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:“The dictionary definition of 'historicity” is 'historical quality or authenticity based on fact.' Historicity is a quality of a discourse perhaps, or even of an opinion. The most general concept would be something like this: the historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fearofreprisal/historicity#cite_note-Harre95-1] |
:“The dictionary definition of 'historicity” is 'historical quality or authenticity based on fact.' Historicity is a quality of a discourse perhaps, or even of an opinion. The most general concept would be something like this: the historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fearofreprisal/historicity#cite_note-Harre95-1] |
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:Though the term “historicity” is often used by religious scholars, it has no special religious or theological meaning. The careful use of the term by the best known religious scholars suggests that they intend its meaning not be |
:Though the term “historicity” is often used by religious scholars, it has no special religious or theological meaning. The careful use of the term by the best known religious scholars suggests that they intend its meaning not be butted with ideological subtext. When a scholar – secular or religious - speaks of historicity, they mean “what actually happened.” And when they speak of the [[historicity of Jesus]] they mean “what actually happened with Jesus” (or, perhaps more precisely, “the factual status of claims that have been made about Jesus.”) |
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:The term “historicity of Jesus” needs no disambiguation, because it means just one thing. (At least, to scholars.) It should be self-evident that the topic (and scope) of the [[Historicity of Jesus]] article should focus on historicity – i.e., “what actually happened.” Yet WP editors have been loading the article with a strange synthesis of [[historical Jesus]] and [[Christ myth theory]] – topics that by their very definition are focused on speculation more than actuality. (See, for example, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fearofreprisal/historicity#cite_note-Herzog6-7].) |
:The term “historicity of Jesus” needs no disambiguation, because it means just one thing. (At least, to scholars.) It should be self-evident that the topic (and scope) of the [[Historicity of Jesus]] article should focus on historicity – i.e., “what actually happened.” Yet WP editors have been loading the article with a strange synthesis of [[historical Jesus]] and [[Christ myth theory]] – topics that by their very definition are focused on speculation more than actuality. (See, for example, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fearofreprisal/historicity#cite_note-Herzog6-7].) |
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A: This article discusses the very basic issue of "existence of Jesus as a historical figure", not what he did and taught. On the other hand, the Historical Jesus article discusses the various aspects of what can be gathered about the activities of Jesus. In basic terms this article answers the question: "Did Jesus walk the streets of Jerusalem?" without addressing any details about what he said, did or taught as he walked the streets. The other article addresses broader questions such as "Was Jesus seen as an apocalyptic prophet by the people of his time?" which are beyond the scope of this article.
A: The two separate aspects of historicity vs historical portraits require different lines of reasoning. Historicity is largely a yes/no question: "Did he exist and walk?" while historical portraits are far more involved and are based on "historically probable events" with different scholars having different levels of confidence in various aspects of what can be known about Jesus. Moreover WP:Length has specific length limits (as in WP:SIZERULE) and there is enough distinct material in each article that combining them would create too large an article that would be too hard to read and follow. And in any case the articles have different academic focuses and while there is widespread agreement on existence (discussed in this article), that does not extend to the portraits constructed in the other article and these issues are logically distinct.
A: Yes:
A: The internet includes some such lists, and they have been discussed on the talk page, the list in the box below is copied from the talk page discussion:
The list came from a non-WP:RS website and once it was analyzed it became clear that: Most of the authors on the list were not scholars in the field, and included an attorney, an accountant, a land surveyor, a film-maker, as well as a number of amateurs whose actual profession was less than clear, whose books were self-published and failed the WP:RS requirements. Some of the books on the list did not even deny the existence of Jesus, e.g. Burton Mack (who is a scholar) holds that Jesus existed but his death was not due to his challenge to Jewish authority, etc. Finkelstein and Silberman's work is about the Old Testament and not really related to Jesus. The analysis of the list thus shed light on the scarcity of scholars who deny the existence of Jesus.
A: The article Christ myth theory discusses that issue in much more detail because it is more relevant to the denial existence issues. As stated there, and briefly in this article:
Specific issues regarding this topic are discussed at more length in that article.
A: This has been discussed on the talk page of this article, as well as a number of other talk article pages. There are 2 aspects to this:
Moreover, Wikipedia policies do not prohibit Jewish scholars as sources on the history of Judaism, Buddhist scholars as sources on Buddhism, or Muslim scholars as sources on the history of Islam provided they are respected scholars whose works meet the general WP:RS requirements in terms of publisher reputation, etc.
A: In fact the formal Wikipedia guidelines require us not to do our own survey. The Wikipedia guideline WP:RS/AC specifically states: "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." Given that the guideline then states: "statement in Wikipedia that academic consensus exists on a topic must be sourced rather than being based on the opinion or assessment of editors." we should not rely on our own surveys but quote a scholar who states what the "academic consensus" may be. Moreover, in this case, after much discussion, no reliable source has yet been presented that presents a differing statement of the academic consensus, and opposing scholars such as Robert Price acknowledge that their views are not the mainstream.
A: The difference is "historically certain" versus "historically probable" and "historically plausible". There are a number of subtle issues and this is a somewhat complicated topic, although it may seem simple at first:
As the article states Amy-Jill Levine summarized the situation by stating: "Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God's will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in parables, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate." In that statement Levine chose her words very carefully. If she had said "disciples" instead of followers there would have been serious objections from other scholars, if she had said "called" instead of "gathered", there would have also been objections in that some scholars hold that Jesus preached equally to all, never imposed a hierarchy among his followers, etc. Scholars have very specific positions and the strength of the consensus among them can vary by changing just one word, e.g. follower to disciple or apostle, etc.
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Talk:Historicity of Jesus |
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RfC?
I indicated 2 weeks ago that I thought it reasonable to start an RfC, perhaps specifically dealing with (1) the scope and title of this article, (2) whether a separate article dealing with Fear's preferred definition seems to have the required notability based on the evidence so far provided, and (3) to determine, roughly, how much WEIGHT to give that topic here. Opinions? John Carter (talk) 20:55, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
- What is my preferred definition? Please do tell me, I'm interested to know. Fearofreprisal (talk) 21:21, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
- if you were really interested in helping the article along, you would state your preferred definition openly, and allow it to be debated. The fact that you continue to demand changes, without explaining what changes you wish to see, is a cause for some concern. Why don't you state you preferred definition for the record? Wdford (talk) 19:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
- Look here [1], where I say:
Wdford -- Since this section is about changes to the scope of the article, and you've actually proposed a changed scope - unrelated to the topic of the article - I'll also propose a changed scope:
The scope of the Historicity of Jesus article should be the Historicity of Jesus.
I'm interested in hearing comments in favor of or opposed to this. Fearofreprisal (talk) 22:46, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- Notice that I originally addressed that directly to you, and even put it in a quotation box, to avoid misunderstanding? Is that "open" enough?
- Now, ask John Carter what he thinks my preferred definition (of the scope) is. I think you'll find it hilarious.[2]
- As for "explaining what changes [I] wish to see": Really? Do you need me to provide diffs, including your responses to what I wrote?
- Fearofreprisal (talk) 22:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
- I believe the above comment seems to be based upon one individual's interpretation of the stated scope of the article based on his view of the meaning of the title. As others have already seen, the Anchor Bible Dictionary in its subsection which runs to roughly two pages of transcribed text uses the word "Historicity" in its title but says nothing about the question of academic bias in the study of Jesus. Also, as was indicated elsewhere the recent Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus" whose articles are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Jesus work group/Encyclopedic articles is specifically cataloged by the Library of Congress classification in "Historicity", but does not mention the issue of academic bias in the field to any degree I could see. I believe the repeated refusal to apparently even acknowledge that one individual's opinion of what the title means is not necessarily supported by outside academic sources is maybe the most "hilarious" thing taking place here. John Carter (talk) 15:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- This was not a good faith suggestion for improving the article, this was the contribution of a troll. PS: I was not actually proposing a change of scope, that accusation was just more of your trolling, which you appeared to have based on the assumption that a dictionary is an unreliable source of definitions. Do you have an actual point to make? Wdford (talk) 00:00, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
- Look here [1], where I say:
- Circular. Not helpful. Here is a reminder of what scope is all about. Evensteven (talk) 00:07, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
- Wdford - Suggesting that the scope of the article is (or should be) "historicity of Jesus" *is* a good faith suggestion for improving the article. Again, do you need diffs of where I've talked about this?
- As for you not proposing a change of scope, let me quote you:
The question thus is: should we rename this article Scholarly opinions on the historicity of Jesus and narrow the scope, or should we keep it as is? The rules say that unless we have a consensus to change the scope, the scope of the article remains as is.Wdford (talk) 16:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- Please take your "trolling" accusations to my talk page. They're really not appropriate here. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
- More trolling. I clearly stated that the scope of the article should remain as is described in the opening sentence, unless a consensus emerges to change it. The opening sentence clearly describes the scope as being the "Historicity of Jesus." You made no effort to offer an improvement, you merely disputed the reliability of dictionaries. Wdford (talk) 00:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
- Prejudicial mistatements of the statements of others for the purposes of indulging in straw man arguments is a serious violation of decorum and continued indulgence in such behavior can and often is looked down on at ANI or ArbCom. John Carter (talk) 15:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- More trolling. I clearly stated that the scope of the article should remain as is described in the opening sentence, unless a consensus emerges to change it. The opening sentence clearly describes the scope as being the "Historicity of Jesus." You made no effort to offer an improvement, you merely disputed the reliability of dictionaries. Wdford (talk) 00:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
- Circular. Not helpful. Here is a reminder of what scope is all about. Evensteven (talk) 00:07, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Ridiculous tag? Not
@Slawekb: In your edit comment [3], you wrote Widely accepted historical events: removed ridiculous tag. A quotation was given to verify what this source says. "Not in citation given" refers to... that quotation?
Possibly you should have checked the source, as I did? The article contains a direct and intentional WP:POV misquotation of the source. Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
- If you had the exact quotation at your disposal, then I am puzzled to say the least why you would have added a {{verification failed}} tag instead of just correcting the quotation in the first place. Surely there is simply no excuse for that. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:59, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
- Sławomir: There are a couple of reasons: First, I've found that my edits get reverted a lot by people who never contribute a thing to this article. So, I thought it was better if someone else did the edit, rather than starting an edit war. Second, I was looking at a bunch of citations, and thought it better to just tag 'em all, and sort them out later.
- Rbreen: As for citation 55 -- I don't have a problem with the quote per se (other than the use of "and" instead of "or"), but footnote 35 in the source amends the quote, using the qualifier "known to me." There's a big difference between a scholar saying certain claims have never existed, versus saying he doesn't know of any such claims. I reverted the tag (just the tag, not the addition you made to the cite), until someone can figure out how to incorporate this qualifying language in a way that won't get kneejerk reverted.
- By the way, early Christians had a tendency to suppress or interpolate any writings which might not support Jesus' historicity, so I'd say that the claim "In antiquity, the existence of Jesus was never denied by those who opposed Christianity" is extreme, and fundamentally unprovable. It might be made more reasonable to change the article text to something like: "Van Voorst has stated that he knows of no cases in antiquity where pagans and Jews who opposed Christianity denied or even questioned Jesus' historicity." Fearofreprisal (talk) 22:30, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Historian of ancient history Robin Lane Fox states "Jesus was born in Galilee".[5][not in citation given] Did you actually read this and find it wasn't in the citatino given? Because she does say it here link
It's unclear whether she's talking about a historical or theological context. Well, it seems clear that she's talking in a thological context, because saying "Jesus was born in Galilee" is something only a Christian would say. Is your problem with the citation that she means it in the sense of "according to Christian mythology, Jesus was born in Galilee". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 01:12, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- Read the relevant edit comment [4]
Author refutes this statement at end of next paragraph. Calls it "historical impossibility."
. Fearofreprisal (talk) 05:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
That's embarrassing for the Christian apologists, isn't it? An outright lie. Leave it up for all to see the lengths they will go to to evangelize Jesus. And they say Richard Carrier must be biased because he's not a Christian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.220 (talk) 23:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
- The source says that the story of the first Christmas is a historical impossibility, taken together with the purported worldwide census. And it says that the Crucifixion was a historical fact. Well, you can't crucify a man who has not ever been born! Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:20, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, that is what the source says. And what did the edit say the source said? Was that you who made that edit? Can you find out who it was? Because they don't belong anywhere near Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.206 (talk) 17:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Richard Carrier quote for article
With all of the discussion about what is, and isn't historicity, and the arguments coming from Christians that theologians are historians, and their bias is a non-issue, I was shocked to see above one user comment something along the lines of Richard Carrier cannot be included, because he is bias and anti-Christian. He has just published a new book, and it is peer reviewed and published by an academic press, so that should be the end of that. He is a PhD in ancient history, and he is not a Christian. This is the perfect source for unbiased historical analysis, because he doesn't fear that his soul will be burned for eternity if he uncovers the facts.
Could one of the more experienced editors do something with this paragraph from his new book, and add it to the article?:
“In my estimation the odds Jesus existed are less than 1 in 12,000. Which to a historian is for all practical purposes a probability of zero For comparison, your lifetime probability of being struck by lighting is around 1 in 10,000. That Jesus existed is even less likely than that. Consequently, I am reasonably certain there was no historical Jesus… When I entertain the most generous estimates possible, I find I cannot by any stretch of the imagination the probability Jesus existed is better than 1 in 3.” p. 600
Carrier, R. (2014). On the historicity of Jesus: Why we might have reason for doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.
