Talk:Ebionites/Archive 11

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Archive 11

Gospel of the Ebionites

Have cleaned up duplicate content which appears to be junk DNA left from years ago. Curious as to why Walter Richard Cassels (1877) and Theodoret (c.393 – c.457) are cited? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:40, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

No idea. Junk DNA as you said. Thanks for taking care of it. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 02:16, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I followed up on Theodoret, with refs from Klijn 1973 and Broadhead 2010, as well as Schaff and ed.Bromiley on the sub-group distinction which led to Theodoret's inference. I can see now why the original editor decided to include Theodoret, even if c.447AD doesn't really qualify him among "modern scholars" :) In ictu oculi (talk) 12:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

External Link

Michael, I took a look at the link you added to the article. Very interesting. I don't know what to make of the fact that they describe their group as a church (as opposed to a synagogue) and self-identify as Christians. There was a group I read about that was giving Messianic Jews fits in Israel, but I never learned their name. Ovadyah (talk) 00:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I took a second look. This looks dubious to me. April fools? Ovadyah (talk) 00:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I pass no judgement on the contents, beyond that readers might find it interesting as an example of a neo-ebionite group. I doubt that it is an April Fool's - the article history goes back to 2007. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 06:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Ebionites at particracy.wikia.com

I copied the link over to the talk page to evaluate verifiability. So far, I don't see it. Ovadyah (talk) 15:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I am not aware of a requirement that links be verified; remember we are not interested in truth. Anyway, it is a wiki, whose contents will evolve with time. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 16:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Links have no different standard than any other article content. Come on, you know all this already. That's why we took out the "See Also" section in peer review. It was being used as advertising space for every little group out there. And I agree with you that TRUTH is irrelevant. Verifiability is a policy, and we have to respect that. Notability, however, is a guideline and I'm willing to let it slide. Simply find some kind of evidence that these guys exist independent of them tooting their own horn and I'm good to go. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 19:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I did not agree with the removal of the "see also" section, nor the external links section. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 19:45, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The presence of the section itself was not and is not the issue. The verifiability of the contents is the issue. If you want to seek a WP:Third Opinion be my guest. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I put the question to ELN. This will be faster than WP:3 and they handle this type of guideline question all the time. If they think it's ok, I will be happy to self-revert. We have been in need of some guidance on this question more generally for awhile now. Ovadyah (talk) 23:41, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

ELN did not give a straight answer to my question. Instead, quoting from the guidelines, they said, "Unless it has a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors it is normally to be avoided." I'm not a mind-reader, but I am interpreting this as a no. Ovadyah (talk) 14:38, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, I concur. Although stable, there are not very many editors in the page history. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 18:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Removal of Neo-Ebionites section

John Carter has proposed self-reverting his addition of a Neo-Ebionites section to the Ebionites article. This is not a proper subject for mediation, as there is no dispute about this over which to mediate. I am in favor of this self-reversion. As John Carter's only addition of sourced article content in the past 3 1/2 years, it seems only fitting that he remove it, so that the sum total of his positive contributions to this article are zero. Do we have a consensus to remove this content? Ovadyah (talk) 21:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I object to deletion, since it sourced. But it sits uneasily with the rest of the article, so hiving it off back into its own neo-Ebionite article would be better. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 21:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I am only in support of the self-reversion of this specific version from the article. I think the original merged content should be restored to the article, as intended by the vote in AfD. Following that, a discussion about hiving it off back into its own article vs. leaving it where it is as a section in this article would be appropriate. Let's start with bringing the original merged content back to the article as a subsection. The source in this JC version could be retained and incorporated into the merged version. Ovadyah (talk) 23:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Since you objected, I'll leave it to you to decide the best way to proceed. I can go either way. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 23:58, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's go with restoration of the merged content that was lost awhile ago, retaining current content. Then we can recreate the NeoEbionite article, unless anyone objects. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 06:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that is an acceptable way to proceed. It respects the votes of the majority in AfD to merge, and it allows for further improvements to the merged content, either as a section in this article or by restoring and improving the content as an independent article. I'm currently swamped on other matters, so please proceed as you see fit. Ovadyah (talk) 15:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been bold and recreated the old EJC article with the new content merged in. The thought of the wrangling here, which would inevitably follow, was too much. Note that the restored content was deleted against the AfD consensus and unrestored for years. Corrected. Possibly we could rename the sub-article "Neoebionites" - I've left a note this effect on the restored talk page. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 05:20, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I like your solution. It allows for the development of that article without causing another excuse for disruption here. I'm going to collapse the material from the neo-Ebionite section into the Legacy section, which has stood in the article for years. Thanks again for taking care of this. Ovadyah (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, stick it in the legacy section. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 15:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed AfD

Please note that John Carter, despite a complete lack of engagement on the matter, has raised an AfD on the demerged content / Ebionite Jewish Community, which is consequently being considered for deletion. Please feel free to offer comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ebionite Jewish Community (3rd nomination).-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 19:50, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Whether it is deleted or not, it seems worth to try and add 1 line under Assemblies_of_Yahweh#Related_groups so I have done so.In ictu oculi (talk) 22:45, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It never hurts to try. I think you can see by now that this is only a small part of a much bigger battle over control of article content that is a long way from being over. Ovadyah (talk) 23:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I removed it until there is a consensus in AfD. A pre-merge while the matter is still under discussion could be seen as an attempt to evade deletion. Ovadyah (talk) 22:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Editors note

When an editor is moving content around that is properly sourced, it is your responsibility to move the references along with the text. Thank you. Ovadyah (talk) 22:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that here, problem was that I actually went away and tried to find a source for that particular sentence that someone thought the book of Elchesai preexisted Alcibiades of Apamea as a Jewish text. It wasn't clear that Petri Luomanen Jewish Christianity Reconsidered (2007) pp.96, 299, 331:note 7 was the source. It is now, thanks In ictu oculi (talk) 02:45, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem. The text itself can be dated rather precisely by internal dating. The report that it was probably written in Babylon, originally as a Jewish apocalypse, is speculative of course. Luomanen is only providing an overview of other sources in the context of a discussion about the Ebionites. A lot more detail could be written, but that should probably be reported on the Elchasites article. That article is a joke, and it has been ever since I have been here. It was literally a cut and paste of the Catholic Encyclopedia. I don't see that much has changed. It's a pity really. There is a lot information about the Elchasites. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 03:36, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Does Luomanen cite any linguistic/content reasons? Given that Alcibiades main interest seems to be baptism unlikely that baptism would come from a Jewish text, you'd think. And yes that article is a joke.In ictu oculi (talk) 03:42, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The Essenes were into bathing/baptism. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 05:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael, yes, but that would have been baptismos not baptisma - this chap who turns up in 230 in Rome is talking about baptism for the remission of sins. Plus he identifies the Son of God and the Holy Ghost as having given the book -- it sounds more Christian than Jewish. But if Luomanen 2007 has specific reasons he has specific reasons.In ictu oculi (talk) 05:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The thinking is that the Aramaic apocalypse known as Hayil Kesai was named after one of the two giant angels. The text found its way into Christian circles, and one of the two angels became associated with Christ and the other with the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure about the baptism account because the Hayil Kesai is said to have a docetic Christology; Jesus only seemed to be human. Btw, the book was published in 2007 (not 2003), so I will fix this mistake. Ovadyah (talk) 14:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Here is what Petri Luomanen has the say about the Book of Elchasai in Jewish Christianity Reconsidered p.96:

"The Book of Elchasai has not survived but its basic contents can be deduced from references in Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Epiphanius (for an overview of the book, see Luttikhuizen 2005). It was originally Jewish, probably written by a Mesopotamian Jew around 116 CE, during Trajan's Parthian war. The book predicted an apocalyptic war in the near future, "when three years of the reign of the emperor Trajan are again completed" ... The protection was provided by a huge angel, whose measurements were given in detail. The angel was connected to, or perhaps even named, the "Hidden Power" (Pan.19.2.2; Aramaic hayil kesai > Elchasai). The huge angel-like figure was also known as Christ and "Great King" - at least in the version known to Epiphanius - but Epiphanius was not able to say if the author was referring to "our Lord Jesus Christ" or to someone else. (Pan. 19.3.4). This comment also indicates that there was nothing specifically Christian in the contents of the book."

There is more in the form of a summary of Gerard Luttikhuizen's findings about the Book of Elchasai and more summary findings by Luomanen on pp.96-98 about how all of this relates to the Ebionites. Ovadyah (talk) 15:05, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Slavonic Josephus

I believe the existing citation and cited material from this source are at best dubiously relevant to this article. First, of course, it is a primary source, and in this case it is also a primary source which says something which is not, actually, demonstrably relevant to the content of this article. Also, there is the matter of its dubious authenticity, as per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 92#Slavonic text of The Jewish War. As is indicated on that page, the text should only be used in conjunction with a source citing it - that is not done in this case.

I also find its inclusion at all remarkable. I am myself unaware of any modern scholars giving the content of the Slavonic "additions" to Josephus any specific weight or citation at all, given the clearly problematic nature of that content. Certainly, I do not recall seeing the source (or Josephus in general) in any particular relevance to this topic. And, certainly, the text itself does not indicate that the material is, in any particular way, relevant to this article.

I believe it would be most interesting if someone were to examine the texts of Tabor and Eisenman, to see if one or either have cited this source in their works. If one, the other, or both did, then it might be relevant for inclusion, if the citation met WP:V requirements, in the form of "Slavonic Josephus, as cited by (author), (page)." However, in that event, there would be additional problems. Specifically, if this one citation is a faulty one, in omitting the specific source from which the material came and only citing the source used by that source, how many of the other citations in this article might similarly fail WP:V in indicating only the original source of the material, rather than including the specific work in which the editor found that material referenced? If there is one such failure to abide by WP:V requirements, I cannot see that there is any reason to automatically assume it is the only one. John Carter (talk) 15:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Why are you bringing this up again here rather than discussing it in Mediation? Ovadyah (talk) 15:09, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

(I wrote this some hours ago, but could not post it, inbetween several garden and household tasks, because everytime I tried to, there was an edit conflict. Not that it will help)

Surely there's no harm in this Ovadyah? After all, you and I have agreed that primary sources must be titrated through secondary RS, and I note you asked Michael to do just this today or yesterday. John is only asking that this good practice be applied to the Josephus Slavonic material. I feel certain also that what John is asking (If Josephus's Slavonic material is to be used on the Ebionite page, it should only be introduced if an RS on the Ebionites makes use of it.

I haven't Tabor at hand - I don't buy popular books in this field, so can't check this there, but as far as I can see from a brief control of Eisenman's indexes and related pages, he doesn't collate specifically Ebionism with the Josephus-Slavonic material.

I think all three of you should give this page a rest, and leave it to several other editors with long experience in this area. It is still a mess, of the two parties, one is a minority of one, and never listened to, and John himself tends to allow his frustration boil over. In such cases, the cause of the encyclopedia is ill-served by what has become, for whatever reasons (and I assign no blame to any one side) an irremediably dysfunctional editing environment. Nishidani (talk) 18:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Because I did raise the issue in mediation, and both you and Michael there, presumably establishing "consensus" in the eyes of you two, decided it isn't important enough to deal with now. Considering WP:V is a policy, and there is a possible failure to adhere to that policy in this article, I believe it is also relevant to post here. Adhering to policy supercedes mediation in wikipedia. John Carter (talk) 15:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

And those issues have been addressed. Case closed. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 16:03, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I added the reference Tabor made to a passage in Slavonic Josephus inline to the Jesus Dynasty with a page number and quotation. I also added the complete citation to Mead's book which had previously been only a url. Now it has an ISBN number and refers to a specific page in the book with an exact quotation. There should be no problem with accepting Mead as a reliable source, and therefore, there should be no problem with verifiability. Ovadyah (talk) 15:52, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Ovadyah, sorry, as an observer, I don't understand why you guys are going to such a lot of stress to include a ref that has no value anyway? Okay article currently gives Tabor as the source for using Slavonic Josephus. So it be mentioned as a minority view "Tabor, citing Slavonic Josephus says" and then have Louis H. Feldman Judaism and Hellenism reconsidered -"The Slavonic version of the War, apparently made in the eleventh century, contains a number of additions ... In its notes it expresses such strange notions as that Josephus was an Ebionite Christian and a bishop of Jerusalem. " or something. But generally scholarship won't pay attention to Old Slavonic texts where the Greek original survives in several MSS. It's very rare that Slavonic translations preserve anything that gets lost in Greek, 10x more likely that the Slavonic will add/distort the Greek -- and I mean anything: Pseudepigrapha, Patristics, Classics. Slavonic texts simply are of little value. In this case the corruption of the text to suggest that Josephus was an Ebionite Christian and a bishop of Jerusalem(!!!) means that any surrounding text will also be of little use. So why mention it? Is it even mentioned on the Josephus article itself? In ictu oculi (talk) 15:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, you have a point, but it is mentioned by the secondary source, hence is admissible here. And here Josephus' Slavonic text - as opposed to the accompanying notes - is reinforcing something expressed in the Gospel of the Ebionites, namely John's vegetarianism, rather than an historical howler about Josephus by a medieval commentator. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 16:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, you may be interested in what Mead says about Slavonic Josephus. It seems we can't dismiss it so easily. Some scholars, at least, think that it is "therefore worthy of attention as giving a picture of an early outside view of nascent Christianity." -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 16:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: The major problem with this article is, of course, the matter of WP:WEIGHT, which has been the bone of contention in this article for at least one mediation and one arbitration already. There seems to be little if any interest on the part of Ovadyah and Michael to even acknowledge that disagreements about the topic exist, and certainly no effort on the part of either of them to produce such material. As I have said repeatedly, I recused myself from editing the article when Ovadyah challenged the accuracy of my reproduction of material at User: John Carter/Ebionites and its talk page. I also said at the time that I would withdraw my adminship if there were any substantive error in them. To date, noone has produced evidence of same - both Michael and Ovadyah have just basically ignored everything produced there that doesn't agree with their own personal interpretations and continued to ensure that the article not have the "total rewrite" tag and poor assessment. And, of course, given that they are both much more, um, "committed" to this topic (Ovadyah probably even qualifies as a single purpose account), there is no chance of me, or, for that matter, others of making the article better.

