Talk:Jesus/Archive 3

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Older discussions of this article, and related topics, can be found here:

Talk:Josephus on Jesus
Talk:Virgin Birth
Talk:Jesus/Archive 1
Talk:Jesus/Archive 2

1 Christian Scholars
2 Scholars and Historians doubting Jesus
3 NPOV
4 Outline on Jesus' life
5 On Hebrew sources
6 Jesus ahistorical
7 Jesus' teachings
8 ossauary passage
9 historical evidence
10 Only Christian have the authority to write about Christianity
11 alternative christian texts
12 problem of Jesus

Christian Scholars

It is a fact that most scholars of the bible are christians. I dont think anyone will argue with that (and that does not mean, in any way, that all Christians have studied the bible). We must also bear in mind that a Christian will not examine the evidence for Jesus or the lack of it and come to the conclusion that Jesus never existed; because they believe in a historical Jesus. Similarly, even secular scholars of the bible have grown up with the notion that Jesus was a real person - and unless they specifically set out to investigate that, which few do, they will accept that as plausible. The few people who do actually study the evidence, or lack of it, for a historical Jesus from a secular perspective, are not usually convinced. But to claim that most scholars, omitting 'Christian' because of bias - bias that recognises Christians believe despite evidence - that is dishonest and POV. Who are these secular scholars who have studied the historicity of Jesus (not the bible in general) and are convinced he existed? The Rev of Bru

I think nobody conted or polled so far the number of scholars claiming that Jesus exists (leave alone the difficult classification of who is a scholar or who is secular). Therefore any mention of the words "many", or "few" is a biased POV. I had many declared secular professors. None of them challenged the existence of Jesus (even if I was told that such people exist). Here it is the first place that I meet the specia of humans claiming this inexistance. The fact that I meet you only now, after so many decades of search means that you are a really rare specia (even if you have a big mouth), but this may be just my experience..... User:I834 Dec 2004

Scholars and Historians doubting Jesus

Some Christians seem to object to the fact that there are serious secular Scholars and Historians who doubt the veracity of the Jesus myth. This is a fact; whether they agree with their conclusions or not, there ARE numerous scholars, historians and other researchers in the field who do not believe in a historical christ. This is blatant POV. A short list of these scholars and historians follows, not complete. Name of published articles or books in brackets.

J.M. Robertson (Pagan Christs)

Gerald Massey, Egyptologist and historical scholar

Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University

Gerald A. Larue (The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read)

Alan Albert Snow

C. Dennis McKinsey, Bible critic (The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy)

Paula Fredriksen, Professor and historian of early Christianity, Boston University

Earl Doherty, (The Jesus Puzzle)

Robert M. Price (Jesus: Fact or Fiction, A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin)

Marshall M. Gauvin

If wanted, there are more, I thought 10 should be enough. There is absolutely no reason for Christians use their bias to stop this information being presented. Some people disagree with a historical Jesus. There are historians and scholars amongst them. How can you argue with that and not be biased? The Rev of Bru 17:45, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

This article does not seem to adhere to NPOV. In the begining it presents the stories of the Gospel as if they are a historic truth and the gospel themselves as if they are historical texts. The fact that the four canonical Gospels present contradictory accounts is not even hinted at. And then there are assertions like

Some contradictions in unimportant details do not imply that they are not historical. It actually suggest that the accounts were not copied from a single invention but were separately written from sometimes slightly failing souvenirs. User:I834

"Non-Christian sources for Jesus include Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger, written between 93 and 112, but these brief notices :basically confirm only the existence and execution of Jesus (and his founding of Christianity) at the around time the Gospels state (e.g. under governorship of Pontius Pilate). Early Jewish sources concerning Jesus are even less detailed, indicating that Jesus had some disciples, that he was executed, and that he practiced some form of sorcery."

I don't even know where to start, but the following are some obvious flaws: the sourses that are presented in the begining (eg Josephus) are believed to be fabricated for example via insertions by Christians. And what are the earlier Jewish sources concerning Jesus? that indicate all that about Jesus? This is the first time I heard of such sources so if they really exist I think that the article should explicitly state what they are.

Major rewriting is needed. At the very least there should be a qualification in the begining of the article that all these (his life etc) are so acording to Christians. Somebody nonreligious please edit. I don't have time now but I might later.Nea

Separate pages for christians and atheists can do the job. User:I834.

I haen't even read this article, but just came across your comments here, Nea. Welcome to the Wikipedia, and please be bold in your editing. Do try to retain neutral point of view, however, and if you have proof that those insertions were made by others than the original authors, please offer some evidence or the names of those who make those assertions. -- Zoe , who is not a follower of this person

Regarding Josephus, there is a range of scholarly opinions regarding the passages authenticity; some say it's all fabricated, some that it's all authentic, some that it's partly fabricated and partly authentic; these are discussed in the Josephus on Jesus article. It seems to me that they're all just making educated guesses. I looked at the article again, and I don't think it presents the stories of the Gospels as historic truth; it just says, according to the Gospels, Jesus .... It is an historic fact that the gospels say those things about Jesus, the only question is whether the gospels themselves are factual. Whether they contradict each other is largely a question of interpretation that has been debated for centuries; please feel free to document this debate if you think it should be done here.

In short, feel free to edit the article, but first you might want to take some time to look at past revisions of the article and some of the older discussions on these discussion pages, as the article has already been through a lot of work. I'm also curious about the earlier Jewish sources; my guess is that it's some routine records about one more guy who claimed to be the Messiah but turned out not to be, but that's only a guess. I'm assuming whoever put that in knew more. Research it and let me know what you learn! Wesley 13:28 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

The Josephus issue is one where you have to be very careful in both represrenting a neutral point of view but also pointing out what general consensus is. Most near east scholars agree that the passage in josephus is at least a partial interpolation, and the mentions in the other extrabiblical sources are much more dubious. I recommend removing them altogether and including the moderate line that there is no extant reliable extrabiblical record of Jesus' existence.

