Talk:Jesus/Archive 83

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NT and scholars

The longstanding text was

  • however, because few of the gospels' details on Jesus' life can be independently verified, historians have difficulty gauging their accuracy.

it was changed by LotR to

  • because few of the gospels' details on Jesus' life can be independently verified in secular records, some historians have difficulty gauging their accuracy.

and I have tried out

  • however, because few of the gospels' details on Jesus' life can be independently verified, historians debate their accuracy.

I agree that saying that the historical task is "difficult" is a little POV, so instead of singling out scholars that have difficulty, I changed the —wording to be less decisive and more neutral, stating they debate the accuracy. I also removed "in secular records" which was added, because historians accept multiple attestation as a valid criteria for historical reliability. That means if something can be independently verified in multiple non-secular sources, it can still be considered historical. I hope these changes are well met, but I've taken the time to explain them further here on talk in order to give space for community discussion. Also, I removed the following text that was added in a comment in the main article The gospels themselves are historical documents, written within the lifetimes of the apostles. Luke himself is considered by some to be "a historian of the first rank". I'm not exactly sure why it was added. It was unsourced and in comment code so it seems like commentary. Is there something we need to discuss on talk? Do we need to make changes to the historical Jesus section? -Andrew c 17:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't edit the part of the article in question during a content dispute because it can lead to edit warring. The recent changes are not acceptable because they introduce the weasel word "some" and reintroduce the "secular" notion that I disputed above. Please see Criterion of multiple attestation for more information about what I mean by multiple attestation. The gospels are not 4 independent accounts. Because of the synoptic problem, it is obvious that the gospels use each other as sources. So something that may be found in 3 different gospels, but all originate from a single source is considered by scholars to be one, not 3 different sources. And the criteria of multiple attestation is just one of many different methods scholars use to judge historicity. Something that may be recored in 5 different independent sources (say the resurrection) may still be considered ahistorical by some scholars. Anyway, there is no need to specify "secular", nor is there a need to say "some" scholars. Is it not true that any scholar holds an opinion on historicity and by publishing, they are entering the general debate? Are there scholars that refuse to publish on historicity? Saying that historians debate the details is just that. Saying "some scholars..." implies that the rest of the scholars don't engage in discussions concerning the historical Jesus, which isn't true to my knowledge.-Andrew c 01:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know why LotR is ignoring the talk page. The edits are problematic. Scholars don't decide whether something is historical based on whether there is non-Gospel attestation. If that were the case, there would a very, very minimalist Jesus because there is almost no non-Christian information on Jesus. Perhaps we do need to phrase the sentence better to be more clear. However, the changes are simply false. Look through any of the mainstream scholars' books on the historical Jesus (E.P. Sanders, Raymond E. Brown, Bart D. Ehrman, John P. Meier, etc). They all use multiple historical methods to judge the historical probability of the various aspects of the Gospel accounts. They don't just say "oh, this pericope isn't found in secular sources, so it must be made up". -Andrew c 00:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
First, let me apologize for ignoring the talk page — it was not intentional, but in my haste I honestly did not notice that anything was being posted here. The text as it stood before was problematic, suggesting that the gospels (and consequently, the entire New Testament canon, since all the books portray a consistent picture of Jesus) are ahistorical. I am not a historian, but I do have a little knowledge in the matter. I am aware that Mark's gospel was the earliest account, that Matthew and Luke have material in common with Mark, and that the later evangelists probably drew upon Mark. However, there is material in Matthew and Luke not found in Mark, suggesting another non-Markan source (Q). There is also material unique to Matthew (M), and then again other material unique to Luke (L). My point being is that the 3 synoptic gospels are not merely carbon copies of a single source. The Gospel of John, unlike the synoptics, claims to be written by an eyewitness. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts contain excruciating details relating the otherwise "insignificant" events of the story to the larger context of world history and contemporary events. Many of these details in Luke's accounts have been verified and, while not providing anything in the way of theology, nevertheless establishes him as an accurate historian. In fact, his gospel starts out with the claim:
"I too, having followed the whole course of events accurately from the first, have decided to write an orderly account for you, in order that you may be sure of the reliability of the information which you have received." — Luke 1:3-4
The 4 gospel accounts, along with the Epistles and Acts, are remarkably consistent, yet written by different authors, and they do not all draw upon a single source. They were not considered authoritative by the early church because "they are in The Bible," but rather they were included as part of the biblical canon at an early date precisely because they were recognized as accurate and authoritative. If they were secular documents, they would probably be considered authentic beyond all doubt. In my rewording I attempted to restore NPOV; while there may be modern scholars who debate their accuracy, the gospels nonetheless cannot be subtly dismissed as "unscholarly" or "ahistorical," as they were before. LotR 00:41, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
To say that critical scholars debate historicity is true, but it is less informative than the reader deserves. Critical scholars have reached a broad consensus, that the gospels are partly historically reliable and partly not. The debates are not about whether the gospels are accurate. They're about which parts are legit and which are not. Even within this debate, there is broad agreement on big issues, such as that the Gospel of John is far less historically reliable than the synoptics (some would say historically worthless). These are basic, noteworthy viewpoints that are simple to state and relevant to the topic of the gospel narrative. "Critical scholars hold some parts of the gospels, such as Jesus' parables, to be more historically accurate, and others, such as the Gospel of John, to be less historical." A reader who's curious about these debates about historicity would be grateful for the informative version. I understand that Christians hold a virtual veto on adding things to this section, but can't at least the sentence about the historical-critical method and its treatment of the gospels get a pass? Jonathan Tweet 02:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for coming to talk. Hopefully we can fix this problem. I'm not happy with the current version. The current version is simply inaccurate. It is saying that Christians cannot be critical. It is saying that someone like Raymond E. Brown, a Catholic priest, can't hold the belief that Luke's info on the census is ahistorical (which is Brown's view). It is saying that someone like John P. Meier, another Catholic priest, finding that the "stilling of the storm is a product of early Christian theology", not a historical event. Christian scholars can be critical and it false that "Christian scholars generally believe the gospel accounts to be historically accurate". This isn't a Christian vs. secular thing. I'm going to have to say that the previous version was far superior. All we need to say is that scholars debate (or discuss) the historicity of the events in the text. We don't have to say that there are some biblical literalists out there, and we don't have to say that there are mythists either. The whole purpose of the intro to the "Life and teachings, as told in the Gospels" section is to say that "hey, this is a plot summary of the biggest sources on Jesus' life, we aren't saying either way if this is 100% historically accurate or 100% historically bogus." Editors were concerned that this article read like a sunday school lesson and was thus not neutral. It still confuses some people how big of a plot summary of the NT we have, but I personally think it is fine (or at least was fine with the previous wording of the intro). -Andrew c 03:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how to describe the two camps: those that take the gospels at face value and those who differentiate between historical and ahistorical elements or sections. Maybe "Christian scholars traditionally regard the gospels as historically reliable. Critical scholars, including some modern Christian scholars, regard some parts (such as the parables) as more historically accurate and others (such as the Gospel of John) as less." Here are my comments on the original: "however, because few of the gospels' details on Jesus' life can be independently verified, historians have difficulty gauging their accuracy." This line implies that the gospels themselves come across as accurate and it's only lack of external verification that's the issue. In fact, the gospels are internally contradictory (esp. synoptics v. John), and John was identified in the early Christian era as not so much a historical account as a spiritual one. The following version of the line, I'm guessing, would be forbidden from this section: "however, because few of the gospels' details on Jesus' life can be independently verified, because they contain extraordinary claims, and because the gospels contain some internal contradictions, historians have difficulty gauging their accuracy." If we want to say "hey, this is a plot summary of the biggest sources on Jesus' life, we aren't saying either way if this is 100% historically accurate or 100% historically bogus," then let's not be coy. "This summary of the gospels takes them at face value without analyzing them according to standard historical methods." Textual critic Bart D. Ehrman says that constructing a unified story from the four gospels, all of which are different from each other, is tantamount to creating a new gospel, one that differs from each of the four. Maybe a reference to that viewpoint would help the reader understand this section in its context. Jonathan Tweet 14:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
For the record, John was identified in the early Christian era as not so much a historical account as a spiritual one - by that you mean Origen, and only him. The Church Fathers otherwise didn't say as much, and the earliest witness, Papias, said it was the most historical.
Remember also the scholars who believe that a historical analysis of the Gospels leads to the conclusion (not assumption) that they are historically accurate. This groups is not reperesented in the above.
86.141.9.225 18:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I reject the terms secular scholar and Christian scholar; there are only scholars. Individual scholars may be people of faith, but those are personal issues. Use a reference; outside of that be careful creating reasons why they are unreliable. History is difficult to verify because we don't have mulitple, independent sources for the same event. Scripture, by it very nature, is first and foremost an instrument of faith. Attempting to make it more than that is difficult. --Storm Rider (talk) 16:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

First let me say that I am not attached to the present wording, and am certainly open to iterations. The term "Christian scholar" came into play when the term "Christian" was introduced. To clarify, when I say "Christian," I implicitly mean "orthodox Christian," so the wording "Christian scholars generally believe that..." is, by-and-large, a correct statement, since orthodox Christianity claims to be founded upon historical events. Again, I am not attached to that wording, and I believe we can find an agreeable solution. I feel that my main point is being completely missed, however, namely that traditional scholars (Christian and otherwise), using the historical method, have concluded that the essential elements of the gospels are indeed accurate. I recognize that there are other scholars, particularly modern, who draw different conclusions, and who may reject certain aspects, especially anything supernatural. The original wording did not give me that impression. To me, the underlying message I draw from "because few of the gospels' details on Jesus' life can be independently verified, historians have difficulty gauging their accuracy," is "the gospels are without historical merit because they cannot be independently verified by secular sources", which is not only POV, but incorrect. The word "secular" keeps rearing its ugly head because, as I thought I conveyed above, the NT documents, written by several different authors and based upon multiple sources, themselves provide independent verification. I get the impression that the objection here is that "well, they are also part of the Bible, so they are not independent." The text needs to be written to convey the notion that some scholars, using the historical method, affirm the historicity of the gospels, while others reject some, or even most elements of them. LotR 23:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
'John was identified in the early Christian era as not so much a historical account as a spiritual one - by that you mean Origen, and only him.' I meant Clement of Alexandria, c 200. Origen, too? I see a pattern. Jonathan Tweet 13:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Clement said nothing of the sort. 86.141.9.225 09:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a debate we have had many times in the past - I agree in general with AndrewC and Jonathan Tweet. There is an important issue here and it is a tricky one. On the one hand, it is silly to say that all scholars are the same, just scholars ... a theologian and a historian are both scholars, but they are driven by different interests and use different methods and are accountable to different communities. On the other hand, it is silly to suggest that because one is a Christian, even a devout and pious Christian, one cannot use the same methods as - let's say, for the sake of argument - an atheist. The problem is what kind of language to use. In the past I have favored the term "critical scholars" not because I distinguish between them and Christians but because it is an attempt to define a kind of scholarship independent of one's religious beliefs. perhaps a more precise and effect way to do this would not be to use an adjective to qualify "scholar" at all, but an adjectival phrase like "scholars who employ x y z methods" - wordy, I admit, but clearer. Be that as it may, we do have to distinguish between scholars (whose degrees may be in theology, Bible, or religious study) who study the Bible as historians and other scholars who study the Bible for theological or homilitic purposes. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Short thrift was given to parallels between the Jesus myth and earlier myths. This should be developed further. In the Encyclopedia of Myth and Secrets, there is a passage about the Syrian Adonis being born in the same cave in Bethlehem that Jesus was born in, to a virgin named Mary, who was later sacrificed. This was 300 years before Jesus. Let's see a comparison also with all the various Greek, Roman, Sumerian and Egyptian savior/dying/revifying gods. Astarte9 21:36, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Yahshua

Should this article feature a ref to "Yahshua"? Or would that be confusing since "Yahshua" is arguably merely a sect based, dogmatically informed translation of "Jesus" with apparently no true historical or philological merit?LCP 19:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a logical place to fit that link anywhere in the article. We can't put it in the "Names and title" section because that is a subsection of the Historical Jesus section. As you state, the name has no historical merit so, I presume the view isn't held by any notable historians. So then, it is a view held by a sect, so it could go in the Religious views section. However, we have to decide how notable the sect is, and would be giving a minority position undue weight by including it in a top tier article? We can only fit so much information in this one article. If we put it anywhere, perhaps we could write one sentence about the name and the movement in the "Other views" section. -Andrew c 20:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Pretty important information!

I think it's a little strange that nowhere in the first paragraph does it mention that Jesus is regarded by Christians as the son of God! Is this left out for a reason or may I add a sentence to the first paragraph please?