However, I believe the case is not yet closed. Far from it. It could very easily be seen to be the case that Ovadyah has attempted to skirt clear of addressing the possibility of someone, possibly himself, of having also potentially copied several citations verbatim from Tabor, without having consulted any of the sources cited themselves for weight or other factors. The fact that he has, apparently, acknowledged violation of WP:V in this one case does not and should not be seen as being sufficient to ignore the issue raised. Rather, the fact of this acknowledgement of a single violation of V should, if anything, promote a more thorough review of all other citations added by the person who added that citation, to see if they were potentially made in violation of policy as well. John Carter (talk) 16:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

This is simple. Two reliable secondary sources mention a primary source - Slavonic Josephus. Therefore, it can't be an issue of violating WP:V. Now, one might argue that there are WP:SYNTH issues: 1) Do the reliable sources support the content? 2) Does the content belong in the Ebionites article? Those are legitimate content issues we are attempting to resolve in mediation. What John Carter is really getting at is he thinks Slavonic Josephus is unworthy to be used as a primary source. That is not his call to make as an editor. Repositioning this content dispute as a dispute over policy is just a way to evade mediation. He used the same argument as an excuse to blank sections of the article and for the mass-removal of references. It didn't work before and it won't work this time either. I will just add it to the mountain of evidence we are accumulating for arbitration. Ovadyah (talk) 16:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

John Carter, the statement you made about me "The fact that he has, apparently, acknowledged violation of WP:V" is a total fabrication. I did nothing more than improve a reliable source that was already present in the article by adding an ISBN number and a page number. However, I will add it to the long and growing list of your knowingly false statements to be litigated in arbitration. Ovadyah (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Ovadyah, you are right. I should by this time acknowledge that you as an individual are incapable of acknowledging any errors on the part of you or those whose material you support. And I will also for the record point out that in the above personal attacks at least one of the fundamental issues raised here, that whoever it was who added the information in that form violated policy, and that, on that basis, there is cause to see if the same person may have violated policy in some of his other citations, has, probably to no one's surprise, been once again completely ignored in favor of indulging in offtopic commentaries and personal attacks on others, as per your now long-established habit. John Carter (talk) 17:07, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael, thanks but no thanks; you might want to read up George Robert Stowe Mead :D.

Guys I'm no expert but I am speaking from personal experience. My main exposure to Old Church Slavonic is because of singing/listening to Russian Orthodox church music, but it just happens that that makes some of the of Slavonic versions of Greek texts accessible for comparison, and basically, I know from hands on experience with the Slavonic pseudepigrapha they're not to be trusted where (as Josephus) you've got a rich reliable set of originals to work with. So okay, at some point a Bogomil scribe put "cane" in the already dubious John the B bit of War. So what? Some Egyptian Christians put "cake" in Panarion. What's the connection. What's the relevance to the article? Does Tabor seriously think that one textual change to "cake" in GMatt in Egypt in the 4thC has any connection to an 11thC change to "cane" in WarJ somewhere in the Balkans 7 centuries later? If Tabor has a point, what do others scholars say to balance that point? By all means mention two views, what's the other view?In ictu oculi (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder to read about Mead, although I not sure that being a theosophist are grounds for dismissal. Also, he was reporting he work of R. Seeberg & Johannes Frey. His conclusions seem sound to me.-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 17:12, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael, yes being a Theosophist is definitely grounds for being a Theosophist. As to Frey (1906) that's a full 60 years before the critical edition of Slavonic Josephus appeared. Is Tabor even using the critical edition of Slav.War? Do all the OCS texts agree with "cane" or do some agree with the Greek? But this isn't te issue is it. Ovadyah and Michael you want to put in Tabor's quote, John you don't. But what does it mean? To me it's as relevant as saying "In the Old Russian it says this____ " so what? And if there's a point what is it? (Sorry to be dense) In ictu oculi (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

You are hardly being dense. The fundamental issue is, basically, does this meet WP:UNDUE for this particular article with this particular topic. So far as I can see, the answer is "No." There is, with the possible exception of Tabor, no discussion of a connection between John the Baptist and the Ebionites, and any issues of Christian vegetarianism would probably be most reasonably discussed fully in that article. So far as I can see, I have yet to see any good reason given for why the material deserves inclusion in this article and it more or less is the burden of those who seek to add material to demonstrate it. The fact that the refusal to provide such reasons regarding much of the content of this article supported by Michael and Ovadyah has been an ongoing problem for about a year now has clearly made my tolerance for their obfuscation and misdirection shorter, but it is still the case that they have yet to demonstrate any real reason for its inclusion, other than, basically, that they want it here. John Carter (talk) 17:30, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi In ictu oculi, the relevance is that the Ebionites portrayed themselves as vegetarians. These claims were dismissed by the early Church Fathers as Ebionite fabrications, yet there does seem some basis for their claims. There are a number of sources - not just Tabor, as John Carter claims - that make this claim, some of which draw upon Slavonic Josephus. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 17:48, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael, (a) really? Epiphanius did not dismiss that, I see he clearly says that both the Ebionites and Nasoreans were vegetarian, so which ChF disagrees with Epiphanius? (b) Still don't see the point: How does a Bogomil changing "locust" to "cane" in the 10thC tell us whether an Egyptian Christian was vegetarian (which we already know they were) in the 4thC? (c) Which modern scholars draw on Slav.War given that the Russian critical edition (sometime in 1960s) makes it clear the text is a translation from late Greek mss? (d) and what point do they make from Slav.War. .........you guys all seem to be in on the significance of this which escapes me. :) In ictu oculi (talk) 18:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the Ebionites claimed that their vegetarianism was based on scriptural authority, and as evidence they presented their gospel. This was what the Church Fathers dismissed as Ebionite fabrication. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 18:15, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

From my own talk page

To keep things simple I'm answering that here. Look I think you guys know, (a) I've a fairly left wing/critical view of most things, (b) more sympathetic to Hellenistic-Christianity/Judaism than the kosher version. So I don't think asking my opinions will help things here. Ovadyah did a very good job with cleaning up Gospel of the Ebionites. But Michael, there's some odd Messianicky bits on this article, and John I think you have to provide "other view" quotes rather than just deleting Tabor even if Tabor looks fruitcakey.In ictu oculi (talk) 17:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree, there are some "odd Messianicky bits" in the article, and I don't like them. In time they can be smoothed out. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 17:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The other quotes have been available for I think about a year now at User:John Carter/Ebionites and User talk:John Carter/Ebionites. They have just been pretty systematically ignored and in some cases edit-warred against by Michael and Ovadyah. And, actually, I am not sure that Tabor or Eisenman should be completely ignored. The question is how much weight to give theories which have received little if any academic support. In the case of Eisenman, one of the encyclopedias included in the pages above references J. L. Teicher, the first person to propose a linkage between the Dead Sea scrolls and the early Christians. The evidence which has over time been presented to date which discusses Eisenman indicates that it would be reasonable to add his name (or books) after Teicher, along with those of others who have subsequently done the same thing. There is a problem, in that while all of them identifiy the Lying Priest and the Teacher of Righteouness as early Christians, there is no agreement regarding who the individual claimants are. Also, the factor of WP:WEIGHT is and has been the primary point of contention. It has just been, basically, consistently ignored by both Michael and Ovadyah. John Carter (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Vegetarian JohnTB (was Please reply on Article Talk page here so all can see, thanks)

Hi guys 1. I made a change from "It is a matter of debate whether John was in fact a vegetarian (a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus)" to "James Tabor argues that John was a vegetarian" based on what was presented on this page that James Tabor argues that.., etc.. It's been reverted to "It is a matter of debate". Which it still isn't. There is no debate. There is just James Tabor. I don't even say any other scholars taking him seriously enough to answer since 2006. Have they? 2. Re these quotes from James Tabor

an ancient Hebrew version of Matthew INCORRECT insists that "locusts" is a mistake in Greek

— Jesus Dynasty p.134

Gospel of Ebionites is a Greek text. There is no "ancient Hebrew version of Matthew" in existence. This strikes me as plain dishonesty. No honest academic would present GEb as "an ancient Hebrew version of Matthew". (as a side note, today is the first time I've looked as his academic track record.)

We know this

— ref 9 p.335

We know this

— ref 10 p.335

There is an Old Russian (Slavic) version of Josephus's Antiquities that describes John the Baptizer as living on "roots and fruits of the tree" and insists that he never touches bread, even at Passover.

— ref 11 p.335

So his case boils down to misrepresenting a 4th Century Egyptian Greek text as "an ancient Hebrew version of Matthew". 3. These 4x quotes of Tabor don't actually clearly state the implied thesis "there's been a giant conspiracy, anti-vegeterian Paul has surpressed the truth of the matter, all NT manuscripts have been tampered with by Paulites, the truth is found in Epiphanius' quote of a Jewish wannabee group in Egypt". But okay, I agree the thesis is implied, and this is evidently what he's pushing. Back to the article. Is this typical? Is this underpinning behind the other statements in the article that John Carter is objecting to? Because if it is typical of other sections in the article (I don't know) then there may be a potential POV problem here. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:08, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, you haven't read Tabor, obviously. Please stop synthesizing from quotes. And you will have to stop saying things like, "There is no debate. There is just James Tabor. " when you have been shown similar quotes from elsewhere of others also claiming John the Baptist as a vegetarian. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 00:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael,

Sure but I don't have to "read Tabor" do I? That's why I asked for quotes. Ovadyah was kind enough to provide them. Some synthezizing from those 4x quotes is required to reach the position you want me to reach that "there is a debate" without further evidence. So, yes, correct, if you want me to reach "there is a debate" without synthezizing, then yes, please, I would need more than those 4x quotes. It is quite possible that when I have been shown similar quotes from elsewhere of others also claiming John the Baptist as a vegetarian, and scholarly rebuttal, then I will have been shown that there is "debate". But that's what I'm asking for isn't it? Where's the "debate"? All the 4x quote show is 1x a Tabor's misrepresentation of a Greek text as "an ancient Hebrew version of Matthew" + 2x NT quotes which we know, + 1x a statement about Slavonic Josephus. Yes, evidently it requires synthesis to reach "debate" from that. Which is why I suggest that "debate" be removed from the article. Or either or

In fact I have applied after the "debate" comment in the article. I request that it be left there until it is addressed with evidence of a rebuttal of Tabor's view, and hence "debate".In ictu oculi (talk) 01:24, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, can you suggest a better way to reword this that will relieve what you have identified as a synthesis problem? I'm not seeing it myself, but maybe a set of fresh eyes is just what we need to resolve this. Is the issue over the word "debate", as opposed to scholars having two different views of the subject? In other words, there are two different groups of scholars that disagree about whether the primary sources support a conclusion that JTB may have been a vegetarian, but they are not in fact "debating" it. Is that the issue? If so, by all means WP:BE BOLD and reword the text to take care of the problem. Thanks. Ovadyah (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe this just needs to be broken up into two sentences. The pro-veggie sources would be Eisenman et al. in the first sentence. The anti-veggie sources would be in the next sentence, including Shlomo Pines (already in there) plus any additional sources we can find to make this more NPOV. Does that help? Ovadyah (talk) 03:02, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians,[62][63][64][65][66] a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus[67][68]. However, the conclusion that the Ebionites regarded John the Baptist as a vegetarian has been disputed. Other scholars, such as Petri Luomanen and Shlomo Pines, have questioned whether Epiphanius may have mistaken for Ebionites a group with closer affinities to Hellenistic-Samaritans<Luomanen> or the related Elchasaite sect.[35]Pines

How about this arrangement? Ovadyah (talk) 03:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ovadyah

Well I was already BOLD and already expressed what I understand is an honest representation of the status here:

• James Tabor believes that all New Testament manuscripts where John eats "locusts" are corrupt and that the Ebionite version "cakes" is correct, and correct to say John, Jesus and Peter were vegetarians. In support of this he cites an 11th Century Slavonic translation of Josephus's War of the Jews.

Where Michael wants

• It is a matter of debate whether John was in fact a vegetarian (a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus

The trouble is (Michael) that second statement is not true, is it? It is not a fact that this is a matter of debate, since there is no scholarly debate happening. As it stands Tabor's is a view that has not generated scholarly debate. But really the point is that this shouldn't even be in this article - this is an article about a 4thC sect - if there's anything to say about John the Baptist it should be in John the Baptist.In ictu oculi (talk) 04:48, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry In ictu oculi, statements like "there is no debate" is not an open-minded request for information. When you realise that we can talk.

PS in the meantime reread Kelhoffer, especially page 20. where you will there is a contemporary debate about John the Baptist's vegetarianism.-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 05:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael,

Couple of things:

1. You've now made 2 edits without getting agreement : which would be fine if you didn't do so leaving "Not just Tabor - see talk. Take it to mediation if you feel so strongly that you can't wait for the debate to close on the talk page Undid revision 424424698 by In ictu oculi " on the edit comments.

2. It's usual with any fringe idea to find 1 or 2 people every half century who are convinced of it. Philipp Kieferndorf (1892) is dead, so not in a debate. Robert Eisler (1929) is just citing the GE. Alexandros Pallis (one of my own bios no less) who cares. What we'd normally mean by "debate" is that people who are not dead reply to James Tabor's 2006 theory's and "debate" them.