I've got the book, so if anyone wants me expand on it, just ask your questions and I'll find quotes from the book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.195 (talk) 04:11, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
- Richard Carrier is certainly an interesting source, but he holds a minority position, maybe even a minority of one, and that needs to be stated. While it is true he doesn't need to fear for his eternal soul if it's true there was no historical Jesus, he is also a well-known self-employed new atheist activist and speaker, which might also be a source of bias. I think that like all other people we cite, we should add a brief description of his credentials and any potential sources of bias. Martijn Meijering (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Martin, the book is published by an academic press and is peer reviewed, bud. I don't get what your point is, are you saying it can't be included because it's not the position held by most theologians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 23:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
- Certainly not, I'm merely pointing out we cannot cite his opinions in Wikipedia voice. By all mean do quote him, but as an attributed quote and with proper explanation of his credentials and potential biases. Simply saying he has a PhD in ancient history (I think) and is a self-employed atheist activist and speaker would be enough as far as I'm concerned. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
So when it's an atheist we point it out, but when it's a Christian: irrelevant? Do all the other authors who are confirmed Christians, say so? How is atheism a "bias"? You'd want people who are detached from the faith. Are Buddhists "bias" as well? Someone can add the information if they want, I don't have much faith in this article due to reverts by all of the apologists, and all these double standards for Christians vs. non Christians. I don't get why non-Christians are "biased". Almost all of the people saying Jesus is a real person are Christians. Atheism means you don't believe in magic, it doesn't mean you can't understand how history works. Christianity means you believe in magic, supernatural stuff, and by default that Jesus existed in real life. Wow, real objective. I'm done. I've done all I can, and I'll leave it to you editors to do the right thing. Good luck. This article is garbage and so are all the articles about Jesus and anything to do with Christianity on Wikipedia. That's because people don't understand that Christians aren't able to write about this stuff without letting their "faith" get in the way, and people like you don't understand what bias is, and the difference between a scientific approach and a faith based approach. You'll NEVER see a Christian "historian" saying Jesus didn't exist. But you may see a buddhist or atheist, or Hindu or other saying that. Why is that, bud? Doesn't that make you question your views on "bias"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 00:20, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- No, we should do the same thing for Christians and everyone else, which is why I said "all people we cite" above. Also: kindly consider WP:CIVIL, I don't appreciate your calling me 'bud'. It looks as if you came here to pick a fight, which isn't very constructive. Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Dubious paragraph
Please remove the following paragraph:Since the 18th century a number of quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, and historical critical methods for studying the historicity of Jesus have been developed. Unlike for some figures in ancient history, the available sources are all documentary. In conjunction with Biblical sources such as the Pauline Letters and the Synoptic Gospels, three passages in non-Christian works have been used to support the historicity of Jesus. These are two passages in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, and one from the Roman historian Tacitus. Although the authenticity of all three passages has been disputed to varying degrees, most biblical scholars believe that all three are at least partially authentic.
It is not sourced, and it is vague. First off, who are the "most biblical scholars" and what parts do they believe are/aren't authentic? This paragraph violates so many wikipedia policies it is not even funny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.121.225.190 (talk) 04:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Josephus testimonium flavium
Guys, it's time update the information about this Christian interpolation in the work of Josephus. Here is the scholarship on the item:
"Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to "Christ" in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of Jesus Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus." More Info: vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 489-514 Journal Name: Journal of Early Christian Studies
Sources: Journal of Early Christian Studies vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 489-514 http://www.academia.edu/2329601/Origen_Eusebius_and_the_Accidental_Interpolation_in_Josephus_Jewish_Antiquities_20.200 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2946
As you can see there is no mention of an "authentic nucleus". It was talking about a totally different Jesus. 1 in 26 people in that time and place were named Jesus, so this should not come as a surprise. The citation needs to be included to balance the vague, misleading language currently in the article which states " Testimonium Flavianum, is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or forgery"
Could one of the more experienced editors include the above mentioned citation from Richard Carrier's published work? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 23:45, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
- Probably need to clean up the Josephus_on_Jesus article first. Then the Sources for the historicity of Jesus article. After that, this article can be dealt with. Fearofreprisal (talk) 04:58, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Geoffrey Blainey
Hey guys, I think citations from Geoffrey Blainey ought to come with the disclaimer: *Christian
Apparently, he believes in magic, and believes that the resurrection of the dead body of a man actually happened. He certainly can't be trusted about anything he says with regards to historicity of Jesus. Peruse these two stories about him with regards to his belief on the resurrection of a dead body.
"Blainey applies the test of an empirical historian before concluding that, by the standards of the first century AD, the voluminous accounts of Jesus' life count as reasonable documentary evidence. Jesus did exist. He hedges his bets on the resurrection, giving ample voice to its sceptics, but notes that Christ's virtual presence in the minds of his disciples gave Christianity an edge over older, less dynamic competitors."
"Apparently, Blainey 'hedges his bets' on the resurrection as an historical event giving 'ample voice to its sceptics'."
http://citybibleforum.org/city/brisbane/blog/jesus-history
So from what I understand, his religion doesn't affect his bias, but Richard Carrier, because he doesn't believe in magic, is "bias" and sould have an asterisk beside his name? That's fine, but as long as you put an asterisk beside the name of Blainey and his ilk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 00:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- Its a bit hard to tell if you're just trying to be inflammatory or you are trying to make a point that actually matters to you? The whole "Actually happened.." criticizing Christian view betrays anything you're trying to propose.. Prasangika37 (talk) 02:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
- It's not hard to tell, after you've spent some time on pages like this. Pages like this seem to attract radical atheist POV warriors who have an emotional stake in denying god in general and jesus in particular. Just a heads up. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:10, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
- What POV, dogmatic bullshit! Back to the topic. In his home country (also mine) Blainey is seen as the conservatives' historian. His opinions are wheeled out whenever the right wing of Australian politics wants to "prove" something. His view are not universally well respected. Using him here does damage to the the cause of those trying to prove Jesus existed. HiLo48 (talk) 19:21, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Irrelevant sentence
"There is no evidence today that the existence of Jesus was ever denied in antiquity by those who opposed Christianity."
This sentence is irrelevant. Why would people deny someone who they've never heard of? We don't have records of people going around saying Zeus wasn't real, does constitute evidence for the existence of Zeus? Also, cited to the encyclopedia of THEOLOGY, not an encyclopedia, not a history book, it is about theology.This is called Christian apologetics, it is irrelevant to the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 01:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- It's true that the claim you've quoted is an intellectually sloppy argument on the part of the source, but your point about “someone who they've never heard of” is not actually among its (multiple) flaws. Given that ancient opponents of Christianity had heard enough about Christianity to oppose it, there is some reasonable likelihood that they had heard of Jesus. Unician ∇ 10:32, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- Obviously people don't deny the existence of someone they've "never heard of", but that's not what the sentence says. It clearly refers to people who are aware of Christian beliefs. Your next sentence about Zeus has no logical relation to the first, since people who deny Zeus have obviously "heard of" him. However, Zeus is not a person. Denying the existence of supernatural concept has no resemblance to denying the existence of a historical person. Paul B (talk) 11:04, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- But to the believers, Zeus was actually "real", as was Jupiter, Neptune etc. They were notorious for incarnating as humans (and animals), impregnating human women and generally causing mayhem among humans. For much of the Old Testament, the fight was that the pagan gods were powerless before the Jewish god, not that the pagan gods did not exist - King Solomon himself happily worshipped pagan gods alongside his Jewish god. The people of that time would not have had issues about the "reality" of Jesus, anymore than they would have questioned the "reality" of Mithras or Isis. That doesn't indicate that Jesus really existed, anymore than Zeus or Apollo really existed. Wdford (talk) 11:22, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- Anyway, the sentence should definitely stay. Its a very useful point and is well cited. Its very helpful to see that at the time, there was not a commonly-held disbelief in Jesus's existence or even sometimes-held. I think it helps the article and is factual. Regarding the point that no one would have commented on it, how can we authoritatively assume that? Surely there are examples in texts of people 'disbelieving' myths or mythical creatures. We have two RS, as fact, saying one thing and we have speculation on the other hand. Seems like we are left with leaving it. Prasangika37 (talk) 02:28, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
- Much of what is being said here is original research. If the sentence stays, it should be a cited quotation. And it should include the context that the authors merely disclaim knowledge of such evidence. (As noted in the Van Voorst footnote.) Fearofreprisal (talk) 04:47, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Now that we've solved that problem, can we add the point that mythicists such as Zindler claim that the most ancient understanding of Jesus was that of the docetists and that they agreed with the mythicists that he never existed? (笑) 182.249.241.42 (talk) 02:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC) (Hijiri88's phone)
- This talk page section concerns the statement in the article
There is no evidence today that the existence of Jesus was ever denied in antiquity by those who opposed Christianity.[54][55]
- In citation 54, Rahner says "in antiquity it never occurred to anyone, even the bitterest enemies of Christianity, to doubt the existence of Jesus." In citation 55, Van Voorst says "no pagans or Jews who opposed Christianity denied Jesus' historicity or even questioned it." Both Rahner and Van Voorst are essentially saying "there is no evidence." Yet, the Docetism article includes a very strong analysis of just such evidence.
- As a result, the existing statement in the article regarding "no evidence that the existence of Jesus was ever denied in antiquity" is inaccurate, and needs to be removed. Further, the discussion in the Docetism article, particularly Docetism#Christology_and_theological_implications should be summarized in this article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 06:11, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
- I SO want to quote The Princess Bride right now... Docetism is irrelevant to the historicity question, since docetists by definition believed that Jesus is an immortal divine being, exists now as he did in history, and he appeared in the world in a form that seemed (Gr: dokeo) to be that of a human. Read a book, please, and stop trolling this talk page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- (Personal attack removed)
- From the Docetism article:
In Christian terminology, docetism... is defined narrowly as "the doctrine according to which the phenomenon of Christ, his historical and bodily existence, and thus above all the human form of Jesus, was altogether mere semblance without any true reality."
Based on this, docetism is directly relevant to early Christian beliefs about the historicity of Jesus. (unsigned comment by Fearofreprisal (talk · contribs))- No comment ( ;-) ) on the first paragraph I removed. As for the second, please read WP:NOTSOURCE: do not use other Wikipedia articles as sources, especially when I just provided you with a better definition based on lectures by Ehrman, Martin, etc. If you get from our article on docetism that it refers to a belief in the non-historicity of Jesus, then our article has failed in its purpose. 182.249.204.174 (talk) 10:04, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Sockpuppetry
Just to shine a little sunlight on this: User:Hijiri88 deleted the following comment above:
Hijiri88, you have long history of personal attacks and incivility - Though I have no way of knowing whether this is related to your past use of
to the point where you've had to usesockpuppets andultimately changeyour user name change. So I really don't take much that you say very seriously.
He replaced it with a WP:RPA template and a hidden note, saying:
I (Hijiri88) removed this regurgitation of personal attacks associated with the site-banned user JoshuSasori. It seems pretty obvious Fearofreprisal has now joined the ranks of users who have received emails from JS, who has a long history of both block-evasion and abuse of Wikimedia's email service. Per AGF, we'll assume Fearofreprisal only read the email, naively believed it, and didn't respond. Further indication of off-wiki collaboration with banned users, though, will be taken to ANI, or directly to one of the admins who have already dealt with this issue in the past.
I have no idea who JoshuSasori is, but I think the users here should know that, based on his talk page, Hijiri88 seems to get involved in a lot of is pretty well known drama. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC) Edited 01:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- Since when am I "well known [for] creating drama"? Where did you get this idea? You have never interacted with me before other than on this talk page. You appear to be the one creating the drama here... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Remove the "criticism" section?
Now that the dust has mostly settled, can we discuss this? The section basically serves no purpose in this article except to give the (false) impression that some scholars who criticize others' ideas on who and what Jesus was reject the historicity of the man himself. Schweitzer didn't deny historicity. Neither does Crossan. Or Ehrman. Of Meier. Does ANYONE cited in the section? Ehrman at least is on record as having been bewildered at the false characterization as a mythicist. Is Wikipedia one of the websites giving this false impression? Discussion of controversies surrounding Christian apologetics masquerading as HJ research DOES belong on Wikipedia ... in the appropriate article. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:25, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- Outrageous suggestion, blatant POV-pushing. The section should stay. It doesn't at all suggest that certain scholars reject historicity, it says that there are serious methodological deficiencies and issues of bias in HJ research, which goes precisely to the heart of the POV dispute we're having. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:33, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- Removal is a bad suggestion and the claims you made about the section are inaccurate. Thumbs down. Blackthorne2k (talk) 15:47, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- @User:Mmeijeri: What POV am I pushing? That Jesus of Nazareth existed? I was under the impression we were all on the same page on this point. My questions to you are: Why do we need to point out in this article that there are "serious methodological deficiencies and issues of bias in HJ research", when we already have a whole article devoted to HJ research? What does that have to do with the historicity of Jesus? What kind of impression do you think devoting 20% of our historicity of Jesus article to this content gives our readers? Do you seriously think this is relevant to the topic? Or are you trying to give this kind of impression?
- The POV that HJ research is just a branch of history, that biblical scholars are in fact historians (and for some reason should preferably be called historians rather than biblical scholars) and that the CMT is a fringe theory. If you were right on this, we would have to state the opinion of people like Ehrman in Wikipedia voice. But since you're not, we need to present these as attributed notable opinions while pointing out the criticism that many HJ researchers themselves as well as at least one historian who has published on the subject have made of HJ research. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:51, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- @User:Mmeijeri: What POV am I pushing? That Jesus of Nazareth existed? I was under the impression we were all on the same page on this point. My questions to you are: Why do we need to point out in this article that there are "serious methodological deficiencies and issues of bias in HJ research", when we already have a whole article devoted to HJ research? What does that have to do with the historicity of Jesus? What kind of impression do you think devoting 20% of our historicity of Jesus article to this content gives our readers? Do you seriously think this is relevant to the topic? Or are you trying to give this kind of impression?