Also, there is a sentence about fulfillment of prophecy that claims that Jesus fulfilled "many" of the prophecies of the Messiah in the Hebrew Bible. According to the New Testament, every prophecy was fulfilled, and I think it may be misleading to suggest that there are some prophecies Jesus may have not fulfilled (according to the Christian faith.) Should that be changed to a more neutral stance?Bonjour123 02:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not you believe Jesus to have forfilled all the Jewish prophecy concerning the Messiah, depends upon which account of Jesus' life you believe in. For instance, if you believe Jesus died upon the cross, then you cannot believe that all the prophecy was forfilled. This is because one of the prophecy's is that Jesus would bring the word of God to all Jewish people's. During the time of Jesus, Jewish tribes were scattered as far west as France and north Africa, and as far east as Persia, Afganistan, and Sindustan (modern Pakistan). Orthodox Christians believe Jesus died before personally being able to preach to these Jews. Some other groups do not.86.4.59.203 01:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Holger.

  • How about the fact that christian believe that they have the holy spirit, which is part of the Trinity, inside them meening Jesus IS in them and they go to all of the Jews, Gentiles and other religious groups--Wwjd333 23:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Good thing there's nothing in that prophecy about Jesus having to bring the word of God to the Jewish people during His first lifetime, that'd sure make those Christians look pretty silly, huh. Homestarmy 02:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Can i just point out, he HAS bought the word of god to all jews... how many jews dont know about jesus!! dosent say he had to do it personally, he was just the messenger Teta 18:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

1. Jesus' death on the cross for human salvation was prophesied in Old Testament, more specifically Isaiah 53. interestingly in this passage it's also mentioned that after that "He would see the light of life and be satisfied." this was also fulfilled in His resurrection.

2. as Teta pointed out, He brought the Word of God to all Jews not only by Himself but also by His messengers (apostles) & His followers since then. (and He has been in control of all them - including when Apostle Peter was miraculously released from the prison through an angel of God). it's true that Jews were scattered to Europe & Persia etc but the Gospel was spread throughout these areas in early Christian history. Siung99

1. I would have to agree with this. Why does the first paragraph have to portray a secular view of Jesus? Just because the "darkness cannot comprehend the light" doesn't mean we have to leave the most important part about who Jesus is out of the first paragraph.

2. Could anybody name a biblical prophesy that Jesus did not fulfill? The Bible doesn't say Jesus would bring the word of God to all jewish peoples. The Jews were and are one people even if they were scattered. Could you please quote the scripture that supposedly says this? 125.239.90.29 12:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Continuing Ministry Orthodox Christianity considers that since Jesus is still alive, in heaven, he continues in a ministry of prayer and intercession there for the world. He also continues to influence individual peoples lives through well attested miracles and life changing revelations. Evangelicals and others consider the "Jesus lives in their hearts" giving individual comfort and guidance. This deserves a mention (or not?) Cosnahang 15:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Jesus' father??

The Wikipedia article states, factually, that Joseph was Jesus' father. From the point of view of this world religion, the Virgin Mary and Jesus' miraculous birth are absolute and fundamental concepts in Christianity without which the religion is reduced to nothing but folklore. The article should state instead that Joseph led Mary and the baby Jesus to safety in Egypt after being warned in a vision to do so.194.54.8.205 09:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)RKravis May 2007

In history and the Bible Joseph is considered Jesus father but this article should also add he is not Jesus birth father and how Jesus was born soley from Mary/--Migospia 14:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

According to Christian orthodoxy, Joseph was not the father. What the Gospels actually mean is something that has been debated by theologians and historians and Bible critics. What "the truth" is of course is not relevant to Wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I would gather that as Wikipedia is an impartial source the article should either project certain facts about the man Jesus is believed to have been (he does turn up on Roman records) or present both viewpoints, I'd go for the latter but I am a mere WikiNoob. Henners91 07:06, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if this is off topic, but you brought it up. What are these Roman records of which you speak?-Andrew c 12:36, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

How is this even an issues? He should obviously be referred to as Jesus's father here. There is an article about the Virgin Birth linked from the introduction. It would violate NPOV to claim that Joseph wasn't Jesus's birth father. But it already mentions the debate when it links the Virgin Birth article. I see nothing wrong here. JeffBurdges 18:45, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Hold on a minute, is this over the article saying that Joseph is Jesus' father, or that the article is somewhere stating that Joseph is Jesus' biological father? If it's the former, I was ignoring this discussion because that's accurate, though not necessarily clear, since legally speaking, Jospeh was indeed Jesus' father. But if the article is saying that Joseph is Jesus' biological father, it seems to be that itself would be violating NPOV, it would clearly be siding with a naturalistic stance on things. Homestarmy 02:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the Christian belief, a required belief to be a Christian, Jesus had no biological father. If there should be a "father" mentioned, it should be God, since Jesus many times refered to God as "Father" and "My Father". -Yancyfry

Jews refer to God as our father all the time, it does not mean we claim a biological relationship. Jesus calling God his father was consistent with jewish practice at the time. I am not saying this to dismiss the Christian view, only to remind people that it is not the only view. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:45, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

John 3:18 refers to Jesus as "the ONLY begotten Son of God," this clearly shows that he is not the Son of God in the same way that God's creations (other people) are his children. The word begotten shows the biological relationship between Jesus and God the Father. 125.239.90.29 12:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No, the article correctly refers to Joseph as Jesus' father, as many christians also do, but then explains the Virgin Birth belief. How can you do this any other way? JeffBurdges 12:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Because he is trolling. Just like that. Putting Jesus' biological paternal line aside, Joseph was indeed Jesus' legal father, just and simply like that. I am Catholic and I've never had doubts or trouble about Jesus and/or other Jewish people calling Joseph his father. However, God IS his Father. Capitals making a big difference in here. Jeeze, trolls rant about this as much as about Jesus' brothers and sisters...--Kim Kusanagi 20:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

hi guys. it seems you got confused about the fatherhood of Joseph. Joseph was not His biological father, because Mary had got pregnant before Joseph married her. but he was his legal (human) father too. True, Jesus did refer to God as "His Father", as He had the unique status: both as man and as God. (God who became man).

Step-father

(moved from further down to include with earlier discussion)Afaprof01 00:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

There have been discussions in the past on how to modify the word "father". One interpretation is the Joseph was Jesus' step-father. However, that term is not used once in the gospels. This section is Life and teachings, as told in the Gospels, so we must follow the gospels here. There are placed to insert various Christian interpretations of the "raw data", if you will (like the Christian views section). However, we cannot present one interpretation of the data as if it were the truth. Therefore, as we have decided in the past, it is best to simply leave the word "father". It could be "legal father", it could be "biological father", it could mean any number of things. We leave it up in the air because the gospel accounts are not clear. Anything more would be adding interpretations, and choosing one interpretation is not neutral. What do others think about father? This has come up multiple times in the past, so is it really that controversial? Is there a better solution?-Andrew c [talk] 14:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It was my change that resulted in the rv. I yield. On further reflection, Luke informs us that when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple to be circumcised, "his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him" (Luke 2:33). Luke does not add the words adoptive, foster, or legal. He simply calls Joseph "his father." The same Luke who had written about the Virgin Birth now calls Joseph the father of Jesus.Afaprof01 00:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Christianity vs. Mormonism (Debate)

Moved to Mmirachi(talk). Please join in...

Picture Caption

The following has been added "As customary since the legalisation of Christianity in the 4th century, he is shown bearded and with the long hair and strong features that identify him as a Jew. He is enthroned as in the Book of Revelations". Firstly what on earth does it mean to say that "strong features" identify Jews? Secondly, beards were unfashionable in the 6th century, yes, but they were fashionable earlier and are regularly depicted on Antonine rulers. More importantly, they were depicted on ancient Greek philosophers. Early depictions of Jesus do not show him as bearded, and it's unclear whether this convention originally emerged as a specific signifier of Jewishness. The phrase "Greco-Roman priest and king" has nothing to do with paganism. It refers to his costume and regalia. Paul B 09:14, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Early depictions of Jesus were indeed greek in style, and somewhat similar to greek perceptions of deity. The public image of Jesus change dramatically upon the re-immergence of the Turin Shroud approximately 1300AD. After which time, the typical image of Jesus became established.86.4.59.203 01:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Holger.

Nonsense. It's a trivial exercise to find images of Christ predating 1300 with the "typical" appearance. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Well since I've has no reply from the editor who made these changes I will remove some of the text, which is rather too long and unwieldy now. Paul B 12:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Chronology -- Last supper

I'd like to comment on some things in the following paragraph that I think could benefit from some tweaking.

"The date of Jesus' death is also unclear. The Gospel of John depicts the crucifixion as directly before the Passover festival on Friday 14 Nisan (called the Quartodeciman), whereas the synoptic gospels (except for Mark 14:2) describe Jesus' Last Supper as the Passover meal on Friday 15 Nisan; however, some scholars hold that the synoptic account is harmonious with the account in John.[10]"

1. I don't know that the Gospels mention Friday at all. Perhaps this word should be deleted.

2. Does the word "Quartodeciman" refer to the date itself, or the controversy surrounding the date, and to the Christians who observed Passover on that date (as opposed to the Sunday.) In brief: isn't the word an adjective?

3. I am aware of the issues in harmonizing the synoptics with John when it comes to the Last Supper. Some harmonizations suggest that there were two Passover celebrations, one on the eve of the 13/14, and the other on the eve of the 14/15. I would not say that the synoptics say the Last Supper was on the 15th, because this presupposes that all Jews celebrated on the same night, which may not be the case.

I'm not sure if my 3rd point is very clear. I can try to clarify if anyone wants to pursue this. I suppose what I'm suggesting is that we simply say something to the effect that there is a dispute as to whether the Last Supper was a Passover seder, because the synoptics seem to present it as such, but John appear to say otherwise. This could be the topic of a whole article.

--Hrankowski 05:39, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

1. I believe all the Gospels mention that the day following the crucifixion was a Sabbath. It therefore happened on a Friday, which by Jewish reckoning was the same day as the evening before when the Supper was eaten.
2. "Quartodeciman" means the 14th. It was included there solely to give someone an excuse to link to Quartodecimanism. It ought to be removed; it's intrusive and is pushing a POV.
3. This is complicated. Whether it was the Passover at all is not clear. The Synoptics thought it was, although Mark is very confusing about it. That remark in the article about Mark 14:2 is well taken. However, John says that it was «Παρασκευὴ τοῦ Πάσχα» (Jn 19:14), the Preparation of the Passover. (Later on he uses "Preparation" unqualified where the context suggests it meant the same thing as in the Synoptics: the Preparation Day for the Sabbath.) In this case we have to follow our sources and not engage in any original research. Since this passage is cited it should remain. (Although it would be useful to check the source just to be sure.) And that's leaving aside the 14-15 issue, although I really think it was on the 14th.

My own church follows John's chronology partly because even the Synoptics say that leavened bread was used at the institution of the Eucharist, which could not have happened on the Passover. (The word used for bread is "artos", which always means leavened bread unless otherwise stated. Everywhere else unleavened bread is mentioned the ordinary word for it is used, "azymes". For example, the "Feast of Unleavened Bread" is «Ἂζυμα» at Mark 14:1.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 10:05, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Where to put this article in the "GA article" page

Currently, Jesus is listed under "divinities" in the Wikipedia:Good_articles. While he is viewed as God in mainstream Christianity but this is not universally held (e.g. among Muslims or some scholars). Any suggestions? --Aminz 08:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if they allow multiple categorization, but it seems like "Protohistoric figures" could work. But "Divinities" seems best. They list a number of figures that are rejected by the majority of world religions today. On the other hand, many many more people alive today recognize Jesus' divinity moreso than they do Apollo's. I think the argument that we should change the GA categorization for NPOV concerns is not founded because the same argument could apply to a more extreme degree to the other articles listed. However, I do have some reservations because this article simply isn't only about the divine belief in Jesus. This article covers multiple POVs, including the scholarly historical Jesus and Islam's Isa, where the other articles may only be about the divine figures. Therefore, I would support multiple categorization, but I do not think we need to remove "Divinities".-Andrew c 21:14, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

God the Son

Just letting those who watch this article that God the Son, which was a long standing redirect to the Christian views of Jesus article, has recently been turned into a stub. If anyone wants to contribute to that article, or restore the redirect, or has any opinion on the matter (good or bad) please feel free to check it out.-Andrew c 21:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


Mary Magdalene

Shouldn't his relationship with Mary be mentioned somewhere? I know that the Church's view is that he remained a virgin, but there is a lot of evidence otherwise.

Andrew V. 15:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There is really no evidence either way -- unless you're counting frenzied speculation, bad movies or theological dogma. Grover cleveland 16:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
NO, It should not at all be added. --SkyWalker 07:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, one obviously wants some sort of article about variations in christian beliefs and Jesus's apperance in fiction. Such an article would clearly have a serious section on Mary Magdalene & Jesus. But I don't see why you'd put that here. What you might do with the variations article is, every time you say anything mention in that article, you could have a little (see "Variations in Christianity") link. It's just a way to be respectful of other people's beliefs without letting all the minor beliefs fill up the article. JeffBurdges 15:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

A more important issue for this page is: What about all the parts of the Jesus story that are taken from other "profits"? There are many views about what parts of Jesus's story are actually copied from other belief systems. Or other less important contemporary wandering profits. It'd be good to explain more of this. JeffBurdges 15:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

We have pages for that too. See Jesus-myth hypothesis, Mythographic perspectives on Jesus, Historicity of Jesus. Paul B 17:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Cool JeffBurdges 17:33, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no real evidence supporting this claim. This Mary & Jesus relationship is not against the Bible though. I do not remember anything said that Jesus will be a virgin, only born of a virgin. But there is nothing in support of this either. This probably would've been recorded if so. -Yancyfry 02:26, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Note- The Bible clearly prophesizes that Jesus will not only have a family but children...

