Talk:History of Christianity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Christianity Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page to become familiar with the guidelines.
B	This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Core topics work group. (with unknown importance)
	This article is supported by the Jesus work group. (with unknown importance)
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a group devoted to the the study, and improvement of Wikipedia articles on the subject, of History. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Additional information: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked Neutrality: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points are appropriately cited. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no <!-- 6. It is written from a neutral point of view. --> |B-Class-6=yes/no

	Calvinism Portal History of Christianity falls within the scope of WikiProject Calvinism, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Calvinism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page so as to become familier with the guidelines.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Archives

July-December 2006 January-March 2006

What was the biggest controversy of the early church? I dont think that any of these wbepages work all that well!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[edit] well meaning but lacking

This entry is well-meaning, however, there are serious lacunae. Although there is significant space given to Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic) history, the Armenian, Alexandrine, and Antiochian/Syriac (Eastern and Western) Traditions are hardly mentioned. There are also some serious POV problems, especially in sections such as the Primacy of the Roman Papacy.

The article virtually ignores institutional Christianity that existed outside of the Roman Empire. An understanding of these Churches is particularly vital at this time in history, as Middle Eastern Christians, in specific, face unprecedented challenges. Futher, the encounter of Western European Roman Catholics and Protestants with Eastern Christians during the Crusades (RCs) and the "Age of European Conquest of the World" (late 15th - 20th centuries) (RCs, Anglicans and Protestants), as well as the striking difference of Russian Orthodox missionary work with that of the other European powers, is of great importance as the world seeks to navigate through multiculturalism.

Further, there is a simplistic understanding given for the development of even Western Christianity in the post-Apostolic and early medieval periods. See Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church, 450-680 AD by John Meyendorff for a more impartial view.

Unfortunately, I am severely lacking in time at the moment, but when I have a chance, I will work to try to balance some of this, esp. with reference to two excellent scholarly books in this area: The Eastern Christian Churches by Roberson, and History of Christianity in Asia (Part 1) by Moffett.--StevenAArmstrong (talk) 22:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] earliest christianity

why is there nothing on christianity in egypt? which started much before it did in europe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.238.225.38 (talk) 23:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some scholars

There was a sentence that described what some scholars felt without saying who those scholars were. LoveMonkey (I believe) added a fact tag, asking who these scholars were (a resonable request). Lostcaesar removed the whole sentence. I restored the sentence with a citation, so all should be good right? Wrong. LoveMonkey restored a citation request when I had already supplied a citation. Richardshusr is helping clear things up, but I wanted to come to talk so we could all explain our position better, if necessary. I believe my citation was good enough, so why was the citation needed tag restored AFTER I already added a citation.-Andrew c 16:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw the citation that you provided to Ehrman. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with that author and the title of the book didn't make it clear whether he was a scholar or simply a popularizing author who was summarizing the work of scholars so I inserted the scholar that I did know, Elaine Pagels. I'm open to rewording the text to read "Scholars such as Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman".

Bah, humbug. I should have checked out Bart Ehrman first instead of wasting everybody's time. Sorry.

--Richard 17:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the sentence originally. A little while ago, LoveMonkey added a fact tag. I thought perhaps we should just drop the sentence if it was going to be disputed, since I didn't think an extended treatment was proper here. Looks like an extended treatment is developing. The problem I see now is that we have cited in detail scholars like Pagles and Ehrman, whose positions are disputed, and thus we need now a counterposition. This is getting a bit legnthy. Perhaps we could restore the original sentence with those works in a footnote, kind of like Andrew had it, and give the details in the main article. As is it, I dont think we ave give Pagles a say without other who worked on gnosticism who think her scholarship is in major error having an equal say, and on and on. Lostcaesar 21:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking myself that things were starting to get into a debate. We had the one sentence, then LoveMonkey added a rebuttle to the one sentence, which then turned into the sentences about G. K. Chesterton. It's tough because if we add information about one position, someone will want to come along and add information about the other position, and on and on. We are getting to the point where things are getting out of hand. I would not support adding more information in support of the tradition, Christian apologetic view. What may be a better idea is removing the stuff about Chesterton (century old info) and replacing it with the views of a contemporary scholar who shares similar views. If that is still much, then I would support reducing the extended section on Ehrman, Pagel, Bauers, if we also reduced the Chesterton stuff. I know, it's hard to balance things when we are considering NPOV. -Andrew c 21:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

So, this is what subsidiary articles are for. Let's move the whole mess to Christian heresy and leave only a summary. The summary should make clear that Bauers, Pagels and Ehrman are a minority view although Pagels writes in an accessible way and so her books have a certain popular following. --Richard 22:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(sheepishly) So... I forgot that I already copied the text in this article to Christian heresy this morning. I didn't keep it all together in one place in Christian heresy so it's not immediately obvious that I copied the text but I did. So, all that's left is to trim the section back to being a summary. --Richard 22:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

LoveMonkey's latest edits are exactly the sort of thing I was trying to avoid. This shouldn't be a debate, and there doesn't need to be a rebuttal to everything. This section is getting rather long, when there is already a whole article devoted to this topic. I suggest we trim down this section fast. LoveMonkey, can you please comment on what I, LC, and Richard have been discussing before expanding this section even more? Thanks.-Andrew c 23:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I reverted LoveMonkey's last edit as it was getting out of control and the quality of the English prose was atrocious to boot. I have left him a note on his Talk Page advising him of our discussion here and asking him to focus his energies on expanding and improving the Christian heresy article instead.

--Richard 23:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think a good place for this would be either Christian heresy, or Early Christianity, or (for Pagels) Gnosticism / History of Gnosticism etc. Perhaps we should go back to the original wording, with these names in a footnote. The problem with mentioning, say, Ehrman specifically, is it seems obligitory to say that his mentor, Bruce Metzger, disagreed with key parts of his analysis, or, for Pagels, that other scholars, her collegues, who worked on the same Gnostic texts, have published against her early dates and conclusions, etc. This sounds like a good topic, but one taken up (both sides taken up) elsewhere. So, I suppose I am repeating myself, but it helps explain why, when the fact tag was applied, I deleted the sentence. The article is very long,and in a sense it needs to be so that's ok, but we cannot afford sections like this. Whole centuries get only a sentence at times. Lostcaesar 06:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christian heresy

Since our attention has been drawn to early Christian heresies, I invite those who are interested to look at the Christian heresy article. This is something that I worked on for a while a month or two ago. It probably still needs work. Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.

--Richard 17:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Early heresies

User:Lostcaesar restored the following text that I had deleted...

One of the roles of bishops, and the purpose of many Christian writings, was to refute heresies. The earliest of these were generally Christological in nature, that is, they denied either Christ's (eternal) divinity or humanity. For example, Docetism held that Jesus' humanity was merely an illusion, thus denying the incarnation; whereas Arianism held that Jesus was not eternally divine. Most of these groups were dualistic, maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ.^[1]

Actually I had deleted it intentionally for two reasons: first, it seemed to be non-crucial to the point we were trying to make and, in the context of User:Andrew c's suggestion that we trim, this seemed to be an expendable piece of text. Second, there was an editor who wanted to raise an issue about whether early Christian heresies were dualistic or not. This seemed an unimportant controversy to describe in this article (as opposed to the Christian heresy article.

I will comment that this text was copied to the Christian heresy article so it has not been "lost", just relocated.

