Talk:Biblical criticism/Archive 1

informal request for comment
Would people who regularly follow/contribute to this article please look at Yahwism and the talk page, where I express my concerns? Thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

New structural outline
This section was no more than a list of names, albeit all linked to articles. So I've added a concise history of OT criticism, with a strong bias to the Pentateuch/Deut. History. I know little about criticism of the remainder of the the OT, and nothing about the NT. Others are welcome to expand and otherwise edit this beginning.PiCo 12:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've now given this section a new title to reflect the fact that I've given the article a new overall outline, with sections on history of biblical criticism, higher criticism, and lower or textual criticism. Some subsections are also suggested. The links to articles contained in each section (they'd normally be found in a "see also" section at the end of the article) can be integrated into the sections in coming weeks. The aim is to produce a normal prose article, to replace the existing lists of links. PiCo 16:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Extended the History section with a subsection on NT criticism.PiCo 05:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC) In fact I've been quite busy filling in the rest as well - lots of brief sketches of various forms of criticism.PiCo 16:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Robin Lane Fox and the list of major biblical critics
Why remove my addition of Robin Lane Fox? He has analysed OT and NT Greek and Hebrew documents; his focus is via Greek ancient history. His book is readable, reprinted and he is a don at Oxford. Not good enough for you maybe, but accessible to the rest of us.86.42.213.51 15:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * (Made this into a new section). I removed Fox because he hasn't contributed new ways of investigating the bible (i.é., new tools for biblical criticism), nor new insights. I think Fox himself would agree that he's a populariser, rather than a major figure within the discipline. If you feel this isn't so, please feel free to say why. PiCo 15:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * He brings historical and textual analysis and very few such books have made 3 editions. He is a populariser and synthesiser of others' theories, and that's useful to wikipedia whose readers are not expert but may want to read the main arguments. I didn't place him in the main text for that very reason.86.42.213.51 16:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 86.42.213.51. Wikipedia customarily references both popular and scholarly works. Rick Norwood 13:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The picture above the text of Albert Schweitzer is Alfred Nobel
The picture above the text of Albert Schweitzer is Alfred Nobel. Schweitzer did won the Nobel Peace Prize, but it is confusing to have Nobels picture in this article with Albert Schweitzers name below, and no explonation why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.2.175 (talk) 00:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Restoring material on types of biblical criticism
I have restored some material describing various types of biblical criticism - source criticism, form criticism etc - as I fe3lt these are useful to the reader seeking an overview of the subject. There were also some repetitions and redundancies left over from previous merges with material from other articles, and I tried to cut these down. PiCo (talk) 08:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought]
This article is missing an important point made by other encyclopedias on this topic. The point essentially being that not all biblical criticism scholars have seen this school of thought as hostile to supernatural Christian beliefs. Here's a representative quote from page 298 of [The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought] (with a few added wikilinks):

"That historical criticism is not inherently inimical to Christian belief is shown by the case of William Robertson Smith (1846-94), a member of th4e Free Church of Scotland and a pioneer in establishing the final form of the position first oulined by de Wette and classically stated in 1883 by Julius Wellhausen in his Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prolegomena to the History of Israel). As a convinced evangelical Smith believed that historical criticism was a continuation of the Reformation's recovery of the bible, and a necessary tool to enable intelligent churchgoers to make sense of it. A similar view was powerfully advocated a generation later by the Primitive Methodist biblical scholar A. S. Peake (1865-1929). Both denied strongly that accepting historical criticism involved rejecting the supernatural origins of Christianity. Catholic resistance to historical criticism was overcome by the pioneering work of the French Dominican M.-J. Lagrange, first director (1890) of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, and by the Jesuit Augustin Bea, who played a vital part in the publication of the papal encyclical Divino afflante spiritu (1943) sanctioning historical criticism."
 * "While historical criticism has been influenced by many factors its prime source is the biblical text and the problems it contains for readers with critical awareness. In the hands of non-believers it can be pressed to positions that may be embarrassing to traditional Christian belief. It is not, however, inherently hostile to Christianity but potentially liberating for Christians who wish their faith to be intelligently grounded and intellectually honest."

Sources listed below quoted text in Oxford Companion:
 * Greenslade, S. L. (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Bible (1963)
 * Kummel, W.G., The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems (1973)
 * Reventlow, H. G., The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World (1984)
 * Rogerson, J. W., Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (1984)

Also here's a reliable source that is in the public domain (okay to cut and paste material from it): The Cambridge Companion to the Bible (1893)

Critic?
This article calls a person who practices Biblical criticism a Biblical critic. I don't think "critic" is the right word, but I'm not sure what word to replace it with. Commentator? Rick Norwood (talk) 15:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Biblical scholar?
 * Actually I'm not very happy with some parts of the article. It concentrates too much on history, and too much on a narrow type of criticism - the type concerned with the origin of texts. It might be an idea to revise it to give an overview of what Biblical scholars are trying to do when they study the bible - the investigation of origins is only a smal part of it. PiCo (talk) 03:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Biblican scholar is a better description than "critic". Rick Norwood (talk) 13:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Catholic and Protestant views
I deleted a section with this title. Biblical criticism isn't something one has a view on, any more than one has a view on dinosaurs. The two major Catholic documents on biblical criticism deserve a mention, but integrated into the section on the historical development of biblical criticism. I can't see that Protestantism ever had any single view at all, since it's a movement rather than an organisation. (Tho it would be worth mentioning that protestantism's lack of dogma and the llack of any real interest in theology and orthodoxy in Germany created the environment in which a secular study of scripture could thrive)PiCo (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * An astute comment, PiCo. Modern Catholic and Protestant dogmatic reactions to biblical criticism may differ in minor respects, but in principle literary criticism of the Bible is a scholastic enterprise that Jews and Christians of all denominations engage in. Or at least they do now. For example, Raymond E. Brown was Catholic, but highly regarded by Protestants for his careful and insightful hypotheses reconstructing a "Johanine community". There are doctrinal differences influencing some assessment of his work, but in the main, Protestants are often willing to entertain the plausibility of some of his historical critical conjectures. From the perspective of a believer like myself, I view much of biblical criticism to be about reading the Bible more carefully and hence discovering much that would otherwise be overlooked. And to be brutally honest, it has sometimes caused "growing pains" where it has overthrown naive assumptions that had no right to have any faith placed in them to begin with.
 * This article shows promise. Thanks to many people, but especially to you PiCo. Keep up the great work. I'm too busy to contribute atm, but I may enjoy watching. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 12:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This is definitely not true. Even the most modernist Orthodox Jewish sources (Da'at Miqra, Eisentein, Hertz) believe the books to be what they say they are. This is not to say that they do not engage in criticism that does not challenge this principle.Mzk1 (talk) 20:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

textual corruption?
Would some pious polyglot please fix up para 3.3 in the main article? Ta. Hoggnorton (talk) 16:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Why no criticism of criticism?
Why nothing on criticism of criticism, particularly the documentary hypothesis? And why nothing of that nature from non-Christian sources, in spite of the fact that the higher criticism has long been called "the higher anti-semitism"?Mzk1 (talk) 20:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * We could follow it up with a criticism of the criticism of criticism....PiCo (talk) 13:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, I am sorry. You know The Truth(TM), and it cannot be argued with. Sounds like the academic version of replacement theology.Mzk1 (talk) 19:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Multiple Attestation Criticism
Is this article solely based on biblical study for the "Multiple Attestation Criticism" aspect. In the terms of independent sources, in journalism, science and so forth, including related sources such as Paul of Tarsus (who in any of the narratives never met the physical corporeal Jesus) as a separate Attestation, is a fallacy. In fact, only Josephus would be a true independent source and even that not a first person, as he was reporting on rumor of a local revolutionary named Jesus, with little detail to his life provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.172.14.132 (talk) 19:20, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Apologies - I didn't see this entry update when I entered it, so I logged in and made the same essential point. This entry can be ignored or deleted...signed by author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harvey Manfrenchensen (talk • contribs) 19:51, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Multiple Attestation Argument
I would argue that while a gnostic text might qualify in some perspectives a independent source, the writings of Paul of Tarsus, subject to the same editorial processes throughout history as the four primary gospels, and the "Q" document, the existence of which is purely theoretical, do not qualify as independent sources in any other context than christian biblical studies. For the purposes of scholarly work, outside of christian theological realms, these would not be considered independent, but interdependent. Josephus could be considered a qualifying independent source, but even in his writing there is some (although considered by the christian theological community a fringe discussion) argument as to whether his works were edited to support the evidence of a historical Jesus (see Josephus on Jesus wiki article).