3. Where is the "debate"?

4. And again, if we're so confident about this why not John the Baptist? I will add my edit there. If it's not received there (in the 1stC article) it shouldn't be here (in the 4thC article).

Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 05:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Your synth tag asked for a ref, I provided one. So? As for debate having to have living debatees, no; what you have to prove (i.e. source) is that the debate ended conclusively. I see no signs of that. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 06:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael.

Firstly, before we go on can I ask you a relevant question: Have you ever tried locust? (I've had locusts and honey and they are very tasty - a bit like crispy shrimp)

Secondly, a tag is more than a tag. The problem with the sentence is the synthesis that because James Tabor has said something therefore it's a debate. Wikipedia shouldn't say something is in debate if it isn't. All mainstream commentaries on Matt 3:4 and Mark 1:6 pass the locust verses without comment, debate for the simple reason that there is no debate. Just as there is no debate over Leviticus 11:22 "Of them you may eat: the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind"

Kelhoffer = The Tenacity of 'Vegetarian' lnterpretations: Alexander Ross and Ellen Gould Harmon White Brock notes aptly that "the urge to get rid of the offending locusts dies hard." ... so Kelhoffer isn't listing a debate, he's tabulating fringe views.

In ictu oculi (talk) 06:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I've tried ants.

See the interminable debate about WP:FRINGE applied to religion. One of the mediation topics, you'll find. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 06:30, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael, I'm glad you've eaten ants. Helps not to be a vegetarian when discussing vegetarianism. But all the same fringe is as fringe does. Fringe authors publish bestsellers with conspiracy theories. Non-fringe authors get to write the 2 Corinthians volume in the NITC or something boring. The result is that if we take 200 commentaries on Matthew and Mark (which would be doable) we won't find 1 scholar that seriously advances Tabor's theory that there's a great Pauline anti-vegetarian conspiracy. This is, frankly, is fruitcake stuff. Froooot Froooooot.In ictu oculi (talk) 06:53, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it would be, if that what's Tabor was saying. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 07:00, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Well based on what was cited above it is, so for the moment this is how the article reads:

John the Baptist

The Gospel of the Ebionites might have been named after the followers of John the Baptist,[55] and Jesus initially may have been amongst his followers.[56][57][58] The Ebionites shared many doctrines and practices with the Essenes,[59] and possibly with those at Qumran.[60][61]

In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians.[62][63][64][65][66] The idea that John was in fact a vegetarian is broadly and widely rejected by mainstream scholarship which considers Epiphanius correct to regard the Ebionites as having altered their version of Matthew. However a minority of writers, including Ellen White, have argued that John really was a vegetarian, a view which Kelhoffer (2005) describes as "tenacious".[67] James Tabor (2006) has argued that it is the sources of Matthe 3:4 and Mark 1:6 which are corrupt and Panarion 30.13.4-5 which preserves the original reading "cakes". In support of this Tabor cites the wording "canes and roots" in an 11th Century Slavonic version of Josephus' War of the Jews[68][69] However it remains the overwhelming scholarly view the Ebionites (or the possibly related Elchasaite sect which Epiphanius may have mistaken for Ebionites) were projecting their own vegetarianism onto John, Jesus and Peter.[35] {unsigned}

This is so badly written, and a misrepresentation of Tabor, by someone who hasn't even read the source, that it is laughable. So funny that I'm going to leave it in for the moment, rather than try to rewrite. Rest assured, it'll all be coming out eventually. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 08:04, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael

I can see exactly what is being said by Tabor and this is it. When you rewrite I expect you'll tone it down and make it appear more reasonable. But this is where Tabor is at. Conspiracy theory stuff.In ictu oculi (talk) 08:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Tabor's point (and it's made by others) is that the early anti-Roman, messianic qualities were toned down to make it acceptable to the Roman gentile converts, and later the Roman upper echelons. Hardly grassy knoll conspiracy theory. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 10:43, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael, I don't know if these theories/beliefs form part of your personal belief system or not, but either way I can see you are absolutely committed to your view. It's not my intention to interfere with someone's personal conviction on a matter.

However, from a text-critical point of view, to say that 1 single 19thC citation of one of Shakespeare's Hamlet which contains a reading that none of the 100s of 17thC copies/citations of Hamlet has, and that the 19thC version is the true reading and the 17thC copies/citation is, like it or not, grassy knoll territory.

RE. REVERT : (Restoring version prior to remove inaccurate representation (where do the Ebionites describe Peter as a vegetarian, for example))

1. Re "debate". This restores the statement in the article "It is a matter of debate whether John was in fact a vegetarian" this statement remains untrue, at least untrue in terms of any mainstream debate, as the ref given Kelhoffer shows. If it said "It is a matter of debate whether John the Baptist, Jesus ever even existed" then that would be a true statement, since that's a more mainstream documented view.

2. Re Peter: This should be a reminder that just because we haven't heard of something isn't a reason for a revert. And with respect, you might want to ask yourself how broadly based and well-rounded your knowledge on Ebionites really is if someone like myself who couldn't care less about these 4thC heresies and just has a casual overview of NTA knows about the 2 Ebionite sources projecting their vegetarianism onto Peter, and you don't? The two sources should be in the index of Schneemelcher's NTA. In ictu oculi (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not claim any in depth knowledge of Ebionites. But if you have sources about Peter's vegetarianism, as projected by the Ebionites or otherwise, then please add them to the article, but at the moment the claim is unsourced. But please do not use the article as a device for rubbishing Tabor, as you did before. The article is about Ebionites.

As for "debate" - and this is the last time I will address the matter - if various scholars advance different positions in the literature (as they have), then that is a debate. Why this is such a redflag word is beyond me. Okay, so it is not such a prominent debate as, say, Jesus' existence attracts, but still a debate.

-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 21:24, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi Michael

Okay, but if you do not have any in depth knowledge of Ebionites, then perhaps you should use the tag rather than "(Restoring version prior to remove inaccurate representation (where do the Ebionites describe Peter as a vegetarian, for example))"

> As for "debate" - and this is the last time I will address the matter<

Can I clarify please - This means you will now let the statement that there is a "debate" be removed? or that you will revert any attempt to remove it? We still haven't provided any evidence that there is a Wikipedia-notable debate. Who are the living parties on either side of this debate, if it is Wikipedia notable?In ictu oculi (talk) 21:40, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

It means I will not address your ridiculous notion of what constitutes a debate any more. Waste someone else's time. You could start by actually reading the article, since that would answer your last question. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 21:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael, what constitutes the notability (present tense) of a debate comes under the same Wikipedia:Notability criteria as the notability of anything else (for example the German vegetarian magazine cited from 1921 uses a Greek argument about shoots which has no parallel in any source before or since, hence not notable). If by reading the article you mean the book Kelhoffer, James A. The Diet of John the Baptist. "Locusts and Wild Honey" in Synoptic and Patristic Interpretation 2005, I was already familiar with it. Or do mean something else? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:01, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

No further evidence for existence of a debate per Wikipedia:Notability criteria has been forthcoming, so at some point someone should fix/remove the vegetarianism debate on J the B.In ictu oculi (talk) 11:30, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Others

Michael, Others has been replaced with "Hyam Maccoby (1987), Robert Eisenman, James Tabor, Hugh Schonfield (1961) and others". The more important change is that "The mainstream Jewish view of the Ebionites" ref Maccoby, has been changed to "Hyam Maccoby's (1987) view of the Ebionites."In ictu oculi (talk) 22:44, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It is not just Maccoby's view that "The mainstream Jewish view of the Ebionites..". -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 07:12, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

To me "mainstream Jewish" is a mainstream credible scholar like Jacob Neusner, it isn't Maccoby. However if you can provide a mainstream source then please go ahead. At the moment the source that exists in the article is Maccoby, so it is described as Maccoby.In ictu oculi (talk) 07:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael. Please don't revert on the strength of your personal convictions. First read around the subject. Maccoby is not 'Jewish mainstream' (whatever that tendentious phrasing may mean). To assert that Maccoby is mainstream is to ignore that Maccoby’s Pauline thesis (not particularly new) is often read as a strong view explicitly challenging the positions of earlier Jewish scholars on Christianity and especially Pauline Christianity, such as those of Claude Montefiore and Joseph Klausner. Francis Gerald Downing Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline churches, Routledge, (1988) 1998 p.253 Nishidani (talk) 09:46, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. Following the "mainstream Jewish view" to a few reviews of Hyam Maccoby's 1986 book it took all of 10 minutes to find untypically strongly worded negative reviews by major academics Gager, Dunn and brief dissmissal of the thesis by Skarsaune. Although, Michael, you have put a POV tag on Hyam Maccoby article re. Gager, Dunn and (when I can add it) Skarsaune, another 30 min of searching has unearthed refs slight less negative on Maccoby's 1986 book, but in terms of direct views the reception by Gager, Dunn seems representative.In ictu oculi (talk) 11:27, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I reverted on the grounds of clarity and accuracy. Let me explain again. It is not Maccobby's view that the Ebionites were heretics, it is his view that mainstream Jews viewed them as heretics. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 12:08, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael

No, with all respect if that were the case then instead of reverting "The mainstream Jewish view of the Ebionites is that they were..." we would still do better to have changed it to "Hyam Maccoby's view of the mainstream Jewish view... (etc.)". Either way it's still the view of one partisan source, a source that Skarsaune, note, who is a mainstream scholar and expert on the Ebionites rejects. The fringe sources need to be balanced with more standard SBL content, and certainly should not be represented as "the mainstream Jewish view".In ictu oculi (talk) 13:22, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there something wrong with your editor? You're duplicating text at the start (in this case my own message - and elsewhere, I've noticed). -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 14:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Apropos Maccoby, Michael, where in the page range for note 4 from Maccoby is our (a) 'The Ebionites used only one of the Jewish Gospels') and (b) '(Ebionites) revered James the Just.'? It may be my old eyes, but I've reread both that passage and the abridgement and cannot find source justification for this in those pages. pp.172-183. Thanks in anticipation.Nishidani (talk) 16:45, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Two types of Ebionites

Petri Luomanen (2007) pp.101-102, 115; pp.101-102 - "Thus, we may have to reckon with the possibility that, from very early on, there may have been at least two types of Ebionites: (1) Hebrew/Aramaic-speaking Ebionites (= Irenaeus Ebionites?) who shared James the Just's positive attitude toward the temple, used only Matthew's Gospel and accepted all the prophets; and (2) Hellenistic-Samaritan Ebionites (= Epiphanius' Ebionites) who totally rejected worship in the temple, used only the Pentateuch, and, carrying with them the memory of Stephen's execution, perceived Paul as one of their major opponents.", p.115 - "The Jewish Christianity of Irenaeus' Ebionites involved obedience to Jewish laws (including circumcision), anti-Paulinism, rejection of Jesus' virginal conception, reverence for Jerusalem (direction of prayer), use of Matthew's Gospel, Eucharist with water, and possibly the idea that Christ/Spirit entered Jesus at his baptism. ... However, the explicit rejection of the temple and its cult, the idea of the True Prophet and the (selective) acceptance of the Pentateuch only, show that Epiphanius' Ebionites were not direct successors of Irenaeus' Ebionites. Because it is not easy to picture a linear development from Irenaeus' Ebionites to Epiphanius' Ebionites, and because the Samaritans seem to link Epiphanius' Ebionites with the Hellenists of the early Jerusalem community, I am inclined to assume that Epiphanius' Ebionites were in fact successors of the Hellenistic "poor" of the early Jerusalem community, and that Irenaeus' Ebionites were successors of the Hebrews (see Acts 6-8) of the same community."

A Luomanen reference with page numbers and quotations from the GE article. Ovadyah (talk) 03:33, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Um, just what exactly is this unexplained comment meant for? It has already been pointed out, multiple times, that several reliable sources have indicated that there was no clear unity of those who were called by the heresiologists "Ebionites". And, yes, as has been mentioned by Klijn & Reinink and others, and I think probably even mentioned on this talk page, the biggest dichotomy among the descriptions is between Irenaeus and Epiphanius. So, yes, if you are finally coming to realize that there are opinions other than those expressed and cited by Tabor, great. It's nice to see that you have demonstrated a willingness to consult other sources. I could point out that other sources, which have repeatedly been mentioned here and elsewhere, like Marcel Simon in Verus Israel, go further and say that there might have been "Ebionite" branches of every Jewish branch then extant. Please give some clear evidence as to what purpose is presumed for including this information on this page. Thank you.

P. S. As I and others have pointed out on this page before, it is our general practice to not cite the most recent source available, but the source which is, for better or worse, most frequently cited by other sources as a source. Doing so tends to reduce the incidence of problems created when one recent source cites an earlier work, but the citation in the article itself does not mention the work. Also, if, as in this case, the subject is not one which receives an overwhelming amount of textspace in a variety of sources, it makes sense to mention primarily the first source which makes the point repeated by others. That way, in the event someone does, for instance, "disagree with the proposal in Klijn & Reinink that (X)'s comments were based on (Y)," it would save a lot of effort to have that source cited directly, as the involved editor wouldn't have to go through those "repeating" sources to see which are specifically "repeating" the original, and which might be making other, original comments, which would not necessarily be relevant to the possibly "standard" or "somewhat standard" opinions of the broadly-consulted original source. John Carter (talk) 16:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The Luomanen source was added to supplement this suggested rewording of the JTB section:

In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians,[62][63][64][65][66] a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus[67][68]. However, the conclusion that the Ebionites regarded John the Baptist as a vegetarian has been disputed. Other scholars, such as Petri Luomanen and Shlomo Pines, have questioned whether Epiphanius may have mistaken for Ebionites a group with closer affinities to Hellenistic-Samaritans<Luomanen> or the related Elchasaite sect.[35]Pines

How about this arrangement? Ovadyah (talk) 03:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The source somehow became detached from the rest of the discussion about JTB. I am no longer participating in this discussion on the article talk page, but, anyway, that is the explanation. Ovadyah (talk) 15:10, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Bauckham

Richard Bauckham

"We may now assert quite confidently that the self-consciously low Christology of the later Jewish sect known as the Ebionites does not, as has sometimes been asserted, go back to James and his circle in the early Jerusalem church." Bruce Chilton, Jacob Neusner, The brother of Jesus: James the Just and his mission, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001 p.135.