That's why I deleted the text. Presumably, Lostcaesar disagrees and feels the text is, in fact, important to retain in this article. I personally don't care either way but other editors might so I figured I'd raise the question here on the Talk Page.

--Richard 06:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Well, I know of no debate - early Christian heresies did tend to be dualistic (early heresies). The sentence is referenced from a textbook. The idea of the first sentence was to provide a transition from the previous section and to explain something unique about orthodox christianity - the bishop. Also, the next sentence was supposed to provide, in one sweep, a general statement about all early heresies - or why they were "heretical": orthodoxy is distinguished by not denying the eternal divinity or humanity of Christ and could have this position because it believed both matter and spirit were good, where as, if you believed matter was evil, then you would deny the incarnation (or vice versa). Anyway, my opinion is that this section is more informative, in a general sense, than the rest - but that's my opinion. If concensus turns otherwise, then so it shall go. I restored it thinking it was accidentally deleted (I've done that kind of thing before, you see). Lostcaesar 06:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that most of the earliest heresies where about clarification in doctrine. Most about the definition of Jesus and his divinity. Other then gnosticism I do not see any of the earliest let alone the biggest having anything to do with duality. As for quoting from a text book I think that such a sweeping and overly simplifed generalization as the text implies is very unacademic. I would like the page number. I think that at least one of the professors has a webpage and can be contact at least for clarification. LoveMonkey 14:06, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to point out some very disturbing points that this article is lacking.

1. The section in question is not reflecting what the general consensus is in the field of Christian history. 2. The "scholars" posted have had their opinion challenged and in the case of Pagels they are now widely ignored (see her article here on wiki about some of her work being called one of the worst books ever written). 3. The challenges to those opinions (the posted opinions are not in the mainstream of scholarly opinion), challenges and points, are not being posted nor given a voice in this article. 4. Since the article is supposed to be as concise as possible, being only an overview, why are extreme opinions being posted as if they are the general consensus in the field of Christian history rather that be archeological, biblical text etc, etc. 5. Also the article history seems to focus only on a small area and on a small group of people. The text posted seems to only draw from a Western European, United States opinion. It does not take into account Slavic, Mideastern or Greece scholars (modern or ancient). The only exception to this would be the NT text it's self and the earlier church fathers. But they are not being treated as the general or modern prevalent opinion. A minority opinion (at best) is. 6. The POV being posted is an opinion if taken on it's face value stating that even Jesus did not and could not specify what a christian was. Since by the Bauer opinion, the standard Jesus was talking about in specifing incorrectness, was meaningless and in reference to no one. When Jesus specified what false prophets where he was specific and just like Irenaeus gnostics fit the description. By Bauer no one was wrong even when the founder of the religion warned about what was unacceptable to their teachings. Also please look over my edits to the Early Christianity article. I would like to have a consensus about the parts I added to the gnosticism sections so I can expand and add and clarify Irenaeus' apology to the Christian Heresies article. LoveMonkey 14:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I would propose two things. First, in this article, look for a concise way to summarize the points that you made above. I have no problem in portraying Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels as minority viewpoints and even to mention that other scholars have refuted them. However, the section needs to be short because this article is too long. Second, put your more prolific effort into Christian heresy. I'll be happy to get some help on that article. It's a mess. --Richard 14:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think we need to establish here on talk what we all believe the majority opinion to be. I do not believe Bauer's still holds strong weight because his views are decades and decades old. Pagels is a decent scholar, but has fringe views, such as the significance and early dominance of Gnosticism. On the other hand, Ehrman is a fairly solid scholar. He is on the liberal side, but not as far as the Jesus seminar. His work, which I cited, did not present many, if any new ideas, and was an attempt to summarize the scholarly views. He doesn't explicitly state that one of the early sects is the one true religion of Jesus, and the rest are all heretics (like Pagal does with Gnosticism, or Chesterton does with Orthodoxy). He states that all the sects claimed apostolic succession, that all had sacred texts that claimed to go back to Jesus, that all wrote negatively about the competing sects, the point of lying and forgery. I do not believe that the majority of scholars claim that one sect over another is the One True religion of Jesus. All sects underwent theological development and evolution (and some sects only developed later down the road when a new question arose, and people conflicted over what the answer to the question was, such as the trinity). John P. Meier describes this in his Criterion of discontinuity. I'm curious to see what other editors on this page think is the majority view, and what sourced they have to back that up. I think this is a fundemental place to start to insure that we are summarizing the scholarly field correctly, and not giving undue weight to a position (I now feel like grouping Ehrman with Pagels and Bauer might not have been a good idea). -Andrew c 15:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Ehrman is not without his critics and his stance and association with the Jesus Seminar have undermind his standing with many. LoveMonkey 16:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the can of worms has been opened, and I don’t suppose we can close it now. I would like to push this info to other articles dedicated to a proper discussion, as we simply cannot give paragraphs to one scholar in an article where whole eras and peoples get less. Anyway, I will try and give what I understand to be the “majority” (as difficult as that is). For Pagels, I can say that her colleagues who worked on the same Gnostic texts were critical of her early dating. I could find some sources for this statement. For Ehrman, I was not aware that he claimed that other groups, besides orthodoxy, asserted episcopal apostolic succession (do you mean apostolicity?), if so that would (I can only imagine) be a minority view. What I can say is that his position, as I understand it, is that the manuscript traditions of the biblical texts show alterations that establish a changing set of essential doctrines and thus a set of “orthodoxies”, one could say. In this regard he is at variance with, among others, Metzger (his mentor), not in saying there are differences in the manuscripts (because there are), but in saying that they are doctrinally significant. Now, the view of “orthodoxies” in general, divorced from the manuscript issue (and the manuscripts are, in regards to this, late, anyway) is, I believe, more common, and would at any rate concord with Bauer. As for the point about there being no “One True religion of Jesus”, if I may give a more opinionated statement, I would have to say that this sounds like just another kind of orthodoxy – an orthodoxy of pluralism. As such, I imagine it is fairly popular, but I don’t know. Anyway, we're in the wrong article for all this, I think. Lostcaesar 21:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree we are in the wrong article. Briefly, what I meant is best summarized by Ehrman himself: "I should emphasize that other groups had their own versions of the argument for apostolic succession. The Valentinian Gnostics, for example, maintained that their views came from Valentinus, the disciple of Theudas, who was the disciple of Paul the apostle; the Ebionite Christians maintained that their views were handed down to them by James, the brother of Jesus." This isn't a minority view, it isn't even a view. It is simply a fact. The POVs come in when we try to put validity or doubt into the claims of these groups (orthodoxy included). All that said, I think we should all agree on some summary form that isn't too argumentative, and move to the more specific article.-Andrew c 21:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like claims for apostolicity rather than apostolic succession (not to be picky). For what its worth I'm not sure the claim of the Valentinian Gnostics is as well established as to call it an undisputed fact. As far as I know, the only reference to such a claim by the Valentinian Gnostics is wrapped up in a polemic against them by one Father (who states their supposed claim in rejecting it) - he may have been seeing their claims through "orthodox eyes", if you see what I mean. But I'm just am amateur here, and this is a personal musing, so I'll step aside. We agree on the relevant points here. Lostcaesar 22:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I also agree that we are in the wrong article if only because, by definition, this article has to provide only a very high-level summary of any topic. Discussion of early Christian heresis can be found in Early Christianity in quite some detail. (Lostcaesar, you may remember the discussion we had about "Orthodoxy" vs. "Orthopraxy". Those are covered in Early Christianity). Heresies are also covered in Christian heresy. Some work is going to be needed to regularize those two articles.