Furthermore, I've been watching this article for a while, and it is definitely beginning to take on a pro christian bias again. I'm going to clean it up a bit.

JFQ

done. here's what I cut and why

As a tradesman in the Hellenized Galilee, he probably also spoke business Greek, and his study of the scriptures would have acquainted him with Hebrew as well. ->cut because it is nothing but speculation. There is no indication in any source that Jesus ever spoke any language other than Greek, which while nlikely is just as possible. He could have spoken mostly Latin. speculating like this is not useful and is basically meaningless.

In the 6th century, Dionysius Exiguus proposed to make the birth of Jesus the basis of the calendar but he miscalculated the death of Herod. Years reckoned in this way are labelled "A.D.", which stands for Anno Domini, meaning "in the year of the Lord" in Latin. Since many non-Christians have come to use this calendar, an alternative notation "C.E." is sometimes used. It is presently uncertain what the original meaning of this abbreviation was, although today it is taken to mean either the Common Era or the Christian Era: many references cite both. ->cut because it has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ. not to mention it's not exactly NPOV.

there were a few more minor cuts and corrections that I made, primarily because the article had an unacceptable Christian Bias, as well as lots of ambiguous langauge. This article was in pretty good shape a couple of months ago. Shame when somebody's personal agenda screws up so many other people's hard work.

JFQ

Almost every change you made is contrary to mainstream scholarship on Jesus Christ. Shame when somebody's personal agenda screws up so many other people's hard work. SCCarlson

Im not so sure that speculation is totally inappropriate, although it should certainly be marked as speculation. Shino Baku

I am absolutely certain that speculation on our part is totally inappropriate. If, however, Bible scholars or theologians have speculated, that can be included as long as it is noted, as SB says, that it is speculative -- and as long as it is made clear who is doing the speculating. Slrubenstein

Outline on Jesus' life

I'm not the one to do it, but this page needs an outline of the events of Jesus's life. All it has right now is "Life" then "Death" with nothing inbetween. user:J.J.

I donot believe that it is possible to come up with one single coherant account of Jesus' life -- the earliest sources we have are four gospels that themselves do not entirely coincide. It seems to me that "the Christian Account" in the article currently does exactly what you are asking. I certainly think it would be good to have more details about/from other accounts. In any event, I think the article already does what you are asking.

Organizationally, I can see the logic behind wanting to include something about Jesus' life in between the bits about his birth and death. But really, the best thing you can put there is something like "see the following sections below: Christian account; Other Viewpoints; Historicity". Would doing that really help, or are we better off deleting the new section? We could also move those sections up to "Jesus' Life" section, but not everything in those sections concerns his 'earthly life', so some rewriting would be needed. Other thoughts? Wesley 17:21 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

On Hebrew sources

On Hebrew Sources about Jesus Christ: I remember reading an anthology many decades ago of extra-Biblical accounts of Jesus Christ, which included a chapter of passages from Jewish literature of the 1st & 2nd Centuries. Evidentally there are a handful in the Talimud & Mishima (pardon my spellings), which mention a Yesua ben Joseph who debates various rabbis of the period; I doubt any Wikipedian woul dbe surprised that Yeshua is consistently bested in these debates.

Since I would not accept a reminiscence from an unknown book in a Wikipedia article, I won;t add this bit to the main article; but I am offering it here as a lead to another Wikipedian for research. The material actually is out there, it just needs some spadework to be found. -- llywrch 22:41 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I added some details from Robert E. Van Voort, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000). scc 06:14 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Jesus ahistorical

This is blatantly biased. There is next to no hard evidence that Jesus existed, and the article says nothing about that.

Josephus's is obviously falsified, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger refer only to Christians, not to Jesus, and with Suetonius it's not certain he even refered to Christians. Dates "written between 93 and 112" also seem to be not in accord with usual dating of these documents.

Sure, but for some people, a reference to christians means a reference to Jesus.... User:I834

Doubting historicity of Jesus didn't start with Dutch Radical School, it dates back to Roman times. Taw 19:22, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Doubt is allowed. To claim that something like Jesus did not exist should anyhow be much more difficult than proving that many evolution theory are wrong... (and how did Christianity start? :) Still all this theories appear on Wikipedia. User:I834

Jesus Mishegahs: The Jewish Xmas Book by Yoesh Gloger, is the definitive negative biography of Jesus as seen by Jeweish eyes.

Freedom of speech means anybody is allowed to dream User:I834

Jesus' teachings

Oh come on. The message of Jesus has been understood reasonably well for about 2000 years. Even if you disagree with it, I think this article deserves a section on his teachings as agreed by the billion or so followers. Feel free to add disputations, but the mainstream beliefs about his teachings deserve a mention. DJ Clayworth 15:38, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Christians have disagreed very much about some of his teachings. In fact, the New Testament itself says that the early Christians immediately split apart, some following Paul, and others following relatives of Jesus. The early Church certainly didn't find Jesus' message clear, and they had huge controversies that lasted for centuries, with the end result that many schools of thought were ruled out as heresy. Today there are literally thousands of denominations of Christianity, many of whom have serious disagreements with each other. Jesus's billion or so followers often don't agree with each other, and we shouldn't oversimplify a complex topic. I just don't understand why you think his message is so clear. This is not unusual; the same kind of thing happens in Judaism and Islam as well. RK 15:48, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

First, Apolo was not a relative of Jesus. Second, current christians do not fight over the message of Jesus (in Gospels) but over the message of different epistles. User:I834

Yes, some of his teachings. My trouble here is that whoever made the recent amendments gives the impression that there is no agreement at all over Jesus' teachings, when in fact there is very substantial agreement. The disputes between denominations may be heartfelt and strongly expressed, but they are in fact relatively small compared with the level of agreement. What the article needs is a summary of Jesus' teachings, noting diagreements where appropriate. Saying "It is difficult to ascertain" the message is not giving anything useful to anyone who reads this article.