Richard Bauckham

"The consistency of this evidence shows that a high Christianity was characteristic of the Jerusalem church. The low Christology later adopted by the Ebionites should not be projected back onto the Jerusalem church, as has often been done." Oskar Skarsaune, Reidar Hvalvik (eds.) Jewish believers in Jesus: the early centuries, Hendrickson Publishers, 2007 p.77.

In ictu oculi, please make clear that the author of both of the above statements in the Ebionites article is Richard Bauckham. In Skarsuane's book on p.77, Bauckham is directly referencing his earlier work, "The Origin of Ebionite Christology" in The Image of the Judeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature, which is already referenced in the article. As it stands, the article creates the impression that three independent scholars, Bauckham, Chilton, and Skarsaune, have all concluded the Jerusalem Church under James had a high Christology, unlike the Ebionites. The reality is that one scholar, Richard Bauckham, is stating this conclusion three times as a contributor to three different books. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 04:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Ovadyah, but I think this was posted on my talk page by mistake wasn't it. What you say above seems completely correct/reasonable. But isn't I don't think related to what I have edited, is it? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:29, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

My mistake. It was Nishidani who added this material. I have not been following recent changes to the article, since I stopped working on it. I will wait a few days and make the changes myself if no one else will. Ovadyah (talk) 13:23, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. By the way, I know there are umpteenth errors and stuff to change in this article (is ebyon used 61 times in the Tanakh or 58, in the Psalms 15 times or 22? etc.etc.etc.) since Michael hasn't replied, could you fix up note 4, or at least answer the point I addressed? Thanks Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of it. I will take a look at Maccoby sometime this week (my copy is packed away somewhere). Hyam Maccoby is an important scholar in the evolution of thinking about the Ebionites as a parallel to the evolution in thinking about the Third Quest for the Historical Jesus. Ovadyah (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

It caught my eye because, unless my memory is mistaken, Maccoby argued that Paul was a Greek, not Jewish and he based this on the sources that attribute this idea to Ebionites. I certainly know many sources write that Ebionites thought Paul was an apostate from the Law, but if he was, according to the Ebionites, and to Maccoby, a gentile, I don't understand how he could enter, technically, into a Jewish judgement of 'apostasy',of the kind you get in the birkat ha-minim. So I reread all of those pages, and the internet synthesis of the chapter, and found nothing corresponding to the elements in that sentence. Maccoby in that book talks of apostasy only on p.156, which is outside the given page range. I'm not challenging the sentence, I am challenging the use of Maccoby for it in note 4. (I would add that from memory, I recall many sources citing the 'ebyon' usage in the Tanakh as 58, and the psalms as 22. There's a lot of screwing up by mindless copying in biblical sources, and that should be looked at). Nishidani (talk) 15:20, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The claim made by the "Ebionites" that Paul was a Greek is based on Epiphanius' Panarion 30. I use "Ebionites" in quotes here because these may be the same Hellenistic-Samaritan Ebionites identified by Luomanen that followed the Samaritan Pentateuch only. How this relates back to the Tanakh-observant Ebionites known to Irenaeus is unclear and currently a hot topic of scholarship in this field. The bit about Paul being an apostate from the Law comes straight from Irenaeus' Against heresies. I will attempt to track down the correct page number in Maccoby, and if not there, it will be easy enough to find another source. Ovadyah (talk) 16:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm familiar with those primary sources. One has to be careful, since everything is a minefield here (and that is why all non-specialist synthetic, old or popular sources, even Durant, should be scrupulously avoided). Take the 'Tanakh-observant Ebionites' as distinguished from putative 'Samaritan Ebionites', as per Luomanen, in this field any number of spins and conjectures are possible, but it's only Luomanen who suggests this so far, he hasn't 'identified' (as someone in a crim line up is 'identified') anything. He has made a conjecture that many, Paget for one, find unsubstantiated. In fact most of these conjectures cannot be substantiated, that is my point, because all scholars are attempting to construct viable pictures of a reality poorly knowable, given our scarce and biased snippets of material). From my general knowledge I know the Samaritans hold to their version of the Pentateuch, not the Tanakh in its Jewish entirety, whereas Epiphanius says of these same Ebionites that (unlike the Samaritans) they omit some sections from the Pentateuch. Elision is one thing, having a Pentateuch that, from memory, has some 5,700 readings that differ from the Masoretic Hebrew version does not translate into the idea that they challenged whole passages.Nishidani (talk) 17:10, 2 May 2011 (UTC) Nishidani (talk) 17:10, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

The biggest difference is the rejection by the "Ebionites" of all the prophets after Joshua. This is mentioned explicitly by Epiphanius as one of the defining characteristics of his Ebionites. Luomanen finds it inconceivable that a sect of Tanakh-observant Ebionites would walk away from the prophets. This is particularly true of Isaiah because so many Christian proof texts are based on the prophesies of Isaiah. However, you are right that it's only a conjecture. Ovadyah (talk) 17:50, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Epiphanius, by many accounts, has many sects under one umbrella, and depending on one's heuristic and hermeneutic principles, one can derive any number of hypotheses to 'fit' this or that detail, or explain away whatever doesn't accord with one's own 'reconstruction' of true Ebionites. I think it is generally understood that, in lieu of new caches of documents being unearthed, one can only tell 'just-so' stories here.

I take exception to the idea that texts tells us that Ebionites were 'tanakh-observant'. Irenaeus, 2 centuries before Epiphanius, can be interpreted as writing of the Ebionites that they were a group which followed the Torah (the Pentateuch), not as Tanakh-observant Jews.(Haer. 1.26.2: 'persevere in the observance of those customs which are enjoined by the law.') The law here is what is laid down, 'instructed' as the 'way' in the Pentateuch, the 613 mitzvot classified by Maimonides come from there, not from prophetic books or the historical chronicles.

I'll illustrate with your example (all OR stuff, but we're just talking here). So many Christian proof texts may be based on Isaiah, but not Mark, who is the earliest Gospel (Matthew introducesd the word 'ekklesia' church. Mark knows only of synagogues and the Ebionites had synagogues) Matthew engineers the life of Jesus as prophetic resonance, probably because more orthodox Jews kept asking the followers of Jesus why, if he was the messiah, his profile as a Galilean failed to fit the expected details of a messiah one finds prefigured prophetically in Isaiah et al. Most of the glaring incongruities in the Matthean narrative (the census dates to 6 CE, Herod to pre-4 BC, though the gospel narrative takes them as contemporary) arise from attempts to make the Jesus of 'history' fit the Davidic expectations (Bethlehem, the star, the 'virgin' etc.) of a new messiah. So, were the Ebionites direct descendents of a community of followers of a Galilean messianic figure, unlike the Pauline Christians, the later 'prophetic' fulfilment narratives of Gospels that clearly reflect Pauline Christian interests would not necesarily interest them. The prophecy narratives are clearly directed at convincing Jews who, on firm textual grounds, challenged the adequacy of Jesus' family profile for the classical outline of the messiah in the early prophets. Joshua in his dual role as prophet-king, certainly would, if the messianic concept was understood by these earliest Ebionites primarily in terms of militant millenarian or chiliastic redemption. Lastly, one cannot bracket 'Ebionites' and Ebionites so simply, except in a game of conjecture, for the simple reason that historians themselves cannot agree on who or what was Ebionitism, at any specific stage. You can get anything you like if you cherrypick a source dating to 300 years after the fall of the temple, representing a melange of narratives, often confusing several sects (Cerinthus, Elchasaites, Nazoreans, Nassenes, docetic gnostics etc), and jump at one filament as the Ariadnic thread to trace your way out of the hermeneutic labyrinth back to the pristine light of Jesus's otherwise unknown reality. That is why, from the outset, I have said that the page cannot describe Ebionism. It can only state the hermeneutic problem, and the positions of mainstream and minority scholarship regarding each element of the belkiefs attributed variously to them. Since scholarship can't determine the truth, neither can wiki, though the present text gives considerable weight to minority views in order to construct an ostensible truth (that the Ebionites were the original followers of a Jewish Christ, coterminous with his times and those of his surviving brother James).Nishidani (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

This is the best evidence I know of for Torah/Tanakh observant Ebionites (excerpted from the Gospel of the Ebionites talk page):

I will list all the primary source material before Epiphanius in chronological order. All of the quotations are taken from Skarsaune, Jewish Believers in Jesus (2007):

Irenaeus

For the Ebionites who use the Gospel according to Matthew only, are confuted of this very same book, when they make false suppositions with regard to the Lord

— Haer. 3.11.7 (p.435)

Irenaeus claims they are using a gospel text that contradicts their own beliefs.

Pseudo-Tertullian

Cerinthus' successor was Ebion, not in agreement with Cerinthus in every point, because he says that the world was made by God, not by angels; and because it is written, "no disciple is above his master, nor a servant above his Lord", he brings to the fore likewise the Law, of course for the purpose of excluding the gospel and vindicating Judaism.

— Haer. 3 (pp.434-435, 438-439)

Ps. Tertullian seems to imply that they exclude the gospel (italics are mine).

In the first quotation, Irenaeus uses the word "confuted", which can be taken to mean that the Ebionites don't follow the Gospel of Matthew they claim to use. The second quotation by pseudo-Tertullian is the most interesting. It suggests the Ebionites are Law observant, even to the point of not following the Gospel. The two together can be taken to mean (my OR) that the Ebionites are strictly Law observant and perhaps use the (Hebrew?) Gospel of Matthew as midrash, i.e. they regard the Gospel as useful commentary but not scripture. How much of the "Law" they actually followed is a matter of conjecture. Irenaeus makes the additional observation that the Ebionites interpreted the prophets "curiously", leading to various interpretations by scholars including "carefully" and "diligently" which don't seem to have the same meaning as "curiously", even in Latin. Ovadyah (talk) 22:30, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, Law-observant just means following the laws of the Pentateuch/Torah, not the Tanakh. I challenged the phrasing 'Tanakh-observant Ebionites known to Irenaeus.' Jewish observance of the Law has nothing to do with adhesion to the prophetic books intrinsically. It has everything to do with the Torah. Irenaeus at most can be construed to say Ebionites hewed to the Torah, (unlike Paul, who disrupted it). Such Torah-obervance does not translate into 'Samaritan' because the Samaritans were also Torah-observant, secondly. Thirdly, Irenaeus's point is that. in his view, they read 'Matthew', non-canonically. This tells us only that these Jewish-Christians approached the text of Matthew differently from the way Irenaeus's Western-community did. What the pseudo-Tertullian means by excluding the gospel is unknown, since most reports tell us that had a Gospel. Again, we see how difficult it is to 'nail down' a coherent interpretation that 'observes (all the relevant) phenomena' of patristic discourse on sects like the Ebionites. Still, I apologize. This is not the place I suppose to discuss the Ebionites, but rather resolve issues on the page. Regards. Nishidani (talk) 05:23, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I only returned to the page to point out a mistake in the references that is relevant to mediation. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 13:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Apologetics Press

Is Apologetics Press a scholarly source? They seem more interested in Jew-baiting and Muslim-baiting than scholarship. (See, e.g. http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1999&topic=44) Should we even be giving them credibility by citing them? Do they represent anything beyond their circle of reactionary bigots? —Preceding unsigned comment added by QLineOrientalist (talk • contribs) 15:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

You should address that inquiry to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.Nishidani (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

John the Baptist

Apologies for being dense, I hadn't stood back and read what the section is saying:

---

SECTION

• The Gospel of the Ebionites might have been named after the followers of John the Baptist,
• and Jesus initially may have been amongst his followers.
• The Ebionites shared many doctrines and practices with the Essenes,
• and possibly with those at Qumran.
• In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians.
• It is a matter of debate whether John was in fact a vegetarian
• (a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus)
• or whether some Ebionites (or the related Elchasaite sect which Epiphanius may have mistaken for Ebionites) were projecting their vegetarianism onto him

---

I would say the problem is not the inclusion of Slavonic Josephus, but of anything in this section.In ictu oculi (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

• DELETE --- The Gospel of the Ebionites was named after the Ebionites.
• DELETE --- The Ebionites do not claim that Jesus was a follower of John, do they?
• The Ebionites shared these practices with Josephus' Essenes ________ __________ _________
• The Ebionites shared these practices with the DSS Community ________ __________ _________
• In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians. YES
• DELETE It is a matter of debate whether John was in fact a vegetarian - No it isn't.
• DELETE (a notion reinforced by the "Slavonic version" of Josephus) - reinforced if you're a Bogomil maybe :)
• or whether some Ebionites (or the related Elchasaite sect which Epiphanius may have mistaken for Ebionites) were projecting their vegetarianism onto him ------- yes.

In ictu oculi (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I want to remind everyone involved that we are going to address any content issues related to this section in mediation. Some issues, such as the role of pre-Christian figures like John the Baptist with respect to the Ebionites, should probably be worked on at the same time as, or after, the Essenes section (still on the talk page). As far as I'm concerned, there are no policy issues that are in violation related to this section of the article. I'm saving my comments related to the content of the JTB section for mediation. Ovadyah (talk) 18:38, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, I don't follow. You mean there is no debate about whether John was a vegetarian? (If he ate locusts, he can't be vegetarian...) My turn to be dense! It seems to me that this debate goes back nearly 2000 years....