--Richard 00:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed but keep in mind that to include one heresy is to include them all. So the list is going to be long. Now if you wish to include only the largest of early christian heresies then I think that Arianism wins that prize. Even so the earliest heresy would have to be Judas.

LoveMonkey 12:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

Consensus means a general agreement. Take this article for example here. We can do our best to deny that there is a consensus amount Christian History scholars but the reality is that there are simple things like- They have a consensus that Jesus existed and was not an apparition or an amalgamation of old Gods, like gnosticism. That he was believed, by Christians, to be the Messiah and therefore not meerly a prophet or special teacher, again like the gnosticism. That Jesus was of Semitic heritage, that he could read and write, that he taught people to love one another not that any knowledge matter but that kindness and ethical behavior mattered. These are simple consensus. This is but a start. LoveMonkey 16:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In this context, you seem to use "consensus" to mean "overwhelming majority opinion" and, using that meaning, I agree with you that this is the consensus. However, consensus can also mean "unanimous opinion without dissent" and, using this meaning, I disagree with you. It is not our job to describe Christianity as it is thought of by the overwhelming opinion of Christian scholars who believe in Christ but rather our job to describe Christianity as it is thought of by all people whether they be theological scholars, scholars of other disciplines and even those who are not scholars (e.g. popular opinion and popular media).

--Richard 16:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Now I am confused, why use scholars at all. Also why is the consensus a job? I need you to clarify that for me.

LoveMonkey 17:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

And remember why should this be about opinions only in Western Europe and Northern America. Why not about opinions of people actually in the mideast? LoveMonkey 16:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

If you can express those opinions concisely, then feel free to insert them in the article. At this point, we are trying to constrain the length of this section. I am willing to trim the discussion of Pagels' POV to one sentence. If you can characterize the opposing opinions into another sentence, then that will achieve our goals.

I don't say that Western Europe and North America have a monopoly on theology but "actually in the mideast" carries no weight with me. The question is what are the opinions of internationally recognized scholars. If you wish to argue that Orthodox theologians get less respect internationally than Western theologians, we can look at that but "actually in the mideast" does not mean anything to me. Why should proximity to Jerusalem make a person's argument more credible?

--Richard 16:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This makes almost no sense in a biblical historical context. Take for example Apology of Aristides its pretty clear that these things are not going to show up in Alabama. So why are the people and culture that Christianity sprang from not going to be given precedent?

LoveMonkey 17:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Because Christianity is a world religion and because Western Christianity is, well, Western. If Eastern Christianity has a different perspective, that perspective deserves to be presented. However, there is no reason to give it precedence just because they happen to live in the place where Christianity originated. The Kingdom of God is not any physical place on earth but in the hearts, minds and souls of Christians.

And, by the way, secular and atheist perspectives also deserve to be presented. Wikipedia is not here to put forth the "right" view of Christianity. It is here to present ALL views of Christianity, citing each to a reliable source and giving each view its due weight.

--69.236.160.117 00:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

"Take for example Apology of Aristides its pretty clear that these things are not going to show up in Alabama." - um, I don't understand this point. What is that sentence supposed to mean, exactly? Lostcaesar 12:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well were was the discovery of the document made? Are we going to find or validate any of the "History of Christianity" in Alaska or for that matter New Guinea? Be honest. I think that we can narrow the scope of the article but keep in mind that I am not saying "don't" include but the History of Christianity in say Antartica should not get the primacy of the history of Christianity in Jerusalem.

LoveMonkey 12:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

There are catholics in Jerusalem, Alaska, New Guinea, and Alabama (maybe even in Antartica) - their history is all one, all part of the same church. Its the same faith, universal. Lostcaesar 13:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not arguing that at all. As for Roman Catholic come on Czar you do have a Pope you know (and yes he gets primacy over average Christian Joe in the bahamas). Lets stay focused on history and as much as possible the physical history of Christianity. Like I stated I am not saying don't include I am saying primacy.

LoveMonkey 15:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I'm not quite sure what you're arguing then. Nonetheless, here is what I wrote before your last message.

History of Christianity should give precedence to that "history" that is important regardless of where it happened. As it happens, most of the important history of Christianity (after the life of Jesus) happened outside Palestine and much of the important history of Christianity happened outside the Middle East (i.e. outside Anatolia/Asia Minor).

I hate to say it but when people think "History of Christianity", they think "History of Western Christianity". If you want to argue that there is insufficient weight given to the "history" of Eastern Christianity, then we can discuss that. I am sure there is a Western bias to this article as darn little is presented about the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodox churches.

However, there is a difference between "history" and "theology". Theology happens all over the world. Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels are Western scholars, maybe even theologians. Let's not quibble over that. If there are notable Eastern scholars and theologians who have opposing views, we should mention them but their opinions don't get precedence just because they live close to where certain documents were found.

If you want to argue the point about where the documents were found, we should then ask "who found the documents" and "who analyzed the documents?". If the pre-eminent scholars of Gnosticism are in the Middle East, then those scholars deserve to be given precedence but only because they are considered by the academic community to be pre-eminent. Geographic proximity to the location of the documents is not relevant. This is especially true in this digital age.

Just as an aside, I saw a National Geographic documentary on the "Gospel of Judas" that indicated that analysis of the fragments is being done by taking digital photographs of the fragments and manipulating the digital images rather than touching the actual fragments. Coool...

--Richard 15:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, this has all left me more confused than before. I will just say things in general. I feel the article concentrates on Christianity in Western lands, i.e. Europe and the Americas, and could benefit from information on the Near and Middle East as well as Russia. The reason why it has such a focus is because Richard and I have been the main contributors and, though I cannot speak for him, my knowledge is of the Western Middle Ages, Late Antiquity, and, to a lesser extent, the Empire – and I can only contribute concerning what I know about. So if you want to add Eastern information, that would be good. As for distinguishing between “eastern” and “western” Christianity, I think this is a vain maneuver, since Christianity has always been both Eastern and Western. There are times when one can make a historical distinction between “Latin” and “Greek” Christendom, which I find altogether more accurate than “eastern” and “western”, and, regarding those historical times, such language should be used and proper distinctions made. As for the origin of scholars, I really don’t know what you want. First, I don’t see the relevance, as scholars are distinguished more by their subjects, which could be “eastern” in locus or “western”, rather than their personal origin. Second, we are stuck with mostly English sources, both since this is English wikipedia and since, presumably, that is the native language of us contributors – and even granting other linguistic skills (which some of us have), I think you will find few who know non-Western (Romance) languages, so I don't see this as a likely escape. Third, I haven’t seen any reason why it matters, to be frank; in other words, why this is a problem. Lostcaesar 15:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I would first off like to say that the dialog and points made by both Czar and Richard so far now have been good points and I think it is a good perspective. Here is a close example of what I am getting at. Example, the earliest text that we have of the bible is in Greek. The earliest understanding of the theological terms as well as the word theology is Greek. When the understanding of the nature of Christ his divinity and the divinity and expression of the trinity where expressed they were expressed in Greek. Why?