- The CMT is fringe. And that's not POV. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- BtC7: You have a well-documented obsession with CMT, so it's pretty hard to take anything you say about it seriously. Fearofreprisal (talk) 21:25, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- The CMT is fringe. And that's not POV. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- @User:Blackthorne2k: What inaccurate claims did I make? I said this section's inclusion within the context of the "historicity of Jesus" articles gives the impression that the scholars cited deny the historicity of Jesus. I would present these facts to back my point up:
- (1) On March 20, 2012, Bart Ehrman published the book Did Jesus Exist?.[5]
- (2) Said book's introduction states (on page 4) "My wonder only increased when I learned that I myself was being quoted in some circles -- misquoted rather -- as saying that Jesus never existed".[6]
- (3) Said book (per the rest of the introduction) was Ehrman's first public foray into discussion of the Christ myth theory, the question of the historicity of Jesus, and so on. He had written another book about the historical Jesus, in which none of these topics were mentioned even once.
- (4) Immediately before Ehrman's book was published, our present article looked like this.
- (5) In said version of our article, Ehrman's name was mentioned five times:
- (5-a) He was quoted as saying "Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign." No real problem here.
- (5-b) The second mention was in the context of the Pauline epistles. The line read "According to Ehrman, the practice of Christian forgery has a long and distinguished history." What does this have to do with the historicity of Jesus? Paul didn't write the pastoral epistles -- so what? Why was this here?
- (5-c) He was again quoted as saying of the canonical gospels: "they are not written by eyewitnesses who were contemporary with the events they narrate. They were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus’ death by people who did not know him, did not see anything he did or hear anything that he taught, people who spoke a different language from his and lived in a different country from him." Again, this has no relevance to the historicity question per se, but gives the impression that "since the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, they are unreliable, and therefore cannot be used for historical research -- therefore, Jesus might not have existed". I'm sorry, but within the context of an article about whether or not Jesus existed there is no other way around it: this quote was being abused.
- (5-d) He was again quoted about the canonical gospels' sources: "The sources of the Gospels are riddled with just the same problems that we found in the Gospels themselves: they, too, represent traditions that were passed down by word of mouth, year after year, among Christians who sometimes changed the stories—indeed, sometimes invented the stories—as they retold them." Again, this statement is completely true and accurate. Historians need to be careful with the gospels. However, this quotation does not belong in an article about whether or not Jesus existed historically.
- (5-e) He was also cited as reasserting Schweitzer's apocalyptic prophet view of Jesus. No real problem here, either.
- (6) All of the above quotes were taken out of their appropriate context, since Ehrman had not used them in a discussion of the historicity (a discussion he had not been aware existed, per his 2012 introduction).
- (7) The current version of the article mentions him only three times.
- (7-a) One of his undergraduate textbooks from more than a decade ago that is quite difficult to access is cited as stating that the crucifixion is attested by a wide range of sources including Josephus and Tacitus. The source is tagged with a "need quotation to verify". Not going back to find out who added the tag, it certainly looks like a violation of WP:POINT: Ehrman's popular book on the historicity of Jesus is readily available for an affordable price, and it backs up the statement just as well. Requesting quotations for bloody-obvious facts like these is inappropriate.
- (7-b) He is quoted as saying "it is hard to imagine a Christian inventing the story of Jesus' baptism since this could be taken to mean that he was John's subordinate". I don't dispute this, and it probably does belong in this article, as well as in the Historical Jesus article.
- (7-c) He is cited as stating that given the scarcity of sources, it's difficult to establish anything beyond the bare bones of Jesus' life story. This is true. But in the present context of an article about whether Jesus existed or not the statement is inappropriate, as it is almost certain to give the reader the wrong impression.
- As demonstrated above, the situation is a lot better than it was just before Ehrman published his historicity book. At that time, our article quoted him numerous times, giving the very strong impression that he either denied the historicity of Jesus or held views sympathetic to the mythicist. He had to write and publish a 300-page book on a subject that clearly does not interest him, with one of his expressed goals being to quell false rumours about his views. After said book was published, the out-of-context quotes were (gradually?) removed, to the point where the article no longer gives that deeply negative impression. However, other scholars who have not devoted their valuable time to menial pursuits like writing entire books on the subject of "Jesus existed. Get over it!" do not have this privilege. Meier's name appears four times in the article: two of the citations are tagged with "not in citation given" even though these are, as the title says, "widely accepted historical events", and the view attributed here to Meier would almost certainly be verifiable in one source or another (whoever tagged the citations was being WP:POINTy by not doing so themselves, imo); the other two quote him as claiming that a lot of so-called HJ researchers are in fact doing theology, not history -- this is a valid point, but out of context it gives completely the wrong impression of the man and his view. "Many HJ researchers are theologically biased, therefore HJ research is a bunch of bunk" is a view clearly espoused by many people on this talk page, but it is not the view espoused by Meier. Meier devoted 20 years to writing 3,000+ pages of Historical Jesus research: he clearly is not opposed to HJ research per se and he should not be quoted out of context as "criticizing" HJ research.
- And that's just two of them!
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 18:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- WP:TLDR - From what I read before I gave up, you seem to believe that you can build consensus through a wall of text on the talk page. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- Historicity is not just about the existence or non-existence of a historical figure. It is about the degree of confidence one can attach to the historical events and statements reported as being uttered by a historical figure. Thus the statements about the criticism here is valid and important. John D. Croft (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- Then why are there two articles on that topic? "Historicity of Jesus" and "Historical Jesus" are treated as separate (although related) topics in the literature -- why does well over half of this article need to be devoted to either (a) speculations by some scholars about how much of the gospel material is historical or (b) criticism by other scholars of said speculations?
- Another problem that might be brought up is that when Ehrman, Meier and others criticize a certain form of Christian apologetics that masks itself, they are not criticizing Historical Jesus research as a whole (they themselves practice it). If we need to include criticism, we should at least put it in the correct context. "Licona claims the resurrection is historically verifiable. Ehrman and Martin have criticized this view for not adhering to standard historical method." kind of thing. We should not be lumping them all together in arbitrary "pro" and "con" groups.
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:32, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
- The criticism of HJ research does not apply to the discipline as a whole in the sense that they do not say it cannot be practiced in a historically appropriate way, just that by and large it currently isn't being done that way. As for the length of the criticism section, that may be a problem, but that's something we can solve after we fix the POV problem. Some of us have expressed doubts whether we need to have a separate article of the historicity of Jesus in addition to the HJ and CMT articles. Martijn Meijering (talk) 06:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
- Historicity is not just about the existence or non-existence of a historical figure. It is about the degree of confidence one can attach to the historical events and statements reported as being uttered by a historical figure. Thus the statements about the criticism here is valid and important. John D. Croft (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- WP:TLDR - From what I read before I gave up, you seem to believe that you can build consensus through a wall of text on the talk page. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
- @User:Blackthorne2k: What inaccurate claims did I make? I said this section's inclusion within the context of the "historicity of Jesus" articles gives the impression that the scholars cited deny the historicity of Jesus. I would present these facts to back my point up:
- Part of the problem here is there is a deep ambiguity in this article. Is it about the historicity of Jesus (=Jesus existed)? In which case, how is it different to the Christ Myth article, which should then logically be a subset of it? Or is it about the historicity of the details of the life of the historical Jesus, in which case, how is it different from the Historical Jesus article? As a result the Criticism section is also ambiguous. In most cases, the criticisms expressed seem to relate to the methods used by biblical scholars to construct a Historical Jesus - which is fair enough. But if this gives the impression that there exists a body of historical writers who question, on historical grounds, whether Jesus existed at all. And that is simply not the case. The Christ Myth Theory is fringe, as has clearly been established. So, which kind of historicity are we writing about, and why should it have its own article? --Rbreen (talk) 00:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- I agree our current division into three articles is problematic. If the current criticism section gives the impression that the writers quoted question the historicity of Jesus, then that must be corrected, because with few exceptions they don't. That should be easy enough to fix and I'd be very happy to work with you to find a form of words that solves this. As for the CMT being fringe, I must respectfully disagree that that has been established. There are a number of serious scholars who subscribe to it, consider it a possibility or at least think it deserves more scrutiny. To be sure these form only a tiny minority, and we must not imply otherwise, but they're still serious scholars. Martijn Meijering (talk) 01:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- Part of the problem here is there is a deep ambiguity in this article. Is it about the historicity of Jesus (=Jesus existed)? In which case, how is it different to the Christ Myth article, which should then logically be a subset of it? Or is it about the historicity of the details of the life of the historical Jesus, in which case, how is it different from the Historical Jesus article? As a result the Criticism section is also ambiguous. In most cases, the criticisms expressed seem to relate to the methods used by biblical scholars to construct a Historical Jesus - which is fair enough. But if this gives the impression that there exists a body of historical writers who question, on historical grounds, whether Jesus existed at all. And that is simply not the case. The Christ Myth Theory is fringe, as has clearly been established. So, which kind of historicity are we writing about, and why should it have its own article? --Rbreen (talk) 00:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
ANI discussion
User Hijiri has fired off another of his many complaints at a noticeboard when he doesn't get his way, and not for the first time without notifying the Wikipedians who are involved (Fearofreprisal and yours truly this time) even though this is required by policy. Wikipedians here may want to follow the discussion. [7]Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
"we have a few cited scholars who support the CMT"
"we have a few cited scholars who support the CMT" Dispel my ignorance - who are they? PiCo (talk) 14:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- Ellegard, Wells (to a degree), Carrier, Price, Brodie. The Christ Myth Theory article contains more names, but these are the respectable ones among those who have actively published about it. Also see [8] and [9]. To be sure these only constitute a tiny minority, but we aren't suggesting otherwise. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- What establishes their credentials as scholars? Academic posts, higher degrees in a relevant field, that sort of thing? (Just give me their full names and I'll look them up). PiCo (talk) 16:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- I think the quickest way to find that information is on the Christ Myth Theory page. Carrier's view of the evidence is stated here [10] in what looks like a somewhat respectable trade publication for biblical historians. They have respectable academic qualifications, but all these authors have something that makes them look somewhat unusual. They either no longer have tenure, are retired, have published outside their original area of professional expertise or are atheist activists. I've long argued for including enough information about authors to help the reader identify possible sources of bias or lack of scholarly qualifications, and CMT proponents should of course be held to the same standard. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- If I may make a personal remark, I'm really happy you have started working on this page. I've long followed your edits on pages related to religious subjects and your occasional spats on POV issues and had been hoping you would join us here eventually. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- What establishes their credentials as scholars? Academic posts, higher degrees in a relevant field, that sort of thing? (Just give me their full names and I'll look them up). PiCo (talk) 16:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Scope (first sentence of lead)
(Splitting existing thread as it takes in two subjects) BTW, FoR didn't like my revision of the topic sentence (first in the lead). I thought it was rather good and helpful. What do you think? PiCo (talk) 17:00, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- I didn't look at it closely, but I didn't see anything wrong with it. I will look at it more closely. I think FoR needs to come up with concrete objections of his own when reverting a bold edit, and leave it to others to do so if he merely suspects they will. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:09, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
It was this:
- The historicity of Jesus is the question whether Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure, whether any of the major milestones in his life as portrayed in the gospels can be confirmed as historical events as opposed to myth, legend, or fiction, and the weighing of the evidence relating to his life. (The historicity of Jesus is distinct from the related study of the historical Jesus, which refers to scholarly reconstructions of the life of Jesus based primarily on critical analysis of the gospel texts).[1][2][3] PiCo (talk) 17:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
What I like about it is that it establishes 3 distinct topics to look at in the body of the article.PiCo (talk) 17:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- I have a problem with defining the "historicity of Jesus" as it was before, or even as you changed it. To understand why, substitute another person's name for Jesus in the sentence. Let's say... George W. Bush. (I'm not being absurd here: historicity is a quality of all humans. Even humans who are still alive.) With this substitution, the sentence would say:
The historicity of George W. Bush is the question whether George W. Bush existed as a historical figure, whether any of the major milestones in his life as portrayed in the gospels can be confirmed as historical events as opposed to myth, legend, or fiction, and the weighing of the evidence relating to his life.
- This doesn't make much sense, does it? Since we're going to the trouble of trying to fix the first sentence, I've taken another stab at it, as follows:
The historicity of Jesus concerns the question of whether traditions about Jesus of Nazareth can be determined to be historical (as opposed to myth, legend, or fiction), through the analysis of historical evidence.
- Now, I don't think this is perfect, but it's pretty good. It cleanly merges your 3 topics into 1, without limiting the scope of the article, or creating any POV problems. Fearofreprisal (talk) 09:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- PiCo: Since you already reverted my change, I'll let you read what I've written above, and decide what to do. A couple of details:
- Jesus "existence," the "major milestones in his life as portrayed in the gospels," (and, for that matter, *all* events about Jesus portrayed in the Bible, the apocrypha, the Quran, and the Book of Mormon), are "traditions about Jesus" that are subject to questions of historicity. So, I'm suggesting using the term "traditions about Jesus" to refer to such claims collectively. Do you have a better or more clear and unambiguous term in mind?
- Historical analysis (whether Historical method or Historical criticism) doesn't consider the existence of a historical figure separately from the events in that person's life. They are taken together, to paint a picture of a unique individual. If you want to break this into two distinct topics, I'd like to see some citations to support it.