As for Jesus (initially) being a follower of John, yes that is exactly what some people claim. See citations given. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 18:44, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael, sorry but there is no debate about John being vegetarian. A group of Christians in the 370s aren't a debate. If it was a debate then someone would be debating it.

And, no, those 3 refs don't exactly claim that, it's more as Dunn Jesus remembered that this resolves simply into the question whether 'disciple' is the best term to use. And even if they did, what's it got to with Ebionites, why is it here?

What about the ___________ __________ _____________ lines. Cheers.In ictu oculi (talk) 19:08, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

But people (i.e. modern sources) are debating it. As I said, see the citations. And [1][2]

I'm not sure what you want with the ___________ __________ _____________ lines. If your asking for more details, then some can be provided.

-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 19:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, he can if you assume that the purpose for avoiding meat was due to a strict observation of purity laws. Skarsaune (2007) Jewish Believers in Jesus explains that Leviticus considers locusts to be clean, and that is probably why Epiphanius doesn't bring up vegetarianism when he discusses JTB's diet in Panarion 30.13. Epiphanius discusses vegetarianism in another context in Pan. 30.20, but he never associates it with JTB. Scholars like Bart Erhman however, do make this connection using Epiphanius as a source in what I have described as a pseudo-parallelism on the GE talk page. By contrast, Skarsaune thinks it is a scriptural proof text based on Exodus/Numbers or Elijah. Ovadyah (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael, Ovadyah. Please give me the name of one person who says that John the Baptist was a vegetarian.In ictu oculi (talk) 20:02, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Tabor, Eisenman, J Verheyden. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 20:07, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Well if Tabor seriously believes that first then he'd have to seriously thinks that there was a great conspiracy theory to substitute "locusts" for "cakes" in every NT mss, and only a 4thC Greek text in Egypt and an 11thC Bogumil copy of Josephus' War of the Jews in the Balkans escaped the great conspiracy. Verheyden can't believe that, he's from K.U. Leuven. Okay but page numbers please, so maybe we change the article to say:

• James Tabor and Robert Eisenman believe that John the Baptist was a vegetarian, and that the Gospel of the Ebionites and Slavonic Josephus contain the truth which has been supressed from all NT manuscripts from "cakes" to "locusts" because the idea of "cakes" was offensive. REF REF.

What are the exact page numbers? :) In ictu oculi (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Except that it's not just Tabor and Eisenman. As for page numbers, they're already in the article. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 21:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted In ictu oculi's edit which make it look like it is just Tabor's position. It's obvious that this matter is best handled at mediation, where this issue is already on the menu. See you there. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 21:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

You can add Ehrman to that list as well. I have fixed up the page numbers and inline quotations. Ovadyah (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

---

Here is a direct quotation from Tabor's book The Jesus Dynasty about the vegetarianism of John The Baptist on p.134 and direct quotations of the related endnotes on p.335 of the hardcover edition. Ovadyah (talk) 17:17, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The Greek New Testament gospels says John's diet consisted of "locusts and wild honey" but an ancient Hebrew version of Matthew insists that "locusts" is a mistake in Greek for a related Hebrew word that means a cake of some type, made from a desert plant, similar to the "manna" that the ancient Israelites ate in the desert on the days of Moses.(ref 9) Jesus describes John as "neither eating nor drinking," or "neither eating bread nor drinking wine." Such phrases indicate the lifestyle of one who is strictly vegetarian, avoids even bread since it has to be processed from grain, and shuns all alcohol.(ref 10) The idea is that one would eat only what grows naturally.(ref 11) It was a way of avoiding all refinements of civilization

— Jesus Dynasty p.134

The Gospel of the Ebionites as quoted by the 4-century Christian writer Epiphanius. The Greek word for locusts (akris) is very similar to the Greek word for "honey cake" (egkris) that is used for the "manna" that the Israelites ate in the desert in the days of Moses (Exodus 16:31).

— ref 9 p.335

Compare Matthew 11:18-19 and Luke 7:33-34. See also Romans 14:1-4,31, where Paul characterises one who follows such an ascetic diet as "weak in faith."

— ref 10 p.335

There is an Old Russian (Slavic) version of Josephus's Antiquities that describes John the Baptizer as living on "roots and fruits of the tree" and insists that he never touches bread, even at Passover.

— ref 11 p.335

Copied from the archived section on John The Baptist. I'm getting tired of having to do this repeatedly. Ovadyah (talk) 21:54, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I have verified the pages numbers and provided inline quotations for all the references in the article that say John the Baptist had a vegetarian diet. This can all be copied over to the mediation page when we are ready. Feel free to add more reliable sources (with page numbers and inline quotations), as it will probably take a few more weeks to finish up the James vs. Paul section. Ovadyah (talk) 22:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I think there may be a missing apostrophe from an Ehrman "Referring to Epiphanius quotation". You better correct it or else John Carter will claim you were intentionally misrepresenting a source. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 23:00, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. We can't have that! :0D Ovadyah (talk) 23:19, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Done. Ovadyah (talk) 23:30, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

If you see any other problems let me know. The more work we do now on this section, the less we will have to do in mediation. Also, see my comments on In ictu oculi's talk page, where I am being accused of POV-pushing. Any efforts to make this section more NPOV would be helpful. That means fewer indolent editors "tut-tut"ing on the talk page and more doers would be helpful. Ovadyah (talk) 23:27, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I've moved that here. I don't have a view. But I'd prefer that users don't bring accusations against each other to my Talk page. thanks :) In ictu oculi (talk) 01:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Similarities with Essenes/Qumran subsection worth having?

Btw, anyone, I should have made clear that the reason I cleared out the Essene references from John the Baptist wasn't the same reasons as the other moves to Talk:John the Baptist (i.e. ), but simply because the mention of Essenes/Qumran failed to make any connection between (A) Ebionite views on John the Baptist and (B) possible Ebionite similarities with Essenes or Qumran. Judging by the ref given (J. E. H. Thomson 1915), I'd imagine that back in 1915 there was a case for assuming that Essenes had the similarities/differences J. E. H. Thomson mentions. So if someone wants to reinsert the J. E. H. Thomson 1915 ref in a new subsection : Similarities between Ebionites, Essenes and the Qumran Community' be my guest. I did actually mean to insert a Wikilink to Essenes. Someone might even want to add at Essenes e.g. Keith Akers' assertion that "Porphyry and Jerome go further and say that the Essenes were vegetarian (De Abstinentia 4.3, Against Jovinianus 2.14)." (which may be correct), but either way the content which was in John the Baptist had nothing to do with John the Baptist, did it? So the content was moved to Talk:Essenes in the hope that that page might have editors watching Talk:Essenes who are more familiar with Essenes.In ictu oculi (talk) 08:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I am leery of, or opposed to, the use of sources, except in a section on the historical development of modern interpretations, that go back several decades. Here, Thomson is writing before the discovery of, and publication of the Qumran documents, for example (just as Uhlmann (d.1901) is not the best source (so many modern sources exist for the information given, though some dispute 61/15 for ebion in the Tanakh and Psalms, giving, respectively 58 and 22 and (incidentally 15 for Deuteronomy)) for what he is quoted on. The guiding principle should be, when you find something in a very old source, to see whether it is discussed in more modern sources. If it is, use the modern source, if it isn't, consider it an historical position. Akers shouldn't be a source for historical questions on wikipedia. Include him, and you then get Martin Larson etc.etc., as occurred in 2007.Nishidani (talk) 10:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with all the above in fact. Particulary in regard to a 1915 source, pre-Qumran, in this context. And Akers would need checking rigourously, though the inference Akers makes about vegetarian activist Porphyry (philosopher)'s use of Josephus' War does seem vaguely correct, and Jerome's assumption about Essenes (misread from Philo?) is widely known, the issue there being that Porphyry is too biased and Jerome too late and both just recycling/interpreting earlier sources. Which is why again Talk:Essenes would be a better place to verify sources on Essenes, and the Essenes article has no mention of vegetarianism, which may be because no one WP:OWNs that article? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It's available elsewhere, isn't it? Lena Cansdale, Qumran and the Essenes: a re-evaluation of the evidence, Mohr Siebeck 1997 p.32 (fascinating!);William David Davies (ed.) The Cambridge history of Judaism: The Hellenistic age, Cambridge University Press, 1999, Vol. 2 p.445 n.6. they abstain (like Peter!) from eating meat. Porphyry seems to have read Josephus's lost work To the Greeks and mentioned more of the Essenes there. The two texts in any case are conjoined on this point re Essene vegetarianism by Rod Preece in his Sins of the flesh: a history of ethical vegetarian thought, UBC Press, 2008 p.124.

Ebionite views on John the Baptist section cleaned up

Under Wikipedia:Notability I've removed the that there is a debate ongoing on whether John the Baptist was a vegetarian - since among scholarly sources there is no evidence of any such debate. The fact that a 4th Century tradition changes akris to ekris may rate a footnote in some sources, but there's no evidence of a debate about John.

In addition, moved out 3 other comments to the Talk pages of relevant articles:

• The Gospel of the Ebionites might have been named after the followers of John the Baptist, source, student of James Tabor Jeff Poplin, but Poplin cites no source -----------> Talk:Gospel of the Ebionites
• and Jesus initially may have been amongst his followers. ref name="Tatum" W. Barnes Tatum. John the Baptist and Jesus: A Report of the Jesus Seminar., Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1994, ------------> good sources, but nothing to do with Ebionites; Talk:John the Baptist
• The Ebionites shared many doctrines and practices with the Essenes^[3] -------------> no source, hence Talk:Essenes [correction, no relevant source linking to JtB, the J. E. Thomson 1915 ref is a source]

In ictu oculi (talk) 00:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but there was a source for the last statement. Also refs only have to be relevant to the cited statements, not the article title. Knock yourself youself out guys, but this will all be reverted after mediation/abitration or whatever.-- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 06:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, but your last comment is evidence of WP:OWN. I'm sure your comment will interest Arbcom. I for one approve in ictu oculi's clean up of what was clearly WP:SYNTH. Nishidani (talk) 06:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The JtB section is due for mediation review. Ergo.... -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 07:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael, if "mediation" was called for every time a single editor objected to a , or tag being acted upon then Wikipedia would grind to a halt. Instead of going to mediation everyone's time would be better spent reading more widely and getting more mainstream sources for this article. Or indeed as I suggested earlier, supply the 2 missing other Ebionite vegetarian references which are obvious but missing.

Nishidani, good addition re the somewhat generic OT/NT use of "poor" at a more appropriate place in the article. And thanks for spellcheck on "emendation"! In ictu oculi (talk) 08:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael. I find the tenor of your remarks rather disturbing. Correct me if I have read you wrongly, but are you saying that the content, notes, and structure of the Ebionite article will be "locked in" by the results of mediation? If so, then mediation's tacit function is to achieve a private endorsement of making an exception to WP:OWN. If so, then there is no point in anyone other than the respected Ovadyah, and yourself editing the article, since the mediation is essentially two editors disagreeing with one editor historically, and almost invariably coming down on the same side. On every single issue, potentially, the outcome cannot be a compromise reflecting WP rules and sources, but simply a prevailing of two editors who share a considerable overlap in views, and in particular, two editors who appear to be deeply attached, clearly for different reasons, to an Ebionite vision. As is well know, I withdrew from substantial engagement in mediation for a technical reason. I thought it improper that I return to the article while Jayjg was mediating between John Carter, Ovadyah and yourself, because we have not had the best of personal histories, and it would have plainly been a possible source of disruption and gaming accusations had I added my voice there. Secondly, as I said before Arbcom, I don't believe that mediation between three parties, where historically two have lined up against one, (Ovadyah+John Carter vs.yourself/Ovadyah plus yourself vs. John Carter), can have productive results for this article. If you think that mediation determines how the article is to be done, then the article is effectively doomed to remain what is has become, a huge mess of uncoordinated mixes between primary sources selectively used and old and new sources (ranging over a century) of tactically elicited snippets to underwrite what I personally consider to be a thorough WP:SYNTH organization of materials in order to prove a thesis (that the authentic paleo-Christian community was a Torah-observant movement stemming directly from John the Baptist and Jesus'S immediate circle, and that everything in 'Christian' claims reflects a Pauline hijacking of Judaism). For all I know, that may well be true. I do know, however, that you cannot 'prove' this from the sources or the secondary literature, except by giving exceptionally strong WP:Undue weight to what are, still, fringe or distinctly minoritarian positions within contemporary scholarship.