So Greek holds the same importants to the understanding of Christianity as say pig latin? It's a matter of primacy. So what do the Greeks believe? Are they different? Why are they different? How about the Egyptians? Didn't Jesus visit Egypt? Where? What happened to Nazareth? Another example, the earliest places visited by the apostles say Paul and the communities that he founded where in the mideast (again Paul did not go hang out in Paducah). Here is another example. Churches as buildings above ground (other then the underground ones, that is a set of articles for wiki I am working on right now) didn't exist and were not allowed until Christianity became legal. Now where did that happen first? Armenia. Are these specifics, surface and obvious things, even in the History of Christianity article here? No. Where is the oldest church in the world? Why did the Cappocian fathers go to Cappocia to found above ground churches and monasteries? Why Cappocia and not Frankfurt or Hamburg? Where are the synagogues that St Paul visited? What happened to them? These points are all history. Not if I feel good about Jesus. But why are the monasteries in Antolia no longer there? What happen to the Byzantine Christian population of those regions? Why Byzantine? And now a further example, What happened to Paul? What happened to Mark? What happened to Matthew? What happened to Peter? Where did they go? Amsterdam? Why is this not in the article? Where or who has this history? What currently existing "group" of Christians had and have the gospels? Where are they located? History. And how do we know about them and what happened to them? Where does that history come from? I am not trying to be nationalistic at all. But this article is greatly lacking and these points are small and just plain obvious. But it seems we are avoiding the obvious. If I knew nothing of Christianity, could read this article and be able to gleen that Jesus had his ears pieced, that he had long hair? That he wore a toga? That he liked opera? Or if I read this article could I say that the History of Christianity starts in the mideast and that Christianity is still there. If so who is there and been there, what do they have to say? Lets start here. Is this point reflected in this article? What do the scholars of these 1000 year old churches have to say? Say about Bauer? Is there difference? Why? If I go to a Syrian Orthodox Church in Damascus are the services and worship there going to be the same as say London? If not why? Is this all not history? Now is it lacking from the article? LoveMonkey 16:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

To answer the last question, first. As regards history, some of what LoveMonkey describes is history although not necessarily history that belongs in the top-level summary "History of Christianity". I can imagine articles like History of Eastern Orthodoxy or "History of Christianity in Anatolia". There is History of the Papacy, History of the Catholic Church, History of Protestantism and I'm not sure what else

As regards theology, LoveMonkey, somehow I feel that you are reading but you are not listening. Christianity may have started in Palestine, it may have grown in Cappadocia/Anatolia/Asia Minor but it has grown beyond that. It is NOT a matter of primacy. Rome asserts primacy and, even if such were not granted, Rome would not accept the primacy of any other bishop. Moreover, an entire wing of the Christian church (the Protestants) rejects the concept of primacy, many preferring to rely on "scriptura sola". Within that wing, there are those who would step outside both primacy of bishops and scripture and venture forth into a humanist and scientific analysis (e.g. Pagels and the Jesus Seminar). Also within that wing are those who are Restorationists and reject traditional dogmas, doctrines and interpretations of Christianity (e.g. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses).

All of these, God bless them, are Christians in some sense although we might not wish to accept all of them as Christian brothers and sistes, God help us.

If we fail to adequately describe Greek Christianity as Lostcaesar calls it (I prefer "Eastern" because I think of "Greek" as "Greek ORthodox"), then we fail in our mission.

However, if we fail to describe "the rest of Christianity" outside Latin and Greek Christianity (i.e. Roman and Greek), then we also fail in our mission.

Christianity is what it is. There may be parts that you do not like or that I do not like but nobody cares two whits what we like or don't like. Describe what is documented out there by reliable sources. That is our mission.

Nuff said?

--Richard 18:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It's not a matter of one more time

Go Richard and just sit back and reread the entire article we are discussing. Look at it objectively enough to see how little of the actual church and it's continuity from the middle east is actually in the article. Really it's that simple. And let me clarify. [1], [2]. Well at least Constantin von Tischendorf seems to think so anyway you that it's obvious where he went for his history and it wasn't Paduckia. LoveMonkey 18:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood me. Lostcaesar and I do have a Western bias and so probably do most editors of the English Wikipedia because that's where most English speakers come from (North America, U.K. and British Commonwealth and Europe). We readily admit that this article has a Western bias and welcome introduction of information about Eastern/Greek Christianity. But we're not competent to do it ourselves. If you can suggest material that is missing, we can insert it.--Richard 01:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

But theology is a different matter. With respect to "Early Christian heresies", if you know a Greek/Eastern theologian who has taken aim at Bauer/Ehrman/Pagels, we could include a citation to them. Otherwise, we have to rely on Western theologians.

For now how about half way. I think the article should reflect this type of format and content or mirror this book Florvsky, Western Orthodox apology, and for fun a protestant endorsement of Chesterton, GOA this is a start more Western in flavor. I hope.
LoveMonkey 04:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that Christian theology may exhibit a similar Western bias and I invite you to make your case to the editors of that article.

Well theology is a different thing, as for theology mets apology I suggest Vladimir Lossky and his book The Mystical Church.LoveMonkey 05:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Some time ago, I created an article titled History of Christian theology. If you wish to contribute material about the history of Eastern/Greek theology, it would be much appreciated. --Richard 01:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the offer but the Orthodox stance on theology is not one of primacy. It is one of experience of God. One can not be a theologian in Orthodoxy without Phronema, and most importantly theoria.LoveMonkey 05:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to confess that I don't understand this response. What does "primacy" or "experience of God" have to do with whether or not you contribute to the History of Christian theology article? Echoing Lostcaesar's comments below, I think we would all like to see more coverage of the Eastern Church in Wikipedia articles about Christianity. Wikipedia's goal is to be the repository of all human knowledge. LC and I are sharing our knowledge about the Western church. Speaking for myself, I would like to learn more about the Eastern Church. Wikipedia is my primary source for learning new things. (NB: I don't argue that it is authoritative or comprehensive but simply that it often introduces me to new things that I didn't know before.) Why are you suggesting that contributing information about the Eastern Church to articles such as Christian theology and History of Christian theology is somehow inappropriate or ill-advised? --Richard 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

And to czar's comment "Third, I haven’t seen any reason why it matters, to be frank; in other words, why this is a problem." I'll match your Gabriel Vasquez, and Thomas Aquinas with Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Gregory Palamas. The difference is to be a church theologian one must have theoria not scholasticism. Yeah- Ha! LoveMonkey 23:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

LoveMonkey, all I can say is that I think you are triumphantly thrusting in an already opened door. Everyone, myself included, thinks that the article could benefit from concise, sourced, relevant information on Christianity in the East. I really see no reason to place holy Thomas Aquinas as a "rival" of the sacred Greek fathers and don't understand your approach. To speak personally, and I say this in a brotherly way, I have found your comments to be indicative of a certain paranoia that the East has had from all things Latin since perhaps the fourth crusade. We all would love to see the East better represented, not because it rivals the Latin tradition, but because it is a necessary and integral part of the history of Christendom, like the two lungs of the body or the sun and the moon. Our lack of contributions comes only from self-professed ignorance, and our reluctance to follow on all points is only out of interest in sources and brevity. Please, carry on enriching the article with the treasure of the Eastern faith and her history. Lostcaesar 13:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, spoken like a true christian. This is good. I think that it would be best that we could all be nice yes. But look at how long a series of comments it took to even get this far. Please don't fault me for standing up and saying something. I would much rather work through you and Richard then around you (as a matter of fact I refuse to work around you we will do this by consensus). I will send you a link please read it and tell me what you think. LoveMonkey 15:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it has taken this long because the discussion started on a much different topic (theories of Bauer, Ehrman and Pagels) and it took a while for us to understand your underlying issues. Nonetheless, we do not fault you at all for making the more general criticism of the articles about Christianity. It just took us a while to understand it (and for you to understand that we understood). I would like to see that link as well. Please e-mail it to me or just provide it here on this Talk Page. --Richard 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christian heresy

A couple of editors have criticized the Christian heresy article on Talk:Christian heresy. I am interested in hearing your opinion of their comments. Please be honest. Despite the fact that I am the creator of this article, I am truly interested in your thoughts on whether the criticism of the basic premise of the article 209.59.32.37 is on the mark or not.