Jesus Family

The commentators above and others claim there is no proof that Jesus had a family when the bible prophesied that he did. See Isaiah.

o He shall see his Seed - Isaiah 53: 10

o He shall sprinkle his Seed across many nations - Isaiah 52:15

o Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and His Maker, ask me of things to come concerning My Sons ... Isaiah 45: 11

The only source settling this all out for On Point consideration is the new book - see link below.

This subject was popularized in the recent best seller Da Vinci Code where after chasing all over Europe the Heroine is found to be a descendant of Jesus. But that fictional account would claim that after 2000 years any children of Jesus and descents would come down to only one person...(a silly view.)

See link below to book discussing all this in detail AND the many proofs of descendants from Jesus down through time esp to Euro Royal lines .. all well known and understood; but the commentators above are not educated in any of this and so deny it ... when it is well established.

Book showing descents from Jesus family to today and including descent also to perhaps you ...and to US Presidents... Jesus family descents to today

See also Desposyni—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.200.211.121 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 4 July 2007.

'signature added' /s/ cmpkkllef .

You know that parable Jesus gave about sowing seeds? That was about seeds of the Gospel being sown into men, not seeds of His supposed biological children. And what do you know, here we are in 2007, and the seeds of Jesus' message of salvation are indeed sprinkled across many nations, and since Jesus is God, He of course can see it. Also, references to God's children are repleate throughought the Bible, and in the plural sense, it refers to believers, not to literal descendants of Jesus. How about that 1 John 3:1, eh? Homestarmy 23:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you people need to realise that the official story that was created by the Roman Catholic Church and the actual historical timeline are two different things. I have no intention of offending anyone, however this is the truth. The catholic church was told by the roman empire to make an offical story at the First Council of Nicaea. This was then enforced throughout the roman empire, which included britain. then the roman empire collapsed but the religion lived on. It was in 1500 during the spread of the british empire across the world (including america) that this offical story got spread even more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
My point is, just because you are told its truth and you are told that faith (belief without evidence) is a good quality isn't always so.
The potential real father of Jesus should be included because imaculate conception is a doctine of the roman catholic church - it may not be true. And furthermore, there is a lot of thought that 'virgin' is a mistranslation. virgin in the original version of the text was mistranslated. virgin actually means young woman. This would put the so called virgin birth idea to rest.
Understand, i do not wish to offend anyone, but truth has a place in this article.(Simon.uk.21 11:18, 13 July 2007 (UTC))
Then you should write the truth instead of half-remembered things you didn't understand in the first place.
  • Some people make this claim about Constantine, but it's supported by neither the historical record nor a reasonable analysis of the facts. It's mainly accepted by groups who want it to be true, so as to allow them to pick and choose doctrine according to their own tastes instead of what Christianity has historically believed.
  • The verse you have in mind where some now say "virgin" is a mistranslation is from the Old Testament, in Isaiah. The New Testament -- the primary source on Jesus' life -- was written in Greek, not Hebrew, and it says "virgin" unambiguously. But even the Isaiah verse must have been understood to mean "virgin" at some point -- that's how it was translated into Greek a couple centuries before Jesus was born.
  • What on earth makes you think the British Empire had anything to do with "spreading the official story"? Other European nations spread Christianity on a larger scale and earlier than anything the Empire managed to do.
  • Your conspiracy theories need to take into account those Christian churches that have never been "Roman Catholic" in the sense of being subject to the Pope's jurisdiction, yet still teach Nicene Christianity. Since this accounts for about 250,000,000 Christians, it's not an insignificant group.
  • "Immaculate Conception" doesn't mean what you think it means.
To drag this back to something relevant to article content: There are only dubious sources for the idea the Jesus had descendants, such as the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, or fiction based on them such as The Da Vinci Code. There's practically nothing citable. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:49, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

it appears that people are claiming that the roman catholic church is behind some form of cover-up concerning a possible family of jesus'.

ok let it be known i am not a catholic and find their theology to be very askew from my beliefs as a protestant. however, if there is some cover-up we should consider the question "why"? and also we must consider evidence.

now, apparently, there is only the gospel of thomas an apocryphal gnostic text that includes one fragmented line which states something akin to the fact that Jesus loved Mary the most. considering firstly the fact that the gospel itself is questionable then certainly this one fragmented line is hardly conclusive evidence and it certainly doesn't consist of itself as "plenty of evidence" as has been stated in the talk page earlier.

furthermore, none of the actual accepted gospels even offers a single hint (which i feel compelled to remind the readers is all the gospel of thomas offers) that Jesus had a wife or children. it certainly wouldn't have been a taboo or something the first Christians would have felt needed to be hidden. marriage and children are ordained by God and supported by plenty of biblical passages.

therefore, if Jesus did in fact have a wife and children. it wouldn't have been anything anyone would have any particular reason to cover up. secondly, the actual lack of evidence doesn't offer us wikipedia authors any sources to quote besides current literature trying to ressurect an idea debunked already by mainstream scholars. 70.156.11.235 20:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The FAC and the Sources on Jesus' life section

I'd like to start trying to resolve some of the issues in the April FAC which failed, and I think the Sources on Jesus' life section is a good place to start, because I think what i'm about to suggest is more or less an obvious fix. One of the objections raised that was the "Sources on Jesus' life" section needed more information about the Apocrypha, (At least, I think that was what someone was trying to get at) but I have serious doubts that part of what is there now is relevant itself, specifically, the last paragraph:

"Books that were not included are known as the New Testament apocrypha. These include the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of logia—phrases and sayings attributed to Jesus without a narrative framework, only rediscovered in the 20th century. Other important apocryphal works that had a heavy influence in forming traditional Christian beliefs include the Apocalypse of Peter, Protevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and Acts of Peter. A number of Christian traditions (such as Veronica's veil and the Assumption of Mary) are found not in the canonical gospels but in these and other apocryphal works."

None of this seems to have to do with Sources on Jesus' life at all. This paragraph seems mostly about the formation of Biblical canon and its impact on Christian tradition, indeed, besides the Infancy gospel and the Gospel of James, none of the works mentioned claim to say anything about Jesus' life at all, as far as I can tell from their Wiki articles. And then, of course, the Infancy gospel is sort of obviously a medieval fairy tale at best, are there really that many notable people out there who take it as a serious source on Jesus' life? Nextly, I was under the impression Thomas was just a collection of supposed sayings of Jesus, rather than something providing information about Jesus' life. The only book here that I don't know much about the relevance of is the Gospel of James, but since it's only being listed in the context of just being important to Christian traditions and beliefs with the rest of these, I don't think just being in this list is really adequate mention of it as a possible source on Jesus' life, if it is even taken seriously itself. The most obviously irrelevant thing here, however, has got to be the last sentence, what possible relevance does it have in relation to Jesus' life? I understand that there are many people who believe the Gospel of Thomas to be important in relation to Jesus though, and I don't want to accidently remove something that might be important to the article, so for now, all I propose is to remove the last two sentences. Homestarmy 21:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

If nobody objects, I will be removing the last two sentences today. Homestarmy 16:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I found this confusing

I found the following paragraph under "Other Views" confusing.

There are many non-religious people who emphasize Jesus' moral teachings. Garry Wills argues that Jesus' ethics are distinct from those usually taught by Christianity.[112] The Jesus Seminar[113] portrays Jesus as an itinerant preacher (Matthew 4:23), who taught peace (Matthew 5:9) and love (Matthew 5:44), rights for women (Luke 10:42) and respect for children (Matthew 19:14), and who spoke out against the hypocrisy of religious leaders (Luke 13:15) and the rich (Matthew 19:24). Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers that many consider to have been a deist, created a "Jefferson Bible" for the Indians entitled "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" that included only Jesus' ethical teachings.

After reading the first sentence, I expected the views of "non-religous people", perhaps atheists, agnostics or politcal leaders. Instead, the views of two quite religious persons and one very religious institution are described.

--William Warner 06:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

It would seem the section title should be changed; what about Alternative views of Jesus, or Other perceptions of the importance of Jesus? Another might be "Moral importance of Jesus". Good catch; it is confusing given the title. --Storm Rider (talk) 06:25, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with the sub-heading "Other Views", as it's the last one in the section. Perhaps the first sentence of the quoted paragraph should be "Some Christians have placed a heavier emphasis on Jesus' moral teachings.", while the first sentence of the second paragraph in this sub-section might read "In the development of their own ideas, many non-religious philosophers have reacted to the figure of Jesus."--William Warner 07:24, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I see now, sorry about the revert. Until(1 == 2) 16:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
As I believe User:Silly rabbit has already noticed according to his edit summary, Wills is not a Christian, or at least does not appear to be as far as his Wiki article says. Homestarmy 16:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, sorry I missed this talk section before editing. I think that "secular scholars" is better than revert-warring over whether these people are Christian or not. The section does not deal so much with belief as in the method of exegesis. Silly rabbit 16:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
None of the listed are secular scholars. Garry Wills is a religious writer, the Jesus Seminar is comprised of religious scholars, and Jefferson was not a scholar but was religious enough to create a digest of the NT for native americans. I see the point of exegesis, though, and changed "Christians" to "writers". I still see value in identifying Russel and Nietzsche as non-religious, and must have been the original purpose of the sentence.--William Warner 17:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I suppose that the two categories are signaled nicely by the paragraph break, and an explicit label isn't necessary.--William Warner 17:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
While clearer, the new wording changes the meaning of the section a little. Before it highlighted the beliefs of the writers, but now it does not. Even without the labels, most readers who would care about the distinction will notice it right away.--William Warner 17:11, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
I meant "secular" in the ecclesiastical sense, but I like the current compromise solution even better. There is really no need to make the distinction explicit at all. Thanks, Silly rabbit 18:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Horus and the film Zeitgeist

Since User:Vexorg insists on having a section in the article dedicated to this Zergeist movie, and an external link by religioustolerance.org, I feel discussion on the talk page is in order, since I do feel this section, its rationale for existance, and the external link are quite, well, lousy. First of all, Zeitgeist the Movie is a conspiracy theory film. It is a mixture of conspiracy theories dealing with the Federal reserve, the banking system, 9/11, and Christianity all wrapped into one, and was released only on google video as far as the article claims. There does not appear to be any especially authoritative or notable source responsible for its production, and in fact, looking at its talk page, there is even a notification there already about how without any apparent reviews on the movie, that it may not even be notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia at all. Currently, Vexorg's section appears compleatly based on the movie, in fact, it could be construed as advertising.

Nextly, the religioustolerance.org link appears rather low quality. Only a very few of the supposed traits of Horus appear to be inline cited, and there's even a bit at the bottom about how some of Horus's supposed attributes that religioustolerance advocates the existance of have no real evidence to support their existance, according to several Egyptologists. I therefore conclude that the link probably fails WP:EL, specifically, under the "links to be avoided" section number 2, for most likely being misleading and/or unreferenced, and may fail number one, since the notability of this Horus thing does not appear like it would properly belong in the article at all, if this was going for FA status.

