more lying hidden, but only two are known.

Magi is probably a better translation of Magoi than Kings, yes. Thats probably to do with the fact that the greek word Magoi means Magi rather than Kings.

Oh yes, all the gospels record one Temple incident. Its just that 1 of them records it as happening at the other end of Jesus' life than the other 3.

It does state "the disciple whom Jesus loved", which has been a serious matter of speculation as to which disciple it is referring to, and what it is implying. CheeseDreams 07:01, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's only two paragraphs, and later versions of Mark are supposed to have had some passages excised?? Regardless, I still say it's irrelevant to this article. As are any 'fictional histories' that have Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene, or fringe scholarship be folks that don't know a scrap of Greek (referring to confusion over 'the disciple whom Jesus loved'). The bulk of this section needs to be deleted or moved; most editors here obviously agree. By continuing to revert without discussing, you're just being obstructionist. Wesley 18:07, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup results

I have gone through each of the remaining sections in an effort to edit for grammar, style, and so forth. Since there was no earlier explanation of why the cleanup and NPOVNPOV tags were in place, I took the liberty of making the best guesses that I could. Without any discussion to the contrary, I presume that these tags can now be removed. If someone thinks that I have removed them prematurely, I hope they will take the time to explain why here. Wesley 04:38, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] New title?

This article was originally moved from Jesus as it was getting too long, where it contained both the Early Life and Sexuality and Love sections. At the moment we have the main Jesus article, the article on Jesus' historicity and the article on his cultural background, as well as this article and a few more specific articles (Miracles, religious perspectives, resurrection, etc). Can I suggest that we rename this article The life of Jesus? This will then allow a discussion of what the Gospels say, what various aprocraphyl books say and how people have (sometimes tenuously) interpreted these texts. I think that having two articles (NT life and other theories) would probably lead to further conflict and confusion and I think is also against Wikipedia policy (I'm fairly sure it says have one article covering both sides of the debate- which is what this essentially is). --G Rutter 15:30, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NOT ACCEPTABLE because it implies historicity AND accuracy of the bible. The title is COMPLETELY POV and offensive to those such as Jews and Muslims who have other views. There is far too much information to merge it here.

However, I agree that New Testament views is a bit confusing, and was thinking the title Understandings of the Gospels' view of Jesus' life, or something like that, or maybe Theories on Jesus' life from the Gospel viewpoint, would be better, OR

We could completely split the article into

• The undisputedly non-supernatural elements of Jesus' life according to the New Testament

In which is discussed "he was a carpenter, his mother was called mary, he grew up in jerusalem, was a teacher, lectured etc."

• The disputedly supernatural elements of Jesus' life according to the New Testament

In which is discussed miracles, resurrection etc.

(being a merge of the corresponding articles - with the "religious group X think that the implication is that (i.e. "we are all saved", "touch Mr X, a televangalist, and your epilepsy will be cured", etc.) elements being moved to their respective articles)

Obviously these titles would need a lot of work

Of course having a short section at the top going "External links to the full text of the gospels can be found here" with a link to the external links section down the page (so as to avoid POV selections of websites/versions of the bible). CheeseDreams 17:01, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To clarify- I was not suggesting merging the other articles - I was suggesting that this article on Jesus' life was needed in addition to those articles. "New Testament views" is not at all confusing, but I was suggesting a new title to broaden the scope of the article. The proposed title is "The life of Jesus". It does not imply the accuracy of the Bible as it would consider alternative views on his life - including early life, sexuality and probably theories about what happened when he allegedly survived the crucifixion. It does not (technically) imply that Jesus existed, as even if Jesus was completely fictional it would be possible to summarise and speculate on his life as recorded in a variety of documents (See Sherlock_Holmes#Holmesian_speculation if you don't believe me).

However, the Qu'ran treats Jesus as a real person. I therefore fail to see how examining the life of Jesus can be offensive to Muslims. Yes, they might differ about certain events, etc, but then a Life of Jesus article could consider them. From a faith point of view it's also irrelevant to Jews whether or not Jesus existed, so I fail to see how assuming his existence can be offensive per se to them. I suppose what you actually mean is it's offensive to the very small minority of people who don't believe he existed -well that's why we've got a whole article on the Historicity of Jesus. Obviously we'd have to start this article with a disclaimer to that effect, but I think that should cover NPOV.