--Richard 07:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is the final link to some of the previous questions you asked [3]. LoveMonkey 12:52, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relative importance of history of the Eastern Church

"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates

I want to revisit something I wrote earlier not because primarily beacuse I want to re-emphasize the point but because I want to challenge whether what I wrote was just spouting a lot of hot air or whether it is in fact valid.

I wrote:

History of Christianity should give precedence to that "history" that is important regardless of where it happened. As it happens, most of the important history of Christianity (after the life of Jesus) happened outside Palestine and much of the important history of Christianity happened outside the Middle East (i.e. outside Anatolia/Asia Minor).

I hate to say it but when people think "History of Christianity", they think "History of Western Christianity". If you want to argue that there is insufficient weight given to the "history" of Eastern Christianity, then we can discuss that. I am sure there is a Western bias to this article as darn little is presented about the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Well, you know, from my Western eyes, Christianity moved rapidly to Rome and Constantinople/Byzantium and left the churches of Jerusalem and Asia Minor behind.

However, this article focuses on Rome and the Western church. It does not discuss Constantinople/Byzantium in anywhere near as much detail. I think it was gross hyperbole for me to say that "much of the important history of Christianity happened outside the Middle East". For the purpose of this discussion, let us count Constantinople/Byzantium as being part of the Middle East. One cannot imagine that 1700 years of Christian history in the Eastern Church passed without anything notable happening. And yet, off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single important thing that happened in the Eastern Church during those 1700 years. This is thus an indication of my ignorance. We clearly need to "fill the gap". What we need to know is: "What pivotal events occurred in the Eastern Church over those 1700 years that affected the course of Christianity in the East?" Obviously, we shouldn't name every patriarch that ever lived but, if there were major theological disputes we should mention them. Oh, OK, I just remembered... iconoclasm. That needs to be mentioned. What else?

--Richard 16:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

One section that is currently a stub is the matter of Jihad. This greatly affected Eastern Christianity (and Western Christianity, of course) from the 660s straight through the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and beyond. Obviously, its not so simple, but this point begs to be elaborated upon. Iconoclasm, as you mentioned, can be largely understood in this context (why had God’s favour turned form his anointed Empire headed by his secular representative, the Emperor? - images). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lostcaesar (talk • contribs) 20:57, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Yes excellent. Both are most important. We must mention the conflict between scholasticism and hesychasm. The first heresies like gnosticism and its condemnation, for embracing speculation, it's hatred of the Jewish people's God of the Old Testament (see Sethians and Ophites) as well as any creator God, and laying claim to tradition simply because it maybe documented it first. It's labeling nature or the material world as evil. We could include the cold war between the Neoplatonists Julian the Apostate and the Orthodox. Also that the first schism was a by product of the fall out between Byzantium and Alexandra starting with Arianism and culminating into monophysiatism (although they are our brothers and we do love them). Just this is probably a good nice overview and would qualify as plenty enough. We could also include the Holy Fire and it's Pascha significates. LoveMonkey 15:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of the Eastern Orthodox Church

OK, I created the above article by copying the "History" section out of the Eastern Orthodox Church article. The Eastern Orthodox Church article was getting too long anyway (79kb). We should start mining History of the Eastern Orthodox Church to see if what should be incorporated into this article and how.

--Richard 18:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Ugh... the beginning portion of the History of the Eastern Orthodox Church article is a mess. I have done some preliminary reorganizing but the article still needs more work. Lostcaesar, if you have time to take a look at it, I think you could really help on the portion of the article that deals with the history of the church from 313 to about 800 AD. The original text was a mish-mash that dealt with things out of chronological order and mentioned the seven ecumenical councils in two different places.

--Richard 19:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Most excellent editing. Thank you so much. LoveMonkey 15:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. However, I have to say that I think this is only a very modest start. I am left feeling that the History of the Eastern Orthodox Church is still quite deficient. It is difficult for me to believe that the current text of that article is all that there is to say about the history of the Eastern (Greek) church. Coverage is scanty up until the fall of the Ottoman Empire and then there is a huge hole between that point and the 20th century. Now, it may be the case that, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, there is no longer a "History of the Eastern Orthodox Church" per se but rather histories of individual national churches such as the "Greek Orthodox Church" and the "Russian Orthodox Church" etc. But, if that is the case, then it should be stated explicitly. Also, I wonder if these various "national" churches have continued to interact with each other over the centuries. I confess that my ignorance of this topic is a huge gaping hole. I would expect Wikipedia to fill this gap.

Secondly, although it is good to have a History of the Eastern Orthodox Church article to parallel History of the Catholic Church and History of Protestantism, the fact remains that this article is History of Christianity. Since the Eastern Orthodox Church is one of the major branches of Christianity, it deserves to have a much more substantial treatment in this article than it currently does.

To address these two issues, I suggest that we start by fleshing out the History of the Eastern Orthodox Church article and then determine which portions of that article to include in a summary here. Since my knowledge of this topic falls far short of adequate, I hope that other editors will step forward to fill the gap.

--Richard 15:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Doing my best. LoveMonkey 03:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] query

Can people who know much of the history of the canonization of the Gospels comment here? Thanks Slrubenstein | Talk 18:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV concerns

A few things I wanted to propose rewriting unless someone can justify the way they are written now.

• "Julian the Apostate ... sought to reinstitute paganism as the state religion"

This is not really consistent with the article on Julian and, regardless, I do not believe it is accurate. Although Julian certainly favored paganism Julian's handling of religion was generally more tolerant than most of the so-called "Christian" emperors. Some of his motives may have been questionable but to the extent that he weakened the Imperial Christian Church he mostly just brought it down to the same level as other Christian sects and brought paganism up to the same level (and perhaps a little higher). The viewpoint that he was an evil guy who tried to wipe out Christianity entirely is ancient propaganda by the Church which hated him for taking away the prestige it had gotten from Constantine.

• Early heresies

Even though most modern churches do consider these alternative beliefs to be heretical to their own beliefs this section is nevertheless POV in how it presents these topics. That is, it presents these heresies as though they were outlandish ideas seperate from the mainstream thinking. This, of course, is revisionist history (revisions that have existed for centuries, of course). For example, some (perhaps most?) historians argue that the Christian community was originally predominantly Arian and that Trinitarianism was a minority view that gained favor later (the reasons that it "won" are a whole other matter of debate). What was going on in the early Church, culminating during Constantine's reign, was that the different scholars/bishops were arguing over different interpretations of the faith. But it is POV to characterize these debates as a bunch of "heretics" trying to pull the mainstream away from its roots. The "mainstream" is simply the set of beliefs that finally won out during the Councils. The beliefs that lost were, of course, declared heretical and anybody who subscribed to them was given all sorts of ugly labels and banished.