In conclusion, I see no valid reason for the inclusion of User:Vexorgs section, nor the religioustolerance.org link. Vexorg's usage of a warning to other editors is also highly contrarian to general Wikipedia philosophy, and his section certainly wouldn't qualify under the same kind of extenuating circumstances we have for the article's lead. Currently, I see no valid reason why I should not attempt to remove the section again. Homestarmy 22:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


At a minimum, the section should be rewritten based on reliable sources and merged with the section on "Sources of Jesus' life." And not as a standalone advert for the conspiracy-theory film, but as an alternative scholarly interpretation of the historicity of Jesus. More scholarly work in the field has focused on Dionysius rather than Horus, and I think that the article should reflect this. Horus is worth mentioning, but not worth an entire section. See WP:UNDUE. Silly rabbit 23:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
The whole section is baloney, derived from AcharyaS. It's covered - not very well at the moment - in Jesus Christ and comparative mythology. Paul B 23:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


There's no reason why a subsection on comparisons to Horus can't be included. There's also no reason why the movie Zeitgeist can't be mentioned as it has a whole section exploring the comparison between Horus and Jesus. Citing it as an advertisement is ridiculous. Wikipedia has articles on thousands of films nad other media. Please note that the section is under construction, which I have explicity stated. There is no reason to jump on it like a ton of bricks at this point. In fact why not help make the section better. Vexorg 23:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
The reason the movie Zeitgeist cannot be used is that it's an unreliable source. Conspiracy theories are unreliable sources by their very nature.
Wikipedia may have thousands of film and media articles, but the salient feature about them is that they achieved some kind of notability. A film so commercially unviable that its official release is on Google Video isn't. It also commits a number of obvious errors in its opening minutes that immediately disqualify it as any kind of factual source whatsoever, unless we're writing about how far conspiracy theorists are willing to distort facts to fit.
The Zeitgeist webpage lists all the sources used in the film. The section here did not specify that Zeitgeist was a factual source anyway. It just said Zeitgiest 'explored' the comparisons between Horus and JesusVexorg 00:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't care if they list their sources. If the film represents them accurately then they're wrong, as anyone who knows anything about Egyptian mythology and English etymology will tell you. For this film to "explore" a comparison between Horus and Jesus is akin to exploring Africa by vacationing in London. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is there even a Wikipedia article on this "film"? Are there any external reliable sources? It looks like this is just a big astroturfing effort. Wikipedia is not the place to promote your Google movie. Also, at the very end of the Religious Tolerance piece, it says that they actually talked to some Egyptian history scholars and the scholars told them that their claims about Horus were incorrect. Wikipedia doesn't source articles with disproven research. I know nothing whatsoever about what the ancient Egyptians believed about Horus, but if the article being used to source the comparison itself says that its own claims aren't true, why exactly are we including it? Lastly, people seeking to attack Christianity have made tons of comparisons with ancient mythology and literature. Google and you can find comparisons made with the Odyssey, with Greek mythology, Hinduism, Buddhism, or anything else under the sun. The inclusion of this one comparison is only for the self-serving purpose of giving this google movie some free advertising in a high-visibility article that is one of the top g-hits for "Jesus". It absolutely should not be included here. Find somewhere else to advertise. --BigΔT 00:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

to User:BigDT .. 1] Zeitgeist is not my movie. 2] The reference to it here is NOTHING to do with advertising. 3] While the film itself criticises Christianity the inclusion of it here was for references purposes only. Wikipedia has articles on films and Zeitgeist The Movie is a film. It is simply YOUR erronous opinion that the inclusion of a reference to it here is for advertising purposes. I can completely understand why certain people would try and discourge the knowledge of this movie as it challenged a lot of widely held beliefs. But to question the inclusion of the movie as an article in wikipedia for no other reason than that is against the supposely balanced ethos of Wikipedia. While I can understand why you don't want this film to be included in Wikipedia there is absolutely no reason why it should not be featured I May also politely remind you of WP:AGF. While I will continue to WP:AGP individual editors I can easily detect that this page has a veil of bias anything that may criticise Christianity. This sadly is not the balanced view that Wikipedia should portray. Vexorg 02:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has articles on films (like Star Trek), but that doesn't mean we have articles on every internet film someone makes. We have articles on companies (like Microsoft), but we don't have articles on Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop. --BigΔT 02:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Your argument is, with respect, weak considering Zeitgeist The Movie is hardly a home movie. Film distribution, like music distribution is changing due ot the internet. Just because a film is released for free distribution on google does not mean it has little relevence compared to blockbusters like Star Trek Considering the noteriety Zeitgeist already has, I was actually suprised their wasn't already a wikipedia page on it. Anyway I can see the reason for the passionate opposition against not only the mentioning of this movie but reference to comparisons between Horus and Jesus on this page. Contary to some of the obvious feelings here I didn't edit anything with the intention of criticising Christianity, only with the intention of including comparisons between Jesus and Horus and a reference to Zeitgeist for academic purposes. I think it would certinly be better included on here than on, for example, the Criticisms of Christianity page. Like I say I didn't see the inclusion as a criticism. But OK... you guys win, and I'm not going to continue any more edit wars here. LIfe is too shortVexorg 03:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


There Osiris connection is mentioned and linked to in #Possible_external_influence. The discussion would fit better on the page linked to, though I'd begin with Joseph Campbell and E. Wallace Budge as sources.--bleeding_heart 01:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

MoS

"Ascension" and "Temptation" in a couple of the headings are capitalised -- is this deliberate? Chensiyuan 01:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably, in this case, they don't refer to temptation or ascension in general, but specific events termed "Ascension" and "Temptation". Homestarmy 17:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Some Scholars = fourth sentence???

Being that there are well over a billion Catholics and twice as many Christians (2.1 billion), I hardy believe that the opinion of a few scholars is worthy of this much attention. Seriously. Religion aside, any reasonable person would agree that this kind of ‘trivia’ does not belong as the fourth sentence of the description of Jesus (literally, take a look, it’s the fourth sentence!). This is just plain common sense. At most, this information is trivia (despite the several articles that have been developed on the topic). Just to put things in a different perspective consider this example about Mengele:

Josef Mengele (March 16, 1911 – February 7, 1979), was a German SS officer and a physician in the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He gained notoriety chiefly for being one of the SS physicians who supervised the selection of arriving transports of prisoners, determining who was to be killed and who was to become a forced labourer, and for performing human experiments on camp inmates, amongst whom Mengele was known as the Angel of Death. A small number of scholars agree with the work and studies of Josef Mengele.

How ridiculous does that sound! Wikipedia is becoming a credible source of information, however, people would certainly have second thoughts if they were to see such trivia in the introductions. Introductions are meant to be purely descriptive and not introduce opinions, trivia or consipiracy theories...those (if they must be included) belong later in the article. Christian or not, Administrator or not…I believe that REASON should be your guide concerning this issue. This is certainly a very important article on Wikipedia. Sure, I guess you could include this information (that is, if it’s not just an ulterior agenda imposed by someone a while ago), at most, somewhere in the body. In addition, even if someone is an atheist or non-Christian, that doesn’t mean they can’t exercise discretion about any faith, much less one that is a third of the world’s population. Putting others' faith into question is not exactly a noble way to be spending one's time (consider, for example, the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy). Lastly, after quite an exhaustive search, I really didn’t see any consensus reached in this talk page on this issue. Plus, this notion is already mentioned in the article more than once. I believe that this is a VERY valid edit on my behalf and I didn’t even remove the citation (just moved it down to one of the other mentions of this theory). I hope that reason will win out and I hope that the people that contribute here are all rational and understand this concern. Sincerely, aNubiSIII (T / C) 09:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Because the talk pages are pretty expansive: this is the preliminary poll to see where people stood with various proposals (note, at the time, only 2 people wanted to remove the sentence entirely); this is the run off between the top two candidates. And the rest of the 2nd paragraph subpages deal with tweaking the wording. There was also great discussion concerning this matter before the first poll in the talk page archives scattered through #25-39. Just pointing this out because Anubis3 said "I really didn't see any consensus reached".
As for the specifics about whether to include it or not, I do not believe comparing the scholars who support these views to Nazi sympathizers is helpful (Godwin's Law anyone?) The argument to include the sentence is NPOV. We state that the view is a small minority view, and we state what it is. We are giving all notable views space in the lead, hopefully with due weight. A lead is supposed to summarize article content, and since we have a section in the article about this, it makes sense to have a summary sentence in the lead relating to the view explained in more detail later in the article. All that said, I can understand the counter arguments that these views are so minor that giving them any space in the lead would be undue weight. I can possibly even sympathize with the position that some religious groups' views that don't have space in the lead are more notable than this content. So I'm not exactly sure where I stand on removing the sentence. I just feel that we should respect the previous lengthy process that brought us here, and not make rash changes without talk page support.
Looking at the sentence, I feel it is problematic. It contrasts scholars who question the historical existence of Jesus with scholars who claim a completely mythological Jesus. How significant are these two positions, and do we really need to contrast the two? The only person I can think of who questions the historical existence of Jesus (he's an 'agnostic' regarding the historical Jesus, if you will) is Robert M. Price (and perhaps G. A. Wells a decade or two ago). The rest of the folk that are in the citation clearly fall under the mythist camp, right? I think a better sentence would be something along the lines of "Scholars critically examine the sources for the historical Jesus and to varying degrees find them reliable or not; very few scholars find them entirely accurate while very few scholars find them completely spurious." We could add the mythist citation to the "completely spurious" part, mentioning in the footnote the Jesus myth hypothesis, and then we could add some citations to biblical literalists to the "entirely accurate" part? I always thought it was strange that we mentioned in the lead those who deny the historical Jesus, but didn't mention those who think the Gospels are flawless accounts. Hmm... sorry if this is stream of conscious. Just some ideas I'm throwing out.-Andrew c [talk] 15:07, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree that this sentence, representing a radical minority viewpoint, does not belong up front in the Introduction, which, in and of itself, gives undue weight (to put it mildly). I was not watching this page when the straw poll occurred, or I would have strongly advocated removing the sentence. We do not find such bizarre statements in the Introductions of Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Homer, Peter, Paul, etc. LotR 16:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying this to be rude, honest, but did you read the lead to Homer? -Andrew c [talk] 17:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and did not find any comparable sentence in the Introduction. I did note the sentence in the first Section saying that there is no concrete evidence that he existed, but nothing along the lines of "mythological Homer" in the Introduction. Regardless, there are more than enough examples that illustrate the point. LotR 17:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
If my opinion matters, I think it was undue weight then, and I think its undue weight now, and really, the article doesn't talk about the Jesus Myth hypothesis very much, but being in the lead like it is, you'd think that its placement would indicate a section or two of discussion in the article somewhere, since a lead is supposed to summarize the rest of the article. However, there is only one sentence about it in the rest of the article, most of the skeptical things in the historicity section don't seem to have anything to do with whether or not Jesus existed. I doubt I was familiar enough with proper article structure at the time to realize that when we had those polls though.... Homestarmy 17:24, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I forgot to mention 1.4 billion muslims who also acknowledge the existence of Jesus. That makes that sentence even more ridiculous in the intro (or lead, if you will). Half the world vs. a few ambiguous "scholars". I'd say that makes for a pretty strong case. Yet the scholars get the fourth sentence! Undue weight is an understatement. Although I agree the statement itself might fall under NPOV, the issue here, I think, is its strategic placement in the article which makes it "a flashing red light" for POV. Oh and Mike Godwin is a nerd. Haha. Maybe it never occurred to him that Hitler and the Nazis are synonymous with evil/extremism. You can use any example you wish, but I'm pretty sure you got the point I was trying to make. I certainly think its due time for a new poll judging by the responses...anyone??? aNubiSIII (T / C) 17:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of evil, m:Polling is evil:Þ What do people think of altering the sentence to say something along the lines of "Few scholars believe the historical accounts on Jesus to be entirely accurate or entirely spurious." I believe bringing up the number of Christians or the number of Muslims is a red herring. This paragraph is discussing scholars, and the diversity of their views. Unfortunately, there is no such monolith as "scholarship" and professionals differ on their theories. The idea is to be neutral and present a spectrum, instead of ignoring anything that disagrees with mainstream scholarship.-Andrew c [talk] 18:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea. I agree with some of the opinions voiced above that emphasizing the "some scholars" does rather place undue weight on their viewpoint. The purpose of the original sentence seems to be to emphasize a diversity of opinion as you say. However, I would also suggest a slight expansion of the passage to include discussion of the Questions of reliability of the gospel account and the Possible external influences. Silly rabbit 18:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I am anti-polling as well. The present version by Andrew is no doubt a big improvement. My comments are that no historical account can be said to be entirely 100% accurate, so this statement probably goes without saying. I would also say "Very few scholars...", for indeed this adjective is warranted here. My preference would still be to omit the sentence altogether. The sentences preceding it are informative and NPOV enough. Acknowledging the historical existance of Jesus is no more POV than acknowledging the historical existance of any of the historical figures I cited above. LotR 19:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Broadening the 4th sentence to cover the fact that the extent of the historical accuracy of the new testament and gospels is subject to a lot of scholarly debate makes sense. The historicity section needs to cover all aspects such as the comparative mythology side of things (making sure of undue weight etc). Unfortunately we have this stupid arbitrary split of the Jesus and comparative mythology and the Jesus myth hypothesis which messes up how we summarize the scholarship as all the reading I have done starts with the former and some end up at the latter stance - not necessarily as a definite but as a balance of probability. Andrew's suggestion looks fair to me - what wiki links would be used? As Andrew also says - numbers mean nothing in these cases unless they have some special knowledge in this area. Sophia 22:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