Also we've already got articles on all the Gospels, etc. They deal with authorship, dates, manuscripts, etc. We need a separate article giving biographical details on Jesus (especially as the vast majority of people think he existed). Broadening the title will allow us to include other people's views. Splitting it into "supernatural" v "natural" would almost certainly result in a disorganised mess and seems to me to be against the spirit of trying to provide NPOV articles, even if it isn't strictly against the guidelines (which I still think it might be). --G Rutter 19:53, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've moved your two comments on the first and second paragraphs of my reply to here so it's easier to follow the discussion: --G Rutter 10:12, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Since this article is predominantly "new testament views", changing it to "the life of Jesus" implies that the life of Jesus is most accurately represented by the new testament, which is POV and offensive. CheeseDreams 07:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Qu'ran describes Jesus' life as being different to the Gospels description. It is offensive to imply that the article's description of Jesus' life is accurate. CheeseDreams 07:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In my original proposal I said: "This will then allow a discussion of what the Gospels say, what various aprocraphyl books say and how people have (sometimes tenuously) interpreted these texts." The Life of Jesus article I envisage would obviously include the NT view and interpretations and also other views and interpretations. To clarify still further - we would take this article and then add other views to it.

I'm fully aware that the "Qu'ran describes Jesus' life as being different to the Gospels", which is why my next sentence was: "Yes, they might differ about certain events, etc, but then a Life of Jesus article could consider them". I did not "imply that the article's description of Jesus' life is accurate" - my point was that a general article entitled something like "Life of Jesus" could consider these various views, whilst a "New Testament view" obviously can't. --G Rutter 10:12, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Another problem with the title is it puts the POV before th topic; I think it makes sense always to leads with the topic. How about: "The Life of Jesus According to the New Testament"? Slrubenstein

[edit] OR

How about this (radical) alternative - scrap the article alltogether and split the content and take it to the respective "gospel of X" article etc.

• Religious interpretations of the implications -> their respective articles
• Gospel of John view -> Gospel of John article
• Gospel of Luke view -> Gospel of Luke article
• Gospel of Matthew view -> Gospel of Matthew article
• Gospel of Mark view -> Gospel of Mark article
• Epistle's view -> Epistles articles
• Revelations' view -> Revelations' article
• Gnostic texts' view -> Gnostic texts' articles
• Non-gnostic apocrypha views -> Non-gnostic apocrypha texts' articles
• etc.

Replacing this article with a redirect to a list of those articles.

Note that attempting to piece together all of the articles into one mega "this was what the new testament said" article is very difficult (and invariably POV) and, for example, resulted in the Gospel of the Hebrews.

There is little point in replicating a This is what the Gospel of the Hebrews had to say article (probably at Gospel of the Hebrews)

CheeseDreams 17:01, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We've already got articles on all the Gospels, etc. They deal with authorship, dates, manuscripts, etc. We need a separate article giving biographical details on Jesus (especially as the vast majority of people think he existed). Broadening the title will allow us to include other people's views. Splitting it into "supernatural" v "natural" would almost certainly result in a disorganised mess and seems to me to be against the spirit of trying to provide NPOV articles, even if it isn't strictly against the guidelines (which I still think it might be). See my proposal above. --G Rutter 19:53, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

CheeseDreams is right when she says that attempting to piece together all of the articles into "this was what the new testament said" article is very difficult. I'm not sure that it's invariably POV, but certainly it runs a higher than normal risk. Nevertheless, that is what the current title implies. I would be very opposed to splitting the article between 'natural' and 'supernatural' elements, as this is an artificial distinction imposed by materialist academics and consequently a highly POV distinction. I wonder whether they consider Jesus' forgiving someone their sins to be natural or supernatural? I'm also opposed to scrapping the article completely. This would be in line with CheeseDreams' POV campaign to reduce or eliminate anything that suggests Jesus was an historical figure, and contrary to most modern scholarship as well as contrary to the needs of our audience. As far as new titles, I 'll have to think about that one. Wesley 05:21, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What I am objecting to is the fact that this article attempts to state that

• The new testament only gives 1 view of Jesus' life

Which it does not - it gives 7

Trying to make them match up and produce 1 story is inherently POV

• There is only one understanding of what the New Testament (and parts thereof) actually says about Jesus' life

Which is not true either.