This article is hardly a secular piece, and though that may not be necessary to have the article remain, it should be noted in the opening paragraph, I feel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harvey Manfrenchensen (talk • contribs) 19:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

List of Biblical Scholars
The list of notable scholars should be just that - a list of individuals who have contributed notable new insights to biblical criticism from an academic perspective. Inserting the names of intellectuals whose main work was in other fields and whose importance to biblical scholarship is tangential at best or of individuals who were merely interested in the Bible and its "sources" is unhelpful for users attempting to identify the major figures (past and present) in this field and general trends in scholarship. User:6enoch 21:45, 3 January 2012 (EST)
 * User:6enoch removed Joseph Wheless from the list. I challenge you to read Wheless' works and conclude that his insights are not notable, or that his importance to biblical scholarship is "tangential" or "unhelpful." Geĸrίtzl (talk) 19:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Wheless's Forgery in Christianity is certainly an interesting and passionate work, but it is stretching it a bit to call Wheless a 'notable biblical scholar/critic.' His hypotheses were unoriginal even in the 1920s/1930s (see the more comprehensive and influential writings of Bruno Bauer beginning already in the late 1830s) and have had little to no effect on the development of the field. I say this not to pass judgment on the merits of Wheless's arguments, but only to say that the history and development of biblical criticism owes nothing to his efforts and the inclusion of his name in this list is therefore misleading. Notability is, I would suggest, a measure of an individual's pioneering work and subsequent effect on the field. Perhaps adding a paragraph or so on Wheless to the Jesus myth theory page would be more apposite; I notice that there is currently no mention of him there other than in the References section. User:6enoch 17:08, 11 January 2012 (EST)

I would dispute Robert Price's inclusion on this list of 'notable' Biblical scholars when his work isn't very influential in the world of New Testament scholarship and is only listed because he has a Wikipedia page dedicated to him. I would suggest that if we're going to include Price, there are quite a few more scholars that we should include, including Evangelical scholars who should've made the list, but did not. This is to be a list of 'notable' New Testament scholars, not just any scholar that has work in the field. User:stormchaser23 18:12, 07 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Agree. Price hasn't been all that influential in this field. Google Scholar indicates his two most important works have only 45 and 28 citations respectively. StAnselm (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Vividness of narration?
This is not an aspect of modern biblical criticism. Origen (the source) was giving his amazing critical skills in the third century! As the article states, biblical criticism originated out of the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Origen's brainwave (that more vividness = better evidence for an eyewitness account) adds to the overall humor of the page, I'm gonna' have to nix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UCMyPOV? (talk • contribs) 21:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Problem with article's intro
The fact that the Bible is made by man is known by Christians and Jews, since almost all of the books of the bible do NOT claim divine origin. However, the lead, along with a sentence in the first section, makes it sound like the Bible is believed to have supernatural origins, which is not true, and therefore it should be changed.Gonzales John (talk) 07:25, 3 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Many believe the Bible has supernatural origins, and see the job of Biblical scholars to interpret history in light of Biblical truth. On the other hand, Biblical criticism, the subject of this article, takes the opposite view, and tries to interpret the Bible in the light of history.  Rick Norwood (talk) 15:44, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

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Merge discussion
The article Biblical studies is redundant with this one, and is the shorter of the two. I suggest that it be merged into this article. Thoughts?  Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; &#124; talk &#x7C; contribs) 12:38, 12 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Biblical studies is a scientific field, that needs an article. Biblical criticism, as defined in this article, is really criticism of most non-fundamentalistic strains of biblical studies. The criticism-article should be merged into the main article, not the other way around. But since that, because of the length of the text, would give the criticism side undue weight I suppose it is better not to merge. --Modernisten (talk) 10:08, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * But "biblical studies" is defined as "the academic application of a set of diverse disciplines to the study of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Bible", whereas "biblical criticism" is defined very similarly as "the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings". It's not "criticism of non-fundamentalist interpretation", as you suggest.  Jujutsuan  ( Please notify with &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; talk &#x7C; contribs) 16:16, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Having both a Biblical studies page and a Biblical criticism page is redundant. In fact, it may be more appropriate to have Biblical studies redirect to Biblical criticism. I think that a "biblical studies" page should be reserved for the history of the discipline, especially from the Enlightenment to the present, it may read History of Biblical Studies or something to that effect. Biblical criticism is merely a more scientifically nuanced designation for biblical studies, and therefore, more appropriate, in my opinion. Given the variety of "criticisms" within biblical criticism, there is certainly room for the fundamentalists, as the variety gives room for extremes. For example, Daniel B. Wallace is a textual critic and New Testament scholar, yet a fundamentalist. And, Bart D. Ehrman is a textual critic and New Testament scholar, yet he is an atheist.Newtestamentguy (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC) .
 * Strong keep as is, but fix the redundancy in the intros (however; see last paragraph). It is clear from the structure of the Biblical studies article that Biblical criticism is a distinct subset of Biblical studies, and therefore there is no redundancy, except for certain aspects being emphasized in the intros. B. criticism is grounded in academic and some scientific techniques; B. studies is much more general and includes subtopics that can be discussed briefly and others that can also be discussed briefly but only IF its section has a link at the top to its main article.


 * The best structure to use for a significantly large subset topic of a much more general topic is the one that we have right now; sections for each subtopic of the general topic with more or less the the same level of treatment of each, except for each larger subtopic having a prominent link to its main article. (I saw this in a WP guideline or in an old discussion on subpages, but I forget where, sorry, and my chronic illness won't let me look it up now or likely get back here, though I'll try.)


 * There's a reason we don't stuff an entire article's worth of text on the skeleton into the article on the human body. However, if the articles' body text's information and structure is incorrect (which the original post does not claim; it claims the information is redundant), then I suggest setting up new article structures of mainly just headers in your sandbox and getting feedback on the structure before working more on it (to save your time and energy in the long run by catching any structure problems earlier rather than later). If it holds up to reviews you request, go create new article(s) out of that/those structure(s) and bless you for your efforts! ... Bless you anyway, if you like. :) Thanks, —Geekdiva (talk) 05:45, 6 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Good points have been raised so far. But I think this discussion is missing a broader issue: "Biblical criticism" is insider jargon among biblical scholars. There was a time a century or so ago when it matched the language in other fields: English professors talked about "literary criticism" and historians talked about "historical criticism." Now those phrases like "biblical criticism" are largely confined to biblical scholars which, like them, has become anachronistic in the wider academy. "Biblical studies" names the field in a way comparable to other fields in the humanities today (e.g. religious studies, literary studies, African-American studies). It is therefore the more typical way in which those of us who work in secular universities describe our field, while "biblical criticism" remains common language in theological schools and in discussing the details of critical methodology. So the two articles, even in their different levels of detail, actually reflect rather well the different ways in which the names of this field get used in contemporary academic contexts. I recommend therefore leaving them as they are with all the appropriate cross-references between them. Hbprof (talk) 13:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)Jim Watts

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cannot verify sources
Under the criteria of embarrassment are listed four sources for what looks like might be original research or personal opinion in the last paragraph about the "softening" process concerning embarrassment.
 * N. S. Gill, Discussion of the Historical Jesus Archived 2007-03-16 at the Wayback Machine. I find this a questionable reference and could not locate a discussion of the process of "softening" but even if I could I think it should be deleted
 * John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Doubleday, 1991. v. 1, pp 174–175, 317--I could not obtain access to a preview of this book and could not verify these pages or what they say
 * Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000). Has no page numbers listed to be checked, however, if one word searches for 'Jesus' baptism', Meier's use of the criterion and the baptism of an example of veracity comes up--which does not bode well for using what Meier's book actually says, And again --no such discussion of "softening"
 * Gerd Thiessen & Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2002). No page numbers. However pages 239-241 discuss the criteria of resistance that contains some aspects of this discussion of baptism--the assumption of Jesus coming to be baptized because he carried 'sin', but these authors say it would have been the sins of the world not his own (page 239, John 1:29). This criteria is described as "Where friend and foe proceed on the basis of the same facts they are likely to be historical." They find the baptism one of the most supported stories of Jesus--but there is no discussion of "softening" that I can find anywhere.
 * I left Ehrman--just because it's Ehrman--though it makes no reference to this process either.