While I have long fought for including the views of critical scholars (meaning, those whose interpretations of Biblical texts are not influenced by theological beliefs) and agree that we must acknowledge that many people question the existence of Jesus, I have long had problems with the last phrase referring to the mythological Jesus for two reasons. First, many of the proponents for this view are not established scholars of the Bible or 1st century Roman Palestine (i.e. they are diletantes who rely on secondary sources and whose work does not rise to the standards of peer review). Second, the most sophisticated propnents of this approach that I know of do not claim that Jesus did not exist but rather that Christianity, including the Christian Jesus, owe more to contemporary pagan mythologies than to the actual life and teachings of anyone named Jesus in the first Century i.e. this is an argument not about Jesus but about Christianity. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Homestarmy here. The early placement suggests the idea is far more important than it is. The first time I read the sentence, I thought the rest of the article was going to be ridiculous and useless. I think the idea is covered fairly well in the first paragraph of Jesus#Possible_external_influence.--bleeding_heart 15:12, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of how numerous or respectable they are, the scholars who argue for Jesus-as-myth are not some obscure group of people advocating something arcane that nobody has ever heard of. It is not "trivia." On the contrary, their views are quite visible. Many people have heard, written or argued about Jesus-as-myth theories--just run a Google search and look. Many Christians are quite sensitive to these ideas. Accordingly, readers deserve some up-front statement, in the lead, explaining the standing of these views among scholars. I find the objections to this sentence eccentric and ill conceived. ECKnibbs 22:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
P.S. And the SS example is ridiculous. If the "small number" of Mengele supporters were as visible as supporters of the Jesus-as-myth advocates, they would obviously deserve mention in the leads of a number of articles. Mentioning that a certain position exists does not imply support for that position.
ECKnibbs, I don't know about you, but before I started contributing to Wikipedia, I don't remember ever hearing a single thing about this Jesus-as-myth thing, as far as I can remember, contributing to this project led to the first time of me even hearing of it in my entire life. Their views are quite visible now alright, since its in the lead paragraph of the Wikipedia article on Jesus, and this article is the first result on google, but who caused that? Certainly not the scholars themselves or the actual notability of the arguments, only our long and vast argument over how notable these people were, resulting in what is in the lead now. I'd go so far as to say that thanks to this sentence, this very article may be the most visibility this movement has ever recieved. Google searches as a whole, however, are not sure-fire indicators of true notability, the "google test" is a well-used (and often mis-used) argument in AfD proceedings; large numbers in a search result do not on their own make a strong case for notability. Many Jesus-myth people seem quite sensitive to the idea that their views might not be notable enough to warrent major inclusion in this article, however, readers ought to be presented with an article that lives up to our own policies and guidlines. But with the subject matter in the sentence mentioned in only one long sentence deep in the body surrounded by mostly unrelated material, the article currently falters in that regard, since part of the introduction causes the whole article to slip up in being "a well-constructed article", since "the relative emphasis given to information in the lead will be reflected in the rest of the text." in a well-constructed article. Based on the overall length of this article, i'd expect an independent sentence on the Jesus-myth in the lead like this to indicate at least several paragraphs or even an entire section of discussion in the article somewhere, dedicated only to the Jesus-myth stuff, not one long sentence buried in a more general section. Homestarmy 04:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I was not arguing about the notability of the Jesus-as-mtyh hypothesis. It is doubtless notable, which is why Wikipedia has the Jesus myth hypothesis article. I was instead taking a utilitarian position: many people have heard about this theory and, to be useful, the Jesus article should mention it in the lead. Reference works should anticipate the questions that people consulting them might ask. I think it is likely that many will read this article with questions about Jesus' existence and mythological status in mind.
You seem to underestimate the prominence the mythological Jesus ideas. Like many people with a Catholic education, I was taught about those who argued for Jesus' nonexistence in high-school, and given talking points to refute the position. This sort of theorization seems to have achieved peak popularity in the early 20th century (when, in fact, most Catholic school apologetics curricula were devised), but it's still out there. Though biblical scholars as a whole reject the notion, bestsellers like The Jesus Mysteries have given the idea a lot of exposure. There are also academic books influenced by 'mythological Jesus' ideas, even if they do not openly advocate Jesus' non-existence. In this vein see, for example, Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospels (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2000).
The reference in the lead to the Jesus-as-myth advocates is neither as "buried" nor as disconnected as you seem to think. It is part of a paragraph devoted to sketching scholarly opinions of Jesus and his historicity. Most of this paragraph sketches the scholarly mainstream; the final sentence tells the reader that there is a range of opinions--a few people even doubt that Jesus existed. And have you even read the Jesus article? See the sections on "Questions of reliablity" and "Possible external influence", both of which devote a substantial amount of material towards the mythological Jesus theories. The position doubtless deserves a sentence in the lead, unless you want to cut out all this material as well.
ECKnibbs 08:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
The question of notability for this article has never been whether something is notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia, if it was, this article would be large enough to be turned into a book. Many people may of heard of this theory, but countless number of people have heard a great many things about Jesus, and compiling a reference that can anticipate all of those things would take up far more space than a Wikipedia article should normally hold, especially if all of that information was crammed into the lead. As it is, the Jesus-myth has a long sentence as the third paragraph of the "Questions of reliability" section already which is just a glorified version of the sentence in the lead anyway, and a shorter (yet far more vauge) sentence in the section below it, dedicated to "a small minority", whatever that means.
Catholic education is not something I am familiar with, but if the curriculum was calling primarily for apologetics in various areas, well, apologetics isn't exactly a very popular topic in society at large. However, if the academic books in this area don't actually advocate Jesus not existing, then even if they lifted some of their arguments straight from Jesus-myth book's pages, that still wouldn't confer the Jesus-myth theory itself notability, merely other things related to the "Questions of reliability" section most likely.
When I refer to the buried sentence, I don't mean the one in the lead, I mean the one in the body, in the "Questions of reliablity" section. And ok, maybe I didn't notice that second sentence at first in the section below, it was even shorter than the first mention in the body. However, scholarlyness of the Jesus-myth theory aside, (Far better editors than myself in this area can probably debate that much better than I can) two sentences which aren't even linked together seems like a very strange definition of "substantial material" in a 102 kilobyte article to me. Even stranger, your assertion that the sentence in the lead has a doubtless need for existance, since of course, I do doubt it, and have already made clear that I doubt it, thusly making the need of the sentence quite non-doubtless indeed. Homestarmy 00:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood my reference to Catholic apologetics. It was just part of my argument that the Jesus-as-myth notion enjoys a fair amount of currency, more in fact than many things people may have heard about Jesus. The notion enjoyed some scholarly attention, in its day. What place this earns the theory in the article is a matter of opinion, but I object to calling its inclusion "ridiculous", on the level of giving "trivia" in the lead.
There is another way to look at the question, which is perhaps less subjective than simply claiming that the 'mythical Jesus' has enough circulation to warrant inclusion: The Jesus-as-myth theories generally boil down to the question of the degree of "external influence" (and in fact the entire first paragraph of our "external influence" is devoted to explaining this). Most of the mythical Jesus arguments claim that external influences on the Gospels and related Christian texts were so great that they provide no accurate information about anything, and that Jesus' very existence is thus open to doubt. The opposite end of the spectrum is, of course, holding that our documents provide us with the equivalent of eyewitness reporting, without any significant external textual influence, and thus constitute solid evidence not only that Jesus existed, but that he worked miracles and rose from the dead. As part of this spectrum, the mythical Jesus people are important, and they have exercised influence on scholarship. The book by MacDonald I cited above, for example, argues for a very high degree of external influence on the Gospels. In other words, the Jesus-mythers sit on one end of a debate that is very important to the article. This debate is not marginal or unimportant, it is not "trivia" or in any way "ridiculous," and communicating the parameters of this debate to readers at the beginning of the article seems a good idea, especially as issues of historicity crop up so often in any discussion of Jesus.
I understand your objections less and less. They seem based entirely on the assertion that there are many opinions as important as the 'mythical Jesus' notion, but that we exclude the latter while including the former, and that this makes the article biased. What are these other ideas? Perhaps they should indeed be included.
ECKnibbs 22:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
The "Mythological-Jesus Hypothesis" is a radical-minority viewpoint that does not belong in the lead of a general article about Jesus. No one is denying that the viewpoint cannot be addressed in the article -- it just doesn't belong in the lead. As already mentioned, we do not find such radical points-of-view in the introductions of other historical ancient figures.
I would accept the rewording proposed by Andrew: "[Very] few scholars believe the historical accounts on Jesus to be entirely accurate or entirely spurious." That speaks to the spectrum of opinion you refer to. But the POV catch-phrase "mythological-Jesus" has to go. While it may have sensational merit, it is also potentially inflammatory and offensive to the religious sensibilities of the world's Christians and Muslims. LotR 13:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Mythical/Historical Jesus Controversy

A number of recent scholars and historians of the period have seriously been considering that Jesus may have been a mythical character and was put into the historical framework as a real person by the early christian church in 110 AD. According to them this suggests that Jesus may never have actually existed. I have been researching this and it is looking increasing likely that this may have been the case. The first four gospels (mark, matthew, luke, john) don't seem to know anything about most of the apparent miracles of Jesus and the story that we would see as familar with Jesus today.

This should really be taken into consideration in the article in the interest of a fair and unbias page.

Watch the movie, the god who wasn't there.

We already have wikipedia articles dedicated to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_as_myth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_comparative_mythology

We should put a insert into the main Jesus article because this is relevant and should be linked. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.77.48.148 (talk) 02:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

If you haven't noticed, no one really cares about what you believe or not. That is NOT the issue being discussed here. Go ahead make a big sign that you're an atheist or non-Christian or tatoo it to your forehead. But, again, no one here cares because this is about conforming the Wikipedia rules. Most people here are making valid arguments based on Wikipedia's rules/standards concerning this issue, so if you would like to make an effective input in this discussion, try to take an NPOV stance. Oh and don't use big words like "fair" and "unbias" when you are the prime example of their opposite. aNubiSIII (T / C) 12:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Have I missed some history with the anon editor that you are referring to? As far as the contributions history shows the post above is the only one he/she has made to this page. Not that that matters as the post by Anubis3 is unnecessarily aggressive and rude to any editor. I chose to ignore the SS analogies above as a sign of immaturity but further posts of the type above will result in civility warnings. Sophia 12:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Sophia, I'm sorry you feel that way but my comments are no more uncivil than you calling me immature and aggressive. This discussion is now way off topic. I only wanted to keep it NPOV, because if you haven't noticed these are some very sensitive issues being discussed here (on all sides), matters of faith. Please refer to Wikipedia's defintion of Civility if you are having trouble. Thanks. aNubiSIII (T / C) 13:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Wow, seems like a bit of an overreaction to me, although I can sympathize with you. Often it feels as though one is constantly under siege from anonymous editors on Wikipedia. Anyway, my take is that the IP wanted a link to Jesus and comparative mythology. I have added this to the see also section. Silly rabbit 13:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi everyone, okay so it was me who made the inital post in this topic, i have signed into my wikipedia account now. First off, i do not mean to offend anyones beliefs, i'm just saying in the interest of being fair, this should be considered in the main article because the facts are that there are a number of academic scholars and historians who find the idea that Jesus may actually have been a myth credible.
I don't want to get into any arguments, however there are good reasons why he may have been a myth. This has to do with the history of the christian church and the lack of evidence for the character of Jesus in the records of the Roman Empire, never mind the conflicting stories in the bible.
Just understand i don't mean to offend you, i just want the wikipedia article to be as fair and unbias as possible. (Simon.uk.21 14:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC))
I'm sorry to just butt in, but accusations about NPOV violations are a little off the mark. In the first place, as far as I know, NPOV policies regard the content of articles, not necessarily contributions on Talk. In the second place, this thread opens by comparing those who doubt Jesus existed to (hypothetical) supporters of Mengele and his medical experiments. Given this context, it seems a little unfair to jump all over an editor for posting his or her suggestions for the article, simply because that editor also confessed to finding the Jesus-as-myth hypothesis convincing.

ECKnibbs 14:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well put - no editor should have their head bitten off for having the good manners to discuss their views of the article on the talk page even if they are seen by some as treading on the "sensitve ground" of their faith. Pulling the "this offends me therefore you have to be careful what you say" card is a form of passive aggressive behaviour that is a anathema to balanced discussions and free speech. This article is about Jesus and most of the problems here are caused by some taking this as a forum for apologetics or OR of all kinds. I should have taken Andrew's advice and considered the thread dead. In all seriousness Anubis3 I would reread WP:CIVIL and WP:BITE along with WP:NPOV if I were you as you have missed some very important points - such as the fact that I was referring to your posts and had not made the jump to classifying you personally. Sophia 15:04, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, you both missed the mark about the Mengele example. I wasn't supposed to be that difficult. But, evidently, I should have noticed earlier that this discussion, and most people in it, favor one certain point of view. Advancing the position I am supporting is proving futile. I no longer feel welcome in this discussion. It's seems that throughout this discussion, as soon as someone entered supporting the opposing viewpoint about the sentence (that is, the one that I am supporting), some users here converge on that person to kick him/her out. I don't think that this is right. Apparently, that is why it is still locked down as the fourth sentence.