- Let me know what you think. Fearofreprisal (talk) 10:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- PiCo: Since you already reverted my change, I'll let you read what I've written above, and decide what to do. A couple of details:
- I think the comparison with George Bush is a false one. "The historicity of George W. Bush is the question whether George W. Bush existed as a historical figure." But nobody does question whether George existed. Try instead King Arthur: "The historicity of King Arthur is the question whether King Arthur existed as a historical figure." That makes perfect sense. Or you could substitute Buddha, or Ulysses, or a hundred others. George and Jesus are different classes of beings.
- "The historicity of Jesus concerns the question of whether traditions about Jesus of Nazareth can be determined to be historical." Elide that: "The historicity of Jesus concerns...whether traditions about (him)...are historical." That doesn't address the basic issue of whether he existed. Jesus' existence isn't a tradition, it's a question some people ask.
- The traditions about Jesus - the historical record - is the second and third part of my formulation. If the answer to the question of his existence is "overwhelming opinion in affirmative" (as it is), then the next question is, "on what evidence do we (or the experts) come to that conclusion?" The answer is the New Testament literature, plus a tiny amount of Roman writings, plus our knowledge of the Jewish and Hellenistic milieu of the time. So we do a brief overview of that evidence.
- Finally, having established what the evidence is, we ask: "How far can it be trusted? Which parts are most reliaable, which parts least?" Opinions on that differ, and we have to register that.
- The article needs to be a lot shorter, and a lot more readable - it suffers from that perennial Wiki problem of being written by people who spend too much time in their mom's basement. PiCo (talk) 13:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
George and Jesus are not "two different classes of beings". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.206 (talk) 17:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- I like fear of reprisal's work better. It doesn't have as many a priori assumptions, and it is simply more objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.206 (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- "I think the comparison with George Bush is a false one." The same definition of historicity applies to all humans, living or dead.
- "George and Jesus are different classes of beings." Not for the purposes of historicity.
- "That doesn't address the basic issue of whether he existed." But it does address the basic issue of his historical existence.
- "Jesus' existence isn't a tradition." Our understanding of Jesus' historical existence is based on tradition. Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:43, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Here's an alternate construction for you to consider:
The historicity of Jesus concerns the historical actuality of claims about Jesus of Nazareth, based on the analysis of evidence using historical methods.
- Fearofreprisal (talk) 06:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Here's an alternate construction for you to consider:
- That's so turgid as to be meaningless. "Historical actuality"? What's that? I had a look at the article it links to ("historicity"), but it's no better - two barely relevant sources for a related term that also means nothing. we need to use language readers can understand.PiCo (talk) 06:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- "Historical actuality" is the Merriam Webster dictionary definition for "historicity."
- If you're no longer interested in discussing this issue, we can just leave the first sentence as it is for the time being. However, WP:BURDEN still applies:
All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.
- Please provide that citation. Fearofreprisal (talk) 10:27, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Specification that authors critical of HJ research methodologies...
... aren't themselves mythicists is most appreciated.
@User:Mmeijeri: I like your edits from a little while ago. If we are going to include citations of scholars who are skeptical about some of the more ... "credulous" HJ models out there in this article, then we should definitely specify that they all affirm historicity.
My initial problem, though, remains. I think that unless someone actually thinks we should WP:MERGE the Historical Jesus article with this one, we should try as far as possible to keep the two separate. Discussion of basic information that is (near-)universally agreed on about the historical Jesus (born in Nazareth, baptized by John, crucified by the Romans under Pontius Pilate), and the methodologies by which historians came to these conclusions, is of course good. But 930 words on "Widely accepted historical events" (by the way "Jesus was a Galilean" is not an "event" -- why can't we say "facts"), 1,499 words on "Methods of research", and 874 words on "Criticism of Jesus research methods" = 3,203 words devoted to essentially HJ material, while the entire article is only 4,172 words long.
Can you see where I am coming from here? I don't think you are a mythicist (it's why I amn't trying to get you TBANned as a fringe POV-pusher), but the problem is that the way the article is laid out now appears (Gr. dokeo ;) ) to favour the mythicist position. The article is supposed to be essentially about the question of whether Jesus existed and the evidence for such (i.e., the historicity of Jesus), but devotes much more time and effort to detailed and lengthy discussion of the unreliability of the gospels, the fact that a lot of so-called historians are actually more interested in Christian apologetics than history, that modern scholarship is completely awash as to exactly who the historical Jesus was, etc., etc. The casual reader who goes through this article from start to finish is going to get completely the wrong impression.
I stand by my earlier speculation that when Ehrman wrote in 2012 that some people were misquoting him as denying the historicity of Jesus, at least some of the people he was referring to got their information from this Wikipedia article, since at the time it definitely gave that impression. (I know FoR claimed above that he didn't read that speculation, but I am sure that is what he was referring to when on ANI he accused me of "OR". I should specify that WP:NOR refers to article content: presenting hypotheticals and original-but-reasoned arguments on the talk page is completely acceptable under Wikipedia policy; adding the text "who is a Christian" or "who is a former fundamentalist apologist" after the names of every contemporary scholar mentioned in the article could much more accurately be called OR.)
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Well, as I've said I believe our current division into three articles is problematic, although I don't know what the appropriate division would be. If the historicity article is to remain, then I agree our current criticism section is far too long. In addition it duplicates what is said in the HJ article, which is undesirable because it will then be difficult to keep the two synchronised. I don't remember who introduced it, but I believe it was intended as a temporary measure, with the intent to summarise the content to a more appropriate length. Right now I am more concerned about the issue of bias. You are correct that I'm not a CMT advocate (I do find it an intriguing theory that has more merit than I thought it had and deserves more scrutiny). My big issue is that the scholarly bias that has been mentioned here (partially confirmed by a friend of my father's, a retired professor of ancient history) has 'infected' the article, something I find worrying.
- I don't know why you think mentioning a person's background is similar to OR. We rely on sources for that information, and we don't draw any conclusions from it ourselves. For instance if we introduce N.T. Wright as a New Testament scholar and former bishop, we are simply providing factual information on issues that scholars have mentioned as potential sources of bias. Of course that information is intended to help a reader identify potential bias, but doesn't lead the reader towards a specific conclusion. Had we said N.T. Wright agrees event such-and-so in the bible didn't happen, and he's a former bishop and a Christian apologist, so you can't suspect him of being overly skeptical here, then that would be OR. The other day I asked my father about a chapter about his own theological views in a scholarly work he had written. He had included it to help the reader identify any potential religious bias on his part. I asked him if this was customary in his field, and he said it wasn't, but it struck me as useful and similar to what we've been doing here. To be sure, we do have to be careful to choose our words judiciously, so as not to nudge the reader towards OR conclusions of our own. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- So what IS the scope of this article? If it's just whether Jesus existed or not then I need to cut back the sentence I'm currently arguing about with ToR. And if it's that, then shouldn't it be merged with the Christ Myth article? PiCo (talk) 13:56, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- I think at least the answer to your latter question is "yes". The fact is that the majority of legit scholars (read: everyone except Ehrman, once, in 2012) completely ignore the idea that Jesus never existed, so we don't have all that many sources with which to discuss the "theory". Its advocates believe in it on mostly religious grounds (even if they don't admit it), and they are the only ones who generally discuss their ideas and their relation to mainstream scholarship. I haven't frankly read out CMT article, because I personally believe that it will eventually get merged in here without my input.
- As to your first question: I honestly don't know. There have been literally thousands of words devoted to that subject here and in this page's archives (and despite what my off-wiki stalker will tell you, only a tiny portion of that was me). I'm actually inclined to expand the scope in the sense that I'd like to see some discussion of how Jesus' miracles, and in particular the resurrection, are generally rejected by historians on the grounds that "history can only demonstrate what probably happened in the past, and miracles are by definition the least likely occurrence" (I'm paraphrasing one of Ehrman's debates with Licona, and Martin essentially agrees). The first question I'd have if I was a general reader from a Christian background was "wait -- if historians generally believe Jesus existed, does that mean the resurrection is also a historical fact?". This point should be clarified in the article. I'm not sure why the word "resurrection" doesn't appear once in the article right now: are we trying to accommodate both fundamentalists and radical atheists by leaving the historical consensus on this point unstated?
- As for the "criticisms of research methods", I think I've already made my views on this section clear. Even though nothing in the section is factually inaccurate, in the context it is misleading, it doesn't serve any real purpose to this article, and the only reason it is included is to accommodate Wikipedians who are clearly, let's just say, "skeptical" about the historicity of Jesus. The section should be removed, with any pertinent information migrated elsewhere in the article.
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Then can I suggest that we start with the very irreducible minimum, Did Jesus Exist? A section on that, saying that the overwhelming opinion of scholars in the field is that he did. It would also have to say what grounds they use to come to that conclusion, which would bring in ToR's area of concern. Can we think about doing this? PiCo (talk) 15:12, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- "Did Jesus Exist?" - Which Jesus are you referring to? Please be specific. (Serious answers only, please.) Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Citation for article that has been overlooked
Richard Carrier Wrote a peer reviewed book on the Historicity of Jesus, published by an academic press. We can stop saying it is a “fringe” theory “for people who spend too much time in their mother's basements”, because when you say that, you're throwing a LOT of people under the bus. I say again, this book has been peer reviewed and published by an academic press. We've got Blainy in here, and other known Christians, so why can't we have a known atheist? Someone please do something with this citation
“In my estimation the odds Jesus existed are less than 1 in 12,000. Which to a historian is for all practical purposes a probability of zero For comparison, your lifetime probability of being struck by lighting is around 1 in 10,000. That Jesus existed is even less likely than that. Consequently, I am reasonably certain there was no historical Jesus… When I entertain the most generous estimates possible, I find I cannot by any stretch of the imagination the probability Jesus existed is better than 1 in 3.” p. 600
Carrier, R. (2014). On the historicity of Jesus: Why we might have reason for doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.206 (talk) 17:53, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- I think the "1 in 12,000" claim, whether valid or not, is a tiny minority viewpoint -- but the actual research and analysis behind it is worth abstracting in the article. Sorry -- I don't have to book. Why don't you do it? Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:48, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. Blainey should be taken out. He's not qualified to talk about ancient history AFIK. Carrier, a PhD in ancient history, however is. And he does soin his peer reviewed treatise on the historicity of Jesus (published by an acadetoo press). There is no reason he is not in the article. I won't do it unless there is full support, and even then I'd prefer a more experienced editor make the changes. I've seen top many reverts lately on the work of editors who aren't part of the club. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.160 (talk) 00:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Another ANI Thread, Possible Arbitration, Possibly Working Things Out Without Arbitration
Well, yet another ANI thread has been opened. I would suggest, but some of the editors here obviously are not interested in reasonable advice, that, before opening yet another ANI thread, an editor ask a two-part question. First, what specifically am I proposing that the community should do to the editor about whom I am complaining? A block? An indef block? A topic-ban? A site-ban? If you can't give a specific proposed remedy, then just don't open the thread. Don't go to ANI for advice or only for a warning; go only to request a sanction, and know what sanction you are proposing. Second, am I, the original poster of the thread, setting myself up for one of the previously mentioned sanctions via boomerang? If yes, consider whether the benefit outweighs the risk. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
It appears that this article has the mix of content issues and conduct issues that cannot be effectively dealt with by dispute resolution, or by ANI, or by any remedy short of arbitration, unless some of the editors change their behavior. I have seen:
- Personal attacks.
- Assumptions of bad faith.
- Allegations of trolling (a personal attack).
- Suggestions of sock-puppetry.
- Walls of text.
- Battleground editing.
- Poorly substantiated ANI threads.
- Useless back-and-forth exchanges without listening.