This section needs to be neutralized (and perhaps retitled).

• Church of the Early Middle Ages

This entire section is biased toward the West virtually ignoring what was going on in the East (which during this period was the majority of the Christian community)

• Church of the High Middle Ages

This section mentions the East a little but is still too biased toward the West.

• The article also tends to ignore a lot of the Christian history outside the core Roman Imperial Church. Among other things, Christianity was significant in the "barbarian" tribes outside the Empire long before they were converted to the "orthodox catholic" faith. This bears mention.
• An additional concern: The article mentions up front the three main "branches": Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. Certainly this is a traditional attitude in the West but it is POV. There are a variety of churches (which predate Protestantism) that do not fall into any of these categories, the Oriental Orthodox churches being a particular example. For the sake of neutrality it is worthwhile to rephrase so as not to slight the significance of any particular group. --Mcorazao 14:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

--Mcorazao 16:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Good comments

Re: heresies - I understand your point but this is controversial. Please wait a few days before making any major changes. In particular, I would like to hear what User:Lostcaesar has to say on this topic.

Re:Eastern Orthodox Church - Please consult History of the Eastern Orthodox Church and History of the Russian Orthodox Church and bring over appropriate summaries of those articles for inclusion here.

Re: "barbarian" tribes - I know nothing about this topic. Feel free to add information on this topic provided that it is verifiable and adequately sourced.

--Richard 16:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Honestly it would probably be preferable if somebody who is more directly involved with this article makes edits since, as you say, some of this is controversial. I was not necessarily suggesting I was about to make any edits, just suggesting that some should be made. But if I can I help ...

Regarding the barbarian tribes (e.g. the Germans) I think the amount of info actually available is limited since in the earlier times their writings were not prolific. But the history of those Christians still bears mentioning for the sake of completeness and to keep the article from being slanted.

BTW, I added a very brief history section to the Christian Church article which mostly covers this same material (others contributed too). It may give you an indication of the viewpoint I'm coming from. Also, if you find anything there that is not right please do feel free to edit.

--Mcorazao 18:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I'm not seeing any of the main authors offering revisions let me suggest specific rewrites.

.

Removed text here since it has been inserted into the main article (with edits).

.

--Mcorazao 21:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've inserted a copy-edited version of the above text. I'm not knowledgeable enough to write the text that you ask for and the other primary editor of this article has left Wikipedia. I will insert other text as you write it but you are also welcome to insert it yourself. --Richard 22:57, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've inserted modified versions of the text that you suggested. Please add any new suggestions below to make it easier for me to determine what has been inserted and what has not. Thanx.

--Richard 17:08, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright. I was simply keeping the edits in one place with the intent of inviting discussion on all of them before inserting them into the main text. But since you're putting them in directly I'll just start editing the main page.

Thanks for the help. --Mcorazao 18:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with discussing edits is that the discussion sometimes takes a life of its own and it takes a long time to get things done that way. Better to put in edits and see who objects unless there are clear indications that your proposed edit will be controversial. (see below)

So, yes, I think it's best if you edit the main page. Be bold. I don't see myself as the arbiter/owner of this page.

However, please be aware that the "Early heresies" section has been the subject of much controversy among Wikipedia editors. In particular, this bit about "minority view" is an attempt to mollify those who strenuously object to such an interpretation. To understand this, see the first three sections of this talk page entitled "Some scholars", "Christian heresy" and "Early heresies".

I accept that there might be issues in the particular wording of the "minority view" sentence that I preserved and you deleted. However, I think it would be useful if you can help think of a neutral wording that indicates that this is the subject of continuing controversy. I think it is an emerging but still minority view. For example, I seriously doubt any of the pastors of my church would accept it and we're not a particularly conservative or fundamentalist church (Presbyterian Church USA). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richardshusr (talk • contribs) 19:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

In writing articles it is best to refrain from using terms that are germane to a specific topic. For example, your proposed language regarding the church having two "communions" is foreign to non-Christians as well as some Christians. I think if you reduced the language down to more fundamental terms you would gain a greater understanding from readers. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 19:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

So to respond to these comments:

• Yes, I'll be "bold". :-)
• On the "minority view", I realize this is controversial as are a variety of topics in religion. I have taken the attitude that I will try to help with NPOV but accept when I'm simply overruled by the majority even when I disagree. But to address the point at hand ... The key here is "Christian theologians" and "Christian scholars". I find a bias in some of the religiously-related discussion pages (not just Christianity) toward saying that the members of religion X are the only valid experts on X. Everyone else's opinion doesn't matter. And certainly it is often the case that secular scholars tread lightly about commenting on X because nobody likes to be seen as treading on anybody's religion. Nevertheless, although scholars WITHIN X are certainly valuable sources of information about X, calling them unbiased resources doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And to argue that because the X scholars are the majority of writers about (which is usually the case for any religion) means that their opinion is the "consensus" is not really NPOV either. My philosophy in general is to be careful about rendering judgements about what is "right" or "wrong" in any religion unless you can genuinely say in a fairly universal sense that all the experts (either inside or outside the religion) agree. On this particular issue although obviously the Christian scholars would tend to agree with this, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of other expert sources (other than those blindly quoting the Christian scholars) that would agree with this characterization. So to summarize: In the absence of an unbiased consensus to the contrary, all viewpoints should be considered equal regardless of the majority. I know many will disagree. FYI: I'm Presbyterian too but what my pastor believes or even what I believe or even what my Muslim friends might believe is beside the point.
• On the "communions", ok I'll try to pick different wording. I chose this only because it seemed to be the most specific and concise phrasing without requiring qualification.

--Mcorazao 22:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Early heresies (redux)

Question on the following addition in the "Early heresies" section:

The New Testament itself speaks of the importance of maintaining orthodox doctrine and refuting heresies, showing the antiquity of the concern.

This statement is entirely redundant with the the statement in the previous practice and seems out of place where it is placed. Why was this inserted? --Mcorazao 02:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Although your intention seemed to be to replace the existing text with your new text, I took the approach of trying to merge your text in with the old text. I agree that the sentence in question was awkwardly placed in the merged text. I have moved it to the beginning of the section. I disagree that the sentence was completely redundant with the previous paragraph because it quoted different Bible passages. It may be that the current text could be improved upon and maybe the sentence should be removed as extraneous. However, I wanted to be conservative initially to give other editors a chance to comment.

--Richard 05:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Richard, I appreciate your efforts to find a common ground. Your latest version however is still redundant (citations aside) and now makes a little less sense since it doesn't really clarify terminology before using it. You seem intent on maintaining this particular sentence with its particular phrasing rather than trying to merge the text. Is this a quote (i.e. does this need to be cited)? --Mcorazao 13:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The meaning of scripture is often debatable. It would be best to quote a reputable source that supports the positioin of orthodox theology rather than just a scripture. In doing so we reduce the possibility of ongoing edits from future editors.