ECKnibbs and Sophia, I don't know if it could be more clear about NPOV on talk pages. It's written in big bold on the top of this page Wikipedia:Talk Page. Personal views/philosophies, on talk pages or in articles, impune the integrity of Wikipedia. That is simply the point that I was attempting to make. (Sophia, I'm not even gonna respond to your other comments)

It's funny, no one seems to be questioning the existence of Muhammad or Siddhartha or Abraham or regard them as myth on Wikipedia (especially not in the leads!). Hmmm..., maybe they're too afraid. Yet, Wikipedia has entire articles of the myth and nonexistence of the lead figure in Christianity. OR, maybe the "war on Christianity" is not just a political slogan. However, you'll only fool yourself if you believe that the "scholars" that point to the myth are anything more than a few conspiracy theorists. It's one thing to question the historicity of Jesus and another to question his existence. As a last suggestion then, therefore, I would replace "historical exitence" with "historicity" (after all that is the title of the article) at the very least (dropping the myth part completely). Otherwise, this article should be RED FLAGGED and a Template:NPOV should be added. Perhaps my comments will be followed by critical reponses, but I assure you, I already got the point: I am not welcome. aNubiSIII (T / C) 17:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk Page says nothing about maintaining NPOV in posts on the talk page. The bold note at the top of this page begins with the words "Article policies", not "Article:Talk policies." Perhaps I am wrong, but I assumed this label meant that they apply to the article.
That said, I have no problem with substituting historicity for historical existence; the latter term makes me a little uncomfortable anyway.
ECKnibbs 18:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I have attempted to revise the disputed sentence as follows:
Some scholars and authors question aspects of the historicity of Jesus, with a small number arguing for a completely mythological Jesus.
I am not entirely satisfied with the edit (I think "many," rather than "some," scholars "question aspects of the historicity of Jesus"), and I suspect it will be reverted. But it seemed worth a try.
ECKnibbs 18:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
To clarify, Article talk pages are provided for discussion of the content of articles and the views of reliable published sources. They should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views. aNubiSIII (T / C) 20:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
No one in this conversation has used this page as a platform for their personal views, Anubis3.ECKnibbs 07:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Again, to clarify, ECKnibbs: According to them this suggests that Jesus may never have actually existed. I have been researching this and it is looking increasing likely that this may have been the case. The first four gospels (mark, matthew, luke, john) don't seem to know anything about most of the apparent miracles of Jesus and the story that we would see as familar with Jesus today. It would be good now get back to the issue, as I no longer want to have to clarify everything. aNubiSIII (T / C) 16:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I have to admit it isn't clear to me what "aspects of the historicity of Jesus" actually means. EALacey 20:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Nor to me, come to think of it. What about: "Many scholars question aspects of the traditional accounts of the life of Jesus, with some..." More cumbersome, maybe, but a little more specific? "Historical existence" troubles me a little, and just substituting "historicity" for "historical existence" seems even more confusing.ECKnibbs 07:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I did not see this new section on this topic before making my post in the previous section. So that it is not overlooked, I am reposting my recommendation here. I would accept the rewording proposed by Andrew: "[Very] few scholars believe the historical accounts on Jesus to be entirely accurate or entirely spurious." That speaks to the spectrum of scholarly opinion on the matter, and does so in a fairly NPOV way. But the POV catch-phrase "mythological-Jesus" has to go. While it may have sensational merit, it is also potentially inflammatory and offensive to the religious sensibilities of the world's Christians and Muslims. LotR 14:10, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Scholars today are not more ready to state that Jesus was mythical than they were 50 years ago or even 150 years ago. This position has been around for a while. On the other end of the intellectual spectrum my grandmother never believed man walked on the moon. In her mind it was an impossiblity. However, in both cases the position is a very small, statisticlly insignificant minority.
In the English language the common individual interprets mythology as the stuff of fairy tales. It is not the common language for religions of today. Our objective is to write not for the academic milieu, but that of society at large. I support LotR's proposal because it does that very well. --Storm Rider (talk) 14:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I do not find arguments about offending religious sensibilities persuasive. Does it not offend non-Christians to suggest that some dead Palestinian was actually the son of God? Wikipedia shouldn't be "politically correct" in the sense of self-censorship for the sake of not offending Christians. We must take this from a NPOV stance. I was reluctant to make this comment because I still stand by the wording I already proposed and that LotR's endorsed (would you support having a link to the Jesus Myth article in the footnote?), but felt it was important for everyone to examine why we include multiple views on wikipedia, and exclude others.-Andrew c [talk] 16:42, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
My comment about "religious sensibilities" was more an after-thought (but still something for us to take into consideration). While Wikipedia need not always be bound by political correctness, it ought not go out of its way to be offensive to a rather large group of people (over 2 billion Christians and Muslims) either. And, for what it's worth, I do not find the "but then everything is offensive" argument convincing, either. Affirmative statements about the central figure of a religious belief system (e.g., "the New Testament canon proclaims Jesus to be the Son of God") is not the same as derogatory, crackpot statements designed to ridicule that belief system. As Storm correctly points out, calling something a myth is to say it's a "fairy tale," and the implication is that only childish fools believe in fairy tales.
That said, the modified version resolves these issues, and it seems to have garnered support. The credit belongs to Andrew for writing it, although I advocate that "Very" be inserted at the beginning of his original version. LotR 18:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
There is no need for this arguement. All i suggested was that some academics and scholars who have investigated the historical timeline find that it is credible that Jesus never actually existed. This in my opinion should have a paragraph in the main article. There is no need for people to be defending faith etc... the rest of the article will still be there, all im saying is that a paragraph should outline my point. In the interest of fairness i think we can all agree that the opinion of some academics should not be ignored in the main article. (Simon.uk.21 20:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC))
If they were really academic there'd be more case for that, but as I believe has been demonstrated time and again, almost none of the premier advocates of Jesus-myth things are actually academics, or academics in a field that would be authoritative on this subject. Homestarmy 20:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

New proposal from Afaprof01

So after we basically all agreed on a wording, and LotR made it go live earlier today, another user has come along and changed it to Disputes about the existence of Jesus and reliability of ancient texts relating to him are discussed later in this article and in several separate articles including Jesus and history. completely ignore our previous work. What do other users think of this version? I think referencing wikipedia articles in this manner is just poor writing. There may be some underlying ideas in that proposal that could help to improve the wording of the Andrew/LotR version, adn I'm sure we can talk them out, but I think it's premature to have an undiscussed version go live. And what up with blanking the big ref?-Andrew c [talk] 05:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not just poor writing, its an MoS violation of WP:SELF, I seriously doubt any FA reviewer would let us pass with that in the lead. Though on the ref, it does occur to me that we now need to reference scholars who believe the Gospels to be compleatly accurate in addition to the Jesus-myth folks.... Homestarmy 05:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Good luck finding any. While many may believe into the spiritual truth of the bible, I'd be suprised if a significant number of even deeply religous scholars believe in the literal accuracy of the gospels, given that it takes a massive amount of mental yoga to reconcile the discrepancies between them. --Stephan Schulz 09:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I changed it back to the new agreed version as it's important to note early on that there is huge range in the acceptance of the historical documents that this whole article is built on. Sophia 10:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I mentioned before that we should probably site some biblical inerrants. I can't think of any off the top of my head, maybe William Lane Craig? maybe Gary Habermas? (I'm not sure how far they take their beliefs, but I believe they both argue for a historical resurrection when most scholars don't go into that terittory, or outright reject the resurrection as historical). I'm sure there are some theologians out there we could cite. I mean, we site a bunch of non-historians, non-biblical scholars for the myth group, I'm sure we can find some non-historians who have degrees in some field and teach at very conservative universities who hold the view on the other side of the spectrum. I'll try to put some research into finding citations, and others are welcome to contribute.-Andrew c [talk] 11:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It also occurs to me that with the way the sentence is written now, it refers to all historical accounts of Jesus, whether that be the Gospels or not. If it was just the Gospels, we wouldn't necessarily need someone who is a Biblical inerrantist, but merely someone who believes that whenever the Bible mentions Jesus' life, that it's accurate. But it's have to be someone pretty crazy who not only belives the Bible to be accurate, but everything else as well, including all of Josephus and every Infancy gospel, no matter how clearly ridiculous an account the infancy gospels may be. You might try D. James Kennedy as a non-historian non-biblical scholar yet popular type of inerrantist fellow, he's got some theological degrees. Homestarmy 17:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It looks like we're changing the meaning of this sentence, from "some think jesus never existed" to "some question the reliability of the accounts." I'm fine with that. The idea that Jesus may not have lived gets plenty of airtime in the rest of the article, and it doesn't belong in the introduction. I think the best paragraph so far is the one in which the sentence was simply eliminated. I prefer a clear statement of a minority opinion to one written by committee and grafted on without regard to its very visible seams. The sentence as it's written now says very little, unlike the two that precede it. Last night, I reverted the compromise sentence because it read so badly, but I neglected to read all the talk that preceded the change. Perhaps a better approach to closing this paragraph would be something along the lines of "While there is broad agreement on these few details, facts about Jesus have always been hard to prove and hotly disputed, as the nature of this person is so important to so many." I like that wording because it captures the spirit of much of the rest of the page, which is chock full o' alternative views.--bleeding_heart 22:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I find it very weasely to say "Very few scholars believe that all historical accounts concerning Jesus are either completely accurate or completely inaccurate concerning Jesus' life." First, it is not a true statement. Throughout >2000 of history of Christianity, many (not very few) scholarly Christian theologians have agreed with the accuracy of the biblical accounts concerning Jesus. Therefore, "very few" is an inept descriptive. At the other end of the spectrum are more liberal theologians who have serious doubts about a lot of things. I like the statement: Disputes about the existence of Jesus and reliability of ancient texts relating to him are discussed later in this article and in several separate articles including Jesus and history. (1) It clearly and unapologetically acknowledges there are disputes; (2) It avoids the quantitative like "very few" which is virtually meaningless; (3) It tells the reader upfront that this article does deal with some of those disputes, so keep on reading; (4) It also tells the reader that this is not a thoroughly comprehensive article about Jesus in all respects. If it were, there wouldn't be so many others on Wiki with only subtle differences in titles. It lists only one other Wiki article, Jesus and history, which does contain references, seealso's, etc., to many other articles dealing with "Disputes about the existence of Jesus and reliability of ancient texts." It's about as Neutral Point of View as one can get. Thanks for your consideration. Afaprof01 18:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

OK. We've had various issues with the new proposal, leading me to believe it was premature to add it to the lead. The most recent criticism is that RossNixon claims that the belief that the entire NT account of Jesus' life is entirely historical is actually a common belief. Is there any support for that statement. Could we start getting into our sources (I know we mentioned it above, but it's probably best to actually see what the sources say, where the scholars stand before adding things to the article).-Andrew c [talk] 05:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The thing is Andrew, by saying all accounts like that sentence, it doesn't imply that it only means serious sources, so saying that "very few" people trust all documentation concerning Jesus means there'd have to be some crazy guy who trusts the infancy gospels and every pseudographical work concerning Jesus, no matter how contradictory to the gospels, and no matter how plainly ridiculous and discounted the account is. Homestarmy 05:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Hey don't get me wrong, I think we have a pretty good version (I did help with some of the original wording ;) I just think it would be fair for everyone to have a chance to give their imput. Maybe we can address Ross' concern here and be on our way, but it doesn't hurt just to wait another couple days to be sure we are on the right track (which I think we are). You make a valid point that we aren't just talking about the gospel accounts. If we get to the point of needing something else, I came up with another idea, but I don't want to confuse things anymore than they already are so I'll hold off making new proposals (besides, I like the path we are on).-Andrew c [talk] 05:53, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Andrew, you wanted some source support? All I can offer for now is a partial list of conservative evangelical scholars who strongly support the historicity of the NT. One could compile a long list of moderate to conservative scholars who have defended the accuracy and historicity of the New Testament, viz. Paul Barnett, Craig Blomberg, Darrell Bock, Richard Bauckham, E. M. Blaiklock, Marcus Bockmuehl, F. F. Bruce, E. E. Ellis, Craig Evans, Donald Guthrie, Colin Hemer, Harold Hoehner, Martin Hengel, Craig Keener, Andreas Köstenberger, Bruce Metzger, Stanley Porter, Robert Stein, Ned Stonehouse, Graham Twelftree, Daniel Wallace, David Wenham, John Wenham, Ben Witherington, N. T. Wright, Edwin Yamauchi, etc. Does this help? rossnixon 06:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
We are now into parading beliefs rather than scholarly work - unless I'm really out of the loop there is no widespread acceptance of the complete accuracy of the NT except by Christian apologists. The historicity of the census has never been established and what about the different lineages in Matthew and Luke? Complete acceptance of the NT is a much a minority view as the Jesus myth (even though it has more proponents - the wonders of faith). I'm happy to see a sentence that gives a feel for the full spread of views in academia for the accuracy of the documents that this whole article is based on, giving no undue weight to any one group. We need something though as most academia does pick and choose which bits to accept - often based on the faith of the scholar - no non Christian accepts the historicity of the resurrection for example. Sophia 10:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Ross, did you read Homestarmy's point above? The sentence isn't just talking about the 4 gospels, but ALL accounts of Jesus' life. How many of those scholars believe Josephus doesn't have any Christian interpolations? How many of those scholars believe the infancy gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, etc are entirely historically accurate? -Andrew c [talk] 13:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Here is one example from your list. I randomly picked Craig Evans and found It is highly unlikely that the Gospel of Judas preserves for us authentic, independent material, material that supplements our knowledge of Judas and his relationship to Jesus[1]-Andrew c [talk] 14:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
My apologies. I did not pick up on the inclusion of non-canonical texts. rossnixon 02:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
No need to apologize. I think this may indicate that our wording has a certain connotation and we could consider rephrasing to make it clear. As a refresher, this is the text that was last in the article Very few scholars believe that all historical accounts concerning Jesus are either completely accurate or completely inaccurate concerning Jesus' life. The original proposed version said "the gospels" instead of "all historical accounts" and I think the change helps. I still think that nearly all historians do not consider the gospels flawless, but Ross has clearly shown a number of biblical scholars and theologians who do hold that position. So is saying "all historical accounts" enough to convey that we are not just talking about the gospels?-Andrew c [talk] 04:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a general comment (not in response to Andrew's last posting): To claim a historical document to be reliable is not to say it is "infallible" or "120% accurate." I keep hearing rumblings about the Gospels being "inconsistent" (on some factual details), and therefore are somehow "ahistorical." This is a non sequitur. If they were identical then it seems that they might have originated from a single source (which is not the case). The fact is, the NT canon is remarkably consistent in its portrayal of Jesus, but this is not to say that they are 100% accurate in all details.