With this history, if this article does go to the ArbCom, the result will almost certainly include discretionary sanctions, a draconian set of restrictions on editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
So, based on the likelihood that this article will wind up in arbitration, and the fact that the ArbCom sets a strict limit of 500 words for each statement, I suggest that each poster compose a statement of no more than 500 words stating specifically what is wrong with this article and what specific changes should be made to this article. If you omit all of the complaints about other editors, you will have more space to discuss improvements to the article. Can each editor propose what needs to be done to improve the article (not the editorial behavior)? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Any thread that commences with a sentence containing the words "some of the editors here obviously are not interested in reasonable advice" is not likely to end well. HiLo48 (talk) 00:01, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I think this article should be deleted since it looks like it's synthesis of HJ and CMT with a strong effort being made to legitimize the CMT. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'd support that. PiCo (talk) 12:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I more or less agree. It used to be a triumphalist POV-pushing pro-historicity article, which has now been 'balanced' by including an excessive amount of material on criticism of HJ research. In addition, AFAIK there is no such field as Historicity of Jesus research and we've had interminable battles over this article. I don't think the world will be a poorer place without a Historicity of Jesus article. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Heh, check out the categories that this article has been tagged with. High importance this, top article that. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I more or less agree. It used to be a triumphalist POV-pushing pro-historicity article, which has now been 'balanced' by including an excessive amount of material on criticism of HJ research. In addition, AFAIK there is no such field as Historicity of Jesus research and we've had interminable battles over this article. I don't think the world will be a poorer place without a Historicity of Jesus article. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Given the paucity of unbiased sources due to the complete neglect this topic receives outside of Christian studies, deletion would be an excellent result. There's no way to build and maintain a valid article.—Kww(talk) 13:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I'd support that. PiCo (talk) 12:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Those of you who believe the article should be deleted should consider drafting an ArbCom statement to that effect, and then voluntarily recuse yourself from any further editing of the article or talk page. It is a matter of fairness and respect towards those in the community who are interested in improving this article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- There is no reason why deletion has anything to do with an ArbCom statement. AFD and arbitration are two different processes. By the way, FOR, that sort of unhelpful statement is why some of the other editors complain. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:09, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I will do no such thing. If this article continues to exist, we have to make sure it conforms to our standards. Martijn Meijering (talk) 15:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Those of you who believe the article should be deleted should consider drafting an ArbCom statement to that effect, and then voluntarily recuse yourself from any further editing of the article or talk page. It is a matter of fairness and respect towards those in the community who are interested in improving this article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 13:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Comment I'm reluctant to get into this topic as I know from experience that it mainly interests two kind of people. The first are hardcore Bible-believing Christians who want to argue that the Gospels are historically reliable. The second are hardcore conspiracy-theorist atheists who want to argue that Jesus never existed. I'm not claiming all users fall into one of these groups (far from it), but those are the two sides that usually take an interest. Given that there is virtually no scholarly support for either group, it quickly becomes complicated as both struggle to discredit actual research and include fringe findings with no academic support. Virtually every academic in the field would agree that the person Jesus existed, that he was a Jewish wandering preacher with a small following, preaching his interpretation of Jewish law and eventually being crucified. Unfortunately, that is not sensationalist enough for most people, hence the poor state of the article. However, the fact that an article is bad is a reason to improve it, not to delete it.Jeppiz (talk) 14:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- My problem with that statement is "virtually every academic in the field", because that seems to be a group that is disproportionately Christian compared to the general population. People make a lot of Ehrman's quote, but that quote is basically "I, Bart Ehrman, believe that every responsible historian agrees with me", a statement with its own set of bias problems. What I would like to see is people either find a group of non-Christian, non-Muslim historians that support the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth or stop making the claim that virtually all historians support it. It would appear to me that virtually all historians are completely silent on the topic, and that's the problem. It's not that there's some overwhelming evidence for the myth theory or that there is no evidence at all for historicity. There just isn't much evidence one way or the other and there's a profound lack of unbiased sources evaluating what evidence there is.—Kww(talk)
- I do see your point but I'm not sure I agree. To make a (bad, I admit) comparison, the fact that almost no lung doctor smokes does not mean they are wrong to say that smoking has negative effects. There is no reason to suppose that an academic is wrong just because of being Christian. The insinuation could even be insulting. Most of these academics agree that Jesus's was strikingly different from how its portrayed in the Gospels, something running counter to Christian believes. So quite clearly they are perfectly able to distinguish between their personal believes and science. The argument that "virtually all historians are completely silent on the topic" is, I'm sorry to say, appallingly bad. All academics have a narrow focus, so most academics are silent on any subject. Most historians are silent on the WWII, most historians are silent on Roman empire etc. As Wikipedians, we report what academics say. I'm the first to reject any article of book by a Christian author without academic credentials in the field. But what matters are those academic credentials, not belief or non-belief.Jeppiz (talk) 15:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Articles for Deletion
The advice page on articles for deletion. Read it and we can discuss what to do. PiCo (talk) 14:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Boy, that's a lot of text. I hope there are some volunteer AfD consultants out there. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:51, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
References - heavily biased
The end of this article suggest a large number of references. Quite inappropirately, a large number of them are fringe writings from conspiracy theorists with no academic background in the subject, in other words references that would never satisfy WP:RS. This includes works of people such as G A Wells, Alvar Ellegård etc. These people were professors of linguistics. Being a professor of one area does not confer competence in unrelated areas. Presenting such a number of books advocating WP:FRINGE theories fails WP:UNDUE, it is comparable to adding a lot of books denying the evolution to the article on evolution.Jeppiz (talk) 15:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Not at all, these are the most prominent ones advocating the CMT, and you cannot have an article on the historicity of Jesus without mentioning the CMT. Richard Carrier has a PhD in ancient history and a few peer-reviewed publications to his name. Wells and Ellegård are / were respected academics, and Wells has been cited sympathetically by R. Joseph Hoffman, who is on a level with many of the biblical scholars we do cite. Dismissing the CMT as a conspiracy theory is an outrageously non-neutral POV for this article. Biblical scholars, a few serious academics from various fields publishing outside their main area of expertise and less than a handful of historians are the only sources we have. Martijn Meijering (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry, but you quite clearly do not understand the relevant policies at Wikipedia. Yes, we should mention it and we do. But it remains a fringe theory with almost no academic support and it is a quite strong case of WP:UNDUE that more than half of the given references are from the fringe. Wells and Ellegård are / were respected academics in lingustics. What they had to say is relevant in articles on Germanic philology. Being an academic is not a carte blanche to being an authority on any field.Jeppiz (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Rudeness objection, kindly remain WP:CIVIL. I am quite familiar with the policies, thank you very much. I've already said that the size of the criticism section is excessive. I've never said that academics are RS on every subject, in fact I've objected strongly to misrepresenting biblical scholars as historians, even though no doubt some do qualify for that. The reason that Wells and Ellegård are notable is because they are both respected academics and prominent among proponents of the CMT, which has to be mentioned, even if only briefly. If we restrict our sources to just the historians, we're down to Akenson, Grant and Carrier who have published on the matter, and Nobbs and Lane Fox on the statement that the CMT is rejected by nearly all historians. It seems to me that on a historical topic which has seen hardly any activity by actual historians we can't do much better than either summarising all notable opinions, reviewing any debate there may have been and the relative levels of support for the various theories, or deciding not to have a separate article on it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I have no intention to be uncivil, and my suggestion was made in good faith. I'm sorry that I have to repeat it. Regardless of whether you believe you understand the policies or not, it's clear that you don't. That not uncivil, just an encouragement to read the policies. You continue to insist that "The reason that Wells and Ellegård are notable is because they are both respected academics and prominent among proponents of the CMT". Sorry, but no. That Wells and Ellegård are/were "respected academics" is of no relevance, as they were not academics in any field even remotely connected to this area of research. WP:RS is not, as you appear to believe, something you have or haven't. No academic is an WP:RS on every topic. If an someone is a well "respected academic" on Shakespearean literature, it still does not make them a WP:RS on fusion energy and no matter how great their personal interest in fusion energy as a personal hobby, they become no more of an RS in that field just because of their PhD in English literature. Whether you like this, or agree with it, is irrelevant. It's equally irrelevant how prominent an amateur is among other amateurs, it's not a popularity contest. If you edit Wikipedia you have to comply it. Or if you want to challenge the rule, go ahead and do it, but this is not the place for that.Jeppiz (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- You continue to misrepresent my position, I'm not suggesting that Wells and Ellegård are reliable sources on the historicity of Jesus, or that academics are RS outside their professional field of expertise. In fact, I explicitly denied that was my position in my previous post. Kindly take my word for it when I state what is and isn't my position. My position is that Wells and Ellegård are notable, which is not the same as a reliable source, and therefore can only be used in attributed citations, and not in Wikipedia voice. They are notable because the CMT is on topic for this article and they are prominent proponents of it. Their prominence derives in part from things like book sales, citations and media attention, and in part from the fact that they are respected academics, unlike say Acharya S. or Earl Doherty. They're also not self-published or blog-only nutcases. Other scholars have interacted with Wells and Ellegård in a way that AFAIK they haven't with these other two or the nutcases. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:32, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I have no intention to be uncivil, and my suggestion was made in good faith. I'm sorry that I have to repeat it. Regardless of whether you believe you understand the policies or not, it's clear that you don't. That not uncivil, just an encouragement to read the policies. You continue to insist that "The reason that Wells and Ellegård are notable is because they are both respected academics and prominent among proponents of the CMT". Sorry, but no. That Wells and Ellegård are/were "respected academics" is of no relevance, as they were not academics in any field even remotely connected to this area of research. WP:RS is not, as you appear to believe, something you have or haven't. No academic is an WP:RS on every topic. If an someone is a well "respected academic" on Shakespearean literature, it still does not make them a WP:RS on fusion energy and no matter how great their personal interest in fusion energy as a personal hobby, they become no more of an RS in that field just because of their PhD in English literature. Whether you like this, or agree with it, is irrelevant. It's equally irrelevant how prominent an amateur is among other amateurs, it's not a popularity contest. If you edit Wikipedia you have to comply it. Or if you want to challenge the rule, go ahead and do it, but this is not the place for that.Jeppiz (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Rudeness objection, kindly remain WP:CIVIL. I am quite familiar with the policies, thank you very much. I've already said that the size of the criticism section is excessive. I've never said that academics are RS on every subject, in fact I've objected strongly to misrepresenting biblical scholars as historians, even though no doubt some do qualify for that. The reason that Wells and Ellegård are notable is because they are both respected academics and prominent among proponents of the CMT, which has to be mentioned, even if only briefly. If we restrict our sources to just the historians, we're down to Akenson, Grant and Carrier who have published on the matter, and Nobbs and Lane Fox on the statement that the CMT is rejected by nearly all historians. It seems to me that on a historical topic which has seen hardly any activity by actual historians we can't do much better than either summarising all notable opinions, reviewing any debate there may have been and the relative levels of support for the various theories, or deciding not to have a separate article on it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry, but you quite clearly do not understand the relevant policies at Wikipedia. Yes, we should mention it and we do. But it remains a fringe theory with almost no academic support and it is a quite strong case of WP:UNDUE that more than half of the given references are from the fringe. Wells and Ellegård are / were respected academics in lingustics. What they had to say is relevant in articles on Germanic philology. Being an academic is not a carte blanche to being an authority on any field.Jeppiz (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Once again,the rejection of Jesus as a historical figure is not a fringe theory. Martin has pointed out several secular historians and other academics who have published peer reviewed work (in Carrier's case and others?) on the historicity of Jesus. And in many cases, it appears, as these well reputable sources can attest to, we may have reason to doubt that Jesus existed. Carriers previous work on Josephus demolishes Josephus, and his latest hallmark publication, combined with Price and others, you have some authority there. If anything the article gives way too much weight to a few throwaway statements made by religious apologists, and resists every attempt to engage in a constructive exploration into an interesting historical topic: the historicity of Christianity's Jesus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.160 (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- You are just plain wrong. The rejection of Jesus as a historical figure IS a fringe theory. Your speculation that "reliable source" may have published peer-reviewed work rejecting historicity is not an acceptable source of information for Wikipedia; Bart Ehrman's 2012 assertion that virtually no one with any qualifications in any relevant field accepts this "theory" is. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:02, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
More obstruction
I made a few fairly straightforward edits to the article earlier today, and the following is what ended up on my talk page:
Kindly stop edit warring at Historicity of Jesus. You are aware that you do not have consensus for the edits you propose, yet you continue to ignore the consensus on the talk page to push your own ideas. If you cannot get consensus, then just walk away from the article. Continuing in the same way will result in nothing except you being blocked.Jeppiz (talk) 09:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
@Jeppiz: You reverted four of my edits:
- (→Widely accepted historical events: Fix Blainey citation, remove "failed verification" tag.)
- (→Widely accepted historical events: fill-out Rahner730, voorst15, voorst16 and DunnPaul35 citations, inlcuding quotations.)
- (Fixing typo raised by BracketBot)
- (Added "citation needed" template to first sentence in Lead.)
I see a few possibilities of how to handle this:
- You could provide some diffs, to show how those edits are edit warring, or against consensus.
- You could say "oops, I guess it wasn't edit warring or against consensus," and self-revert. Or,
- We can take it to the article talk page (which is what you should have done to start with), and begin the dispute resolution process.
Of course, I could also just walk away from the article like you suggested, but... nah.
Ball's in your court. If I don't hear from you in a while, I'll post this conversation on the article talk page. Fearofreprisal (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- That is unfortunate, we edited at the same time so it may be an edit conflict where my edit removed more than intended. I'll look into it.Jeppiz (talk) 14:53, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I have now looked into it and I'm afraid I cannot revert. Most of what you added build on G A Wells, who is not an acceptable source under WP:RS. Wells was a professor of German with no academic authority on the subject of Jesus or indeed the entire time period. What he believes or doesn't believe is not relevant to the article.Jeppiz (talk) 15:02, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- @Jeppiz: Let me lay this situation out:
- I made four edits to the article, which included fixing a pre-existing citation that had failed verification, and improving three other pre-existing citations, by adding the relevant quoted text to the ref. All properly cited, and uncontroversial. See [11] [12] [13] [14]
- You reverted my edits, then came to my talk page, warned me that I was edit warring and editing against consensus, and suggested I "walk away" from the article.
- I asked you to either provide diffs substantiating your accusations, self-revert, or take the discussion to the article talk page. You did none of these.
- You responded that it must have been an "edit conflict" that removed more than you intended -- despite the fact that WP doesn't allow edit conflicts, so this is effectively impossible.
- After a little while longer, you responded that you can't revert, because G. A. Wells isn't a reliable source.
- You apparently didn't read the citations: they are from Van Voorst and Dunn (undisputed reliable sources.) I merely noted in the refs that each was responding to claims made by Wells. Further, the article has included citations to three of Wells' books for literally years, which is rather good evidence of a consensus that he is a reliable source.
- I don't really care what your game is. I'm just tired of wasting time fighting with you over a few simple and uncontroversial edits. So, I'm moving this entire discussion over to the article talk page, and reverting. If you don't agree, we can move up through the dispute resolution process. Fearofreprisal (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- @Jeppiz: Let me lay this situation out:
- I have now looked into it and I'm afraid I cannot revert. Most of what you added build on G A Wells, who is not an acceptable source under WP:RS. Wells was a professor of German with no academic authority on the subject of Jesus or indeed the entire time period. What he believes or doesn't believe is not relevant to the article.Jeppiz (talk) 15:02, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
So, as I said above, I'm reverting the edits. Sorry to add to the noise level here. Fearofreprisal (talk) 16:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- For the record, Fearofreprisal has a valid point. I was in a bit of a hurry when I checked my edit (from a mobile phone apparently not displaying correctly). Looking at them now in further detail, I see I misunderstood a few. My apologies to Fearofreprisal. It was not badly intended, but I should have waited until I was a proper computer.Jeppiz (talk) 17:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Apology accepted. Thank you. Fearofreprisal (talk) 17:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Criticism split
Hi, I've been following this all for a bit. I know in general Criticism sections are not advised, but with this article, the 'criticism' section was equal in size to the rest of the article. I found that a lot of problems would be solved by pointing out that there is criticism (and maybe making it a larger paragraph) here, and keeping the criticism located elsewhere. Perhaps this can allow the article be more focused and centered. If you completely hate it, feel free to undo my work, but I find this to be a lot more manageable.