Also, as I was reading this again I was struck with how the artice speaks of schisims. Schisim assumes that there already exists an orthodox position. Current academic research (White and Ehrman come immediately to mind, but there are a myriad of others) state that the beginning of Christianity resembled more closely congregations of different beliefs, but still focused on Jesus Christ. For a schism to take place there must be a rejection of one another; this did not take place until much later in Christian history. The first 300 years was a period of disparate beliefs among locations throughtout the Christianity. True belief is one thing, but orthodoxy is something different. At best there was a proto-orthodoxy, but not an Orthodoxy. It took time for Orthodoxy to develop. Is this making sense? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, so I think this was the point of debate. Apparently some of the contributors have felt that, because the theological community disagrees which that interpretation of history, it is wrong. I have argued that, since, as you point out, there are many scholars that argue there was no "mainstream" in the early Church then one can argue that there is no true consensus on the other opinion. In the absence of a consensus of modern experts I say go with a bland interpretation (not original research but in the center of the expert opinions) that does not assert that any group in history had a more valid interpretation than another (which is what I tried to do with my edits). In my mind that is NPOV.

--Mcorazao 18:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of "uniqueness"

Rereading the text it strikes me that the discussion of what made Christianity "special" or "unique" at the time it came about is missing. Specifically,

• Jesus' teachings were unusual in that he was an extremely selfless and humble figure and preached so strongly preached self sacrifice. Even in the Jewish world his teachings were unusual but it was especially so in the Greco-Roman world.
• Monotheism and evangelism: In most of the known world at that time the philosophy was that the universe was filled with gods and that each tribe had their own "patron" gods but this did not invalidate the beliefs of any other tribe. So in general there was a philosophy that all religions were compatible with each other (this is oversimplifying a bit but still). Judiasm was somewhat unusual in that it specifically dictated a rejection of other gods, and this was a factor in the particular conflicts between the Romans and the Jews, among other things because they refused to worship the emperor. Nevertheless, at least the Jews "kept their faith to themselves", so to speak. The Christians, however, by the nature of their faith attempted to convert everybody they encountered. In other words, from the perspective of the Empire, they were a group specifically bent on convincing all of the subjects to reject some of the basic tenets of Roman imperialism (in the sense that politics and religion were, even then, intertwined). This whole issue is IMHO rather a important point to bring out in terms of understanding the persecution in the Empire.

Comments? Is any of this overly controversial (other than needing to base any edits on authoritative sources, of course)?

--Mcorazao 16:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I like this direction and I also believe it is easily supported by sources. I can't believe it is too controvesial. Excellent comment! --Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say that Judaism and Christianity were alike in that they both rejected worship of Roman gods or the Roman emperor, but were different in that Christianity was spreading. Their separation from each other was somewhat gradual though: in I think the 130's during the Bar Kochba revolt, Jewish Christians were in favor of the revolt, but stopped short of acknowledging Bar Kochba as the Messiah and thus were rejected by Bar Kochba's more faithful supporters. And even in the 300s, John Chrysostom had reason to preach against Christians attending the Jewish festivals in Antioch. Christians didn't just decide they weren't Jews overnight. Wesley 16:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Mcorazao's characterization of the difference between Judaism and Christianity is the standard "party line" preached in Catholic and Protestant churches. I've never been to an Orthodox worship service so I don't know what they preach. But the standard party line makes the Christians look good and marginalizes the importance and success of the Jews. This is standard revisionism. The winner writes the history to make them look good and the loser look bad. There are alternate views in the scholarly community that paint a different picture.

While this is an area that I know only a little bit about, I do wish to point out that, just because Jews don't proselytize now, doesn't mean that they did not proselytize in the early part of the Common Era. In fact, Judaism was growing quite a bit in that time. This growth was part of the Jewish Diaspora. Jews did not simply spread out through the Roman Empire "keeping to themselves". What they did was spread out "keeping their identity" and bringing in converts. Judaism was attractive to the Greeks for the more rational structure and foundation of their religion. Greek philosophy and logic were attractive to the Jews. Modern-day Judeo-Christian belief is founded on the cross-fertilization of Judaism and Hellenism. This is where the concept of "the Word" (ho logos) came from. This is why the Jewish Bible was translated into Greek (the Septuagin). It was for Jewish congregations that could no longer read Hebrew or speak Aramaic. They read and spoke Greek!

One view of early Christianity has Judaism spreading throughout the Roman Empire (especially the northeastern part) and cross-fertilizing with the Hellenic civilization and culture that existed in much of the northeastern Mediterranean. Much of the anti-Christian sentiment on the part of the Jews of the time and anti-Jewish polemic on the part of early Christians was due to the fact that they were competing both for the "soul" of the Jewish religion and for the same pool of converts from Greco-Roman paganism. Jews were becoming Greek (in culture) and Greeks were becoming Jews. From the point of view of the Greeks, the main difference between the Jews and the Christians was that the Christians did not insist that converts follow the Old Testament Law in the way that the Jews insisted they had to. They could eat pork and they didn't have to have that unmentionable thing done to their private parts.

Why exactly Christianity won out over rabbinical Judaism is a long and controversial discussion. I would argue that Christianity won out because, ultimately, it was more flexible in adopting pagan rituals, customs and, yes, even beliefs. Of course, this would come back to bite it in the butt with groups like Jehovah's Witnesses arguing that "Christendom" had deviated from the "true Christianity" of Jesus Christ.

Anyway, the key point that I want to make is that we should not accept uncritically Mcorazao's characterization of early Common Era Jews as "keeping to themselves" and Christians as proselytizing and evangelical.

--Richard 17:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Man, I think you are reading a whole lot more into what I said than is there. I don't disagree with anything you have said other than the insulting tone and the twisting of my words. I think you need to reread the policies on assuming good faith and not jumping to conclusions. --Mcorazao 18:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if what I wrote seemed to be insulting or "twisting your words". I didn't mean to be insulting although I admit there was a certain amount of condescension towards what I see as the "standard party line" which, in my view, is a Christian polemic against Jews that has lasted for 2000 years. I hear it at least once a month from my Senior Pastor who professes to have a great friendship with the Jewish synagogue in our community. And yet, he is able to preach sermons defining Christianity in contrast to Judaism using the standard anti-Jewish polemic.

I admit that I got on a bit of a soapbox and that what I was responding to was only part of what you wrote and even then I was criticizing not only what you wrote but what I perceive to be the wider context from which it is drawn (that is, the anti-Jewish polemic in Christianity).

I'm not sure what you perceive in what I wrote to be "twisting of your words". If it's important to you, you are welcome to be more specific in your complaint either here or on my Talk Page. I will respond as best as I am able.

--Richard 18:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paganism in Constantinople

I had a concern about the statement

Between 324 and 330, Constantine built ... a new imperial capital at Byzantium on the Bosphorus (it came to be named for him: Constantinople)–the city ... had no pagan temples.

I found a BBC article (see this link) that states

Constantine founded a new city named after himself: Constantinople. Christian writers played up the idea that this was to be a 'new Rome', a fitting Christian capital for a newly Christian empire.

But they had to find ways to explain the embarrassing fact that in this new, supposedly Christian city, Constantine had erected pagan temples and statues.

This is contrary to what I've always read but this is the BBC saying this. Interesting point to clarify. Can anybody comment on whether the BBC is simply in error or whether there might actually be some truth to this?

--Mcorazao 07:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please explain deletion of truthbeknown.com

I think I agree with the deletion but, at the same time, I think it only courteous to the editor who inserted it if the editor (User:Tom harrison) who deleted it would explain his rationale for doing so.