I side with no one in this case, since I have no personal, self-assured 'view' of the 'real truth' of the matter. But if the mediation attempt's function is to rig a series of content results on the basis of a provisory consensus of just two editors against one, it is obviously a defective procedure, since the premise would be that John Carter, Ovadyah and yourself have proprietorial rights on this article. Many occasional editors other than in ictu oculi, for example, myself, Astynax, Eusebeus, Leadwind, Hardyuplants, Ekwos etc., have consistently disagreed, often strongly, with much of what is on this page only to suffer reverts. They do not participate to any marked degree in the mediation because that, perhaps, appears to reflect a historic impasse between just three editors. So I'd appreciate some clarification as to what mediation is being taken here to imply. Is it a means to secure the content of the page, or is it a means to find common ground between three as opposed to a dozen editors of this page?Nishidani (talk) 09:30, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This is probably the third or fourth time I've been sucked into a page at the request of another editor; and I cannot now remember which of Ovadyah/Michael/JohnCarter it was who invited me. Having read up a bit, and having a little knowledge of Patristic literature (which remains the main primary source here), it seems to me that User:John_Carter/Ebionites and User_talk:John_Carter/Ebionites sandbox pages contain a resource of mainly mainstream up to date academic sources which would be better than the current dominance in this article of WP:Fringe/interpretative references = Tabor/Eisenmann/Maccoby. If I was asked I'd propose the article needs a sensible clean up, replacing one-man (or in this case two-or-three-man) theories in the article sources with tertiary source content. Normally one doesn't want to fill an article with tertiary references (Encyclopedias, Dictionaries) but in a case like this, where a clean up is needed Tertiary references generally, if in date, by their nature tend to mainstream WP:NPOV. Then there can be a Tabor/Eisenmann fan-club section at the end of the article to give full enthusiastic promotion to their views. :) ......and in that case "mediation" wouldn't be needed would it? You'd just have vanilla encyclopedia/dictionary sources in the main body and then an avowedly POV soapbox for Tabor/Eisenmann's views at the end entitled Modern views or something. Is there a big problem with that? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, stick round, if only to keep an eye on it and ensure that the unwikipedian tendencies of the article don't go from bad to worse. Take this one section as an example of what is wrong with everything:-

The term Ebionites derives from the common adjective for "poor" in Hebrew (singular: אֶבְיוֹן ev·yōn, plural: אביונים ev·yōn·im),[9][10][11] which occurs fifteen times in the Psalms and was the self-given term of some pious Jewish circles (e.g. 1 QpHab XII, 3.6.10).[12] The term "the poor" was at first a common designation for all Christians - a reference to their material as well as their voluntary poverty.[10][13][14] Following schisms within the early Church, the graecized Hebrew term "Ebionite" was applied exclusively to Jewish Christians separated from the developing Pauline Christianity, and later in the 2nd century a specific group of Jewish Christians or to a Jewish Christian sect distinct from the Nazarenes. All the while, the designation "the Poor" in other languages was still used in its original, more general sense.[10][12][15][16] Origen says "for Ebion signifies “poor” among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites."[17][18] Tertullian was first to write against a non-existent heresiarch called Ebion and scholars believe he derived the name Ebion from a literal reading of Ebionaioi as meaning "followers of Ebion", a derivation now considered mistaken.[10][12] The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today, as some authors choose to label as "Ebionites", Jewish Christians that maintained a continuity with the Messianic eschatology of the Jerusalem Church under James the Just[15][16][19] while others, though agreeing about the historical events, use it in a more restricted sense, reserving the designation "Nazarene" before the flight to Pella in c70 CE, and "Ebionite" for Pella and afterwards.[4][8] Mainstream scholarship commonly uses the term in the restricted sense.[10][12]

אֶבְיוֹן ev·yōn, plural: אביונים ev·yōn·im) is transliterated differently from the lead. Both should be adjusted to the philologically standard vocalization ĕbyôn.

'which occurs fifteen times in the Psalms and was the self-given term of some pious Jewish circles (e.g. 1 QpHab XII, 3.6.10).[12] '

That comes from Uhlhorn who died in 1901. (a) The source is dated, and inaccessible. Other texts give the frequency in the Psalms as 22. (b)Its frequency in the Tanakh is omitted (c)'the self-given term of some pious Jewish circles' lacks all contextualization, just as its general use in the OT for the destitute' as opposed to the 'poor qua oppressed' is ignored.(d)1 QpHab XII, 3.6.10 cannot come from the source in note 12 since the source predates Qumran, and hence is a textually unauthorised editorial intrusion. It could be supported from any number of easily accessible sources, i.e., Robert H. Eisenman James the Just in the Habakkuk Pesher,1985 p.45.n.32.(Eisenman's more respectable contribution! RS)

The term "the poor" was at first a common designation for all Christians - a reference to their material as well as their voluntary poverty.[10][13][14]

An example of deceptive sourcing. (a) Note 10 is to Uhlhorn, and was written over 130 years ago, and is not accepted now. (b) Note 13 is our usual use of primary sources to draw an inadmissable inference, i.e. Minucius Felix, Octavius, 36: "That we are called the poor is not our disgrace, but our glory." He was writing in Rome some century and a half after the 'first Christians', and cannot be cited on this except if a secondary source cites him as evidence for the generalization given (c)Note 14 reads: 'The Greek equivalent (Greek: πτωχοί) ptōkhoi appears in the New Testament (Romans 15, 26; Galatians 2,10), possibly as an honorary title of the Jerusalem church.' This note doesn't support the generalization, as it refers to 'the Jerusalem Church', which it is inferred is equyivalent to 'all Christians' (which in the epistolary sections of the NT it evidently was not). It ignores, secondly, the fact that commentaries on the two texts discuss the 'poor' and 'the saints', and appear to indicate the latter are not reduced in circumstances like the former.

Following schisms within the early Church, the graecized Hebrew term "Ebionite" was applied exclusively to Jewish Christians separated from the developing Pauline Christianity, and later in the 2nd century a specific group of Jewish Christians or to a Jewish Christian sect distinct from the Nazarenes.

With this unsourced generalization, together with the preceding deceptively sourced generalization, the fringe thesis is secured as mainstream. The two sentences state as a fact that (a) all Christians were originally ebionim, the Pauline ascendency branded the traditionalist followers of Christ as heretics by branding them thus. The hijack thesis (to which I am personally somewhat partial in broad outline, however!).

All the while, the designation "the Poor" in other languages was still used in its original, more general sense.[10][12][15][16]

Meaningless. ebionim has not single 'original' sense. One would have to speak of the root sense of the word at least. It designated both the destitute, and the pious in the Tanakh, and what 'in other languages' refers to is unclear. The sentence is saying that the Hebrew word, in other languages,(Greek/Latin?) was used in its original Hebrew sense of destitute? Who wrote this?

Sources? (a)Uhlhorn is, as above, outdated (b) Note 12=O.Cullman, a German source inaccessible to most, written in 1958(c) James Tabor, Nazarenes and Ebionites, an online article. Tabor is fringe, being used for a mainstream generalization (d) Eisenman (1997), p. 4, 45. Eisenman is fringe, but on p.4 he calls Ebionites an 'eastern sectarian tendency', and writes that the word derives from 'an original Hebrew root meaning the poor.' On p.45 Eisenman is referring to Ebionites 'the movement lead by James' at Gal.2:4. This happens to be a highly contested and fringe reading of that passage in Galatians.

Origen says "for Ebion signifies “poor” among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites."[17][18]

Again the use of primary sources, (17) Origen is cited directly, for a point readily available in secondary RS. (18) provides us with the online source.

Tertullian was first to write against a non-existent heresiarch called Ebion and scholars believe he derived the name Ebion from a literal reading of Ebionaioi as meaning "followers of Ebion", a derivation now considered mistaken.[10][12]

Again for a commonplace Uhlhorn who is outdated and inaccessible, and Cullman whose article is in German and inaccessible to most, are cited.

The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today, as some authors choose to label as "Ebionites", Jewish Christians that maintained a continuity with the Messianic eschatology of the Jerusalem Church under James the Just[15][16][19] while others, though agreeing about the historical events, use it in a more restricted sense, reserving the designation "Nazarene" before the flight to Pella in c70 CE, and "Ebionite" for Pella and afterwards.[4][8] Mainstream scholarship commonly uses the term in the restricted sense.[10][12]

'Some authors' is a strange way of referring to scholars.

Their use of terms is not a matter of 'choice', but of how they see the evidence.

The continuity school is prioritized and the notes confirm again that we are dealing with Eisenman and Tabor. The mainstream view comes in second order, is contaminated by 'though agreeing to the historical events' (which implies the mainstream agrees with the historical events reconstructed by Tabor and Eisenman?, that 'while is 'concessive', meaning the mainstream yields ground to the preceding 'fringe'), and the last line admits that what comes last, what is mentioned last, happens to be the mainstream view which has been consistently ignored throughout this section.

One could say much more, but I risk missing the funnier part of Michele Santoro's Annozero.Nishidani (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Subverting mediation

Editors that want to make changes to the (formerly) James vs. Paul section of the article should either join the ongoing mediation or find something else to do. Making changes to disputed content that is in mediation only complicates an otherwise difficult process. Please decide one way or the other, or you will find yourself in arbitration as an involved party for intentionally attempting to undermine an ongoing mediation. Thank you. Ovadyah (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I have retired from Wikipedia, and therefore cannot comment. But I will repeat the content of an email I sent to both you and the mediator that showed how the conclusions being established for editing the article in mediation distort the sources, because the evidence put before the mediator does not reflect faithfully the content of the sources adduced.

The conclusion wrapped up yesterday or the day before has it, as an established result of mediation the following.

:'Eisenman (1997) clearly states that James was the leader of the Jerusalem Church in the period following Jesus's death, that Peter was subservient to him, and the Ebionites descended from the Jerusalem Church.'

This summary at two points misrepresents Eisenman's clear and unambiguously nuanced distinctions.

Eisenman does not clearly state the first two points. He says (a) we do not know whether there was a 'Peter' who headed the assembly in the period following Jesus's death. What he argues is that, (b) in the version we are given by Paul, James heads the Jerusalem assembly at the time Paul became a Christian.

(a) 'Whether there was a prior or intervening leadership of 'Peter' can be argued and we shall probably never be able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion on this point.' Eisenman (1997:155)

(b)'Paul makes it clear that whoever we may think 'Peter' was, he was not the Head of Christianity in the days of Paul. p.157

This means any period, if you date Jesus's putative crucifixion to ca.30, from 31-39 (2nd cent apocryphal sources actually place the date of conversion around October 34 CE, if his escape from Damascus after his conversion took place under Aretas, then 37-39. That gives a 2 to 9 year leeway before James, according to Eisenman, is shown as exercising authoritative control of the Jerusalem assembly. Eisenman’s own dating has Paul siding with Herod Antipas against Aretas in 37-38, therefore he implicitly dates Paul’s conversion to the mid-late thirties, several years after the putative crucifixion (pp.150-1).

Since mediation is establishing things which are not in the sources, things no external editor can confirm from sources, it evidently cannot be authoritative for other editors, esp. those who come to the page with fresh eyes. The mediator cannot be expected to read up mammoth volumes like those of Eisenman to check whether the patchy conclusions drawn from him faithfully represent his positions. He relies on just 3 reporters, and they have not done much of a job of presenting the full evidence. External editors familiar with evidence systematically ignored or twisted in mediation should not be bound by its conclusions, especially when they are patently erroneous, as above. Nishidani (talk) 15:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe the best solution would be for those "fresh eyes" to be actively involved in the mediation process rather than kibbitz about everything later. I was content to let this go when it was just comments being made or changes to other parts of the article. However, now the changes are being made to the actual content being discussed in mediation. That is where I draw the line. Obviously, no editor can or should be forced to participate in mediation. However, if this behavior continues, I will insist that the involved parties be added to arbitration for deliberately attempting to sabotage any progress being made in mediation. Ovadyah (talk) 16:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Catch 22. There were 4 regular editors, of which I was one. I excluded myself from mediation because the mediator and myself have not had the best of histories of interaction, and in deference to his role, I suggested it best I withdraw, and that was accepted. Talk about 'sabotage' and 'subversion' all you like. I see you have no reply to the evidence I presented. If this does go to arbitration, perhaps someone else will raise this, and similar issues. I won't. I believe the article is irremediably compromised by ideological commitments to a secret 'truth' and WP:OWN. The only viable solution is for everyone associated with the decay of the article to withdraw and leave it in the hands of experienced editors with topical expertise. I have a life to live, not time to waste, and what I have to say has been said here. Good luck Nishidani (talk) 16:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Nishidani, I didn't mean to imply that you were doing any of this. While you have had plenty to say about the disputed material, you haven't actually made changes to the content of the section we are discussing while mediation is in progress. (Not that I remember anyway.) So, don't worry about a Catch 22, Yossarian. I agreed with your suggestion that everyone should just walk away a long time ago. Best. Ovadyah (talk) 17:43, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Ovadyah,

I think "subversion" is a little bit strong for this edit - which is simply moving the view of XYZ content from within the history section to the end section where views of XYZ are mentioned. As to mediation, well if the mediator requests me to get involved I will, but frankly I don't think this article justifies the long drawn out and opaque process evident on the mediation page (which yes I have glanced at a couple of times and am not much the wiser). As far as I can make out one editor, Michael, is trying to place a fringe view (Tabor/Butz/Eisenmann) as the main or first view within the article text. And another editor, John Carter, appears to be trying to move that disputed view into sections dealing with disputed views. .....By the normal canons of Wikipedia editing this shouldn't be something that wastes admin's time with "mediation". Passing traffic of reasonable informed editors should be able to shift disputed view content around in the article (as I just did with one particularly evident example) without being obliged to enter a morass of mediation. At the very least given that Maccoby/Tabor/Butz/Eisenmann hold fringe views, any quotes from them in the main history section need to highlighted as "but some such as ____ say" and then preceded by a mainstream source. This is so basic to the canons of encyclopedic style that it shouldn't need mediating but only implementing. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:38, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

If you decide to change the content of what is being mediated, I think it's only fair to point that out to the mediator. Otherwise, we will have spent two months laying out arguments over something that no longer exists. Ovadyah (talk) 13:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Btw, I resent the implication that the "mainstream" view has been suppressed in the topic now under mediation. As I mentioned several times, I did a literature search for reliable secondary sources going back 40 years with Loremaster when we were bringing the article up to FA quality. I did another search along with Str1977 spanning 50 years and again came up empty. Str1977 eventually brought sources into the article, such as religious dictionaries and encyclopedias, that are 70 to 100 years old, and I did not oppose the addition of those sources.