I think in the long run, the criticism of research methods of Jesus will be a page no matter what. It is an important issue and perhaps could bring together different views of scholars across a wide range of research. Prasangika37 (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I am going to be a little bold and try to include the criticism of the Historical Jesus page into it and kill two birds with one stone, as it looks like someone nearly copy-pasted it. Prasangika37 (talk) 17:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Please don't change the Historical Jesus article until you achieve consensus. I think the proper place for this is in that article, not in a separate criticism article. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I agree with Martijn Meijering that it's best to have a consensus first but also agree that the article is bordering on the ludicrous. I'm guessing there are few other articles where non-scientific criticism of an academic field is given the same amount of space as the actual academic field. Just as we don't provide nearly any space in evolution for creationists nor in Holocaust for revisionists, I don't really see the point in providing the "criticism" with more a sentence or two here. That is precisely the point of WP:FRINGE. I know that some (many) people have strong views about Jesus, but that should not matter one bit. When there is academic consensus about something, we usually report that. The fact that it's possible to find one or two experts who disagree is not really important (there are the odd fringe biologists who believe in creationism). Jeppiz (talk) 17:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Just making a bold change.. The page could use it, honestly. Lots of talking in circles and pretty fierce allegations between one another. Happy to have it reverted though and linked to the historical Jesus page. Prasangika37 (talk) 18:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- We agree that the size was excessive, and I've replaced the whole section with a wikilink to the section over at HJ from where it was copied. I hope that will satisfy Prasangika37's concern. That too is a bold move of course, and he/she or anyone else who objects is free to revert it. As for the criticism being non-scientific, check out the references. Nearly all of it comes from respected academics, including a historian and several prominent HJ researchers themselves. If you have further concerns about it, I suggest we continue the discussion over at HJ.Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:05, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Jeppiz - You're a master of awkward analogies, aren't you? Still, I'm impressed that you've managed to fall afoul of Godwin's law within less than 4 hours of your first post on this talk page. As a result, you've automatically lost all debates you were involved in. Sorry about that, but it's an internet rule. Can't be changed. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Hi @Fearofreprisal: , are you willing to keep stuff like that out of here? Its a clogged-up enough talk page and would love some productive discussion! Granted I get your point, but why not just make the point without mocking ? Prasangika37 (talk) 18:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Frankly, there's enough tension here. I thought making a point via humor might be better. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:47, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- I see what you're saying, but you're obviously touching people's nerves a little bit and you may want to be a bit more careful. Its tough for people to take jokes if they are viewing someone in a critical or fault-finding way. :D Prasangika37 (talk) 22:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Frankly, there's enough tension here. I thought making a point via humor might be better. Fearofreprisal (talk) 19:47, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Hi @Fearofreprisal: , are you willing to keep stuff like that out of here? Its a clogged-up enough talk page and would love some productive discussion! Granted I get your point, but why not just make the point without mocking ? Prasangika37 (talk) 18:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Jeppiz - You're a master of awkward analogies, aren't you? Still, I'm impressed that you've managed to fall afoul of Godwin's law within less than 4 hours of your first post on this talk page. As a result, you've automatically lost all debates you were involved in. Sorry about that, but it's an internet rule. Can't be changed. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
"Just as we don't provide nearly any space in evolution for creationists..." (Jeppiz). That's a good point. CMT has the same academic standing as Creationism and should be given no more than a bare mention.PiCo (talk) 00:15, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- This talk page is not the place for your personal opinions or original research. Provide a citation, or drop it. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:19, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Per WP:TPG: "Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject." Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Personal views on improving the article. Where's the personal view,anyway? CMT really does have no academic, and we do cite sources saying that PiCo (talk) 00:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- OR is allowed on Talk pages, that is for sure. Anyway, its not OR anyway because its not accepted. Check the sources.. Prasangika37 (talk) 02:13, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- The problem is that there are only a handful of historians supporting historicity as well. It's certainly not comparable with the creationism vs. evolution situation, where it is simple to find sources supporting evolution. Numbers even approaching the list of scientists named "Steve" that support evolution would be impossible. With evolution, there's actual evidence. With the historicity debate, there's a few scraps of evidence and, outside of biblical scholars, not much investigation. We've found more scholars supporting CMT than we've managed to identify Hindus or Buddhists writing in favor of the historicity of Christ, but that's not saying much: there don't seem to be any of the latter.—Kww(talk) 03:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Heheh, thanks for the link to the Steve project. You make a good point, though I think it is more accurate to say that only a handful of historians have published about the subject or studied the arguments. I believe that if the article is to continue to exist, it should give an overview of the various opinions, with the pro-historicity view of the HJ researchers being the most prominent one. Martijn Meijering (talk) 09:27, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Personal views on improving the article. Where's the personal view,anyway? CMT really does have no academic, and we do cite sources saying that PiCo (talk) 00:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Alternative to Deletion
Per WP:AFD, the main four guidelines and policies that inform deletion discussions are: notability (WP:N), verifiability (WP:V), reliable sources (WP:RS), and what Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT). It seems to me that none of these apply – rather, that this is a case of duplication with other existing (and better) articles on this topic/s.
We have been using this article as a disambiguation page of sorts, summarizing the other articles and directing readers thence for the detail – I was using the article World War II as a template. This was temporarily undermined by an editor who tried to change the topic of the article but failed. Then we had a trend of trying once again to make this into a full-fledged and balanced article, but we have once again come full circle and are once again concerned about duplicating other and better articles. WP:AFD recommends in these cases that we consider "Disambiguation" or "Redirection". I think that could be the solution. Comments please? Wdford (talk) 09:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I like it. Let's see what others say. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 11:41, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I agree. Redirect it and nothing is lost permanently. The long and tortured arguments over what "historicity" even means are an indication this is the best option. Ignocrates (talk) 17:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- The question then, is "Would something clearly be lost in eliminating this page or redirecting it?" Prasangika37 (talk) 17:55, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I like it too. I support this version, I could support deleting the article altogether, and I could support improving and rewriting the article. Starting with the disambiguation version seems like the best approach to me, since the other steps involve lengthier consensus building. That can always happen later, but for now turning the page into a disambiguation page is a simple yet massive improvement. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Request for Summaries of Requested Improvements
Can each of the contending editors of this article please (as noted above) provide a summary, in less than 500 words, of how they think that this article can be improved? Deleting the article and replacing it with a redirect is a valid summary. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- By the way, focus only on the article and not on the other editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Proposal 1: Some of us have been using this article as a disambiguation page of sorts, summarizing the other over-lapping articles and directing readers thence for the detail. We then tried to make this into a full-fledged and balanced article, but we became concerned about duplicating other and better articles. Now deletion is once again being contemplated. Per WP:AFD, the main four guidelines and policies that inform deletion discussions are: notability (WP:N), verifiability (WP:V), reliable sources (WP:RS), and what Wikipedia is not (WP:NOT). It seems to me that none of these apply – rather, that this is a case of duplication with other existing (and better) articles on this topic/s. WP:AFD recommends in these cases that we consider "Disambiguation" or "Redirection". I think that could be the solution, and have therefore attempted a BOLD edit as an example of what it could look like. Wdford (talk) 16:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you. I think that your edit was useful in terms of proposing what should be done, but was done without consensus. If it is reverted, please do not restore it. Maybe it will be accepted. If so, good. If not, we can at least include whether to make the article a disambiguation as one of the questions in the RFC. Are there any other suggestions for improvement of the article? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:07, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I support this proposal. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:52, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I love what you did Wdford, for the time being. Personally that feels like it hits it on the head. Once seeing the article refined into that, it feels like it is just a conglomeration of a bunch of different articles and offers nothing 'unique', which makes it a breeding ground for problems and wasted time. Prasangika37 (talk) 18:10, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I support it too. It moves the argument to the concise descriptions of what is contained in the other articles. That's a discussion worth having, so that the intended purpose of the other articles is clear. Ignocrates (talk) 18:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I have restored User:Wdford's shortening and disambiguation of the article. It had been reverted by User:Fearofreprisal with the edit summary to see the talk page, but there was no talk page discussion of the reason for the revert. If the reverting editor is satisfied with the old long version, then at least a statement to that effect would be useful. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:51, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- @Robert McClenon: I did say to "see the talk page" in my edit summary -- and the talk page says "If it is reverted, please do not restore it."
- You asked for a less than 500 word summary of how the article can be improved, and that is what I will provide you. You will have it within an hour or two.
- However, until this matter is settled, including going through all necessary dispute resolution processes up to ArbCom, I'm requesting that you self-revert your edit, and return the article to its previous (full) state. The current disambiguation page is both misleading and inaccurate, and the consensus of a small number of editors here is not sufficient to justify the disruption that this change is causing. Fearofreprisal (talk) 20:35, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- When I said, "If it is reverted, please do not restore it", I was asking Wdford not to engage in an edit war. When I saw that there was considerable support for his or her revision, I restored the disambiguation. I have no intention of self-reverting it, which would only take the article back to its contentious state. If you think that the shortened article is misleading and inaccurate, please state why it is misleading and inaccurate. Several editors think that it is an improvement. If you disagree, we can put that question to an RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- I will add that User:Fearofreprisal has not made any helpful suggestions yet about how to improve the article (and hasn't provided comments in an hour or two). Some editors have suggested that FOR is trolling; I will assume good faith that he has some constructive contribution to make to the article that he hasn't yet stated. I would make that comment on FOR's user talk page, but he blanks it rather than archiving it. (While that is permitted, it is not encouraged.) I disagree with the argument that the consensus of a small number of editors is not sufficient to justify the disruption that the shortening of the article is causing. The long article has caused disruptive unproductive discussions here and too many ANI threads. What does FOR want done? Nothing? The current article is contentious. Something? What? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- When I said, "If it is reverted, please do not restore it", I was asking Wdford not to engage in an edit war. When I saw that there was considerable support for his or her revision, I restored the disambiguation. I have no intention of self-reverting it, which would only take the article back to its contentious state. If you think that the shortened article is misleading and inaccurate, please state why it is misleading and inaccurate. Several editors think that it is an improvement. If you disagree, we can put that question to an RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support I agree with Wdford. There is already an article on the Historical Jesus, making this article redundant. Jesus's historicity is not a disputed subject in academia, just like Julius Caesar's or Socrates's historicity is not disputed. Even for the fringe theory that Jesus never existed, there is an article (Christ myth theory). Given that we have an article about Jesus, an article that specifically talks about the academic consensus on him, as well as an article about the fringe theory that he never existed, it is very hard to see what this article brings to Wikipedia that is not covered in the other articles.Jeppiz (talk) 20:54, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support Wdford's position. What I believe would be the ideal solution (summarizing all available sources, sorted by academic and polemic) should result in enough material to be split off into multiple articles for each position. It would just be easier to redirect to the articles we already have on such positions and improve those instead. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Rewriting it from the perspective that it is not a widely studied topic outside of Biblical scholarship and that there are vanishingly few unbiased sources actively stating that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical reality. Despite the protestations to the contrary, if one looks for non-Christian, non-Muslim sources discussing Jesus' reality, there isn't a real consensus for or against against it precisely because there are so few sources that discuss it at all. This article certainly should not embrace the CMT, but it shouldn't treat the writings of Christians and Muslims as if they were unbiased and neutral.—Kww(talk) 22:26, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- There is a difference between a point of view and a bias. When an author is going out of their way to twist things to fit their agenda, that is bias. Theological sources would obviously deserve to be treated as biased polemics, but treating otherwise academic sources as polemics just because an editor disagrees with the author's point of view is biased. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Your definition of "bias" is idiosyncratic. A bias is a tendency to decide in one direction rather than another, nothing more. To describe a source as "biased" doesn't mean it's a polemic. I've never encouraged, nor would I ever encourage, that we treat all Christian and Muslim historians as if they were writing polemics unworthy of consideration, only that we recognize them as possessing an inherent bias.—Kww(talk) 00:13, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- There is a difference between a point of view and a bias. When an author is going out of their way to twist things to fit their agenda, that is bias. Theological sources would obviously deserve to be treated as biased polemics, but treating otherwise academic sources as polemics just because an editor disagrees with the author's point of view is biased. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support Wdford's proposal to make this a redirect or diambig page.PiCo (talk) 00:16, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Comment from Fearofreprisal
- Indeed, I took the time to actually write a carefully thought-out proposal. It follows at the end of this post.
- Regarding the assertion that the Historical Jesus article makes the Historicity of Jesus article redundant: The two topics are distinct from each other. As a start, compare the first sentences of the two articles (I have removed the cites and wikilink alternate labels):
The historicity of Jesus is the question whether Jesus existed as a historical figure, whether any of the major milestones in his life as portrayed in the gospels can be confirmed as historical events as opposed to myth, legend, or fiction, and the weighing of the evidence relating to his life.
(Though no citations exist to support this definition, we'll go with it for argument's sake.)Historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the life of Jesus, based on critical methods including biblical criticism analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the Cultural and historical background of Jesus in which he lived.
- The Historical Jesus lead is based largely on a citation to Dunn (Jesus Remembered), but I'll provide another citation that may help clarify things:
What we call the historical Jesus is the composite of the recoverable bits and pieces of historical information and speculation about him that we assemble, construct, and reconstruct. For this reason, the historical Jesus is, in Meier's words, "a modern abstraction and construct."