Please help me either locate this discussion in a valid reference or agree it needs removing as unsourced and suspicious.Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:17, 3 June 2018 (UTC) I have moved it here until then. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:41, 4 June 2018 (UTC)


 * And this one--what is this? ancienthistory.about.com.  Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:22, 3 June 2018 (UTC)


 * This is the text in question:
 * An alternate theory concerning this criteria is that embarrassing material was gradually 'softened' over time by the evangelists. An example is the evolution of the depiction of the Baptism of Jesus. Matthew's description of the Baptism adds John's statement: "I should be baptized by you", attempting to do away with the embarrassment of John baptising Jesus, implying John's seniority. Similarly, it resolves the embarrassment of Jesus undergoing baptism "for the forgiveness of sin", the purpose of John's baptising in Mark, by omitting this phrase from John's proclamations. The Gospel of Luke says only that Jesus was baptized, without explicitly asserting that John performed the baptism. The Gospel of John goes further and simply omits the whole story of the Baptism.  This might show a progression of the Evangelists attempting to explain, and then suppress, a story that was seen as embarrassing to the early church.     Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:54, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Suggest Daughter article
I have moved the section of notable scholars here because this article is so very long, this list does not add substantially to the quality of the article's content, and I think this would make a great daughter article all by itself.

See also: History section
 * Notable critical-biblical scholars==
 * Kurt Aland (1915-1994): biblical scholar; principal editor of the Nestle-Aland - Novum Testamentum Graece for the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft and The Greek New Testament for the United Bible Societies; founder of the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung (Institute for New Testament Textual Research) and the Bible Museum Münster in Germany.
 * William Albright (1891–1971): Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of American biblical archaeology
 * Albrecht Alt (1883–1956): prominent in early debates about the religion of the biblical patriarchs; he was also an important influence on the generation of mid-20th century German scholars like Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad
 * Jean Astruc (1684–1776): early French biblical critic, who adapted source criticism to the study of Genesis
 * Margaret Barker (born 1944): maintains that the polytheistic practices of the First Jewish Temple survived and influenced gnosticism and early Christianity
 * James Barr (1924–2006): a Scottish Old Testament scholar, and an outspoken critic of conservative evangelicalism, which he attacked in his seminal book Fundamentalism, published in 1977.
 * Karl Barth often regarded as the premier theologian of the Twentieth century, he pioneered dialectical theology and is considered the father of neo-Orthodoxy
 * Richard Bauckham created paradigm shift in contemporary Gospel studies
 * Walter Bauer (1877–1960): redefined the parameters of orthodoxy and heresy with his multi-regional hypothesis for the origins of early Christianity
 * Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860): explored the secular history of the primitive church
 * Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976): New Testament scholar who defined an almost complete split between history and faith, called demythology
 * D. A. Carson (born 1946): Canadian New Testament scholar of the Gospel of John
 * John J. Collins (1946–): Irish scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Second Temple Judaism; he has worked extensively on Jewish messianism and apocalypticism
 * Frank Moore Cross (1921–2012): American biblical scholar and Harvard professor notable for his interpretations of the Deuteronomistic History, the Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as his work in Northwest Semitic Epigraphy
 * William G. Dever (1933–): American biblical archaeologist, known for his contributions to the understanding of early Israel
 * Norman Geisler used the critical approach to develop a new, complete system of apologetics
 * Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789): leading French/German encyclopedist, published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1769 "Ecce Homo: The History of Jesus of Nazareth, a Critical Inquiry", the first Life of Jesus describing him as a mere historical man. Translated into English by George Houston and published by him in Edinburgh, 1799, London, 1813, (for which "blasphemy" Houston was condemned to two years in prison), and New York, 1827
 * Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827): applied source criticism to the entire Bible, decided against Mosaic authorship
 * Alvar Ellegård (1919–2008): linguist who reordered the chronology of New Testament texts and a proponent of the "Jesus Myth Theory"
 * Bart D. Ehrman (1955–): University of North Carolina professor, who has examined issues of textual corruption and authorship in New Testament and Early Christian texts
 * Israel Finkelstein (1949–): Israeli archaeologist and Professor at Tel Aviv University, an advocate for re-dating remains previously ascribed to King Solomon to the rule of the Omrides
 * Birger Gerhardsson revolutionized understanding of early oral Christianity by studying and comparing it to rabbinic Judaism
 * Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745–1812): pioneered the Griesbach hypothesis, which supports the primacy of the Gospel of Matthew
 * Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932): father of form criticism, the study of the oral traditions behind the text of the Pentateuch
 * Donald Guthrie (theologian) influential New Testament introduction
 * Tikva Frymer-Kensky feminist "Scholar of Distinction"
 * Niels Peter Lemche (1945– ): associated with biblical minimalism, which warns against uncritical acceptance of the Bible as history
 * Bruce Metzger (1914–2007): biblical scholar sometimes referred to as "the dean" of New Testament textual criticism and wrote the definitive The Text of the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 1964)
 * Martin Noth (1902–1968): developed tradition history and scholar on the origins of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History
 * Rolf Rendtorff (1925–): German critic who advanced an influential non-documentary hypothesis for the origins of the Pentateuch
 * Rosemary Radford Ruether pioneered feminist theology
 * E. P. Sanders created paradigm shift on historical Jesus and his place in first century Judaism
 * Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834): German theologian and philosopher whose theoretical hermeneutics underlie much of modern biblical exegesis
 * Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965): German theologian who was a pioneer in the quest for the historical Jesus
 * John Van Seters (1935–): American Hebrew Bible scholar who favors a supplementary model for the creation of the Pentateuch
 * Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677): Dutch philosopher, who collected discrepancies, contradictions, and anachronisms from the Torah to show that it could not have been written by Moses
 * David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874): German critic who published influential work on the historical origins of Christian beliefs, most notably in his Das Leben Jesu
 * Thomas L. Thompson (1939–): outspoken critic of William Albright's conclusions about archaeology and the historicity of the Pentateuch
 * Phyllis Trible pioneer of feminist theology and contributor to rhetorical criticism
 * Daniel B. Wallace (1952-): professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and the founder of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, which is digitizing all known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament via digital photographs.
 * Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918): German biblical critic and popularizer of a four-source documentary hypothesis
 * Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780–1849): early German contributor to higher criticism and the study of Pentateuchal origins
 * Joseph Wheless (1868–1950): American lawyer who traced origins of the scriptures, examining original Hebrew and Greek meanings, and the translations into Latin and English
 * R. N. Whybray (1923–1997): critiqued the assumptions of source criticism underlying the documentary hypothesis
 * N. T. Wright (born 1948): a retired Anglican bishop and current professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews, Wright is known for the New Perspective on Paul and his Christian Origins and the Question of God series.


 * This is not a comprehensive historical list. It also excludes the majority of Twenty-first century scholars as their long term impact has not yet been established.