CheeseDreams 07:14, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is why I suggested renaming this article to Life of Jesus. It could then discuss a variety of interpretations of Jesus' life- including ones in the NT and ones outside it. This should also stop the current edit war. --G Rutter 10:15, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I doubt it. Do you think Slrubenstein or John Kenney would actually tolerate the sections and sentence they keep deleting? CheeseDreams 00:18, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

At the moment they are perfectly justified to delete at least most of what they are deleting (I'm not saying all because I haven't checked carefully enough for that, but it's definitely most) as it doesn't belong in an article which has the title "New Testament view...". I'm sure that they wouldn't delete it if the article was called "Life of Jesus" (actually, "Jesus' life" is probably a better title). Do I take it that you now support the move? And what do other people think about the proposal to change this article to "Jesus' life"? --G Rutter 08:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If we need to expand the scope of the title, I wonder if something like "Jesus' life on earth" would be ok, just so it doesn't entirely exclude the notion that Jesus existed and lived before his incarnation and also lived after his resurrection. I know it would be inappropriate for wikipedia to assume these things as fact, but if possible the title and scope of the article shouldn't exclude them either. Wesley 12:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Clearly this article is about the life of Jesus and ot everything about Jesus. I also understand the point that even in the NT there are different views of the life of Jesus. I think that the article should remain about "the life of Jesus," specifically, and be from a Christian POV, or at least an NT POV. The article should certainly explain where different Gospels provide different accounts of Jesus' life (I don't mean compare the Gospels e.g. Matthew starts with conception, Mark with the baptism), I mean when two or more Gospels do refer to the same event but provide different details, that should be included. And if Christians interpret the Gosspel accounts diffeerently, perhaps that should be included too. We can't have one article on "Jesus" because that would get too long; we can't have even one article on "The life of jesus" because that too would get too long. It makes sense ot have an article on the life of Jesus, an article on Christology, and articles form different points of view, all lined. Slrubenstein

Wesley, I agree entirely with what you're saying, but I'm not sure how to reflect it in the title. I don't suppose that we'd get consensus on "Jesus' life on earth". Mentioning "in the beginning was the Word" and His resurrection and ascension in the second or third sentence would get my vote though.

Slrubenstein, I can't see having one article on the NT views and one on other theories really working- and I'm sure they'll get merge requests before too long. Wouldn't it be better to include them all in one article from the beginning? That way it'd be easier to compare the different beliefs. If this article gets too long it'd then be easier to have sub-articles as well: "Teaching", "Early Life", "The last week", etc, rather than multiple articles on different theories of the same topic. --G Rutter 20:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, in effect this is what we already have with Cultural and historical background of Jesus. Like this article, it is a daughter artice of Jesus and was spun off to deal with problems of size. Currently even this daughter article is a little long for WIkipedia standards. Look, I'd rather see one Jesus article with everything in it. That is simply not possible. So we have daughter articles. I do not see how your scheme makes sense -- no one (Christians or secular historians) know much about Jesus' early life; an article just on the last week would be impossible for readers to understand unless they knew about the last year or last two years. And an article on both Christian, nonChristian (religious) and critical historical views of Jesus' last two years (or even one year) brings us back to square one: it would simply be too long. Slrubenstein

[edit] Repeated reversions

Something needs to be said about the repeated reversions. The reasons for deleting or shortening the 'sexuality and love' section are already spelled out above. The bit about koans has been discussed at Jesus and and the consensus was to leave it out. The category being added has been voted for deletion, which passed by 80% or so; it was recently recreated despite the Category for Deletion vote. And the link change is another one in which someone is just trying to create a parallel article. I'm not sure whether the goal is to waste everyone else's time, or finally get these edits pushed through by virtue of greater persistence, or to get this page protected, or what. It's obvious that CheeseDreams' edits to this article of the last few days are against the views of every other contributor to this page, and in several cases go against the conclusions of the larger group of people who discussed koans on the Jesus talk page, who discussed that parallel article to Cultural and historical background of Jesus, and those who voted to delete the 'Bible stories' category. Wesley 12:00, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Teachings

Is there anyone could expand this article about Jesus' teaching, based on what he said and what he did. And the future about "Kingdom of Heaven". roscoe_x 16:03, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

It seems it would be difficult to expand much upon this and still avoid having the article become sectarian or biased. Different churches and denominations have different understandings of what Jesus said and the meaning(s) behind what he did. I'm not sure wikipedia is the best place to try to tackle that in depth. Good question though. Wesley 17:28, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

