Talk:Sibylline oracles

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[edit] Which Justin?

This article reads: "The so-called Sibylline oracles were referred to by the early Church fathers: Justin,..."

The link to Justin is to a disambig page, however. Is the Justin who is being referred to here Saint Justin Martyr ?Kevyn 21:43, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My laziness. Justin Martyr of course. I've disambiguated and added a good external link, etc. Should the viewpoint of the Church Fathers to these bogue oracles be expanded? Wetman 22:49, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

LOL, I'm not the one to ask. I've been working on editing disambig pages that have links to them that they shouldn't, which was how I came across this page, from Justin. Thanks for fixing the link, though! Kevyn 23:09, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] POV

In order to preserve the current genuinely Neutral rather than Christianist POV, I have added the following italicised disclaimer to the characterization of prophecy, as it affects texts:

"Leaving aside any issues connected with prophecy in Holy Scripture, these oracles are like prophecies in general: they either purport to predict events which were already either history or legend at the time of the actual composition, which was given a spurious early dating, or else they are vague all-purpose predictions, especially of woe in the offing for various cities and countries such as Rome and Assyria."

Christianist interpretations of phrases in the OT as "prophetic"— or similar issues— should not compromise this entry. --Wetman 12:00, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't claim to be an expert on this subject, but all this talk about 'pretend prophesies' strikes me as major POV. What do you guys think?

You're right. I've deleted 'pretended'.

Rather than see eliminated the very word that is the crux of the most basic critical understanding of these texts in their historical context, I have substituted for "pretended" an explanatory phrase— 'utterances claimed as prophecies'— which is the meaning of pretended. Now the sentence is comprehensible even to the simplest understanding. --Wetman 18:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)