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenhawk777 (talk • contribs) 06:35, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Oxford Companion
I don't know who posted this--it's unnamed--but whoever you are, it was a good reference and I used it, so thanx! Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Jon D. Levenson
I am reverting your contribution--with genuine regret--simply because it's too long. I have had to do the same for someone else who wanted more on Sanders, and someone who wanted more on Schweitzer, and everything was interesting and accurate, but if all the detail gets included that everyone wants, the article will sink completely beneath the weight of it all. Please note the Jewish response got two paragraphs where the others only got one. Adding yet more is conspicuous. Since this material is already on another page, it's simply inappropriate to add it all here. Please don't be upset. We could work together on something else. But not this one. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:05, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You have no policy-based argument for claiming that non-Christian perspectives are over-represented in this article. Jytdog (talk) 04:42, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This isn't about non-Christian. Your biases are showing. Again. Your addition is "theology". It doesn't belong in this section. Please, just once, show up and don't start a fight. This addition isn't needed, it doesn't add anything of value to either the section or the overall article itself. It makes this one view out of proportion to the other points of view within the section. I'll have to take the next paragraph on Jewish scholarship out to compensate, and that's a much more valuable bit of information than what you have added. Don't edit war with me over this, I'm begging you. No theology here Jytdog. Please just leave this alone.  I've worked on this article for months.  It's been through GA, peer review, and is going through FA review now.  It doesn't need this. And neither do I. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:35, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The content is explicitly about biblical criticism. The essay, regardless of the title, discusses both. I do not believe you have read the content or the source or the essay with any care, or you would not have written what you wrote above. You have done great work on this page btw. Jytdog (talk) 14:12, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jenhawk that the added content is overly detailed for this article, and should be summarized with a link to the article where the detail is appropriate. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:21, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Please provide further rationale, based on normal considerations of WEIGHT. Levenson provided probably one of the sharpest and deepest criticisms of the field that i am aware of; this is extremely well documented in sources.  This content is appropriate in WEIGHT in the section where it is.  (by the way if anybody is worried i don't plan to do a lot of work on this page.) Jytdog (talk) 14:42, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * You think it has the weight, and I thank you for discussing if there's consensus for that view. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:22, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Gerda, you reverted. That means you need to justify your edit based on the policies and guidelines. In addition to the WEIGHT issue, the existing content is pure meaningless WEASEL by the way ...says Orthodox Judaism has also had some difficulty accepting biblical criticism. You own that, too. Jytdog (talk) 17:04, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Jytdog, you made the change, it was objected to, now you need to provide the consensus to override. Right now the consensus is your addition does not belong in this article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Consensus is driven by P&G-based arguments. There have been precisely none offered here. All we right now is "i don't like it", OWN, and GANG behavior. None of that is compelling with regard to a consensus-based position to exclude nor to retain WEASEL content. Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I know generally you are in favor of consensus but it does appear as though it's only a "gang" when consensus is against you. Perhaps I have misunderstood. As to weasel content, I'll remove the word "some." Thank you for your interest and input. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * this is not much an improvement; the body of extant biblical criticism contains many examples of supercessionist/anti-Jewish works, driven by the assumptions of Christian biblical scholars who have done much of the work; what the current content says is basically the equivalent of "african americans had difficulty accepting segregation". It is completely WEASEL and frankly garbage.  You are not engaging with the sources provided; which is making this all harder than it needs to be. (To head off the strawman argument; I am no where saying it is all that way; there are just big streaks of it, all per the sources actually provided) Jytdog (talk) 18:35, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The statements here are not weasel, they are simply not aggressive, that's all. Supersessionism is already mentioned without your addition. The idea that there was a sense of anti-semitism is already mentioned without your addition. Everything you have added is already there--it's simply there in a more neutral voice. Your analogy with African-Americans is witty but wrong since no one actually forced Jewish scholars not to engage in Biblical criticism. If I were an African American I would be deeply insulted by that comparison. It's completely insensitive in my opinion.  I'm done here Jytdog.  Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes they are. In the content I provided, I quoted Marvin A. Sweeney for pete's sake. It doesn't get more mainstream than that. You have still brought no - precisely no - P&G based arguments. I will wait a while and will probably throw an RfC in a while, if decent arguments are not brought or the content is not fixed otherwise.  The content as it is, is embarrassing to the project and should not remain. Jytdog (talk) 19:02, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No one said the source wasn't mainstream. Levinson is now in the first sentence of that paragraph with a link. Since Levinson is already in another article, and this article is extremely long, and the issues you discuss (supersessionism, etc.) are already present in this section of the article, this insistence has the look of . Certainly, do an Rfc if you feel you should. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Again this is a relatively short (in the context of the whole article) bit of content clearly describing (as opposed to obscuring) this specific set of reactions to "biblical criticism". There is actually nothing in this page about this basic error that is present in the body of biblical criticism work. Nothing. You have brought no valid policy based objections, and throwing around "tendentious" doesn't obscure that. If you have nothing useful to say that is based on reading the sources I provided (and the many other sources about this) I suggest you refrain from replying. I am waiting for solid objections. Jytdog (talk) 19:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * So you made it clear here that all of this has been without actually reading the source I provided, much less any other on this issue. Good night. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I have in fact looked at the source, I have no problem with the source, it is a perfectly good source, but that is entirely beside the point. Everything in all the detail everyone would like to see in this article about their "pet" issue can't be included no matter how good the source is. I note there is no mention of the fact this issue also applies to Catholicism. That would also have to be added to remain balanced if more detail is gone into here. It is not a short addition relative to the other content in this same section. Other biases, such as "white" and "male" would then also need to be as effectively discussed in the same detail as the "Protestant" one here. These are all mentioned in more than one place, but a detailed discussion is impossible--call it what you will.  Insults are neither an argument or a negotiation.
 * Again, these issues are already addressed in the article. More detail is not always an improvement. That is a guideline. It has nothing to do with the quality of the source.
 * Let it be clear to all that I attempted to modify this (without the full length) but including the good reference, and was reverted with the reason it was "putting shine on a turd." .Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes that is what it was. Jytdog (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The key part of the Sweeney quote is "A great deal of his work focuses on the seminal question of identifying the role that Christian theological constructs have played in the reading of biblical literature, even when the reading is presented as historically based objective scholarship, and of developing reading strategies that can remove these constructs in order to let the biblical texts 'speak for themselves.'" This is the most indirect and gentle way to bring this stuff in that I could imagine, which is one reason I did it this way.  The content should actually be much more clear and say something like: "Some Christian biblical critics have conducted their work from the perspective of Christian theological stances, sometimes supercessionist and sometimes simply reading contemporary enemies (for example the Catholic Church) onto ancient Israelites or Jews and their institutions, rendering the field distasteful to Jews for many years and rendering some findings in the fields subjective and flawed, and far from the objective scholarship that the field aimed to achieve."  Something like that. It is a thing. Jytdog (talk) 21:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * No one has denied that it's a "thing." In fact--it's already in the article!  Imagine that!  There were biases where they claimed there weren't any!  Yes!  Absolutely true!  No one has argued that isn't so.  That would be why the last paragraph in the twentieth century history explains the new input--from all these different views that weren't Protestant white males--caused such a total change in the practice of biblical criticism that the central tenet shifted from its so-called 'non-sectarian' view to "everyone acknowledge the biases you bring!" If you read the whole article, that would become quite clear. You are arguing for something that is already there and against something that isn't.  It doesn't matter how many great sources you have--that point remains unaddressed by you. You don't think it is adequate enough in detail.  Get consensus for that.  That's policy.  Now please, you promised at my talk page that you were going to shun me.  Do that. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Other refs along these lines
--These are just a few of the many, many sources that talk about how specifically Christian assumptions - especially supercessionist ones - have undermined biblical criticism. Not all of it, but there is a lot of this. Jytdog (talk) 21:10, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Excellent section on Wellhausen and discussion of the broader context throughout:
 * Entire book on the early development and how it was received, as not-uncommon anti-Jewish tropes emerged in the new field:
 * From the conclusion (p220):"Fourth, Jews were aware of the change in the basic premises of Christian biblical criticism, primarily the relinquishment of the Christological perspective, and they hoped it would lead to objective, nonconfessional scholarship that would correct the traditional anti-Jewish biases. These hopes were disappointed over the course of the century. As biblical criticism developed, so did the Christian anti-Jewish biases in that discipline stand out. It was clear to Jews that despite all its innovation and promise, modern biblical criticism was yet another chapter in the Christian exegesis of the Old Testament; indeed, more than a few of the verses that modern biblical scholarship relied upon were part of the traditional Christian anti-Jewish arsenal (Jeremiah 7:22, Ezekiel 20:25-27, and more). It appears that at the end of the century all Jewish biblical scholars, whether they rejected or supported biblical criticism, were aware of its Christian biases even if they did not mention them explicitly. At the same time, Jews (except, perhaps, part of the Orthodoxy) did not reject biblical criticism as a whole; they attempted to reconcile it with Judaism and even to make use of its conclusions in shaping that religion."
 * Working paper by Benjamin Sommer (who is wonderful) -- see footnote 24 from pp 23-24 and the description of Wellhausen and von Rad there: -- just providing this source b/c it is handy. It became part of his book,
 * Working paper by Benjamin Sommer (who is wonderful) -- see footnote 24 from pp 23-24 and the description of Wellhausen and von Rad there: -- just providing this source b/c it is handy. It became part of his book,


 * Yes there absolutely is. No one disputes that. It is already mentioned in the article in more than one place. It would be a good plan to read the whole thing before posting these. Still waiting for that shunning. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Current content
The current content says: New perspectives from different ethnicities, feminist theology, Catholicism and Judaism revealed an "untapped world" previously overlooked by the majority of white male Protestants who had dominated biblical criticism from its beginnings. This is not equivalent to something like Some Christian biblical critics have conducted their work from the perspective of Christian theological stances, sometimes supercessionist and sometimes simply reading contemporary enemies (for example the Catholic Church) onto ancient Israelites or Jews and their institutions, rendering the field distasteful to Jews for many years and rendering some findings in the fields subjective and flawed, and far from the objective scholarship that the field aimed to achieve.".


 * I do see the difference. Do you?  Your version is highly pov. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:54, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * My version reflects the Sweeney source, and many other sources, including those cited in the other refs" section. Please engage with the source. Jytdog (talk) 16:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

From Teahouse
I mentioned in at the WP:Teahouse that I thought this argument was at cross purposes. I'd like to explain why. I put a lot of time into this today, but it's still based on my reading of a long debate here and elsewhere on a subject I know nothing about, so I've probably misunderstood something. Nevertheless, my understanding is:

Jytdog thinks "... Judaism has also had difficulty accepting..." could potentially imply that the difficulty was somehow the fault of those scholars, a neutrality concern. Neither of you wants that to be implied. Jenhawk doesn't think it currently is. You both agree that Levenson's explanation of what did cause the difficulty is a thoroughly mainstream one. Neither the Sweeney source nor any number of others, will help you decide if it's worth covering here, regardless of whether it's covered elsewhere, because you implicitly disagree about whether there's an issue to address, because it's about different readings of that specific phrasing.