To back up these statements there are many books, videos and teaching aids used by pretty much all denominations in the English speaking world. Though they are about the 'Christian Message', which may be technically different from what Jesus taught, they are agreed upon enough to be used as a message summary throughout Western Christendom. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis is an example, the Alpha course is another.

I'd love to write a summary of Jesus' teachings for this article and I will if I get enough time. In the meantime, anyone else can feel free to do so. DJ Clayworth 16:12, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with DJ: the message is not so unclear, after centuries of discussion. I think there may be an NPOV issue by those who allege NPOV, or am I wrong? Log in your own eye and all that... (at risk of being inflammatory, sorry abot that:)) TonyClarke 16:30, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)~

I completely disagree with DJ. The level of agreement between Christian groups is very small (even on fundamental issues like free will); the one thing Christians DO agree on is that Jesus is the Son of God and through faith in him you can be saved. They don't even agree fully on that, though. Never mind his actual -teachings- which are largely ignored (like, "Resist not evil with evil"? How many Christians give a damn about that?) Graft 18:18, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Jesus did not say anything about free will. The disagreement is about how to interprete some claims by Paul in some epistles. User:I834

There is a difference between teaching and interpretation. Also just because many of his followers ignore it doesn't mean he didn't teach it. In fact you've just mentioned a thing that would be good to put in a section on Jesus' teachings. For a discussion starter:

Be perfect
Love your neighbour as yourself
The Kingdom of God is within you
God welcomes repentant sinners
Leaders should be servants of those they lead
Love your enemies
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone
Become like little children
You must be born again of the spirit to see the Kingdom of God
Our first duty is to God
God is a loving, merciful father.

He also taught extensively about his own death, which also deserves more mention in the article since it forms such an important part of Christian belief. DJ Clayworth 19:41, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Add:

Do not call anybody "leader".

You are missing quite a bit. The full text of the New Testament says these things, sure. but it also says (Matthew 10:35-37) that Jesus came to set son against father, daughter against mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in law, and that whoever loves father or mother than him is not worthy of him! Jesus also said (Luke 14:26) that if you do not hate your parents, your brothers and sisters, your wife or husband, or your children, you cannot follow him. There's a lot more like this. Has Christianity repudiated those parts of the NT? If this article has a section describing his teachings, it can't restrict itself only to the "nice" parts that you feel comfortable with. RK 20:26, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Other teachings of Jesus on strife and the sword that are part of his messageL

1) Thom 16: Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. 2They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. 3 For there will be five in a house: there'll be three against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, 4and they will stand alone." [Complete Gospels]

(2a) 2Q: Luke 12:51-53 = Matt 10:34-36: Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 12:53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

You mistaking mentioning prophecies about what will happen with teaching about what should christians do. User:I834

Yes. And so it was. The history of cultures who adopted Christianity is permeated with barbarity, civil strife and family dispute. But Christ showed us the way to transcend these evils, through non-violence, through passive resistance, through love for people who are separated from God.

That is not what the New Testament quotes state. You are taking the "nice" quotes, and re-reading others to make them fit. You have every right to do this, of course, but if we discuss Jesus' teachings in an NPOV encyclopedia article, we need to discuss his views in their historical context. A recurring theme in the gospels is the coming apocalypse. That is not merely a name for a literary genre. Jesus, like many others of his day, literally believed that any day now there would be war which would overturn the Roman occupation, and bring about the Kingdom of God in Jerusalem. Many people expected violence. When Jesus died, and no apocalypse happened, and the Jews failed to be freed from the Roman occupiers, some of Jesus's followers rewrote his message....but enough fragments of the original point of view still survive in all four canonical gospels, as well as the Gospel of Thomas. The message survives, but with enough later additions to sugar coat everything.RK 22:28, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The apocalypse for the Jews came in 70.

He gave his life to demonstrate this. He didn't insist on happy families, but on a radical revision of our view of family which has nothing at all to do with biological relationships or socially approved marriages. It had everything to do with being part of God's family, in a transcencendent sense of 'family', in that same sense he wasa the Son of God,and we are all His children. I hope you find this helpful. TonyClarke

You're not yet getting into the bizarro stuff, like "making the two into one", which is either an encouragement to sex or some odd Taoist mysticism. There's plenty of that, especially in Thomas, so let's not go leaving it out when we attempt to encapsulate "Jesus' teachings". Graft 18:57, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This is one of the most cited texts among Christians, where this has a great simbolistic of what happens when 2 become christians, and the wall between them, and them with God fails. Surely this is too advanced for somebody that is not even a christian yet to understand. Jesus said: "Do not throw my perles to pigs because they will turn to break you..." User:I834

I think a lot of what he said, or is said to have said, is mystical and paradoxical, which I've tried to express in my edits. It is a difficult subject to encapsulate without getting'into' it, and thereby risking non-NPOV. Has anyone tried the Alpha Course, if so was it helpful? That's one way of exploring this in an investigatory way. I took the course, and it changed my life completely. Before then I was the original sceptic, and probably would have said all that is said here,using more extreme words. Anyway, a bit off topic. :)

TonyClarke

Does the quality of the message depend on the messenger? Would Christ's words be just as valid if someone else had said them? Would the message have been ignored if Christ had been non-supernatural? If so, why? Isn't the message worthwhile all by itself? Why do people focus on the messenger when that is totally besides the point? If even a complete fool uttered the teachings of Christ, would they still not be great words? There should be a wiki for the message by itself.