We could try to examine those things literally, many of Christ's commands were extremely simple, such as stuff like "Judge not lest ye be judged" "But now I tell you, do good to those who do wrong to you" "Do not worry about what you wear, what you eat, or where you will sleep..." etc. etc. etc., a few should at least be obvious for us. Homestarmy 19:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I would like to suggest that this article largely doubles what's already in the Jesus article. They should be merged or this article simply removed. Robsteadman 19:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

But this article is supposed to be a 100 percent Biblical perspective, compleatly reliant on the Bible, the Jesus article is supposed to rely on more than that and show other perspectives. Homestarmy 19:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That means this is totally POV - all the views here are in the Jesus article - why does it need one wit them separated off? There is NOTHING here that couldn;t be in the Jesus article with clear labels that The Bible says... Duplication for the sake of it. And leads to it being misleading and POV. Daft. Robsteadman 19:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

But it is attempting to inform the reader what the New Testiment says about Jesus, the point of view must be from the new testiment or nothing can be reported. At any rate, it's 1 vote for and one against, we need more people to vote -___-. Homestarmy 19:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The JESUS article does exactly that - there is no need for this article - it is an attempt to have more articles ab out "jesus" for the sake of it. This article is totally redundant. Robsteadman 19:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, I think you've made it quite clear in that article already that you don't want it saying very many absolutes, this article here reports on the absolutes because it is only reporting on what the Bible says and the Bible absolutly exists. Should I go ask for some help on this if it comes to a vote? We need like at least 6 or 7 people to actually make a real vote on deleting or not deleting an article. Homestarmy 19:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with absolutes as long as its explained where the absolute comes from and that is has a POV. Most of this article is doubled in Jesus. Why bother keeping it? Robsteadman 19:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is true much of this article is, admittedly, rather poor in terms of syntax/information/actual worth, but the topic of the article has some merit. We could put up a "Needs alot of work" or "Needs expansion tag", the Jesus article focuses mostly on Christian arguments, followed by other perspectives chiming in all throughout, while this article can more freely focus solely on what the Bible says, it's a somewhat complicated topic and this article doesn't seem to be near complete, there's the whole part of the Gospels showing how Jesus fulfilles Old Testiment prophecy thing to take into account, and well, with a bunch of work, this article might be pretty good, the subject matter at least can freely go as in-depth as it want's on the Bible since the article is after all about reporting and focusing on one POV. Homestarmy 20:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

As it's fairly obvious that Biblical beliefs concerning Jesus cannot be removed in a "Biblical Jesus" article and are not "POV" because the article is titled "Biblical Jesus," the only way Rob can attack them and delete them is by having them moved to a more general article. Keep. —Aiden 20:32, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

But Aiden - it is all duplicate in the "jesus" article. And even in a "Biblical" article it should make it clear the dates and reliability of the source material before going to say it. Retention of this article is poiontless - and, as far as I can tell, only be supported for the purpose of maintaining indoctrination. Robsteadman 07:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Back up everyone please before loose the point of this. Part of this wiki project is deciding how to categorise data and how to avoid dupliaction as much as possible.

For me these are the ONLY reasons I have discussed this. I was going to suggest (before Rob beat me to it) that we merge this article with the Historical Jesus article since virtually all the data used to illustrate that article comes from the NT. They both follow a chronological view of Jesus' life and follow pretty much the same format. Aside from space issues it is a nightmare keeping multiple long copies of the same data in sync. If the general feeling is that this article has merits to stand alone then we should precis the NT info in the historical page and point them here for more info. The same goes for the Historicity of Jesus page. We should precis the info on the historical page and point the readers to the main article. This will streamline the detail of the layers of information. The casual reader (and homework doer) will get the mainstream view with the dissenting views represented in a small way and the interested reader can be welcomed to our sad world of arguments and agendas. SOPHIA 10:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It sounds to me like we just plain need to do alot of work, i've never actually tried something complicated beyond wikidiplomacy before :/. Homestarmy 14:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• Against Merge bad idea. Two different topics. neitehr are POV. Both are appropriate. Both should be preserved as is. POV has blinded some editors' objectivity.Gator (talk) 21:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Could you please be specific as to the reasons you feel these articles do not substantially cover the same ground using the same information source? SOPHIA 23:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Keep this article/against merge. This is properly a subtopic of the Jesus article, as are a number of other articles including Historicity of Jesus, Historical Jesus, Religious perspectives on Jesus, Jesus myth and many others. You can't be on Wikipedia long before noticing that complex subjects often spin off topics from the main article to seperate articles (see, for example, Science). The main article, Jesus, is long enough as it is. Some browsers have trouble loading pages larger than 32k. I believe the Jesus article is presently about 50K. To avoid duplication, what really needs to be done is to summarize the main points in the Jesus article, and develop the subarticles (including this one) in more detail. Or to put it another way, we need to decide which data belongs in which article. The difficulty is in finding a way to do this that satisfies all (or even most) comers.