Jenhawk tried adding a shorter version of Jytdog's proposal that did at least put a briefer version of the 'why' in; a fair attempt at compromise. Jytdog rejected it for reasons that weren't explained directly but which I take to be because it still included the "had difficulty" phrasing; understandable on that reading. Jenhawk read the rejection as "still not enough extra detail" and, still seeing that detail as unnecessary, isn't sure how to proceed.

There might well be rephrasings without much extra detail that address Jytdog's issue about neutrality. Maybe the next potential compromise is to switch "X has Y because Z" to "Z caused X to have Y" something like:

"Hebrew Bible scholar Jon Douglas Levenson writes that specifically Christian theological assumptions in what was claimed to be a non-sectarian pursuit have caused Orthodox Judaism to also have difficulty accepting contemporary biblical criticism." (cited to Sweeney)

If that's closer to neutral by Jytdog's estimation and doesn't cause Jenhawk concerns over either neutrality or excess detail, you could make that change and iterate from there. Resolving the neutrality question first – whether or not you ever agree about the original phrasings, perhaps there are others that satisfy you both – will simplify the discussion, since any question of missing detail won't be burdened as much by needing that detail to be right here, and it might seem less urgent. Sorry again if this rides roughshod over either of your views. &rsaquo; Mortee  talk 23:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Mortee that is very helpful. The beginning is good but the end is... missing the mark. Jews have been (rightly) put off by blatant anti-Jewish bias in some biblical criticism since the field was founded (see for example quotes in Talk:Biblical_criticism).   Levenson is one of the most recent articulators of those problems, and in part because of what he said (and in line which much rethinking among Christians following the holocaust, and in line with Jews finally being hired in academic biblical studies departments) most of the field has responded and that crap is slowly being reworked and processed out of the field.
 * Quite separately there are biblical literalists or traditionalists (both Christian and Jewish) who reject the findings of biblical criticism (Moses did not write the Torah; Matthew Luke Mark and John are not written by apostles, etc etc etc). That is entirely different from what Levenson is talking about.
 * the existing crappy content, and the bit of it left above, are about this latter thing -- about "accepting" it at all. Jytdog (talk) 00:18, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Something like

"Hebrew Bible scholar Jon Douglas Levenson writes that some specifically Christian theological assumptions in what was claimed to be a non-sectarian pursuit led to specifically anti-Jewish lines of reasoning in the field from its beginning, causing most Jews to avoid it; those problems began to be corrected in the contemporary era" (cited to Sweeney)
 * would work. That is only about 10 more words. Jytdog (talk) 00:26, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * This is brilliant. Jytdog and I do not in any way disagree that the old dead Germans were biased as could be--all while claiming not to be--and genuinely believing they weren't! I absolutely agree with that. I think there were cultural issues at the time that meant the Jews--(which I also mention)--were more deeply impacted by this bias than anyone else was. That actually deserves a whole article all by itself.


 * So, my first inclination was 'this is too much.'
 * My second inclination was, I would like to figure out a way to include some of this--hence the infamous edit without its citation.
 * Then my next thought stuck here: if I add more detail concerning the nature of the conflict with the Jews beyond that they: saw biblical criticism of the Pentateuch as a threat to Jewish identity. The growing anti-semitism in Germany of the late 19th century and early twentieth century, the perception higher criticism was an entirely Christian pursuit, and the sense many Bible critics were not disinterested academics but were proponents of supersessionism, prompted Schechter to describe "Higher Criticism as Higher Anti-semitism". what about the others?
 * The Catholics get the shortest shrift in this section. The Catholics also "had difficulty" for basically the same reason: biblical criticism was definitively Protestant. I don't even mention that!
 * It is also true that the dead Germans completely polarized Protestant Christianity in a way it has never recovered from. There are three sentences that allude to the level of division, but nothing overt there either.
 * There were no women and no blacks and and no Africans or Asians involved in biblical criticism. I do say "white male Protestants" three times in this article I think--but most people will miss the implications of that.
 * Jews were affected differently than the others, and that is perhaps sufficient reason to add more, but here is my question: while stating firmly that I do not disagree with what Jytdog says on this topic, and while I feel sympathetic enough toward the whole issue that I was trying to find a way to include something more on it, if we start off down this path for the Jews, do I also have to explain in more depth for everyone? This is critical! This article is already right at the borderline for length.

Can you take that whole paragraph and do something brilliant with it? I have taken this article from a sorry state to FAC and I have no fear that the quality of your work would be a star in its crown. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:44, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * What if we did this: what if we took out what I already have (in the text cited above) and replaced it completely with Jytdog's statement and reference? That would satisfy Jytdog's concern and it would soothe my fears about extended content and point of view. What do you think?
 * It is not "conflict with the Jews", it is people aiming to do objective, historical work bringing very blatant bias into it. It was there from the beginning. This is not an "old dead Germans" thing; the body of work still contains this stuff from people from many times and places, and people working in the field do it even today (less and less frequently in mainstream scholarship).  But if you look at what many people cite for commentary or biblical criticism it is very old stuff that is online at bible.com or whatever and much of that stuff is horrendous and outdated.  I was glad to see that none of that old oh-here-is-an-online-source-let's-grab it crap in this article.  Kudos for that.
 * But people even write content assuming supercessionist notions or skewed to blatantly Christian POV in Wikipedia, in Wikipedia's voice, in our own time when writing about the Bible. We even have the fucking Genesis creation narrative title instead of "Genesis creation myth" as we have for every other culture's creation myth.  It is appalling, but humans are human and they determinedly suck sometimes.
 * Turning toward the specific content here -- it is local to Judaism; this has always been a difficult thing in Christian scholarship and theology, going all the way back to the NT writers who grappled with how to think about the "old covenant" and people faithful to it. What made the issues within the field of biblical criticism somewhat different was that the field set itself up as independent of theology (as our article correctly describes); as something more akin to the work of history or literary criticism (in the broad sense -- the Bible as "just a book").
 * I haven't said this before as it is really not relevant and you should not believe me (see Essjay controversy about someone who persistently lied about having credentials in exactly this field) but I will say it now; I did graduate work, and have read (and continue to read) deeply in this field and directly learned from people cited here (not Levenson, to my regret).  We discussed these sorts of issues all the time.  Mainstream biblical scholars work with acute awareness of these sorts of theologically-driven distortions of work in the field, and try to be careful and explicit when they are following theologically-driven lines of work or making assumptions that are faith-based.
 * People doing mainstream work in this field are generally careful to be clear when they are writing scholarly work that is theological or faith-based, and generally try to be clear when they are writing scholarly work as a historian or literary critic.
 * That is how our articles on these topics need to be as well.
 * Turning all the way to the content -- the bit in green in JenHawk777's proposal a) is as true of Christians who have felt threatened by this approach and b) most importantly misses the mark, that many Jews found the field distasteful for a long time due to the deep streaks of bias in the field, and were actually not welcomed in relevant departments for a long time. That has all started changing, driven in our time a lot by Levenson's essay, which I still commend to you. I can send it to you if you like. That is all discussed in Sweeney's piece, which is very good. I encourage you to read it and engage with it. Jytdog (talk) 16:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay, to start, thank you for all of this. It helps me to know and understand you better. Next, let's make a pact, just in our personal conversations here, to be a little "non-scholarly" in our approach to the denotation of words vs. the general connotation and use of them--if you will. To make a concerted effort to understand each other, and when we don't, to just ask. I think, as it is turning out, we think alike on most things, but have had lots of misunderstandings over language. For example, what I meant by "conflict with the Jews" is exactly what you say. The whole paragraph--I agree with it completely. So we stand alike on the issue--but use different phrasing. I know that is often critical--le mot juste--but in all cases, there is more than one way to say the same thing.


 * You told me once before you had taken some graduate level classes--in theology? Bible studies? World religions? I have no reason not to believe you, and in fact, always have believed you. It seems clear to me you do in fact have some actual knowledge.(humor) It is relevant to me personally, because it means I am not dealing with someone with no understanding of what I am discussing, which is really quite lovely for me! I get tired of having to explain basics to those who make objections that you and I know are ignorance based rather than knowledge based. I was going to give some examples--but I know that's not necessary--I have no doubt you have several of your own!  My educational background is also in this field of study. My undergraduate degree is in liberal arts in the areas of Religion and philosophy (Double major). I graduated top of my class (it was a little state school--humor) and got a full ride to grad school at Vanderbilt University--one of the top twenty schools in the States. I was in the department of philosophy working on a theory of ethical development based on Lawrence Kohlberg's work. I was looking to cross the boundaries of psychology, philosophy and religion with it, so I was taking classes in all three on a specialized program. But I was physically not well. I had to come home and have surgery, lost my scholarship as a result, and for family reasons, never went back and finished. So I am a frustrated PhD, and I take it out on Wikipedia!(humor)


 * We share both an interest in this field and a background in studying it for years and years both formally and informally, and like all true scholars in this area of study--we often disagree! That doesn't demonstrate our ignorance--it demonstrates our depth of knowledge and concern. I respect you Jytdog. I think I have always said that. And it is becoming increasingly clear that we think alike on most things. And when we disagree--there's fireworks! (humor) The thing is, don't expect me to back down on some point just because it's you saying it and you have some knowledge of this field. You have been here on Wikipedia a long time and know more about it than I do. I am still ignorant of much here. That doesn't equate to ignorance of this field of study. I think, perhaps, you have interpreted one type of inexperience as also being another. If we can now change that, if we can discuss as equals, both giving each other the benefit of good faith, everything will go more smoothly between us from now on. And since I do respect you--even if I don't always agree--I would like that very much.