To put it another way: do people listen to Christ because of who he is, or because of what he said? And if we can't hear a good idea on its own, what does that say about us? Apparently, people only really listen when they are threatened with the fear of disobeying God. Otherwise, the fine edict of "love thy neighbour" goes in one ear and out the other, doesn't it?

This is not a BBS. Please keep discussion relevant to improving the article. See Wikipedia:Talk page. -- Tim Starling 09:34, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I think that the comment above was very fitted in this discussion. User:I834

ossauary passage

Can we get rid of the ossuary passage? It was interesting while we didn't know it was a hoax, but now it surely ought to join the legion of Jesus-related hoaxes that are lost in the detritus of history. It might have particular fascination for us, being so recent in memory, but I don't see this as grounds for including a relatively minor hoax in an article covering a 2000-year history. If no one objects, I'm going to trash that passage. Graft 21:17, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Google for "jesus ossuary" and you will find it cited as proof of Jesus' existence on many sites. It is certainly the major Jesus hoax of the Internet Age, perhaps since the Shroud. The material could probably be moved to ossuary and improved to indicate that it is definitely a hoax beyond any reasonable doubt. Fairandbalanced 06:38, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

historical evidence

Some secular historians may support the existence of Jesus, some take no position, and some definitely dispute it. To say that most "do not argue that no such person as Jesus ever existed" misuses the double negative to imply that most believe such a person did exist. That is not true and not acceptable. Apparently Adam Carr does not like "...argue whether..." as a substitute, but it should be reworded. I would guess that most accept the existence of Jesus as a viable hypothesis. Fairandbalanced 06:38, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have read a lot of Roman history over the years and I can assure f&b that "most secular historians" (a phrase I chose very carefully) do accept that a person called Jesus of Nazareth existed, that he was a Jewish prophet of some kind (of which there were many in Roman Palestine at that time), that he caused trouble for the Temple authorities and that they persuaded the Roman authorities to have him executed. Why would they not accept this on the available evidence, namely the text of the Gospels, which are based on documents written within living memory the events described? It is a perfectly credible story, and if there had been no such person as Jesus, there were still plenty of people around to testify to this fact. The Letters of Paul were written even earlier, when there were even more witnesses still around. If the Christians had just made Jesus up, the Jews (if nobody else) would have been quick to say so. Given two historical hypotheses - that Jesus existed, and that he didn't - the balance of evidence is that he did, particularly in the absence of any evidence as to who might have made the whole story up, and why.

By the standards of ancient historiography, the life of Jesus is quite well attested. For Alexander the Great, by comparison, the oldest extant source we have is Arrian, written 400 years after Alexander's time. Do we dispute that Alexander existed? Of course Arrian is not our only source for Alexander, whereas the Gospels are the only source for Jesus. That is why I say that none of the details of Jesus's life, let alone the supernatural elements, can be accepted as fact, since these have clearly been falsified to conform with Jewish prophecy.

This is really a question about how we treat historical evidence. Most atheists (of which I am one) don't want to accept that the Gospels are historiographically valid evidence of anything, so they make all sorts of difficulties about them. But if we were discussing any other event in the reign of Augustus, an intact and authentic document written within 50 years of the even and based on eyewitness accounts would be seen as a priceless asset, to be accepted as valid evidence unless there was some reason to doubt the account given, such as another document contradicting it. The real question about the Gospels is not whether they are a valid source for the historicity of Jesus, but why we don't accept them as a valid source for events such as the resurrection. The main reason we don't, if we are honest, is that we don't believe in resurrections and therefore we have to say that the account in the Gospels is false.

This does raise the point that if a document says one false thing, how can we believe anything the document says? The Gospels say Jesus rose from the dead, we don't believe this, ergo everything in the Gospels is false. But this is bad historiographical reasoning. If we took this line, we would be able to say very little at all about the ancient world. Lots of ancient documents contain a mixture of historical and supernatural narrative. We accept the bits that seem plausible and that fit our other available evidence, and we reject the bits that don't, or that we believe to be impossible. All historical knowledge, and especially knowledge about the ancient world, is based on this kind of comparative weighing of pieces of evidence which are themselves incomplete and contradictory.

On this whole issue, I refer you to "Modern Biblical Scholarship and the Quest for the Historical Yeshua", which appears as Appendix D to Donald H Akenson's book Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (Harcourt and Brace 1998). If you can't find that, there is some relevant comment here.

Adam 07:59, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Any historians prior to the 20th Century certainly could not be expected to doubt the existence of Jesus. Likewise any Christians, almost any of any other religion (for the same reason CEOs support each other's pay raises), and any who did not study the (lack of) evidence with great care and make their own decision. How many qualify?

Was Alexander the Great the central figure in any religous cult after his death? If not, then there is no reason to suppose he is mythical because it was in no one's self interest to invent him. It was vital to Christian believers to preserve their myth. I'm sure there is a great deal of evidence for the Macedonian march to India, which must have been led by someone. What archeological evidence is there for anything Jesus supposedly did? Still, any details of the life of Alexander the Great should be regarded with appropriate skepticism. The little matter of there being only one -- extremely biased -- source for Jesus is not a mere insignificant detail.