[15]
- Let's compare the two:
- Historicity of Jesus: Historical truth of Jesus' life. Based only on historical evidence. Does not assume historical evidence is true. Addresses only that which is supported by historical evidence.
- Historical Jesus: Reconstructions of Jesus' life. Based on gospels, historical evidence, cultural context (and, to be honest, revelation.) Assumes gospels are true, unless otherwise proven. [16] Tries to create complete pictures, filling in the gaps with speculation. Creates a large number of disparate pictures (rabbi, prophet, sage, shaman, revolutionary leader, etc.)[17]
- If, after having read this, you still think these two subjects can be effectively merged into one article... well, just tell me, and we'll have an RfC. I don't want to create another wall of text just because someone wants to tell me how wrong I am.
- Regarding whether the disambiguation page is an improvement: It's inaccurate, misleading, doesn't even address historicity, and the citations do not support the article text. The main question I have is whether WP:CONSENSUS trumps WP:VERIFIABILITY and WP:No Original Research. If you want to discuss this further, probably better to start a separate section.
Proposal from Fearofreprisal
- TL,DR: Discretionary sanctions, DRN/RfC to get consensus on scope, flag/remove out of scope material, streamline DR process
- “The dictionary definition of 'historicity” is 'historical quality or authenticity based on fact.' Historicity is a quality of a discourse perhaps, or even of an opinion. The most general concept would be something like this: the historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status.” [18]
- Though the term “historicity” is often used by religious scholars, it has no special religious or theological meaning. The careful use of the term by the best known religious scholars suggests that they intend its meaning not be butted with ideological subtext. When a scholar – secular or religious - speaks of historicity, they mean “what actually happened.” And when they speak of the historicity of Jesus they mean “what actually happened with Jesus” (or, perhaps more precisely, “the factual status of claims that have been made about Jesus.”)
- The term “historicity of Jesus” needs no disambiguation, because it means just one thing. (At least, to scholars.) It should be self-evident that the topic (and scope) of the Historicity of Jesus article should focus on historicity – i.e., “what actually happened.” Yet WP editors have been loading the article with a strange synthesis of historical Jesus and Christ myth theory – topics that by their very definition are focused on speculation more than actuality. (See, for example, [19].)
- For example, the article is rife with statements and citations about the consensus opinions of scholars, but provides no connection to the bases for those opinions. The reader is left to guess whether they spring from disciplined historical research, popular consensus, or even religious faith. An assertion that “most scholars” accept that Jesus existed, without further context, tells us nothing of historicity.
- For years, WP editors have been arguing about how to fix this article. The answer unequivocally not to delete, merge or redirect the article, Nor is it to reject biased sources, declare everything but majority opinion as fringe, or ban editors with minority viewpoints.
- Here is what I suggest:
- Apply discretionary sanctions. Without this, the article has no hope.
- Use DRN and RfC to get consensus on what “historicity” means, and to develop a statement of scope for the article, including citations for terms that are likely to be challenged.
- Add the new statement of scope to the article.
- Flag material that is out of scope, requires citations, or fails validation. Remove flagged material after 30 days.
- Clarify and streamline the dispute resolution process for content disputes (particularly with people whose primary contributions to the article are reverts.) An editor shouldn't hesitate to make a good-faith edit because he/she knows it's going to lead to an edit war and an intractable dispute resolution process.
Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Requests for arbitration are not to be taken lightly, and that's the only way to get discretionary sanctions. My guess it that if a request is filed, it will be for the site ban of a single editor. Ignocrates (talk) 01:58, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- The first sentences of the two articles are not much different actually – finding wording that differentiated them has been a big (and slightly artificial) task. Dunn’s quote as per FoR’s new opening sentence of the Historicity disambiguation article is not wrong, but the wording is not really representative of the consensus position – Dunn in fact appears to contradict this statement himself when he says elsewhere that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent" and "rank so high on the 'almost impossible to doubt or deny' scale of historical facts".
- The current HJ article tries to distil “what can be known about what actually happened”, while openly admitting that the sources are purely documentary, that the authenticity of these sources is disputed to various degrees and that scholars do not agree with most of the Synoptic stories. As a result it largely deals with historicity as well. It can certainly be made better, if we bring across what was good from the old Historicity article, and if we state WHY the various scholars hold their various positions, rather than just quoting a slew of opinions.
- I much prefer the Herzog quote about HJ being a “composite of the recoverable bits and pieces of historical information”, and I think we should use that quote in the lead of the HJ article.
- The HJ section on Portraits is admittedly a bit speculative, but it is useful info although it probably needs to be streamlined a bit.
RFC_ Full Article, or Shortened Article with Links
Should the article on Historicity of Jesus be a full article or a shortened disambiguation article?
The most recent full version is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Jesus&oldid=627845714
The shortened disambiguation article is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Jesus&oldid=627801126
Full Article
- Support the Christian movement is all about teaching the controversy when it comes to controversial ideas like creationism and a young earth. Let's teach the controversy on this topic as well. Let both sides post their views (and their evidence, of course), and then let the readers decide which is correct.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.167.155.109 (talk • contribs) This template must be substituted.
- See WP:GEVAL and WP:AGF. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:30, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose - This article has been contentious for months, and has resulted in too much quarreling. The shortened version appears to be a real improvement. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- It has been contentious for several years even. Martijn Meijering (talk) 06:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support there are extant reference sources including the Anchor Bible Dictionary which has a substantial subarticle on this topic (a transcript of which has been already sent out to several editors here) and the Encyclopedia of Unbelief which has a substantial four-page article under the title "Jesus, Historicity of". Between them and the sources they use I think that there is sufficient content for a standalone article and sufficient evidence that this title is maybe among the better titles as per WP:COMMONNAME for an article on the subject they cover, which in both cases is the question of the historical existence of Jesus. I would however acknowledge that there is good reason to think that the content of the article might be significantly changed from the last full version based on such sources. John Carter (talk) 16:22, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Given the impermanence of Wikipedia, the shortened article could be a solution to keep the article stable while a new version is drafted and consensus gained for it. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- OK, build that stand-alone article in your sandbox, and let's see what it looks like. If it's valuable new material that complements rather than duplicates existing articles, we can upload it into this article and replace the existing material. Will you please post a link here when its ready? Wdford (talk) 20:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Given the impermanence of Wikipedia, the shortened article could be a solution to keep the article stable while a new version is drafted and consensus gained for it. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support Nick733 (talk) 10:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)" — [[User:Nick733]|Nick733]]] ([[User talk:Nick733]|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Nick733]|contribs]]) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Wikipedia:DNB I agree with keeping the full article page since I have used it many times in the past, today is my first attempt at editing and have refrained from further discussion until I gain more proficiency Nick733 (talk) 12:50, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- I do not bite but WP:SPA applies all the same. And it's rather astonishing how we all at once have an influx of new users who never took an interest in this article before, and on Octobter 6th they all suddenly decided to come here. I smells of either WP:SOCK or WP:CANVASS.Jeppiz (talk) 13:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:DNB I agree with keeping the full article page since I have used it many times in the past, today is my first attempt at editing and have refrained from further discussion until I gain more proficiency Nick733 (talk) 12:50, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support I consider an article with verifiable facts about this important subject to be in the best interests of both Wikipedia, and humanity. Spierepf (talk) 11:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC) — Spierepf (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Support The historicity of Jesus has enough scholarly research and reliable sources to merit its own article. Many, if not most, of the disambiguation links go to articles that already assume a historical Jesus existed or link to fringe conspiracy theories like the Chist-myth theory. Neither of those types of articles are representative of the historicity of Jesus and I personally see converting this article into a disambiguation page as an attempt at censorship.Scoobydunk (talk) 13:19, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- You can transfer to any of the listed articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 13:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- ...if you wanted to read about supposed fringe theories or articles that already assume Jesus existed. Again, this article has a substantial amount of reliable sources and notability to merit its own inclusion on Wikipedia.Scoobydunk (talk) 13:34, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- You can transfer to any of the listed articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 13:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support A single article on this topic is certainly warranted, and if the Disambiguation proposal is accepted the information within will only be available from multiple other places. DaveChild (talk) 13:54, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support Having both perspectives on the page give more credibility to the page. It forces interested parties to verify claims and provided solid sources. This is a subject about the Historicity of Jesus which required facts which can be verified. Having "opposing sides" helps ensure that NPOV stays out of the articles. JChurchtown (talk) 13:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- This template must be substituted.
- Support It's a WP:BROADCONCEPT article.GliderMaven (talk) 14:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support The single article is factual and has proper references. stymiee (talk) 14:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose Probably most of the 6 October comments come from the "vote rigging" of /r/atheism and shouldn't be considered valid just because it got the attention of those who are atheist and ideologically anti-Christian, as most discussions on /r/atheism show. This is not a historical or fact-based debate. Aoszkar (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Shortened Disambiguation Article
- Support - If there really are any details that need to be added, they can be added here or in one of the referenced articles. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support - A good full article would likely result in material that would be branched off into the other articles if they did not exist. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support per Robert McClenon. As I mentioned at ANI, that was an excellent job creating the disambiguation article in short order, and it diffused the dispute. Well done. Ignocrates (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Strongest support imaginable This article had so many problems before, and the changes resolved almost all of them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:56, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support An excellent resolution of the problem. Perhaps the list of articles could be in alphabetical order though, rather than implying some as more important than others? Theroadislong (talk) 12:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support We can easily put the useful Historicity info into the HJ article - there is no need to keep two separate and duplicating articles for this purpose. Wdford (talk) 12:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support per all of the above editors. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:27, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support both as an excellent first step and as a good long term solution. Further discussion about the possibility of deletion or a rewrite could always follow, but I'd be perfectly happy if it didn't. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support Prasangika37 (talk) 15:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support SW3 5DL (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose The subject of this article has to do with the historical actuality of a man who may have lived long ago. It has nothing to do with whether anyone believed he was Christ. The topic of the article is historical, not theological.
- To delete a purely historical article, and in its place, refer readers to a list of Christian articles is an indefensible imposition of ideology on the readers of WP.
- Further, the blanking of the article was an overt end-run on the WP article deletion policies. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- The first position lead into is the Christ Myth theory. Yes, there's Tom Harpur, but if you're going to acknowledge that that makes it a Christian position, you have to acknowledge that Christianity does allow one to hold a variety of views on the position, which would contradict your prior (and otherwise dumb) arguments about "Christian sources" such as Bart Ehrman.
- The next article (Historical background of the New Testament) and another article (Historical reliability of the Gospels) are about historians placing the Gospels into history to see what it fits (and throwing out what doesn't), rather than reshaping history according to the Christian orthodoxy. While I and some other Christians prefer this approach to studying the Bible, you have to admit that that approach completely rejects Biblical inerrancy and any authority of Christian tradition.
- Also included is Jesus Christ in comparative mythology, which documents attempts to connect the myths of Christianity to non-Abrahamic religions. While I and some other like minded Christians are actually theologically pleased by these comparisons, you must admit that that hardly qualifies that article as "Christian," especially since the article depicts the views as "Christians rejecting similarities pointed out by non-Christians."
- Just because a Christian agrees with an idea does not mean that that idea is automatically Christian. Most of them are fond of breathing, are you going to reject that? Maybe you just need to quit thinking of sources in terms of "Christian" and "non-Christian" (the same problematic mindset of fundamentalist evangelicals) and start thinking of sources in terms of "school" and "meeting WP:RS as Wikipedia defines it."
- Also, the article was not blanked. Disambiguation pages are not blank. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support, seems a good way to avoid the duplication and to help with navigation. Huon (talk) 00:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose This is getting ridiculous. The article should reflect the facts in an unbiased and cut and dry manner and not be used as some sort of Christian apologetics page, much less censored when the facts refuse to correlate with the will of said apologetics. As it was it was an article I would not link people to and of which I would have to point out the dubious source material if it was linked to me. As proposed it becomes simply useless for anything. Merari01 (talk) 10:25, 6 October 2014 (UTC)— Merari01 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Support to avoid redundant duplication, all the content is already covered in the the articles to which the disambig page links.Jeppiz (talk) 11:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Support - Pure disambiguation will work.(e.g. [20]) Bladesmulti (talk) 12:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose There appears to be no other page which takes a purely historical approach to this topic, only those with a Biblical POV. Removing this page does nothing but remove access to information that some people may find useful. DaveChild (talk) 13:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Completely Opposed - It's not a disambiguation page if they all use the title in the same way. You have to use the terms in different, non overlapping ways. This would be completely at odds with Wikipedia's rules. You have to merge it, or delete it.GliderMaven (talk) 14:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose statements such as “…critical methods including critical analyses of gospel texts as the primary source…” and “…mainly Christian sources….” are heavily POV and come from sources which would be considered hearsay in the current legal system. I appreciate the burden of proof being high so that I can rely on the information contained within a Wikipedia article. Removing the full article would be a disservice to all sides of the argument since the common article location forces sides to research and cite perspectives related to the Historicity of Jesus. JChurchtown (talk) 14:18, 6 October 2014 (UTC) This template must be substituted.
- Support This has gone too far in being an ideological battle and even getting the aggressive and nowhere civil /r/atheism crowd to push the decision in that direction. It has gone too far away from an open discussion. This would be a great improvement. Aoszkar (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion
Evading WP article deletion policy
@Wdford: @Robert McClenon: When you "shortened the article," you did a couple of things:
- You blanked most of the article content. This is equivalent to an article deletion. It's an evasion of the WP:Deletion policy. And it fits the WP criteria for vandalism.