I made a call on the mediation page for mainstream alternatives to the supposedly tiny-minority view we are discussing in mediation that I now reproduce here on the article talk page for editors not participating in the mediation:

In addition, there may be other, currently unsourced, views as follows:

C. Scholars believe that James the Just was the leader of the Jerusalem Church:

and there is a probable connection to the later Great Church of Rome?, while the Ebionites were a later offshoot. (Sources = ???)

D. Scholars believe that Peter?, or Paul? (or ???) was the leader of the Jerusalem Church:

and there is a probable connection to the later Great Church of Rome?, while the Ebionites were a later offshoot. (Sources = ???)

If you believe there is a "mainstream" view that is being unrepresented, or deliberately suppressed, then prove it by bringing your reliable secondary sources, along with page numbers and quotations from them, to this talk page. Ovadyah (talk) 17:02, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ovadyah,

well, I'm not a great specialist/enthusiast for this subject area, but broad experience in looking at related subjects tells me that Butz/Eisenmann/Tabor/Maccoby are sensationalists with bestseller mentality fringe theories. I can tell fringe when I see it. The fact that their works promote fringe theories makes even non-controversial quotation from them a problem. Doesn't John Carter's literature list have many mainstream sources? For a start The origin of the Ebionites by Bauckham would have to count as a more mainstream SBL type source. As to the C/D above I can't see why either of those statements need to be in the article at all.

C. James was leader of the Jerusalem church according to the NT.

X. That has no direct connection with the Ebionites of Irenaeus.

In ictu oculi (talk) 00:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I know about Bauckham. I was the editor who first added Bauckham as a source. We are also going to add Ray Pritz. The problem is both of these scholars also advocate for a supposed tiny-minority view: that the Jewish-Christian Nazarenes of the 4th century were the inheritors of the beliefs and practices of the Jerusalem Church rather than the Ebionites. So, we have one group of authors (2 by my count) advocating for the Nazarenes and another group of authors (at least 6 who are scholars) who advocate for the Ebionites. Where are the supposed vast numbers of reliable secondary sources advocating that the inheritor of the beliefs and practices of the Jerusalem Church under the leadership of James the Just is Great Church of Rome? It's been 3 1/2 years, still waiting. You may be able to tell fringe when you see it, but I can recognize bigotry when I see it. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 03:44, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello Ovadyah

>I can recognize bigotry when I see it.< You seriously think all readers who don't agree with Eisenman/Tabor/Butz are "bigots"? Eisenman's main theory - that James is the "Righteous Teacher" of Qumran, is not taken seriously by SBL scholars, not because they are "bigots" but because the Qumran documents have no trace of Christianity and James and the Jerusalem church were Christians.

>Where are the supposed vast numbers of reliable secondary sources advocating that the inheritor of the beliefs and practices of the Jerusalem Church under the leadership of James the Just is Great Church of Rome?< It's not for me to say, but I would imagine many mainstream editors would raise an eyebrow at (a) the language "Great Church of Rome" and (b) the assumption that this is the alternative view to Eisenman/Tabor's theories.

Please think again; what do mainstream commentaries/sources say about who was "inheritor of the beliefs and practices of the Jerusalem Church"?

In ictu oculi (talk) 23:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I think some of the editors working on this article have a serious case of confirmation bias. Note that I was talking about something very specific: the Jerusalem Church under the leadership of James the Just and later groups that may have inherited its beliefs and practices such as the Ebionites, or the Nazarenes, or the Great Church of Rome. Certain editors just "know" that the Great Church is the inheritor of the earliest traditions of the Jerusalem Church, despite a complete absence of secondary sources supporting this conclusion. They also "know" that the absence of these sources is due to their deliberate suppression by other editors. (It couldn't possibly be because they don't exist.) When challenged to produce the sources themselves, they either, A. change the subject to talk about something else (like you just did), B. they say it isn't their responsibility to produce the sources, it's the responsibility of the nefarious editors who are suppressing them, or C. they attack the other editors personally by alleging a conspiracy or some kind of secret conflict of interest. What we are seeing on this article is a combination of all of the above. Ovadyah (talk) 03:17, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Try to look at it as a simple logic problem. Let's stipulate for the sake of argument that we believe a tiny fringe minority of scholars advocates that the Ebionites were the inheritors of the Jerusalem Church, and we also believe there is another tiny fringe minority of scholars that advocates that the Nazarenes were the inheritors of the Jerusalem Church. Does that mean we have two tiny fringe minorities and no one else has a opinion? Of course not. What is unstated is that we "know" there is an overwhelming majority of scholars that believe the Great Church is the inheritor of the beliefs and practices of the Jerusalem Church. Wouldn't we expect an overwhelming majority of scholars to produce an overwhelming majority of evidence in the form of reliable secondary sources? Instead, we have no scholars advocating this "mainstream" position with reliable secondary sources. That creates a logical disconnect - the "obvious" majority view is also an unsupported view. How can that be possible? What some editors have previously argued on this article is that no sources are necessary - these are "timeless truths" that speak for themselves. Other editors have attempted to resolve the disconnect as some kind of nefarious plot - the sources are really there, they are just being "suppressed". Anyway, don't worry about it. The sooner this mediation is ended the sooner I will leave this article behind permanently. Ovadyah (talk) 03:39, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ovadyah,

The outside observer coming in, which is what I am more or less, would note several things in the above.

(1) you're using language "Great Church of Rome" which suggests something of a non-neutral POV.

(2) you're making assumptions about other editors which may be true or not (appears to me not). You say "Certain editors just "know" that the Great Church is the inheritor of the earliest traditions of the Jerusalem Church" Which editors would those be? I haven't seen anything in the comments from any editor which suggests any such thing.

(3) you're assuming that it's a multiple choice: "SELECT ONE CORRECT ANSWER: (A) Ebionites, (B) Nazarenes, (C) Rome " to the question who was "inheritor of the earliest traditions of the Jerusalem Church". But why would anyone assume there even was an "inheritor of the earliest traditions of the Jerusalem Church"? The Jerusalem church was scattered twice, in AD70 and AD135, and the evidence of Eusebius and the Bordeaux Pilgrim is plain that bishops of Aelia Capitolina after 135AD weren't even Jewish-Christians. See "Jerusalem in Early Christian Thought" p75 Explorations in a Christian theology of pilgrimage ed Craig G. Bartholomew, Fred Hughes; and "The Christian Community of Aelia Capitolina" in The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting by Richard Bauckham. p310. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I was using the "Great Church of Rome?" as one example to mean any other alternative views, but I'm pretty sure you knew that already. No, it's obvious how this is going to end. The ecclesiastical editors on the other side of this dispute are going to obfuscate for as long as it takes while they do everything possible to drive the other editors off the article, or preferably, off Wikipedia entirely. I have been around long enough to recognize the WP:GAME when I see it. Ovadyah (talk) 14:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ovadyah,

>"I'm pretty sure you knew that already."< how would any normal reader know that by "Great Church of Rome" you meant "any other alternative views,"? I read "Great Church of Rome" to be what it says, and if you intended to characterise any other alternative views as "Great Church of Rome" that's even more of a POV statement.

>The ecclesiastical editors< ---- that sounds like POV too.

It isn't an issue of WP:GAME, the issue is that this article is overweight with WP:Fringe views and needs more mainstream sources.

Best regards. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

oculi, if you intend to leave a permanent imprint on this article then I suggest you improve your references. Stuff like "Morris Leon Matthew citing difficulties with this tradition Hendrikson p858" is not likely to survive! There has and is a drive to improve references by including direct quotations within the reference string. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 09:39, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael, the comment "if you intend to leave a permanent imprint on this article" again sounds like WP:OWN YOU DO NOT OWN THIS ARTICLE. But as it happens, yes, I forgot to complete the reference: ref Leon Morris The Gospel according to Matthew 1992 p604 "but it is objected that Pella is not in fact in the mountains but at the foothills. There are serious doubts whether the Christians in fact did flee to Pella at that time (see Hendriksen, p. 858, for the difficulties in the way ..." citing Hendriksen, F. Exposition of the Gospel according to Matthew 1973 ref.......these are such standard works that anyone reading an article on an obscure and marginal subject such as Ebionites would be able to identify them). In ictu oculi (talk) 10:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

oculi, please quit with the tiresome claims of ownership. Such an extreme reaction to a request to improve references speaks volumes. And please quit with making assumptions about the readership. Just supply proper references and be done with it. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 11:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael, perhaps if you were less aggressive in the way you talked to people...In ictu oculi (talk) 11:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Tabor's view that "The Poor" in Qumran = "Ebionites" moved

Since Tabor's views that the DSS are partly Christian are fringe (in fact so far out there beyond the fringe of mainstream scholarship I wonder whether even notable?), any views of Tabor based on the theory that the DSS are partly Christian needs to be in the section at the end with specific individual views. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I noticed you reworded the content we have been working on in mediation, rendering two months of laying out arguments and discussing them practically useless. Therefore, when the mediation ends and arbitration reconvenes, I'm going to request that you be added to the arbitration as an involved party. Ovadyah (talk) 15:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ovadyah, presumably you mean this edit. The page does not have a banner on it saying This page is locked down while two parties are in mediation and cannot be edited by any visitors. The line I'm guessing is the specific subject of your point above is "The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today, as some authors choose to label as "Ebionites", Jewish Christians that maintained a continuity with the Messianic eschatology of the Jerusalem Church under James the Just" (ref.Tabor/Eisenman) which I have (a) changed on the basis of being POV/OR, and moved down the page to the final paragraph dealing with specific individual views "Although there is no evidence for the name Ebionaioi prior to Irenaeus, Tabor and Eisenman choose to label as "Ebionites", Jewish Christians that maintained a continuity with the Messianic eschatology of the Jerusalem Church under James the Just"

• BEFORE = "The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today, as some authors choose to label as "Ebionites", Jewish Christians that maintained a continuity..."
• AFTER = Although there is no evidence for the name Ebionaioi prior to Irenaeus, Tabor and Eisenman choose to label as "Ebionites", Jewish Christians that maintained a continuity

Of course that probably is not a perfect rendering because it still implies that (a) there was a "continuity" between the Jerusalem church and anyone, (b) that continuity "existed" rather than "they claim maintained a continuity", but the important thing is that POV/OR has been removed - a WP:synthesis was existing whereby the fact "The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today" (which it doesn't) was made out of the fact that Tabor and Eisenmann have a theory about "continuity" between a hypothetical Jerusalem church different from that documented in the NT and Patristic literature, 2nd C groups not called Ebionite, and the Ebionites. None of that supports the WP:synthesis such as "The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today" must sit uncorrected in a Wikipedia article while parties are in mediation/arbitration. Unless the arbitrator contacts me and says "Hi, the article is frozen while ABC is going on", which is cool, but would be better posted as a banner on the page and talk page. Where is this arbitration?In ictu oculi (talk) 01:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Ovadyah, I agree with your concerns, and I support the reversion of the POV pushing (e.g. supression of contemporary diveregence of views, based in a misapplication of WP:FRINGE) that has crept into the article. No rush, though, it'll wait. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 06:05, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael, the immediate issue was WP:synthesis, since synthesis had been used to present as fact "The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today" - which it does not, the term "Ebionite" is not applied for hypothetical "continuity" groups between a hypothetical Jerusalem church other than the one found in Patristic sources and the Ebionites. Therefore the statement was reworded as WP:Synthesis.

Then the reworded statement was moved per WP:Fringe which says > "Wikipedia summarizes significant opinions, with representation in proportion to their prominence. A Wikipedia article about a fringe theory should not make it appear more notable than it is." <

Which means, moving specific individual theories to the section for specific individual theories.In ictu oculi (talk) 06:45, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The specific issue I was attempting to address was editing article content that is being discussed in mediation. We have been working on a specific sentence that is at the heart of this dispute for two months by laying out arguments for and against inclusion of sources and discussing what those sources say using quotations from them. Although progress has been slow, and difficult at times, we have made tangible progress in resolving a protracted and difficult dispute over content. When an outside editor refuses to participate in an ongoing mediation that makes progress more difficult. When the same editor expresses utter contempt for the mediation process, and some of the editors involved in it, and changes the actual content being discussed in mediation, that makes progress considerably more difficult. At some point this is no longer only about content and becomes a problem of user conduct.

If an editor were just passing by or a rookie it might be understandable. Everybody makes mistakes. However, if an editor refuses to participate in mediation and mocks the mediation process instead, it becomes less understandable. And if the same editor is cautioned on their talk page about disrupting mediation by changing the specific content being discussed in mediation and then changes it anyway, it is no longer understandable. It is a user conduct problem. Since we are probably returning to arbitration anyway, we can let the Arbitration Committee decide how to deal with it. Ovadyah (talk) 14:58, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

oculi, the problem here is your labelling any sources you don't like as "fringe". Viz:

1. You claimed that Slavonic Josephus was junk; I found sources that said it provided a useful window into 1st century Jewish-Christianity. You immediately dismissed them as fringe.
2. You claimed that there was no debate about John the Baptist being vegetarian; I found sources that showed there was a debate. You immediately dismissed them as fringe.
3. Now you claim that there is no divergence of usage of the term "Ebionite" because any sources that say otherwise are fringe.