As to evidence that Jews did not agree to the existence of Jesus, why should we expect more evidence of denials than of existence? I mean real evidence from disinterested parties, like Roman records or archeological evidence. Most of us don't go around denying that someone who will later become a major cult figure existed. If this guy was so important at the time, why didn't anyone notice at the time?

I know two founders of religions (sects) that I knew when I was little. None of them left any trace (nothing written or properties). Their sects may or may not survive. Somebody like you could easily claim that they did not exist, but I have talked to them. I think that your logic is wrong. User:I834

Paul is the one with the visions who doesn't really support a human Jesus, never came even close to meeting such a person, No one seriously contends that there were not Son of God myths at the time. Any Jews who might have witnessed the absence of Jesus were dead before a living human Jesus was a significant myth.

What is most amazing is not that no document contradicts the existence of Jesus, but that Christians could not even get their own stories straight even after Nicea, when they tried to destroy all the heretical stuff they could find. If centuries of searching for evidence in favor and destroying anything against, absence of the former is enlightening and absence of the latter is hardly noteworthy.

The only atheist I know who thinks there was a real Jesus also thinks he can disprove the existence of Santa Claus, but not the existence of God. Oh well, it does not really matter whether there was a preacher named Jesus roaming around at the time, which is certainly a viable hypothesis, but whether that person would resemble the Biblical version significantly more closely than preachers with other names at the time. On that score we can say with reasonable certainty that it the answer is no. Fairandbalanced 21:18, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I just don't see the necessity for this discussion. I'll declare my own position first - I'm a believer, a Christian; there, that wasn't painful was it? But should the fact I believe affect the content of the article? No, of course not.

Why can't the article just state the facts?

The New Testament contains a lot of material about someone called Yahshua (Jesus).
Some people think it's a (broadly) historical record
Some people think it's pure myth
Some, no doubt, think there are elements of both

For an encyclopaedia article, isn't that enough? Just the facts? Or am I being naive? (Yes, I suppose I am!) Chris Jefferies 21:42, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This discussion arose because I inserted a paragraph about what "most secular historians" believe about the historicity of Jesus. Fairandbalanced is confusing the historical question (did Jesus exist?) with the historiographical question (what do historians say about whether Jesus existed?). He makes sweeping rhetorical statements but does not really engage the issue. I agree that this is a subject on which NPOV writing is very difficult, but Fairandbalanced needs to make some effort to keep his views about Christianity separate from historiographical questions. I can only repeat that he should read the reference I gave him above. Adam 04:17, 8 Oct 2003 (UTC)

To be fair to Fairandbalanced, s/he was also making a grammatical or stylistic point. That said, I agree with Adam. Most critical scholars agree that Jesus existed; this is a factual claim about critical scholars (not about Jesus) and to my knowledge it is accurate. It would certainy be fair to acknowledge any major critical scholars (by major, I guess I would mean people who have actively published in academic presses and peer-reviewed journals, and/or teach at major universities) who argue that Jesus did not exist. I don't recall Fairandbalanced citing any such scholar. As to some other comments -- I believe that the Talmud in a very indirect way acknowledges the existence of Jesus, although I may be wrong (it may simply acknowledge the existence of Christians) -- I am sure Danny or RK know the facts. As for me (speaking as a Jew) I am quite content to acknowledge Jesus' existence, though of course I take issue with how the canonical Christian Bible, as well as later Christians, present him. I find the works of Geza Vermes and other critical scholars (who, as Adam points out, start with the assumption that Jesus existed). Slrubenstein

Is there a secular biography about Jesuys christ? like his early life, middle years, and end years (not a recitation of teachings; just a rough timeline of where he was mabey a bit on where he preached?) reddi 05:44, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Reddi, if you have been following the discussion above, you will appreciate there are absolutely no sources for a secular biography of Jesus outside the Gospels. So you might as well read them, leaving out the bits you find impossible to believe. Having said that, there are in fact many attempts at Jesus biographies, but many of them drag in spurious texts like the Gnostic gospels etc to try and create a more "authentic" text. All that can be usefully done is to try to place the Jesus of the Gospels in the context of Jewish history and the history of Roman Palestine - this will give you a better perspective in judging which bits of the Gospel account, if any, you can believe. As I noted above, I recommend "Modern Biblical Scholarship and the Quest for the Historical Yeshua", which appears as Appendix D to Donald H Akenson's book Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmuds (Harcourt and Brace 1998). Adam 06:23, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Adam, even if you think that Josephus and the non-canonical gospels are unreliable, they do exist; so do the other parts of the New Testament. Hence the Gospels are not the only sources. In fact the second paragraph contradicted itself as you left it - saying that the gospels were the only sources, and then going on to describe the other sources. DJ Clayworth 15:36, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well if it was up to me I would rewrite the whole article to separate out clearly the statements of religious belief from the statements which are historically defensible. The refs to JC in Josephus are forgeries, and even if they aren't all they prove is that someone called Jesus existed, which I don't dispute. The non-canonical gospels are worthless as history, they are just collections of legend from much later than the canonical gospels. i suppose i should include a ref to the letters of paul. Adam 15:43, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to you putting that in the article. But please don't pretend a source doesn't exist. (If you're going to write on Josephus, see Josephus on Jesus). DJ Clayworth 15:56, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

A "source" is a document which contains historiographically useful information. Neither Josephus nor the various shonky "gospels" do so. I stand by my view that the Gospels and Paul are the only sources, properly defined, for JC's life. And they don't tell us much they we can believe with confidence. Adam

There are scholars who think that the Josephus passage is original, some who think they are only partially forged, and some who think they are entirely forged; there doesn't appear to be anything even approaching consensus on the issue. If you look at the question realistically, it's clear that scholars are being forced to make an educated guess; even you (Adam) seem to admit some uncertainty as to whether the passage is forged. Historiographical usefulness seems to be in the eye of the beholder. All of the social sciences are necessarily less precise than a field like physics, for example.