In any event, on Friday I went ahead and made the change because there was agreement among the editors discussing this issue, followed by silence. When issues are discussed on a Talk page at length, and silence ensues, I take that to mean it is time to implement the proposed change. I would advocate restoring the sentence that was agreed on, or one of the similar variants, then hammer things out more in Talk if necessary. The original contention was not to give undue weight to an extreme minority viewpoint (the so-called "Mythological Jesus" denigration) in the lead. The objection to removing the sentence completely was that, in the spirit of maintaining NPOV, an indication of the range of scholarly opinions was given in the lead. There are no objections to this. The sentence that Andrew proposed achieved a very nice compromise that achieves the goal quite nicely. So I advocate restoring it (or one of the similar variants), then iterating from there. LotR 13:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Many readers will read "historical accounts" and think of the NT. The non-canonical texts are vastly less known and regarded by most as mythological or apocryphal. Is there another term that sounds less historicitic that could be used? Say "ancient texts"? That is the term used on this page [2] rossnixon 02:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Good suggestion. It works for me.-Andrew c [talk] 02:21, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I took a day off yesterday to heal my eyes from staring at the computer too long, so I didn't reply earlier. It's not that I don't like the idea of a new sentence that doesn't have the Jesus-myth disproportionatly mentioned in violation of lead guidelines, its just that i'm not sure anymore that the sentence suggested is correct. Since I assume we're going on the principle that the sentence there now will be replaced by one sentence, something vauge might be necessary in order to relate to the several sections given to academic opinions without only mentioning the Gospels and without trying to write in extremes of opinion that don't exist. What about something like "Scholars in fields of study relating to sources on Jesus' life have a wide array of opinions concerning the accuracy and reliability of historical documents and records pertaining to his life." Homestarmy 02:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Ross's suggestion seems fine though, so are we going to go with that? Homestarmy 18:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Took a couple days off myself. I noticed the change has been made and just wanted to commend those who worked on iterating this much improved sentence. LotR 14:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Zoroaster

I reverted the edits to Possible_external_influence which added Zoroaster and changed all the instances of "pagan" to "gentile." The paragraph as it was was exceptionally clear, cohesive and persuasive, in that it limited its argument to external sources that christians themselve claim, the apostle Paul, popes JPII and Benedict, and Cornell West, to name a notable few. I suggest a sentence at the end of the section would achieve more while destroying less.--bleeding_heart 23:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Redirect & Article title

Just a quick query: shouldn't typing in "Jesus" redirect to the disambiguation page? Its quite a common name in some countries, so just assuming that it refers to Jesus of Nazareth is a bit strange. I would also back changing the name of the article to Jesus of Nazareth, rather than just Jesus, for the same reason.Hagger 12:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, Jesus is a common name in some countries, but in those countries where Jesus is common Christianity is the prevalent religion. When one seeks to know about "Jesus" everyone knows immediately you are not talking about Jesus Ortega around the corner. Curious, are there other notable individuals who are immediately recognized simply by the name Jesus? We strive to faciliate searches and make Wikipedia the most user friendly; I think it is doing that currently. --Storm Rider (talk) 14:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I also think 'Jesus' is probably the most neutral, broadly acceptable name we're likely to have. Plus if we change this one, would we have to change related articles, and wind up with Jesus of Nazareth in Christianity, Historicity of Jesus of Nazareth etc? Status quo is better. Wesley 16:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
no, i think Jesus should stay at this page. Generally the term Jesus is associated with this page. Keep it the same as it is. (Simon.uk.21 20:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC))
If this is an informal straw poll, I agree. --with those who say leave it as it is. =David(talk)(contribs) 02:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

You guys got two months to add a criticism and controversy, or I'll call the creator of wikipedia to shut this page down

Ghandi has a criticism and controversy page, so why not Jesus Christ? Add it in now, thank you. Zephead999 07:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Zephead999, you are completely free to being creating your own page on this topic. Feel free to begin anytime you like. There is no individual who is responsible for creating a page except for yourself. Just be sure that the article you create fits within the guidelines of wikipedia policy. Tiggerjay 07:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Tiger, I think Jesus Christ is pretty cool. But the fact that he did ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong is disturbing. Again if Ghandi has a criticism and controversy section then don't you think Jesus Christ should as well? Again, I'm too lazy to add this in but you guys should Zephead999 07:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Back to the old routine, are you, Zabrak? Dancter 07:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Define criticism. Oh, and if you're too lazy, we're too lazy. =David(talk)(contribs) 09:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
What or who is Ghandi?. --SkyWalker 08:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Gandhi. Zephead999 spelled it incorrectly. =David(talk)(contribs) 09:10, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The article already specifies the major criticisms of Jesus: according to Christians, the belief that Jewish leaders criticized him as a blasphemer, and according to historians, that Roman officials criticized him for sedition. As far as the historical sources concerning Jesus, that is pretty much all we have. It is no surprise that there are more criticisms of Gandhi because he lived recently and the historical record of his life is much larger than that of Jesus. Many historians would also claim that Gandhi was a much more well-known and controversial figure during his life than Jesus. In my experience, most people who say they have criticisms of Jesus really have criticisms of the Christian account of Jesus - in short, what they are really critical of is Christianity, or some form of Christianity they are familiar with, and not Jesus, whom they never personally knew. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Try criticism of Christianity and I think you will find what you are thinking of. As Slrubenstein says, this is a figure from history and therefore critical comments referenced from authors through the ages are interwoven in the text. I personally don't like separate sections and I know others don't as it can make a complex and interesting subject reduce to "for or against" type arguments. Sophia 12:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)]

yeah Sopiha I agree with you 100%. That's what I'm saying, we should make a seperate thing talking about the negative things Jesus has done, or what people have THOUGHT he has done if Ghandi/Gandhi, however you spell it does. Zephead999 21:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Why? That makes no sense whatsoever. Gandhi is a contemporary figure; we have all kinds of information available on him. On Jesus there's really only the New Testament. The most objectionable things he was said to have done are portrayed in various apocryphal gospels the neither modern scholarship nor Christian tradition think are at all valid.
You actually don't agree with Sophia at all. She was saying we shouldn't have a separate section. I agree with her. Articles become tiresome both to edit and read when they're made to look like debating society transcripts.
So-- are you being consistent here, or do you just have something against Christianity? If you're consistent, you'd be over at Gautama Buddha saying the same thing about him. But you're not, are you?
But by all means, go straight to Jimbo right now if you like. Why wait? I'm sure he'll be just as happy to hear from you now as he would be in two months, and just as likely to take the action you want. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


"You actually don't agree with Sophia at all. She was saying we shouldn't have a separate section. I agree with her. Articles become tiresome both to edit and read when they're made to look like debating society transcripts. "

Actually I do agree with Sophia. There should be no seperate articles on that kind of garbage, that's why if there is one on Ghandi there should be one on Jesus Christ.

By the way I have nothing against Christianity, and i don't even know whot he hell Ghandi is. I'm a white teen from Oregon and I am highly uneducated on this type of stuff. I'd assume Ghandi for the most part would be a cool guy and if he did anything bad, it would be presumably small so it should not have it's own section, do you know what I mean? Same thing with Jesus Christ, now untill Ghandi's critcism gets removed, or one gets added on Jesus Chrsit i'll make this article a leaving HELL! Zephead999 00:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

If you think you agree with Sophia, then you don't understand what she's saying. "Section" means a subdivision of this article. She said nothing one way or the other about separate articles.
But what garbage? If it's verifiable from reliable sources, then it belongs in the article. That we have such sources about Gandhi and not Jesus is either because 1) Gandhi did such things and Jesus didn't; or 2) Gandhi is a well-documented person from recent history, while Jesus was around 2,000 years ago and is mentioned in only a limited number of sources, nearly all of which were written by his followers.
Don't make assumptions. Be informed. Do the research. Ignorance is nothing to brag about. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
You do of course realize, should you choose to be purposefully disruptive, administrators will likely block you in short order with little remorse, and we'll probably forget you even existed in a few short weeks afterwards? Besides, that Nietzsche thing is in the other views section already, what more do you want? Homestarmy 00:43, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Sadly, Iam not getting any idea out of this. He would call Jimbo Wales to delete this article. Hmm Yea right. Comparing Jesus Christ with Gandhi is not a good idea. --SkyWalker 11:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

BC/AD AND BCE/CE Dating?

What's with the use of both systems of dating?

Once it became apparent that trying to choose either system would incur the edit-war-tastic wrath of the side that preferred the other system, this became the status quo. Though someone didn't like it in the FA nom... Homestarmy 02:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh no not this one again - but thanks for asking on the talk page and not just changing them. Sophia 10:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Wish you all the best for finding the right dates :) --SkyWalker 11:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Critical secular?

I'm a little concerned about the addition of "critical secular", and I've always felt a little uneasy with the sentence Christian scholars generally believe the gospel accounts to be historically accurate; critical secular scholars, on the other hand, debate the extent of their historicity. Why do we need two modifiers, critical and secular? Are there secular scholars who unquestionably accept the gospel accounts? are there critical scholars who unquestionably accept the gospel accounts? and only when we combine the critical and the secular do we get the scholars who start to question the accounts? and also, while we are on this topic, there are many scholars who are christian who question the bible account, from Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier, to Marcus Borg and even Robert M. Price. I think its rare to have Christian scholars who believe the accounts to be historically accurate (i.e. biblical literalism). This may be going out on a limb, but maybe we could phrase it "Christian apologists generally believe the gospel accounts to be historically accurate, while critical scholars debate the extent of their historicity." My only concern is connotations associated with the technical terms, hence the wikilinks.-Andrew c [talk] 14:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I like your version, although "apologists" has a weird ring. However, this is certainly more correct than the old version. Few Christian scholars (by common definition of "Christian") are literalists. However, many literalists will not accept anything else as Christian, so expect some resistance.... --Stephan Schulz 15:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I think that a scholar is simply a scholar; to what s/he applies critical thought is siimply a matter of expertise in a professional sense. Underlying this this type of terminology is the foundational concept that only those scholar who are critical use logical thought. Conversely, I would also assume that people of faith will assume that a "secular" scholar is an individual overcome by the puny thoughts of man or the world. Though I understand the ease of using terminology as Christian scholar or critical, an secular scholar, it comes with a lot of baggage. There are scholars who are people of faith and others who are not. Does this make sense? --Storm Rider (talk) 15:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The issue is not simply that some scholars are of faith and others are not. Some scholars who are men and women of faith are and do bracket their personal faith/theological convictions when studying texts such as the Bible historically or as literature - in these cases, the scholars may not be secular, but their scholarship is as good and makes the same assumptions as good scholarship by well-ttrained secular scholars. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Going with Strunk and White, what about simply going with "Scholars debate the historicity of the gospels"? "On the other hand" suggest a conflict that is not really there. --Stephan Schulz 16:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I concur with the above comments. The word "Christian" was inserted because, admittedly, those scholars who hold the New Testament canon to be reliable also tend to be Christian (no big surprises here -- if one holds the NT accounts to be true, then it is not unreasonable that one would also believe in the Divinity of Christ). However, that is not to undercut the fact that they are still scholars who rely on good scholarship, independent of whatever faith they might have. I would add to Stephan's pared-down version to read
"Scholars debate the historicity of the gospels. While some believe that they are historically reliable, others debate the extent of their historicity." LotR 16:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I strongly support that language; it is completely neutral, IMO. --Storm Rider (talk) 23:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a little too weasely with "some.." and "others.." The previous versions tried to be more specific about what camps held what views, although there has been issues with trying to narrow it down. -Andrew c [talk] 00:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[note, message moved up to: Talk:Jesus#New proposal from Afaprof01] -Andrew c [talk] 04:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Andrew, not sure what you mean by "message moved up" -- this thread is discussing another line of text distinct from the one discussed in Talk:Jesus#New proposal from Afaprof01.
I am well aware of the whole "some say this, others say that" weasel word thing. Not sure how else to go about saying it, though, if one cannot say something like "Christian" versus "secular" or "critical" (and to be clear, I did not think that was an optimal way of saying it, either). And merely saying "Scholars debate the historicity of the gospels." without clarification is not informative enough. An analogy would be, say, on the Dinosaur page merely "Scientists debate the cause of extinction of the dinosaurs." ...well yes, and??? LotR 14:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

the chronololy of the life of jesus

removed copy and paste job of http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08377a.htm by210.213.72.155 (talk · contribs) -Andrew c [talk] 04:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this the Catholic Encyclopedia? Homestarmy 04:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
It says so. So yes it is is Catholic Encyclopedia. --SkyWalker 10:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, so why was it removed? Per Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia topics, text from the Catholic Encyclopedia is in the public domain although the text is rarely usable "as is". Better to fix it than to remove it unless it is hopelessly inappropriate. --Richard 04:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Talk pages are for discussing article content, not for copying and pasting large blocks of public domain text. This talk page is rather long as is, and it can be hard to keep track of past discussions (which are still active) while other discussions are going on below them. The anonymous user simply copy and pasted the CE text, with no comment. They didn't say "Hey, I found the following public domain text, maybe we should consider using it." We have no idea why the user placed the text here on the talk page. However, because it did add 32% to the article size, and the exact same text is easily accessible through the link I provided, I thought my move was appropriate. If not, I'm sorry. We can restore the copy and paste text if you like, but perhaps we should make a talk subpage for it? maybe Talk:Jesus/Catholic Encyclopedia-Andrew c [talk] 14:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Article Name