- You created something you call a "disambiguation article." Yet, the article doesn't disambiguate anything. It merely points to related articles. And WP doesn't have disambiguation articles - it has WP:Disambiguation pages, which are not WP:articles, and do not contain encyclopedic content. You've created a frankenstein article that can't survive in its current state.
Please revert now. If you think there is consensus for deleting the article, go through the proper processes. You're experienced WP editors - I shouldn't need to tell you this. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- First, what we are doing with this RFC can be seen as complying with the spirit of the WP:Deletion policy, because it has a 30-day period for determining consensus rather than a 7-day period, and is an appropriate case of WP:IAR. Second, you User:Fearofreprisal are engaging in a personal attack. You have been editing Wikipedia long enough to know what is not vandalism. Third, the article wasn't surviving in its previous state. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Odd... most of the recent major edits on the article were made by Wdford... and he's the one who blanked it because it "wasn't surviving."
- Is it a WP policy to delete articles you don't like? Fearofreprisal (talk) 02:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- First, what we are doing with this RFC can be seen as complying with the spirit of the WP:Deletion policy, because it has a 30-day period for determining consensus rather than a 7-day period, and is an appropriate case of WP:IAR. Second, you User:Fearofreprisal are engaging in a personal attack. You have been editing Wikipedia long enough to know what is not vandalism. Third, the article wasn't surviving in its previous state. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- FOP, it's disruptive, anti-consensus, POV-pushing, IDHT behaviour like this that led me to believe you should be TBANned from "Historicity of Jesus, broadly construed". This is what I was asking for on ANI, but I thought it better to get the opinions of uninvolved parties first. This apparently led User:Robert McClenon to the good-faith but nonetheless incorrect assumption that I did not have a solid proposal for how to do with you. This talk page (and your own edit history) shows that you are only here to promote a fringe POV, and so are unwilling to compromise on said point. If you do not cease this disruptive behaviour immediately, someone else will almost certainly open a new ANI thread.
- (And for anyone still potentially considering arbitration to be a better option, I should point out that the correct way to deal with a single user behaving disruptively in a single article area, in a manner that can be clearly demonstrated with diffs and is already almost-universally agreed upon, is not through arbitration. It is through a community-imposed topic ban. The place for that is ANI.)
- Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:33, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- The problems on this page aren't limited to the behaviour of a single editor, nor are they even mainly about editor behaviour. This page and the related pages it links to have been disaster areas for a very long time. That isn't going to be solved by calling for topic bans. I hope we won't need arbitration, and think mediation should come first. I'm not convinced the time for that has arrived yet. A side effect of the various RfCs and ANI discussions is that we have gained many new (or returning old) eyes on target. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- @Fearofreprisal: I haven’t deleted any useful content that I am aware of. As I made very clear, AFAIK all this material already exists in the many related and over-lapping articles, and this article now directs readers to all those places where they can find the content they presumably seek. If you are concerned that some important material has been lost completely, please point it out specifically, and we can easily correct that omission.
- I don’t know of any wiki-policy that actually forbids disambiguation articles – if they fill a need then why not have them? Are you aware of any wiki-policy that forbids disambiguation articles?
- If we need to add section headings or something to this article to avoid litigation, it can also be done without major ructions.
- Here’s a thought – why don’t you create the article Historical actuality of Jesus by yourself, exactly as you want it to be. Once it’s done we will comment and contribute. If your new article avoids duplicating HJ or any of the others then it will be accepted by the consensus, and this "Frankenstein" article can be deleted without fuss. What say? Wdford (talk) 09:05, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- You're likely aware that I've opened a request for mediation on this issue, and have named you and Robert McClenon as parties. Provided you are willing, I believe it would be more productive to discuss it in that context. Fearofreprisal (talk) 09:33, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- You are probably aware that formal mediation is only called for once reasonable discussion on a talk page has broken down. As my edit has an 8-1 consensus thus far, maybe a bit more discussion here would be appropriate first? I responded to your points above, so perhaps you could start by addressing my responses and suggestions? Wdford (talk) 10:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- This goes well beyond a targeted T-ban, Robert McClenon. Point out the obviously false accusation of vandalism by a veteran editor and the inability to abide by a clear consensus, then ask for an indefinite block at ANI. Ask and you will receive I think. Ignocrates (talk) 12:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- @User:Ignocrates: I think you meant the above response for me, not RMcC, since it was me who was calling for a TBAN. You are probably right, but in my experience for SPAs (and let's face it, at this point FOP is essentially an SPA) a TBAN is essentially the same as an indef. It also (seems to be?) easier to get a TBAN than an indef, and also requesting an indef for someone who has such a long, distinguished and varied history of edits over the past six years seems like an AGF concern.</sarcasm> Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Sorry, my mistake! I was reading too fast. Ignocrates (talk) 22:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- @User:Ignocrates: I think you meant the above response for me, not RMcC, since it was me who was calling for a TBAN. You are probably right, but in my experience for SPAs (and let's face it, at this point FOP is essentially an SPA) a TBAN is essentially the same as an indef. It also (seems to be?) easier to get a TBAN than an indef, and also requesting an indef for someone who has such a long, distinguished and varied history of edits over the past six years seems like an AGF concern.</sarcasm> Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- This goes well beyond a targeted T-ban, Robert McClenon. Point out the obviously false accusation of vandalism by a veteran editor and the inability to abide by a clear consensus, then ask for an indefinite block at ANI. Ask and you will receive I think. Ignocrates (talk) 12:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- You are probably aware that formal mediation is only called for once reasonable discussion on a talk page has broken down. As my edit has an 8-1 consensus thus far, maybe a bit more discussion here would be appropriate first? I responded to your points above, so perhaps you could start by addressing my responses and suggestions? Wdford (talk) 10:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Comment First of all, the redirect was done with the best intention but has only lead to the problem being moved to Historical Jesus where a number of fringe theories put together by amateurs are masquerading as valid theories. As for the discussion here, it can be closed as there is a clear consensus for the current version. Consensus does not mean unanimity.Jeppiz (talk) 13:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Better to have the discussion in one place where the topic is more clear than in two places, no? It seems like its for the best for the time being, even though still slightly awkward. Prasangika37 (talk) 15:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- As far as I'm concerned, the new status quo makes it a whole lot easier to deal with fringe-pushing "mythicist" SPAs and IPs, and all disputes about the historical Jesus (as opposed to the historicity question) should have been taking place on that other talk page to begin with. This is much better. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Moving On
The attempted mediation process has collapsed, and it would appear that the consensus is thus to keep this article in the greatly-shortened version. As some technical purists might object to the unconventional format, I have also produced a “de-frankenstein-ed” version, with section headings inserted along with formal references to main articles - see here [21]. Should I upload that version for consideration, or should we leave it as is for now?
I note that neither Fearofreprisal nor John Carter have thus far responded to my suggestion to create a draft article called Historical actuality of Jesus, which might yet prove useful if it contains valuable material and avoids duplicating HJ or any of the other existing articles on the subject. Wdford (talk) 11:35, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- I like it. Once again, well done! Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:26, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- Regards consensus: There's no consensus yet. Until someone closes the RfC, we can't really move on to coming to a consensus on a course of action for this article.
- Regards your sandbox article: The first sentences of the lead and the "Scope of the topic" section are uncited, and appear to be original research.
- Regards your suggestion that I create a draft article called Historical actuality of Jesus: Considering that the title is synonymous with Historicity of Jesus, you're essentially suggesting that I create a content fork. No thank you. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:18, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- Fwiw, I agree with FoR here. There is not a WP:SNOW; therefore this RfC is still open and things may change. Also, as I pointed out at ANI, it's the timing of the RfM that was disruptive, not the RfM itself (given that the RfC is still open). There may yet be a formal mediation before this is resolved. Ignocrates (talk) 22:17, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- Comment All other matters aside, the suggestion to create yet another article, Historical actuality of Jesus, seems like a terrible idea. What would be in that article that is not already in Historical Jesus or other closely related articles?Jeppiz (talk) 22:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- Well that's what I was hoping to see - I personally don't think there is any content of value that is not already included in an existing article. However FoR did previously propose that all the "opinions" etc be stripped out, leaving the article to describe only the "evidence" etc. That is what the Historical Jesus article already does, although it also includes other sections full of opinions. I was hoping to see a stripped-down article that actually demonstrates the end-state that FoR demands and fights for, but is unwilling to actually describe. Presumably if this goes to RfM both parties would have to explain why they think their proposal is best for Wikipedia, and at that time FoR would have to explain what content s/he thinks it necessary to include and why. I thought we could avoid the time spent on RfM if all parties in good faith present their proposals and justifications upfront, but seemingly FoR would rather go to RfM than resolve the issue here. Pity. Wdford (talk) 23:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I just finished participating in a dispute resolution at DRN, which failed, but I learned about this essay written by the mediator: WP:1AM. I found it extremely helpful. The thing to guard against here is creating the impression there is a local consensus. Therefore, you might want to think about publicizing the RfC even more widely at the Village pump. Ignocrates (talk) 01:12, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- Wdford: I've actually presented my proposals up-front repeatedly (though I did, for a while, resort to presenting the issues, and asking people for their opinions. The results were disappointing.) I continue to participate in this talk page, in the hope of resolving some of the issues facing this article.
- I filed the request for mediation because I thought the presence of a mediator might allow a productive conversation with you and Robert McClenon -- not only without the hostility of this talk page, but also without the deafening silence that occurs when I mention basic policies (such as earlier in this thread, where I mentioned that two of the sentences in your sandbox article appear to be original research, and need to be cited.)
- In any event, even if my RfM was premature, it was hardly disruptive. It resulted in no disruption to the article, and had it proceeded forward, it would have resulted in no sanctions against anyone, and no more cost of time than you've spent here. It would have cost you nothing, and might have lead to improving the article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 02:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- @FoR: I’m not going to repeat the same circular discussion about the plain English dictionary definition of the word “Historicity” – the fact that you bring it up yet again is tendentious. I have checked many scholarly works on this topic recently, and scholars do not bother to define the term “Historicity of Jesus” – they appear to assume that readers will apply normal English definitions, as we are doing here.
- All you have actually presented up-front is the insistence that "the topic (and scope) of the Historicity of Jesus article should focus on historicity – i.e., "what actually happened."" You also stated that it should address "only that which is supported by historical evidence." Well, obviously. However your own favorite citation from Dunn says that this is not actually possible, because that evidence doesn’t exist anymore. So what actually do you propose to do differently? If you are going to remove all material that is in your opinion "out of scope", then what will be left? An article consisting of a philosophical definition of Historicity, three disputed mentions in Josephus and Tacitus, and nothing more? Or will you respect the weight of scholarship that says the baptism is also historically certain, based on the criterion of embarrassment? Please explain what content will be left in the article under your paradigm? An RfM is not needed if you are prepared to actually address issues, so stop evading the question and tell us all openly now once and for all - exactly what content do you propose to retain in the article? Wdford (talk)
- My experience is that scholars use the term "historicity" in a careful manner, to preserve its normal meaning. Consider the sister term "historical jesus" which definitely has domain specific meaning.
- You don't give me quite enough credit for presenting ideas up-front, But I'm typing on a pad tonight, so I won't be dropping in any diffs. But what you've presented seems representative of what I've said, with only a little trepidation. If you and I could have conversations of this sort more often we might not need mediation.
- Regards the Dunn quote - there are others that say similar things. A long time back, Historical methods were looking like they were going to be bad news for the questers for the historical jesus. So, biblical historians invented new methods - e.g. Criterion of embarrassment. Should we toss them out of the article? Not Necessarily ... But I think it's important to include as much of a scholar's agenda and protocol as makes sense. Though there are limits. Revelation as a research protocol might upset some readers, and please others. But it might be hard to call it a historical method.
- Forgive me if I didn't answer as well as possible. It's late and I'm tired. Fearofreprisal (talk) 09:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC) (And typing on a kepad is a pain. Edited 18:43, 5 October 2014 (UTC) )
- OK, no rush. The RfC is currently standing at 11-2 in favor of a greatly reduced article, with the duplication removed and the detail all included in the various main articles instead.
- I am actually surprised that you are fighting for the extended article, since you have argued all along that much of the extended content is “out of scope” and should be removed. If I understand you correctly it seems you would prefer to just have a one-paragraph article that says "The historicity of Jesus is the question of what actually happened back then, based purely on the reliable historical evidence. However there actually isn’t any reliable historical evidence as such, just some gospels that hardly anybody trusts and three mentions in non-Christian sources, all of whose authenticity is disputed to varying degrees. We therefore can know nothing about the real Jesus with confidence, other than that a Jesus-person probably existed around that time." If that is going to be all there is to it, we can add a few lines to the lead section of the disambiguation article, and the job is done. Unless there is some other content that you would wish to include? Wdford (talk) 07:34, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
- Sometimes I feel like a real sucker, letting myself get drawn into discussions like this.
- I expressed my opinion on the RfC here: [22]
- Until the RfC is closed, no possible good can come out of continuing this discussion. Fearofreprisal (talk) 10:39, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
disambiguation
I think we can either remove This is a disambiguation article or tag this article with Template:-disambiguation-. Opinions? Bladesmulti (talk) 04:06, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
The page is an article page, not a disambiguation page. Those are two different things. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:45, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
- According to Wikipedia's standards, this isn't a disambiguation article. A disambiguation article is used when the term 'historicity of Jesus' is used in completely different senses. For example if 'historicity' had a meaning that he sweated a lot, then you could have a disambiguation page. But they're all using the terms in the same senses, so this isn't a disambiguation page. At most it's a WP:BROADCONCEPT article, but even that is pushing it.GliderMaven (talk) 13:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)