Incidentally, what is it about the gospels that makes them seem more "useful" to you than the Josephus or Tacitus passages? (See also Tacitus on Jesus.) Wesley 16:18, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The Tacitus passage shows that 80 years after Jesus' death there were Christians in Rome and that Tacitus was a good enough historian to have found out that a person called Jesus had been executed in c30AD. What's so remarkable about that? The Josephus passage, even if completely genuine (which I don't believe), tells us only that there were Christians who believed various wondrous things about Jesus. I am happy to accept these two passages as corroboration that JC existed, and was probably executed, but nothing else. But as I said above somewhere, the Gospels alone are good enough sources for me to believe that, and indeed to believe the general outline of Jesus' life and death. Tacitus and Joesphus don't tell us anything more than the Gospels do. Adam

The only point was that there do exist sources in addition to the Gospels that make some mention of Jesus Christ; the Gospels are not, strictly speaking, the only sources. Glad we finally reached agreement on at least one small point. Wesley 17:12, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Only Christian have the authority to write about Christianity

It's amazing and very disturbing to me, that the Islam page is written and appears to be VERY pro Islam. There is not debate about Islam on it's so called prophet on the page yet, the page that I thought is supposed to define Christianity is being touted as too pro Christian by some.

The page that defines Christianity should NOT be a debate about Christianity! That should be relegated to other pages. The page that defines Christianity should NOT be a debate about Christ's historicity!

Jews, Muslims, and other Non Christians have NO business defining Christianity!

Historically Christianity meant the belief that Jesus was the ONY begotten Son of God. What does "begotten" mean? It means that the very revelation of God was enfleshed in a human body. ALL Christians believed it!

This page is a DISGRACE and an affront to Christians and Christianity in light of the page defining Islam!

I cannot comment on the page concerning Islam, since I am not knowledgable on the scholarship of Islam. But the above contributor I think misunderstands out NPOV policy -- please see Wkipedia: Neutral point of view. No article should be "pro" or "con" anything. But this is an encyclopedia and all articles should reflect current scholarship and the diversity of relevant points of view; it doesn't matter whether a contributor is Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or atheist if they can do this.

After reading more about our NPOV policy, if you still feel that this articleviolates our policy, please start with one or two specific examples and explain why you think they violate NPOV or misrepresent current scholarly discussions on Christianity, and perhaps working collectively we can make the article better. Slrubenstein

There are other important points to make about this. Our critic writes, 'The page that defines Christianity should NOT be a debate about Christianity'.

Firstly, this in not a 'page that defines Christianity', it's an article about 'Jesus Christ'; there is another article on Christianity. Secondly the purpose of this page is to outline what is known about a certain person, a character some people believe to be historical, but some regard as mythical. The text should summarise what is known and the various opinions people may have. It does this surprisingly well, IMHO.

By the way - as it happens I'm a Christian, but that does not (and should not)have any bearing on the content of an encyclopaedia article.

If the article on Islam is biased we should investigate that and put it right. I haven't read it yet so I can't give an opinion, and any discussion of the matter doesn't belong on this page.

I hope that helps! Chris Jefferies 16th October 2003

Spot on, Chris! (I've always wanted to repeat that line from one of the Monty Python sketches! - by the way, my name does happen to be Chris, too.) The anonymous contributor should have perhaps taken a look at Islam's Muhammad article, which does have some mild critical discussion of details of his personal life. I might add that there appears to be no discussion of whether Muhammad existed, but I am personally quite surprised there is no discussion whatsoever of the widely rumored questionable character of the man. Perhaps this is why the Muhammad article is stated as being of questionable neutrality; I haven't read the past discussion of the article (is there really no archived past Talk:Muhammad? was it deleted?) Later, Harris7 22:14, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (sallalahu alayhi wasalam), lived his life in the full light of history - so why would anyone question his existence? We know what he looked like, what he wore, what he said, his character ect. We also know he sent letters to Heraclius (Emperor of Byzantines), Chosroes II (Emperor of Persian Empire), Negus (King of Abyssinia), Muqawqis (Ruler of Egypt), Harith Gassani (Governor of Syria), and al-Mundhir bin Sawa (Ruler of Bahrain) - to name a few. You also speak of his 'rumored questionable character' - you are in no position to question his character! -User:Ibrahim Abdullah

The evidence for existence of Muhammad is certainly better than for Jesus, and way better than for Moses. Assuming he existed, however, it makes sense to discuss his questionable character, and anyone who lives outside the clutches of a theocratic autocracy is in a position to say so! The relevance to the Jesus article escapes me. Fairandbalanced 01:06, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

All of which shows how difficult it is to write encyclopaedically about religion and religious figures. We must be on the right track if we are offending everybody. :) I agree with Ibrahim, incidentally, that the life of Mohammed is much better attested historically than is the life of Jesus. Adam 01:12, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree Adam, but Jesus also lived way before Mohammed...

TonyClarke

Well yes, but that isn't the point. Alexander lived 300 years before Jesus, but we have no difficulty writing a biography of Alexander.