--Richard 21:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As the original editor who added the truthbeknown.com link, I concur with Richard in wondering why the link was removed. I feel the article provides a very important POV that is not represented here. I am new to editing Wikipedia and find it confusing, but that's no reason for terming my edits as "vandalism."

--Humanitarian22 01:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)--Humanitarian22 01:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• The repeated addition of DO NOT DELETE with the link suggests that it is spam. That is not helpful. Any editor faced with a statement like that is much more likely to delete very quickly. DarkAudit 02:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but that reason is incidental to the issue. Assuming that there was no "DO NOT DELETE" on the link, would it be deleted? If so, why? --Richard 04:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer that. The first time I saw it was with the big "DO NOT DELETE" next to it. I did what most editors on RC patrol would do when confronted with that statement, I reverted it. DarkAudit 04:20, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

This is relevant information to Christian history *NOT* spam. If you actually give the link a good going over you would quickly see that. Please stop deleting www.truthbeknown.com

No, I was mistaken in my original comment. This link is obviously spam. Please do not re-insert it.

--Richard 06:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lenin on religion

I believe some comments in this article are a distortion of Lenin's views on religion, see this article where he argues against a "war on religion". PatGallacher 14:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if you really are doing a balanced form of research on this. The link you have is to a webpage that does much to demean anyone who speaks of the atrocities of communism. They actively shame themselves by denying mass murder like the Harvest of Sorrow happened. So much so that I dare say the site is not worthy of mention unless one is a tool to their cause. As for Lenin and Stalin and the athiestic regimes of Russian. You have ample sources but you activity should seek them out. I sourced this from Aleksandras Stulginskis biography.
President of Lithuania: Prisoner of the Gulag a Biography of Aleksandras Stulginskis by Afonsas Eidintas Genocide and Research Center of Lithuania ISBN 998675741X / 9789986757412 / 9986-757-41-X pg 23 "As early as August 1920 Lenin wrote to E. M. Skliansky, President of the Revolutionary War Soviet: "We are surrounded by the greens (we pack it to them), we will move only about 10-20 versty and we will choke by hand the bourgeoisie, the clergy and the landowners. There will be an award of 100,000 rubles for each one hanged." He was speaking aout the future actions in the countries neighboring Russia.

Also
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html
LoveMonkey 19:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ratings change

I've been asked to explain why I have changed the rating from GA to B by User:Richardshusr. The reason is that it clearly states here that for an article to rated GA it has to have "passed through the Good article nomination process and been granted GA status". Since this article has not been granted GA status, I changed the rating. --Peter Andersen 19:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constantine and the Nicene Creed

I'm new at this, please go easy on me...

In the section on Constantine the Great, I have two disputes re: this sentence: "More significantly, in 325 [Constantine] summoned the Council of Nicaea...to deal mostly with the heresy of Arianism, but which also issued the Nicene Creed, which among other things professed a belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, the start of Christendom."

1. The implication (conveyed by the phrase "but which also") that the Nicene Creed was something different or separate from the Council's attempt to deal with the heresy of Arianism. In fact, the Creed was the centerpiece of the Council's attempt to deal with the heresy of Arianism, as its final anathema makes clear.
2. More seriously, the Creed as it was issued at Nicea didn't contain a profession of belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church - this phrase was added to the Creed at the 1st Council of Constantinople in 381, long after Constantine's death.

It seems that the author here is attempting to establish the point that Constantine inaugurated the concept of Christendom - that may well be the case, but there is nothing in the Creed itself which supports that point. I'd have edited it myself, but I felt couldn't do it without reworking surrounding passages to fit and keep the flow of the section, and didn't want to do that when I don't know the original author's mindset.

Kriegj 07:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The Nicene Creed does not have "I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church," but it does have, "The holy catholic and apostolic church anathematizes those who say, There was a time when he was not..." So its irrelevant that it didn't contain the line, "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church." (from The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, I:8, c. AD 375).

ShammahRCV 23:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)ShammahRCV

Someone had changed the article since Kriegj's note above. It now said that the Nicene Creed professed belief in one holy apostolic and catholic church, thus establishing Christendom, which is simply ridiculous. Constantine, somewhere around Nicea, put bishops on the public payroll, and after Nicea it was common for emperors to appoint and depose bishops. This is a drastic change, leading to policital rather than spiritual leaders,but to suggest that "Christendom," an undefined word, began then is not an objective comment. I deleted it. I also made the article say that the Council of Nicea was an attempt to end the Arian controversy, the result of which was the Nicene Creed. Of course, we know it only fueled the Arian controversy, which wasn't ended until much later in the century, maybe even not until the Council of Constantinople.

ShammahRCV 00:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire

I feel the picture is somewhat misleading as the imperial capital was St.Petersburg, not Moscow and the churches depicted were built much before the imperial period.--Dojarca 10:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Heresey section

I reverted Shammah's edit; I viewed it as more POV than the previous section and narrowed the approach to the identified heretical views.

In doing so I read the section and realized that there is more work to do. First, we do not use Bible verses to support a position; those either need to be deleted or use a theologian who interprets those scriptures in the proposed manner. First, history does not support a single, monolithic, catholic church prior to the 300's. Second, yes there was a catholic church/movement/group, but it competed with a host of other groups/movements; orthodoxy was fluid prior to major Councils and to present or intimate otherwise is POV. Third, I can see where some may want to include more references than Chesterton and I would encourage that action. Thoughts? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 01:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I understand why you reverted the text that suggested that the Nicene creed was somehow different from the attempt to address Arianism.

The assertion that there was not a "single, monolithic, catholic church" is POV. I happen to agree with that POV but we need to present both POVs i.e. both the "single, monolithic, catholic church" POV and the "no single, monolithic, catholic church" POV. It is clearly the position of many if not most Christian churches that there was a "single, monolithic, catholic church" from which heretics deviated. It has also been asserted in academic circles by a number of scholars that there was no "single, monolithic, catholic church". The text should make these points clearly.

I don't understand why you reverted the text that discussed Gnosticism and Novationists. What was wrong with that text? (I think it could have been written better but I don't understand what was wrong with the content.)

--Richard 06:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It may have just been too hasty a revert given the quality of the writing rather than a issue with content. Generally, when I see what I perceive as a radical change to an article, I revert and seek discussion rather than accept the edit.

I would say that we are on the same page. Wikipedia does not state a position, rather we report what experts have stated. What is important is that these positions be documented from reputable sources. Good comments; thanks. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 07:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I am cool —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.70.158.174 (talk) 13:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assyrian Church of the East

This article should bring up the Assyrian Church of the East a bit more, and how it spread Christianity to almost all of Asia. It used to be the largest Church in the world. — EliasAlucard (talk · contribs) 00:10 02 Nov, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Persecution of early Christians by the Jews

There is a proposal to move Persecution of early Christians by the Jews to Persecution of Christians in the New Testament. Please express your opinion at Talk:Persecution of early Christians by the Jews. --Richard (talk) 22:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Apostle/Disciple switch

I noticed in the first paragraph, 'Apostle' and 'Disciple' were attributed to the wrong groups of people, so I took the liberty of switching them. It should be noted that anyone (in the case of the Jesus story: seventy) can be a disciple of something, but "Apostle" specifically refers to the twelve individuals given divine authority in the New Testament. The two words are not synonyms. 76.93.65.34 (talk) 08:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)