It starting to look like a severe case of confirmation bias. Any data that doesn't fit into your world view is "wrong". That not how we create NPOV articles. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 18:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Michael, (1) sources are WP:Fringe because they are WP:Fringe, there is a reasonably objective set of benchmarks, which scholars with 1-man or 2-man theories don't pass. However (2) in each of those three cases, as I recall the bigger problem was actually Wiki-editor not Tabor or Eisenmann, since there was actually a combination of WP:Synthesis + WP:Fringe. A fringe source (Tabor, Eisenmann) was taken, which would be fine at the end of the article in individual views, and then a WP:synthesis was made out of their views to advocate the views of who? Modern "Neo-Ebionites" with no credible webpage or publications of their own? Wikipedia is here to represent mainstream encyclopedia-type content.In ictu oculi (talk) 00:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

As I mentioned, I'm going to request that In ictu oculi be added as an involved party to the arbitration. Any user conduct-related issues can be resolved there rather than hashing through them here. However, deletion of sourced content is a serious content as well as conduct issue, and the best way to address those changes to article content could be discussed here or in mediation. Ovadyah (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Ovadyah, I'm really not inclined to "lawyer up" simply because someone objects to rewording of WP:synthesis (such as "The divergent application of the term "Ebionite" persists today") as "deletion of sourced content is a serious content as well as conduct issue." Less of the drama; what was written was blog-type POV, wasn't justified by the source, and shouldn't have been there in the first place.In ictu oculi (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, my only concern on this page is to prevent the disruption of mediation. The best way to do that is up to the mediator. The rest of this can wait. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 00:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Mediation has ended, unsuccessfully. Therefore, the point about disrupting mediation is moot. Cheers. Ovadyah (talk) 13:19, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Since the mediation has ended, so has my involvement with this article. As I said back in Oct. 2007, I'm leaving the cleanup to others. That's it. Good luck. Ovadyah (talk) 13:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The above comment seems to once again be completely irrelevant, although I do note that now, presumably after several years of active editing of the article to get all the content he might want in it, only now does Ovadyah seem to be willing to leave it alone, when there might be active consideration of whether some of the content he added might belong in the article at all. Interesting. Regarding the idea of the Ebionites being related to the Dead Sea Scrolls group, which also (I think only twice?) called themselves Ebionites, that idea has been put forward by other editors before and since him, specifically J. L. Teicher, as can be seen at User talk:John Carter/Ebionites#Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Given that there is now a reasonable consensus that the "Ebionites" were not just a single solitary group, and that, as per Skarsaune, the name may have been used as a self-description by groups before the Dead Sea Scrolls as well, I can see it being mentioned in the article. However, there is a big difference between something being mentioned and being given significant weight. The source I linked to above says that the idea has gotten little academic support, and makes no reference at all to any non-academic support since Teicher first proposed it. Eisenman is presumably included in the group of "supporters". I can see maybe content to the article to the effect that "Since J. L. Teicher first proposed it, there has been some limited discussion as to whether the Dead Sea Scrolls community were the Ebionites mentioned by the church fathers, but that proposal has received little academic support, but I don't think it should be mentioned very early in the article or given much weight or prominence in the article. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

So, shall we go through the article and drag the Essenes material down to the other views section? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I would question whether the material deserves any more weight than, roughly, what I had expressed above here. My own proposed format for the article, as I've proposed before, would be to structure it roughly: Definition, Ebionites in Judaism (mentioning use by the DSS and Skarsaune's hypothetical usage by others), Ebionites in the Church Fathers (basically quoting or paraphrasing the fathers, removing redundancies or statements which Klijn & Reinink say are basically repetitive of earlier information), Recent Opinions (for all opinions proposed in the past 100 years or so), and Legacy (indicating how the Cathars, Moslems, Freemasons, and so on may have been significant influenced by the historical Ebionites). If that format were taken, I would think that the material would be placed in the Recent Opinions section, although placement in "other views" or similar would be acceptable for now. John Carter (talk) 21:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Not clear what to do with this

moved here:

According to some scholars, it was beyond the Jordan, that the Nazarenes/Ebionites were first recognized as a distinct group when some Jewish Christians receded farther from mainstream Christianity, and approximated more and more closely to Rabbinical Judaism, resulting in a "degeneration" into an exclusively Jewish sect. Some from these groups later opened themselves to either Jewish Gnostic (and possibly Essene) or syncretic influences, as is seen in the book of Elchasai.

Is this website a reliable source? In ictu oculi (talk) 05:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I would think that it is not a reliable source, as it is apparently a self-published website, according to the copyright information at the bottom of the page. The question would then be whether the book itself can be counted as a reliable source. That would be determined based on information not yet presented, such as the publisher's reputation and the reception of the book. Particularly if the book is self-published as per WP:SPS, it may well not be. From what I can see at WorldCat, the edition they list is itself apparently a self-published book as well. However, it might be best to go to the WP:RSN to receive a broader array of responses. John Carter (talk) 19:13, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Religious and critical perspectives section

Honestly, I have very serious problems seeing anything in this section as necessarily meeting basic policies and guidelines. There seems to be a fairly clear violation of WP:SYNTH in placing the scholars together in such a way as to indicate that the scholars are in more agreement than they apparently are. Also, the quotations from the websites of YATI and Moriel Ministries have I think fairly clear RS problems, are still clearly redlinks indicating their own notability is at best dubious, and obvious and perhaps overwhelming WP:WEIGHT problems. Personally, I very much think that we might best scrap the entire section now, start on trying to rewrite the article into a more encyclopedia and less biased piece than it currently is, and then, maybe, if we discover in the process of rewriting the article significant independent material which meets RS and WEIGHT regarding modern movements, include any material to be included on the basis of those sources, particularly considering that these websites might not even meet basic RS requirements, and almost certainly might not merit any real weight in this article. Thoughts? John Carter (talk) 19:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The statement "One of the first men to believe in the prophethood of Muhammad was an Ebionite monk named Waraqah ibn Nawfal, whom Muslims highly honor as a pious man with deep knowledge of the Christian scriptures.[122]" is controversial. In fact, Waraqah might have been a Nestorian monk, not an Ebionite. As a Nestorian, he was a heterodox Christian who deviated from Nicene orthodoxy. The author of this piece must bring these other different views about Waraqah to balance the view presented here.Teófilo de Jesús (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Eisenman and Tabor

I note that as per Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 19#The Jesus Dynasty, Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 23#Ebionites, and the prior history of this article talk page, that there is some evidence to support at least Tabor's work, and possibly Eisenman's as fringe theories as per WP:FT. As per WP:CONSENSUS, and I quote "Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." So far as I can tell, no substantial arguments have been given that either source does qualify as other than fringe, so I have very serious questions as to whether the sources remaining in the article is in accord with policies and guidelines or not. I would welcome any and all reviews of the matter from newer editors. John Carter (talk) 23:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

If I do not receive the evidence which I believe is required as per wikipedia policy, specifically WP:BURDEN, which would indicate that these sources do meet reliable source standards, I will of course be completely within my rights to remove material which does not meet the appropriate standards from the article. I believe another day or so would be all that should be required. If the evidence is presented later, of course, then it can be considered for restoration in the article at that time. John Carter (talk) 20:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

As it has been over three months and I have yet to receive any indication that the material meets RS standards, I have removed the material in question. John Carter (talk) 14:23, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Both James Tabor and his book The Jesus Dynasty have articles on Wikipedia. Looking at these two articles, I cannot derive from them that Tabor is a fringe source upon the Ebionites. It is true that his book was attacked by conservative scholars, but their motivation is theological: they are committed to the Christ of their own faith. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:16, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

If I remember well, Bart Ehrman admitted in a dispute published on YouTube (I don't remember which, because there are so many) that maybe/likely/probably the Ebionites were the first Christians (or first Christian group). In his Lost Christianities he admits that the Ebionites were not the only Jewish-Christian group. Meanwhile I have read the disputes about Tabor being fringe, but this conclusion has not reached consensus. It can be said that he expresses a minority view, but seen that Tabor is a notable scholar of Christianity, his point is notable enough to demand inclusion in an Wikipedia article. I did not read Tabor's book and I am not a historian, so having no other data than Tabor's reputation as a scholar I cannot conclude that he is fringe. I will take a look on JSTOR and look for articles about Tabor's views. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:02, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

If you can produce sources, not just a vague memory, please do so. However, even the opinion of as highly regarded an individual as him is probably still just his own opinion, and there is no reason to think that anyone's individual opinions are in and of themselves sufficient basis to declare that he is right. However, if reliable sources which meet WP:RS can be produced, please do so. John Carter (talk) 22:43, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Recent removal of material

I have once again removed the clearly SYNTH/OR material in this section here [4]. Everyone should be aware that WP:BURDEN applies here, and that it is the obligation of those individuals who want to include any material to provide evidence that it meets policies and guidelines. I believe that there is sufficient cause to raise concerns at noticeboards should the material be restored again, without having provided either the clear evidence that it does meet WP:SYNTH and WP:WEIGHT, or to have received consensus from others as per WP:CONSENSUS on the talk page first. Really, I have to say that this apparent disregard for policies and guidelines does not speak well for those who seek to have the material included. John Carter (talk) 22:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Ebionites?

Would the group described beginning at Acts 4:32 be considered to be Proto-Ebionites? Virgil H. Soule (talk) 22:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Ebionites vs. Nazarenes and modern "neo-Ebionites" vs. "neo-Nazarenes"?

Based on what I've read online, I think the Modern Movements section has a fundamentally incorrect point. It confuses Ebionite teachings with Nazarene ones.

Both historical sects openly taught adherence to the Seven Laws of Noah. Both historical sects reject any notion of divinity regarding Jesus. However, the Nazarenes still regarded him as the Messiah, while the Ebionites in fact did not. For the latter, he was the equivalent of what hasidic Jews would call a "tzadik."

The same fundamental difference has repeated itself with the modern "neo-Ebionites" and "neo-Nazarenes." 24.108.209.58 (talk) 14:06, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:SOURCE, please. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:37, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

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Original form of Christianity

Ebionites may have been the original form of Christianity, see Jesus, the Law, and a "New" Covenant on YouTube (Q&A session). Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:34, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Odd edit?

Epinoia, I reverted the edit you made. The page mentioned Britannica says that the Ebionites originated around 70 AD, and I then added a note saying that this information was based on unreliable 4th century accounts, with a ref. You then removed the note and placed the ref in an entirely different place, thus totally obscuring the original point of the edit. For this reason, I reverted your edit.64.231.43.14 (talk) 05:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

The sentence already in the article says, "Epiphanius of Salamis in the fourth century gives the questionable but also most complete account in his heresiology called Panarion, denouncing eighty heretical sects, among them the Ebionites."

The sentence added reads, "The dating of the origins of this sect depends on the writings of Epiphanius, however, the reliability of his account, written three centuries after the event, is uncertain."

So the new sentence repeats that the account of Epiphanius is unreliable, repeats the timing (which is also estimated in Britannica reference to be after the destruction of the Temple) - so the new sentence does not add any new information to the article, only repeats existing information, which is why I deleted it, but kept the reference which I moved to the existing sentence. - cheers - Epinoia (talk) 15:46, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

My only issue is that when the page says "According to Britannica", it makes the article sound as if a new source is being discussed, instead of information still based on Epiphanius, and so the connection between the two becomes obscured. I consider my second note to maintain the connection. If you have another way to word it while still being clear that Epiphanius is the source for what Britannica is saying, I'd be fine with that. Wallingfordtoday (talk) 22:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Is Epiphanius the only source for dating the Ebionites? The Britannica article does not cite Epiphanius as a source for dating, only saying that he mentions the Ebionites. Britannica may have used other sources for dating. In the Panarion, Epiphanius says that the Ebionites came after Christ - not very precise - he does not link them to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Does A Companion to Second-Century Christian Heretics cite Epiphanius as the only source for dating the Ebionites? Have scholars put together other clues to date to Ebionites to around 70 CE? I still think this sentence is repetitive, does not add any new information and should be removed. - Epinoia (talk) 00:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

There's a user called in ictu oculi who knows a lot about this sort of thing. You could aks him.PiCo (talk) 10:37, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, I think it does add something new -- whereas the earlier section of the paragraph writes that Epiphanius's testimony is questionable, the latter sentence clarifies the connection between this unreliability and Epiphanius writing three centuries after the events. Secondly, I just extended the sentence further -- a second reason why it's unreliable is because of the fact that that Epiphanius also relies on the Book of Elchasai, which may have had nothing to do with the Ebionites at all. So the sentence certainly is useful. What other source has Britannica used for dating the Ebionites? The study in the source I used is an analysis on all the information on the Ebionites from all the surviving sources. The 70 AD stuff only appears in Epiphanius.Wallingfordtoday (talk) 00:11, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not have access to your source, but where exactly does Epiphanius say anything about 70 AD? In the Panarion, he says, "the Ebionites after Christ, as well as with the Nazoraeans, who came later", which is as precise as he gets. "Epiphanius of Salamis in the fourth century" says the same as "Epiphanius...three centuries after the event" - semantics. Britannica doesn't say what sources they used, but they are generally accepted to be authoritative - Epinoia (talk) 00:37, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I changed the wording in the first sentence to your preferred "three centuries after the event" to avoid redundancy - cheers - Epinoia (talk) 00:45, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Epiphanius doesn't mention "70 AD", he connects the origins of the Ebionites to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, which took place in 70 AD. That's how the connection works out. Here's Epiphanius himself on the origins of the Ebionites;

Their origin goes back to the time after the capture of Jerusalem. For, after all those who believed in Christ had generally come to live in Perea, in a city called Pella of the Decapolis, of which it is written in the Gospel that it is situated in the neighbourhood of the region of Batanaea and Basanitis, Ebion’s preaching originated here after they had moved to this place and had lived there. Initially he lived in some village called Kokabe not far from the region of Karnaim and Asteroth in the region of Basanitis; this is according to the contents of information which has reached us. From there he began his vicious teaching, from the same place where the Nazoraeans originated, of whom I gave an account above. (Pan. 30.2.7–8)

Even Britannica's "authority" doesn't stack behind the 70 AD dating, since Britannica is sure to say that the sect "may" have originated in this time -- which is exactly right, it "may" have originated in 70 AD, and it "may" have originated in 120 AD. Wallingfordtoday (talk) 01:56, 10 December 2018 (UTC)