Normaly, given the number of people that Alexander killed. The same will be true about Bush soon. But Jesus killed none. User:I834

The problem with Jesus is that the only substantial source we have for his life is the Gospels. The Gospels were not written by historians, but by devotees of Jesus, whose purpose was to prove that Jesus was the Messiah by showing that his life fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament. That doesn't mean that Gospels are worthless as historical sources, otherwise this article could contain no historical facts at all, any more than could an article on (say) Vishnu. But it does mean that the Gospels must be treated with great caution, and that only the broadest outline of Jesus's life can be taken as, on balance, historically likely. Adam 13:17, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I take it that, like many atheist scholars, you would measure "historical likelihood" in terms of whether the alleged events could be explained naturally, without reference to any sort of divine intervention or other supernatural phenomena? That's fine that you hold that opinion, but please be aware that disbelief in the supernatural is a source of personal bias, just as surely as a firm belief in the supernatural is a source of bias. Wesley 17:12, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well in that case we might as well not bother at all, hmm? Of course everyone has personal biases. But that does nor mean we are incaple of assessing evidence and writing fairly. I have spent a fair amount of time defending the proposition that Jesus did exist, despite the fact that I am an atheist. Of couse the fact that I am an atheist means I do not believe in events such as the resurrection - but if I was presented with evidence for it, I would. Adam

Yes, but Jesus was a peasant form an oppressed and occupied territory: Alexander conquered most of the known world. It is perhaps not surprising that more is known about Alexander historically speaking. But who had the greatest historical impact? Who is most famous now? Whose page in this encyclopedia is the longest? :)

TonyClarke 16:03, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Those questions are not relevant to this discussion. Adam

Don't think its POV to put source texts first in list, especially when they are so easily available. DJ Clayworth 19:54, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps not relevant to the discussion Adam, but relevant to the subject and its historicity. You say if you were presented with evidence-- take The Alpha Course, see the evidence... excuse the POV...everybody has one... TonyClarke

I removed the following bit from the historicity section:

'They take the view, however, that since there is absolutely no evidence for any aspect of Jesus's life and work outside the Gospels, which were written or compiled by believers, no detailed account of his life can be accepted as historically verifiable. They feel that this applies to events such as the resurrection and the miracles of Jesus, which appear to contradict the laws of biology and physics and which they feel require a higher standard of proof. Historians feel therefore that whether such events occurred must remain a matter of faith and not a matter of history.'

In my view, that was and is fallacious: no evidence written by believers is going to be accepted for his divinity, and evidence by non-believers is going to deny the divinity or miraculous nature of Jesus. Either way, no evidence will be accepted on his divinity. The proposition will never be accepted as true: not an NPOV position, in my book. TonyClarke 14:35, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That's because "believers" don't present evidence, they present "statements of belief", which can be neither proved nor disproved. The problem we have here is that we are talking about two completely different forms of knowledge here, and the fact is that writing an encyclopaedia article is essentially an exercise in secular, rationalist knowledge, not in knowledge based on faith. If you want to reject that form of knowledge, that is your right, but don't keep vandalising this article. You after all already have all the knowledge you feel you need about Jesus, in the Bible - what do you care about what we secularists choose to write? Adam 15:30, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

You're allowing your personal bias to try to dictate the terms of the project. The Wikipedia is not an exercise in secular, rationalist knowledge, it's an exercise in NPOV presentation of knowledge. History based on "Christian belief" should be attributed as "what Christians believe", not undisputed truth. History based on atheist belief and premises should be attributed to "what atheists believe" because the assumption that Christ did no miracles depends on the assumption that there are no miracles. Therefore it's also based on opinion and should be treated accordingly. What's so difficult about that? Wesley 17:32, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Who says believers don't present evidence? Believers about Global Warming are quite capable of also presenting evidence about it. Many Christian believers came to belief bcause of the evidence. DJ Clayworth 15:42, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

And non-believers don't always get it right either: I recall not so long ago an eminent historian endorsing documents as the diaries of Adolf Hitler...There are limits to rational knowledge as well.

This argument is futile. I think we should give up trying to achieve a consensus between Christians and secularists about Jesus: it isn't possible to achieve agreement between people who sincerely believe he was the son of God, and that the Gospels represent divinely ordained truth, and people who think he was a barely historical figure about whom almost nothing can be known. I think we ought to create two articles, Jesus Christ in Christian belief, and Jesus Christ in secular history, and each group will agree to leave the other groups's article strictly alone. Opinions? Adam 15:53, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think that this is true User:I834

I thought we were doing OK. The article has been fairly stable recently. (You were quite right to delete the stuff you did from paragraph two, by the way. It may belong somewhere, but not there). As long as both views get appropriate coverage I see no reason to split the article. My comments above were not any criticism of what you've done to the article. DJ Clayworth 16:35, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

A "consensus" article is futile, if you mean that every statement in the article would have the agreement of all opinion holders. However, the suggestion of multiple articles is fraught with many more problems, if you intend to replace this article with that approach. For one thing, there are not exactly two views of Jesus, one Christian and the other "secular". In my opinion, the article is not an impossible mess, and should not be replaced with a mess. It is informative, and displays many signs of good-faith effort on all sides to simply describe the topic, and to explain its importance. Mkmcconn 16:39, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Right. Wikipedia is not a place for position papers or argumentative essays. It's a place for balanced, neutral presentation. We already have many controversial articles that do this quite well; no reason to give up on this one. Wesley 17:32, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

alternative christian texts

Someone added:

"In addition, in 1945 the Nag Hammadi Library of Gnostic materials was discovered in Egypt, which provides independent corroboration that Jesus was a major religious figure of the time."