 * This bit Turning all the way to the content -- the bit in green in JenHawk777's proposal a) is as true of Christians who have felt threatened by this approach and b) most importantly misses the mark, that many Jews found the field distasteful for a long time due to the deep streaks of bias in the field, and were actually not welcomed in relevant departments for a long time. seems like it misses the mark to me. This does apply to others who have also deeply felt the bias, and were also excluded, and many who still are excluded, and inhibited, by the biases that do still exist in most of our universities. But I am willing to let that go if you can put together something in the "Jewish" response paragraphs that isn't a whole article by itself!! (humor)


 * That has all started changing, driven in our time a lot by Levenson's essay, His essay made a contribution, I'm sure, but the thing that started the universal shift in Protestant scholarship, and still drives it, is the Holocaust. Protestants are finally aware their theology was wide open for twisting into something deeply ugly. It always was open to that, and some did that, but enough opposed it Protestants Christians stayed blind. They wrote it off as "fringe". Still, you would think examples from history would have demonstrated that danger, but it wasn't until the horrors of the twentieth century that it smacked them all against the head hard enough to make them take a step back and reassess 2000 years.  Yes, some people are still doing it.  It isn't just the 'dead Germans'--but they did start biblical criticism--and that's what I was referring to!


 * People doing mainstream work in this field are generally careful to be clear when they are writing scholarly work that is theological or faith-based, and generally try to be clear when they are writing scholarly work as a historian or literary critic.
 * That is how our articles on these topics need to be as well. Well, you have to give it to them--the dead Germans did genuinely believe they were doing the same thing you assert these modern scholars are actually doing. That's part of the problem though isn't it? We all take for granted that our biases aren't really biases at all, and we are then blind to their influence. I don't believe modern scholars are generally doing a better job at being unbiased anymore than the dead Germans were. The biases have simply shifted around. A secular world-view carries it's own set of biases just as a theological one does. It is only in acknowledging our biases that they lose the power to blind us.


 * Feel free to send me anything ever that you would like me to read. I have no doubt the quality of anything you recommend will be high. Thank you Jytdog. Thank you for all of this. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:01, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that people reflecting on the holocaust played a huge role in starting to change things. A great deal of the Christian world remains barely touched by those changes, but it is happening.


 * To the content, nothing you wrote explains how this does not reflect the wealth of sources on the issue of anti-Jewish bias. It is not "a whole paragraph".
 * "'Hebrew Bible scholar Jon Douglas Levenson writes that some specifically Christian theological assumptions in what was claimed to be a non-sectarian pursuit led to specifically anti-Jewish lines of reasoning in the field from its beginning, causing most Jews to avoid it; those problems began to be corrected in the contemporary era' (cited to Sweeney)"
 * Tweaks of that are fine, but nothing that waters it down. If you don't want to hook that to Levenson, I don't care. Again this seemed to be the most gentle and indirect way to introduce this specific notion, which is not clearly articulated anywhere in this article. Jytdog (talk) 03:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)


 * See from my point of view it is there--I wanted it in there too Jytdog even before you said anything--but this wording is definitely stronger. I like it.  Feel free to put that in, with its source, even if you need to remove something else from that paragraph. I am in agreement.  It's a good sentence. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Done with some tweaks, and blended into what was there... caught the post-Holocaust rethinking we discussed as well. Jytdog (talk) 23:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's a seamless addition. I was surprised not to have "claimed to be a non-sectarian pursuit" in there though--I really especially liked that part! Well--there's always tomorrow!  Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:09, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Historical Jesus
What in the world is a whole section on Historical Jesus doing in an article on biblical criticism. It is about one-quarter of the body of this article. That is a mind-blowing amount of WEIGHT. Jytdog (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (incorrect Jytdog (talk) 22:46, 27 August 2018 (UTC))
 * Read the rest of the article. It has been a pursuit of biblical criticism since its beginnings. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:19, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Looking forward to an answer that deals with the entirety of the field and is based on RS and P&G. Jytdog (talk) 22:37, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * It is actually more like athird about a fourth of this article, as there are two sections: Biblical_criticism and Biblical_criticism. For pete's sake. Jytdog (talk) 22:40, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (back to a fourth per below Jytdog (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC))


 * broad concept article approaches In writing articles on these subjects, it is useful to directly address the scope of the term, and the history of how the concept has developed. Each of the examples of the concept or type of thing should be included at some point in the article, possibly in a list, so that no information is lost from what would have been presented in the disambiguation page format. Consider using summary style to incorporate information about the subtopics into the main article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:02, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * This should not be GA and it should not be made an FA with this sort of WEIGHT problem. Perhaps in a page about New Testament biblical criticism or even Christian biblical criticism more broadly, having a third fourth of the page on this might make sense, but for the main page in WP on this topic having a third fourth of the content on this, in two sections, is simply UNDUE. Take for example the Handbook of Biblical Criticism ISBN 9780664223144 cited in this page -- "The Quest for the Historical Jesus" section gets about three pages out of 237; you can throw in the Jesus Seminar section and get another half a page. The content here is nothing like a WP:SUMMARY of the main page. Jytdog (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC) (fix Jytdog (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC))


 * So, when you say--Perhaps in a page about New Testament biblical criticism or even Christian biblical criticism it confuses me.  I thought we agreed already that  biblical criticism as it was created and practiced out of the German Enlightenment in the 1700's all the way up to the late twentieth century was Protestant biblical criticism.  That was the reasoning for adding in the info on the Jewish  response.  This is that page you refer to--in a very real way--already. So nothing would really be different. If there were an imaginary page titled "Christian" biblical criticism--pretty much everything on this page would have to move there. If it would be okay to include the historical Jesus in that imaginary page, it is also okay to include it here in the real page.
 * Here's a book on Amazon where the review says: "Interest in the historical Jesus continues to occupy much of today's discussion of the Bible." And this one where they say "the flood of books being written on the historical study of Jesus continues unabated." It offers "some of the more significant" ones in a list that covers ten pages.
 * Before you start criticizing, these are not sources, they are just readily available internet comments with an eye to inform, that's all . The historical Jesus is the hottest modern topic in biblical criticism--it has been, on and off, for over 200 years. It is the largest of all the subtopics of biblical criticism--and each subtopic is supposed to get its own summary in a broad topic article. It is the only subtopic that got its own section in history because that's how big an issue it is. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * So. The article has 56 paragraphs of varying lengths, with 6 subtopics (not including the contemporary section as a sub-topic. If that's a subtopic, then it's the longest.) Ten paragraphs are on the historical Jesus, counting the two paragraphs from the history section, 5 paragraphs are on textual criticism (but they are lo-o-ong paragraphs), 6 on source, 5 on Form, 1 on redaction and 5 on literary criticism. The HJ has 10 paragraphs because it has more than twice as much material published on it--pretty much every year--and is the subject of biblical criticism that makes it into the news, is considered by many--scholars and popular media alike--to be the only really important question in biblical criticism, etc, etc. I feel that this ratio is representative of the significance of each of these sub-topics to biblical criticism. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:21, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
 * A third fourth of the page is way too much. I could see one paragraph, basically taking the lead of Historical Jesus with refs added per WP:SYNC.. I don't know much of the content generated here is already there. If it not there, in the main article, it should be. If you like I could do this and then self-revert, and you could see what it would look like. Jytdog (talk) 22:58, 31 August 2018 (UTC) fix Jytdog (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It doesn't have a third of the page. Depending upon how you count them, the article has between 56 and 60 paragraphs.  Ten is not a third of that, at least not in any math I know. You were referencing the amount of coverage in the Handbook--which is a poor analogy since all the subjects there are separated from each other--but I used your methodology anyway and just quantified. The ratio is closer to 1/6--not 1/3. Continuing to make a claim that the article has a third of it dedicated to the HJ is mistaken. Please acknowledge that fact.
 * Outside the history section, it's 8 paragraphs. For the single largest topic in biblical criticism, that is not undue weight. You do agree the HJ is the largest, most talked about area of biblical criticism today right? Not mythicism--but the actual scholarly study of the historical Jesus. You're not confusing these are you?  One scholar wrote at the beginning of his book  "The subject of the historical Jesus is of primary interest today, both in scholarly and popular circles. ...This interest has extended across the theological spectrum.  The number of published books has been staggering..."   It's a phenomenon.  There's nothing else like it. If we take what's there out, we'll just have to put something else in. Making the HJ smaller gives a false view of the modern focus on this topic.
 * Someone came by and fussed at me for including 6 paragraphs on source criticism since it was superseded nearly a century ago. Someone else came along and fussed about redaction criticism only getting one paragraph, and someone else complained about form criticism. Everyone seems to have their particular areas of concern without anyone else but me being willing to take the large over-view this article requires.
 * This is a broad concept article. By definition, it must contain sufficient information on each of its subtopics to properly do its job. The study of the historical Jesus is the hottest subtopic of all the sub-topics. It is not limited to the Jesus seminar in our modern day--which was an altogether insignificant drop in the bucket where historical Jesus studies are concerned. 8-10 paragraphs is due weight for that Jytdog.  Surely you can  see that.  It is not a third of the article.  Please stop exaggerating.  It doesn't help us find understanding. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:25, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I am back to a fourth. See below for I got there. Jytdog (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * One of things that makes this so jarring, is that it is "one of these things is not like other" issue. "historical jesus" is a topic; like "synoptic gospel" is a topic, like the "documentary hyptothesis" is a topic, etc. It just shoe-horned in here, topically. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