Before even considering a merge with the main page, we should first compare the various subpages. A merge between this page and Christian views of Jesus may be in order (in fact, such a merge has been proposed on that page). A merge between this page and Jesus would be premature at best. —archola 05:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree the Jesus article is too long and feel using it (as in the case of Christianity) as as summary page, saving the details for the sub pages is best. My suggestion is to merge this article with "Historical Jesus" as the vast majority of the historical data used is from the NT but I can see how this article could be made different enough to stand alone if it concentrated in heavily refrencing the NT. SOPHIA 07:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

This article covers the New Testement narrative from a religious perspective, while Historical Jesus places the narrative in a wider historical and cultural context. There is some overlap since religion is part of culture, but the viewpoints are different enough that I don't think a merger would be a good idea. However, both articles could probably be cleaned up.

On a related subject, I'm compiling an outline of the main Jesus articles. There is a List of Jesus-related articles, but that list is a mess. Also, many of those articles are more about religion than about the person of Jesus. archola 07:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Keep. While reducing some redundancies is a valid enterprise (as long as the articles are not tackled in their substance), the two are two different topics. "Jesus" is the comphrensive article on Jesus, while this articles covers the NT's view on Jesus, for those who want to focus on that, "Historical Jesus" still focus on something else: the reconstruction of the historical person Jesus done by the means historiopgraphy - this leaves some things open that go beyond the craft of historiography (e.g. the Resurrection). A merge with Christian views of Jesus might be possible (this way or that way). Str1977 10:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I can see now that this article should be different to the historical Jesus one. We still need to keep the overlap in the historical article to a minimum - pointing the reader here for all the indepth stuff and the major bulk of NT references but this article is a separate issue.

I do think merging this with Christian views (or either way) would be useful as I can't see the difference as they now stand. I mistakenly thought the Christian views article was a round up of the differences of opinion of the various denominations that claim to be Christians. Is there such an article as I can see that being a good homework source? If there isn't maybe we could make this page for that (with a slight title change or redirect to make it clear) and even if we have to leave it as a stub I'm sure it wouldn't be long before it was populated with the core beliefs of each group. SOPHIA 10:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Sophia, there is a potential difference between "NT views" and "Christian views", as you describe in your expectations (there were mine too), but right now the parts of "Christian views" that do not fit into "NT views" or "Biblical views" is really minute and can easily be included into "Christology" or similar articles. Cheers, Str1977 11:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

But there is so much overlap between this and [[Jesus} - the main difference is that here it's presented even more POV. The same info is supplied. Why does it deserve 'two identikit articles/ Maybe the Jesus page should, as suggested, be a VERY brief summary and then a disambig page? Robsteadman 19:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

If there's too much overlap we can strive to reduce it - no need to delete a valid article. Str1977 22:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I have read posts complaining that the Jesus article is too long already and it would fit in a hiearchical data structure to have increasing layers of detail as you descend through the sub pages but lets take things one step at a time. We seem to have agreement that the Christian views article should be merged with this one so lets get that done and settled before we even think of doing anything else. I'll change the merge specifications to reflect this to stop any confusion at the moment. When this is all done, if you still feel a merge is required Rob you can put the flag back. Hope you are OK with this. SOPHIA 22:44, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overhaul

Out of discussion covered at Talk:Jesus, and the fact that wikipedia had 3 different places that covered this topic, I made one long version of the NT narrative of Jesus' life. I just copy and pasted that version into this article. I feel we still have some more work to do. I feel the intro needs to be stronger (and longer), perhaps giving an overview of the key topics (nativity, baptism, ministry, death, resurrection). I also feel the inline bible citations is a bit sloppy. Aiden proposed an idea on Talk:Jesus that I feel we should impliment here. --Andrew c 22:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)