with the edit comment "Strengthened historicity argument for Jesus with Gnostic Christinanity find". Don't the finding of Gnostic teaching point to a non-historical mythic Jesus, (such as the very non-canonical accounts of Jesus as a boy etc)? And also the documents were written long after Jesus was supposed to have lived therefore don't represent corroboration "of the time". Maximus Rex 04:56, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I added that argument because the Nag Hammadi Library find includes alternative gospel materials from Peter, Paul, Thomas and James. And other material from other individuals where they meet and talk with Jesus both before and after his resurrection. The material thus strongly supports the historicity of Jesus, but is not heavily mentioned by orthodox Christianity, because it gives an alternative perspective on Jesus' spiritual teachings. You can read those materials by yourself by following the links : ChrisG 05:24, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The problem with that is that they are non-canonical gospels and therefore not believed to be true, even by Christians, let alone by historians. None of the codices found were written during the time of Jesus therefore cannot say one iota about the historicity of Jesus, only that people wrote stories about Jesus (note: they are from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD). How can a story (fiction) written 100 or more years after Jesus' supposed life provide "strong support". If I write a story about someone meeting Jesus, will that also provided strong support? I don't see any logic in your arguments. Maximus Rex 05:32, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Can see what you are trying to say; but have you read any of them or looked at the links I suggest? For someone to have made up all this fascinating material is also something of a stretch, they seem consistent with the those quotations from Jesus that we have in the Gospels in the Bible. If they are authentic oral teachings taken down at a later date that doesn't take away the fact they include gospels not included in the Christian Bible and different interpretations of the Jesus's spiritual teachings including his 'resurrection'. They do not imply Jesus is some mythical figure they support the argument that Jesus existed at a time(though indefinite) and a place as it does the Four Gospels in the Bible. The Four Gospels suggest a fairly specific time period, the Gnostic material suggests Jesus really existed at some time fairly recently in historical time.

We are trying to achieve a NPOV, and the Gnostic materials are represent an alternative point of view to orthodox Christianity and the strictly scientific view which should be represented.

I need to check up on this in far more detail because I don't know enough about it, so this isn't my final world on the matter, just what I think at the moment.

Rereading my entry I can see that it needs to be rephrased in some way.

ChrisG 05:55, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think that you should certainly research the subject more. There are actually many more stories about Jesus that were circulating during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, than are contained in the Nag Hammadi. Some of them are quite far-fetched. There are several with stories about Jesus' childhood. If I recall correctly there is even one about a trip to India. The only thing I have read contained in the Nag Hammadi is some of the Gospel of Thomas. There actually many more apocrypha than there are accepted books about Jesus, including in this page them says nothing of the historicity of Jesus (one way or the other). Maximus Rex 06:06, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

SIGH - more Christian propaganda. I really find this puzzling. If I believed that the Gospels were the Word of God, then I would accept that they provide all the evidence I need to believe that Jesus not only existed but did all the things Christians believe he did, including rising from the dead. I hope I wouldn't feel this pathetic need to drum up spurious historical evidence to bolster my faith. None of the so-called Gnostic texts have any historiographical use as far as the life of Jesus is concerned, although they are of course very important for studying the early Christian church. There is NO authentic historical evidence for the life of Jesus outside the Gospels. I ask again: why do Christians keep messing up the secular part of this article with their propaganda, when they have a whole (much bigger) section to set out the Christian View of Jesus? Adam 06:17, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well actually I'm not a Christian. I'm purely arguing this out of NPOV :) : ChrisG 06:33, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"they strongly undermine any suggestion that Jesus was not a major historical spiritual figure ... a deeply fascinating find for anyone interested in early Christianity and the spiritual teachings of Jesus". That's not any NPOV I've seen. Maximus Rex 06:48, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

problem of Jesus

I have now added an opening section which tries to explain the problems with a Jesus biography, and removed a number of contested statements from the text. I hadn't noticed the one Maximus cites, but I will return to it :) Adam 06:56, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

OK, someone called Lir has deleted all my text without discussion, but I would like reasonable people here to read it at the Page History section and comment on it. Adam 07:02, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

They seemed good to me. (Although I think the wiki tends to avoid self-reference when possible "Most discussions about Jesus, including this one"). Maximus Rex

It was an accident. Lirath Q. Pynnor

I think in this case it is necessary. It explains why this article is such a dog's breakfast, and will remain one. Adam

My section on The Problem of Jesus has now been restored, along with an opening paragraph which SHOULD be acceptable to both Christians and secularists. Opinions welcome :) Adam 07:25, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think you should take some time and explain why you do not feel it is valid to mention that Jesus is, pretty much always, depicted as an ascetic; and why you do not feel it is valid to note that Jesus is considered, by Christians, to be the Messiah. Lirath Q. Pynnor

The opening paragraph is not the place to discuss what Jesus is depicted as - I have no idea whether he is "depicted as an ascetic" (whatever that means), and it is not to the point. He is also depicted as having long hair and a beard, but there is no historical evidence to support that, so we don't put in the opening paragraph. My opening para was an attempt to achieve a text that was acceptable to both sides of this debate. You are just intent on inserting your POV religious prograganda. So I have reverted it and will go on doing so. Adam 13:07, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

First off, Jesus is not always depicted as having long hair; he is (not unoften) depicted as a short-haired Black man. Secondly, in both cases, he is still almost always depicted as an ascetic; I have NEVER seen him depicted as a rich man, player, pimp, warlord, or any other such thing -- I once heard someone say he was a capitalist, then they laughed.
- I am not inserting religious propaganda, I am reporting the fact that Jesus is primarily a religious figure; and in every religion, he has the same common aspect; that is, he is pretty much always considered to have been an ascetic.
  - Lirath Q. Pynnor

Well, Jesus was not a typical one, so you are wrong User:I834.

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