It's not a fourth either, see below. ALL of these are topics of their own. They all have their own articles already. That argument carries no weight. It is in no way shoe-horned in any more than any of the rest of it is. Do you understand HJ is a sub-topic of biblical criticism? BC started it. How is that shoe-horned? Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:39, 1 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Can you work your magic here as well? I have no idea how to respond to being told this article shouldn't be GA or FAC. I would also like to add here that I don't quite understand this assertion, when we all agreed up above that biblical criticism did have a liberal Protestant bias. I am now officially lost again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:07, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The Historical Jesus is seen by many as--not only the most important question--but as the only important question in biblical criticism. The amount of coverage it may have received in a reference work has no real bearing on the number of works published on that single topic and the amount of focus it gets. If you need me to, I can get plenty of evidence for the due:weight of this topic. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Take a look here: . It offers "some of the more significant" ones in a list that covers ten pages. They say "the flood of books being written on the historical study of Jesus continues unabated." It is the single most popular topic in biblical criticism today. That's fact. Even so, whether or not this section should be shortened may be a separate issue. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:05, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I think this one might need someone with more expertise. I intervened with the last one because I saw it at Teahouse and thought, after spending too much time reading, that it was a misunderstanding. As far as I can tell from a much more cursory read of this, it's a question of how big a topic the historical Jesus is within Biblical criticism as whole. I have no standing from which to join in with that debate, and I'd expect the FAC reviewers to weigh in anyway. I'm sorry not to be more help. If a discussion here or elsewhere seems to go completely sideways, either of you is welcome to message me if you think I can help; unfortunately I don't think I can with this one. &rsaquo; Mortee  talk 03:10, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Perfectly reasonable. No worries mate. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:28, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

quantitation
My initial estimate of a third was from just looking at what filled the window of my browser. Here are caps:

The historical Jesus is all of #5 and half of #1; Just doing 6/1.5 = 4. A quarter is more accurate, doing this method carefully. I was wrong on the "third" thing by this method. There are tools that do word count but you need some javascript. Could do this by pasting into Word and doing word counts; that is tedious but I would do that, if this is not communicating what I mean. Jytdog (talk) 20:23, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * inserting here. I can see from this that you are including in your description of "all of page 5"  a paragraph that does not have anything to do with the historical Jesus. There is actually one paragraph on page 5 on the historical Jesus. Then skip that next paragraph, then there are 7 paragraphs on the criteria. That's an error. The criteria has as much rationale to be in biblical criticism as any other method. So two paragraphs in history, on e pargraph that actually discusses the topic, and 7 that discuss the critical method used. What argument can you offer for why any of this doesn't belong here?  Why are you doing this Jytdog? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:28, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Bloody fucking hell. I am only seeing this now.  Your description is not accurate; discussed in detail below in the "proposal section". Jytdog (talk) 01:51, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I figured you were making your statement based on visual impression. The history section entitled historical Jesus is not all on that topic--maybe if it were retitled it would not have that misleading "look." The historical Jesus at the end has the one actual HJ paragraph, then the stuff on criteria, so that's the bulk of it there. Jytdog, I believe I understand what you are saying. You think there is too much on this one topic in an article on biblical criticism. If you could demonstrate that the HJ is not a major subtopic of biblical criticism, or if you could show HJ is disproportionate--as the largest subtopic--to the other subtopics, and if you could also find something to indicate what kind of proportion WP expects in a broad topic article with subtopics that do have differing levels of importance/significance to the topic, like two to one? Three to one?  What would be the correct proportion? I would then not only understand but probably then also agree. As it stands, I have gotten no response from you on my arguments for leaving it alone. I understand you don't like it. That's sufficient reason for me to cooperate with some things, but not an issue as impactful as this one.


 * The total word count of the article is 10,541 words. The historical Jesus, including the two paragraphs in the history section, is 2040 words.  That is less than 20%: 19.35%.  So not a third and not a fourth.  The other sections: textual is just under ten percent, source has just over 11%, Lit has just under 10% and form has 8%.  Contemporary--which you just added to--has 13% of the article. The history section is the largest section in the article with 21% of it.Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:34, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you missed that the screen caps are of the body alone, maybe?
 * Please explain what you are counting in "total word count".  Please explain what you are counting as "words" and the tool with which you are counting.
 * This article is about the tools -- biblical criticism is a set of tools -- and the ways they have been applied, and the hypotheses that have guided work, and what they have found (to a very very limited extent). There are mountains of knowledge (and some bullshit) that have been generated from usingthe tools-- stuff like what is summarized in Authorship of the Bible and what is found in every article on a biblical topic.  Historical Jesus is one of many such topics.
 * To the extent that "Historical Jesus" has a place here, I think it would be in the Source criticism section, along with the documentary hypothesis and the synoptic problem; tying this clearly into the question of what words and actions ascribed to Jesus are likely to be authentic; Jesus the person as a "source" Jytdog (talk) 23:48, 1 September 2018 (UTC)


 * This article is about the tools, the methods, the topics, the hypothesis, and the people--all of it.


 * I got the word count by copying everything including the headings--counting everything--and transferred it to my Pages which automatically provides a total word count. I did the same for each section. Did the math. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:36, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it is not about all about all of it. There is very little of the knowledge gained here (and that is appropriate). Arguably bringing lots of the content of Authorship of the Bible over here would be way more useful for showing the big picture of what has been produced.
 * I don't know what "my Pages" is referring to. What is that? Is it counting the content of citations, the lead, infoboxes, too? Jytdog (talk) 01:52, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * btw please see Did_you_know/DYKcheck. As I noted I am excluding the lead, since that is just summarizing the body. The body is what matters. Jytdog (talk) 02:05, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

DYKcheck1

 * DYKcheck. I just bit the bullet and installed the DYKcheck tool.
 * I first deleted the lead, previewed the page, and ran the tool: the body is 56507 characters (8793 words)
 * I then deleted everything except the first historical jesus section, previewed it, and ran the tool: result is 5372 characters (830 words)
 * I then threw all that way, and started over, and deleted everything except the 2nd historical jesus section, previewed it, and ran the tool: result is 9912 characters (1629 words)
 * Total of the sections together is 15284 characters, 2459 words


 * So
 * Just the 2nd one is 18% of the body
 * 1st and 2nd together are 27% of the body.
 * This matches the "visual impression". (the 2nd historical jesus section alone is roughly 1/6 or 17%; both together are roughly 25%. Jytdog (talk) 00:19, 2 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Your method produced some duplication then. Your numbers add up to 11,252 words in the article and that's more than there actually are.  I believe you must have also included some other paragraphs that do not actually discuss the historical Jesus--such as the developing tradition--as well because there is simply not that much. Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:36, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If you add total + section-of-total + section-of-total, yes, you get more than total.
 * Percentage = (section-of-total/total) x 100.
 * the percentage for the 2nd section alone is 9912/56507 x 100 = 18%; The percentage for two sections together is (9912 + 5372)/56507 x 100 = 27%. Jytdog (talk) 01:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It's the Apple version of Word. I did include the lead, did not include citations since they do not appear as anything but footnotes, did not include the infobox. What the heck are you adding up that you are getting 27% of the article? That's not mathematically possible. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I see, thanks for explaining. The math to get 27% is directly above. Directly above. This is not worth discussing further.  Please do not respond. Jytdog (talk) 18:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