Shouldn't the article be titled Jesus Christ? -- The Serene Silver Star 17:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe. Jesus Christ currently redirects to Jesus. I personally think it should be the other way around. But since he is also refered to as Jesus of Nazereth, you could make a point that the simplest name should be used. 12.214.89.153 22:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
"Jesus Christ" as the article title would not really conform to Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View Policy as Christ (or Messiah) is a religious title that is most readily identifiable with Christianity and has a token position in Islam. אמר Steve Caruso 22:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Then Nazereth will have to do. Jesus just doesn't feel cmplete. -- Vitus Werdegast 04:27, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This article isn't only about "Jesus Christ" you will see sections on the historical Jesus, Jewish views on Jesus and other views that do not use the title "Christ". Looking through the interwiki links does help because there are multiple instances of "Jesus", "Jesus Christ", and "Jesus of Nazareth". The latter two redirect here. Unless there is a serious concern that the Jesus (disambiguation) should actually be located at Jesus, I think leaving the article here is just fine. The only need to expand the title is for disambiguation purposes, which we are currently dealing with via the disambig header at the top of the article.-Andrew c [talk] 04:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I think the current article name is fully in agreement with WP:COMMONNAME. Both "Jesus Christ" and "Jesus of Nazareth" are much less likely to be used than just plain Jesus, and I'm ready to bet peanuts against macadamias that when the average user enters "Jesus" in the search box, he or she expects to arrive at this article (although he may be surprised by some of the contents ;-).--Stephan Schulz 09:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

include how Jesus Christ had a dad. It's humanly impossible for a woman to reproduce asexually.

it's regarded as a "miracle" to his followers. but it's also a "folklore" to smart, rationale people. 71.182.92.118 03:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

He had a dad. Some fella named God. --Ezeu 04:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
The man said "humanly impossible". This may be true. He didn't say anything about it being impossible for God. --Richard 04:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there a point to this with respect to the article, or are you just complaining? TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

it's important to recognize that from a completely scientific viewpoint we can never say anything is "impossible". Rather, we may only say having observed such and such a circumstance for so many times we may tentatively conclude it is highly unlikely such an event may occur. Science is concerned only with observable facts and what has been observed. 70.156.11.235 19:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC) also, i must caution that liberalism (not in the political sense) remains liberal so long as it forgos fundamental declarations itself. for example, democracy is a liberal ideal but it is not liberal to say something like "democracy is best always right." or science has all the answers.70.156.11.235 19:51, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Clean Up

Could someone clean up the notes at the bottom of the Jesus Page as it is all messed up

Especially that notes look so ugly. I agree it need an urgent cleanup.Ή --SkyWalker 09:52, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
There was an unclosed ref tag. Homestarmy 17:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Good job :) --SkyWalker 11:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The Pope the scholar

I think it is highly misleading to say "while other scholars hold the historical and theological Jesus to be one and the same" and then cite a 2007 book by the Pope to support this statement. The Pope's view, being the head of the largest Christian denomination, clearly belongs in the "Religious perspectives/Christian views" section. While I know that there is a grey area between when scholarship stop and religion starts, most scholars acknowledge that historical methodology cannot plausibly reconstruct the supernatural events in the Gospels. That is not to say that they didn't happen, only that a scholarly, objective methodology can only go so far in those matters. When the Pope says the historical Jesus and his theological Jesus is one in the same, is he making a theological statement of faith? or is he stating an objective conclusion from scholarly methodology? -Andrew c [talk] 00:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Andrew, Benedict XVI argues in his book that positing scholarship and religion as somehow mutually exclusive, or two extremes with a grey area in between, is not accurate (I don't have the book handy to cite page #'s, sorry). In my opinion, his book also demonstrates the feasibility of his thesis -- Biblical scholars I know respect Benedict not only for his office, but for his scholarship. He incorporates the same historical-critical methodologies employed by "most scholars." Benedict XVI criticizes (in a scholarly, not polemical, way) the arguments of key figures among those you call "most scholars" -- those who methodologically posit the disjunction between faith and history such as Bultmann and Loisy. If you'd like other examples of scholars who share Benedict XVI's view of this matter, I could list a few: Gregory Vall, William Murphy, Francis Martin, Matthew Lamb, Matthew Levering, Michael Dauphinais, Iain W. Provan, V. Philips Long, Tremper Longman, and Richard B. Hays. These are the ones I know off the top of my head, and include Catholics and Protestants, priests and laymen. Since there is a healthy scholarly debate regarding the appropriate methodology to use in the scholarly study of the Bible, I find it appropriate and not misleading, as you say, to point out that such a debate exists. Not to mention it would leave the article biased and incomplete. The.helping.people.tick 01:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Isn't Benedict a scholarly-type person in his own right, I was under the impression he had gotten some qualifications in theology or something before becoming pope, and since the sentence also concerns theology rather than just history, the.helping.people.tick's citation seems appropriate... Homestarmy 04:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Benedict (still as Ratzinger) is a formidable Catholic scholar and held positions as professor of theology at 4 different (secular) universities. --Stephan Schulz 11:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
There are two issues here: first, even scholars do not always write scholarly works. Second, there are different types of scholarship. I believe theologians are scholars. I think critical historians and literary critics are also scholars. The assumptions and interests driving these scholars are different. This is not just a matter of secular versus religions, by the way - historians and jurists in the US or UK are all scholars and sometimes write on the same issues but in very different ways. Sociologists and historians of science, and biologists and physicists, are all scholars but often provide conflicting accounts of science. We should avoid using the word "scholar" unmodified. Wherever we use it, we should be clear as to what kind of scholar. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Andrew c, regarding your recent change which now reads, "Some scholars draw a distinction between Jesus as reconstructed through historical methods and Jesus as understood through a theological point of view, while other scholars, along with many religious adherents, hold that a Religious perspectives on Jesus|theological Jesus represents a historical figure," it seems that there is an implied disjunct between scholars and religious adherents, as if there were no religious adherents who are scholars. In fact, many scholars are religious adherents, which does not make them any less scholarly. This seems to violate NPOV. The.helping.people.tick 20:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Good catch. We can strike the "along with many religious adherents" part for now. I just thought it was obvious that the Jesus depicted in the Qur'an is believed to be an actual historical figure by most Muslims, as is the Jesus depicted in the NT gospels to Christians, and the Jesus depicted in the Gospel of the Ebionites to the Ebionites, etc. In addition to the scholars who hold the view, there are many lay people who may share the view as well, but not based on scholarship, per se. Maybe there is a more elegant way to convey this. I honestly did not intend to create a dichotomy between "other scholars" and "religious adherents", because those "other scholars" are going to be "religious adherents" .-Andrew c [talk] 20:21, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

AD/CE is BOLLOCKS!

What PC drivel! Wikipedia isn't a place for political grandstanding. The dates should be BC and AD only! --Nordic Crusader 07:41, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Political correctness is powerful, Nordic. It can even seep into neutral information areas like Wikipedia. Sad, but true142.176.46.3 19:25, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Remember that article talk pages are provided to coordinate the article's improvement only, and are not for engaging in discussion of off-topic matters not related to the main article. User talk pages are more appropriate for non-article-related discussion topics. Please do not use this page as a discussion forum for off-topic matters. See talk page guidelines.

Please note, Wikipedia is not a soap box Slrubenstein | Talk 10:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

BCE and CE stand for Before the Common Era and Common Era. They mean the same as BC and AD but are neutral in regards to religion. I think that is in keeping with the NPOV policy. Jstanierm 12:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Both are acceptable notations. --Storm Rider (talk) 17:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
BCE and CE are far from neutral regarding religion - by renaming the Christian calendar as "common", they are making Christianity out to be commonly believed. This is pure evil from the politically correct perspective. If you use BC and AD you are simply marking that you are using the Christian calendar, which is far more reasonable. 22:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Don't be silly. 'Common' means that the era-notation is commonly used (i.e is common to all cultures - international). Anyway, the use of this convention is not going to change, so don't bother to bruise your typing fingers. Paul B 22:18, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, it isn't commonly used - plenty of countries use other calendars. Secondly, I heard this line of reasoning on one of the Islamic blogs (where CE was presented as some kind of Jewish plot!) a few years ago - so its a failure there if you're really trying to be all sensitive and politically correct by using it. Thirdly, its a bit rich to argue that the academic convention that has been in place for no more than a couple of years "isn't going to change" ... academics are as changeable as the wind, and will probably change to some other abbreviation or calendar when they realise that CE is even worse than AD. 75.60.181.84 22:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
This is the wrong place for this discussion. Try Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). --John 22:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
I meant it was not going to change on this page. If Islamist blogs alleging Jewish plots are to be accepted as evidence we may as well give up on NPOV now. however, it's an odd sort of Jewish plot that that is "making Christianity out to be commonly believed". Paul B 23:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The claim that CE/BCE is an academic convention that has been in place for only a couple of years is either a lie, or something soneone just made up (i.e. BS) - the pracice originated well over a hundred years ago. In any event, which part of "Wikipedia is not a soap box" do you (anonymous user, not PB or John) not understand? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:29, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Buddhist views section

This text was recently added to the Buddhist views section:

“ In the book 'The Lost Years of Jesus' the author, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, claims that scrolls were found by Nicolas Notovitch in Monasteries in Tibet which spoke of the teachings of a Saint Isa, note that Isa is also the name of Jesus in Islam. The author is speculating that Jesus has traveled extensively through India and other countries in the years that are not covered in the Bible. ”

I don't find that Notovitch was a Buddhist, nor that his views are representative of Buddhist views. It seems that his interpretation of a text he found in Tibet, and Prophet's interpretation are that Jesus traveled in India, etc. Is this material appropriate for the section it is in? Or is it appropriate for inclusion in the article? — ERcheck (talk) 17:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Judging by the Elizabeth Clare Prophet article, she might represent some New Age views, but not Buddhism. Paul B 18:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Response: Jesus or in this case Saint Isa was found to be studying AND teaching at Buddhist monasteries according to the book. So if not in Buddhism than where? Maybe under controversy, travels, historicity?

Nowhere. It's not a reliable source. Paul B 00:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think that one person's views, especially not one person's views represented in only one of their books, is really important enough for any of these other views sections. There's just no case for amazingly special notability that I see. Homestarmy 01:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Muslim view

in the muslim view of jesus... u should add that they belive that the injl was messed with which made the bible

What's an injl? The Islamic view isn't a good source for the historical Jesus because the Qu'ran was written about 600 years after he lived. It would be like using the movie Braveheart as a historical source on the life of William Wallace. Jstanierm 13:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Injil means a gospel - or divinely inspired text. Follow the links. The section represents Muslim views. Obviously a non-Muslim historian would consider the Quran to be worthless as evidence about the historical Jesus, but Muslims believe it to be divinely inspired. That's why it's in the section on Muslim views! Paul B 15:07, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I see there's a muslim views section. It's interesting that Muslims don't believe Jesus was actually crucified but Simon Cyrene was instead. This is the same as several heretical beliefs held by groups within the Christian community in the early first centuries. I wonder if a comparison should be made? Jstanierm 15:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, non-Muslim historians put these ideas in the context of such gnostic sects of the time, but I don't think there's space here to discuss the details; that should go on the Islamic view of Jesus page. Paul B 15:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)