DYKcheck2
same procedure is above, with respect to the article as it stands here. ("historical jesus" content in the history section blended, Historical Jesus standalone section slightly trimmed)
 * I first deleted the lead, previewed the page, and ran the tool: the body is 55235 characters (8591 words)
 * I then deleted everything except the historical jesus section and its subsection, previewed it, and ran the tool: result is 8672 characters (1433 words)
 * That section is 16% of the body. Jytdog (talk) 21:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

DYKcheck3
same procedure is above, with respect to the article as it stands here. ("historical jesus" content in the history section blended as above (no change), Historical Jesus standalone section removed, new HJ subsection created in "source criticism" section)
 * I first deleted the lead, previewed the page, and ran the tool: the body is 48293 characters (7444 words)
 * I then deleted everything except the historical jesus section and its subsection, previewed it, and ran the tool: result is 1731 characters (287 words)
 * That section is 4% of the body. Jytdog (talk) 21:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I do not understand what you are going on about here: Undid revision 857914676 by Jenhawk777 (talk) knock it off. Giving edit war warning. I am citing this in the RfC. as I already said) Directly above this you said This is not worth discussing further. Please do not respond. so I was archiving it.  Then it showed up again so I thought I had done something wrong.  Did you revert it?  Why?
 * What subsection??? Criteria does not solely apply to the HJ if that's what you mean. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As you can see in the RfC, these sections are referred to there. I have asked what you were thinking with the archiving, in the section on Archiving below. Jytdog (talk) 22:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Solving internal biblical inconsistencies
This bit in the lead is unsourced, unsupported by sourced content in the body, and based on some theological perspective holding that the Bible has one message and one voice and that inconsistencies can be "solved" or even should be.Jytdog (talk) 22:51, 27 August 2018 (UTC)


 * No, it is not unsourced. It is in reference #6: Law, David R. (2012). "A Brief history of Historical criticism: the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century". The Historical-Critical Method: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-56740-012-3. Go to the last sentence at the bottom of page 6 which wraps over to the top of page 7.  It's there. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * There was no citation; that is the definition of "unsourced". The "problems" being "solved" in the relevant passage refer to the big issues discussed starting from the first page of the introduction, not the "inconsistencies" just discussed in that sentence. And this passage is specific to the historical-critical method, and many of the methods in this page deal with the received text. Take that out and one is left with a generic sentence about increaing knowledge, which is the goal of any scholarly endeavor.  I removed the sentence.  Jytdog (talk) 03:23, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * My FA advisor told me not to put sources in the lead. Yet the source is there in the body and it is a good source. Historical biblical criticism is what's discussed in this article. It is one of the defining characteristics of the biblical criticism that began in the 1700's. When literary criticism began, it changed biblical criticism from its primarily historical form.

... On Wikipedia, the term also carries the connotation of repetitive attempts to insert or delete content or behavior that tends to frustrate proper editorial processes and discussions. A tendentious editor is:
 * one who disputes the reliability of apparently good sources such as disputing this source, and removing the sentence based on your personal feeling about it.
 * one who repeats the same argument without convincing people Even after consensus and being asked to gain consensus--which you ignored--you have continued.
 * one who assigns undo importance to a single aspect of a subject You want this one, special, particular point of view inserted into this article. This article should not have any particular POV.
 * is the editor on a mission to combat POVIf you see it as your mission to protect article content from the POV overzealousness of anyone that disagrees with you, you are as POV as they are...
 * one who accuses others of malice such as calling me dishonest.


 * one who deletes the cited additions of others such as the above, and all the other mass deletions.


 * one who bans otherwise constructive editors from their talk page


 * All of these apply to you and your behavior here, so I am politely asking you to take a step back. I am beginning to feel hounded by you Jytdog. Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. You show up everywhere I go and do this. This has been going on a year now. It's past time for this to stop. Please leave me and my work alone. Let someone else carry the burden of keeping me in line. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:49, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

section header issue
You undid Smeat75's edit on the heading and put it back to specifically what he asked not be there - yes,Jytdog changed it back with an edit summary saying it is against the rules to use what I had we don't repeat article titles in section headers per MOS:HEAD actually when you look at that page it says " heading should not redundantly refer back to the subject of the article... unless doing so is shorter or clearer." I thought it was clearer have it say "Quest for the historical Jesus through Biblical criticism". I really object to a section being marked as "historical" when it does not discuss history! I watch these articles on Historical Jesus, Christ myth, Historicity of Jesus and they are frequently bombarded by editors saying "there is no evidence for Jesus outside the Bible/the Gospels." That just isn't true and I really don't accept having a WP article that seems to back up that belief by quoting nothing but "Bible scholars" (another never ending criticism from "Jesus skeptics", the sources are all "Bible scholars", not historians) sifting through the Gospels to decide who the "historical Jesus" was. How about we just use the section header "Jesus" (and thanks for leaving the sentence "Biblical criticism is one element in historical Jesus studies" in).Smeat75 (talk) 21:48, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep, edit note. I was just dealing with the MOS issue; we don't repeat article titles in headers. I generally care about MOS. People who care about GA and FA tend to care about it even more, fwiw. Jytdog (talk) 21:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Then that was the right thing to do. It is unfortunate that the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" has become a title for that area of study even in biblical criticsm. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Archiving
May be a good idea. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:18, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * How? Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:34, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * My choosen method is to wait until someone who knows comes by, sees this and thinks "meh, why not". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:46, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes it should be. I will do some of that now, and set up an archiving engine. Jytdog (talk) 18:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I am such a genius. Thanks, Jytdog. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * There was an archiving bot, but it was set to archive things at Talk:Temperance movement (added here)... I checked and nothing was actually added to Talk:Temperance movement/Archive 1, so whew. Jytdog (talk) 18:57, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

User:Jenhawk777. We should fill up Talk:Biblical criticism/Archive 1, before starting 2, and I can only imagine it screws up the bot, much less people trying to follow discussions chronologically, to skip around in archive numbering. I have reverted those manual archivings and tagged Talk:Biblical criticism/Archive 2 and Talk:Biblical criticism/Archive 4 for deletions as errors. The bot is set to archive sections after they have been quiet for 90 days, which is more or less normal for moderately active pages. Why do you want to archive discussions less than 90 days old? Jytdog (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * The page at Archive 1 said do not modify, etc., so I understood that to mean no more should be added to it. There was an Archive 3--I think it was the one you reverted first. On the Archive instruction page it says nothing of only archiving pages after 90 days, it just says closed discussions. I thought they were closed. I thought cleaning it up a little would make it easier for people to follow current discussions.  That's all.  But I'll leave it if you care.  It's fine. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:43, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * The header means don't change stuff that is in there (don't edit, don't redact, don't delete things). Of course it is to fine to add new archived content to the archive. There is no Talk:Biblical criticism/Archive 3.  Jytdog (talk) 22:56, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * There was a #3 . . N Talk:Biblical criticism/Redaction criticism‎; 22:28 . . (+10,005)‎ . . ‎Jenhawk777 (talk but it's gone now. I understood the header to mean don't do anything to this page. If I misunderstood, surely it's understandable why, and now you have reverted them all so it's moot anyway. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:56, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I see, you are quoting your own contrib history.
 * I've reverted and speedied Talk:Biblical criticism/Quantitation (what you also tried to declare as "archive 2") and Talk:Biblical criticism/Redaction criticism (what you tried to declare as "archive #3")
 * No, this is not the looking glass where "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." The bot has already started doing its thing now that it is configured properly. The archives it creates will be in normally named archives that will be listed in the talk header and searchable via the box there. Jytdog (talk) 07:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Please remove the snark. There was a two, three, and four. They are now gone. They were not all named Archive # though; at least one was named by content. I just referred to them by number in my edit summary--which of course you can check to see that there was in fact a 2, 3 and 4. So now the bot is doing what I did that you felt compelled to revert. I will just leave that there.  This discussion is closed. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You didn't know what you were doing and made a mess. It happens. Jytdog (talk) 08:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I did not kn ow what I was doing. That is a true statement. Trial and error is how it goes here--thank you for your patience. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC on Historical Jesus content (withdrawn for now)
The page has a section devoted to Historical Jesus, along with some discussion about the various "quests" for the historical Jesus in the history sections.

Should this page have a section on Historical Jesus at all, and if so, how much weight should it have, what should be in that section, and where should it be? Jytdog (talk) 21:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Alternative versions
Alt 1: In this version, there is a subsection called "Historical Jesus" in the history section with in-context discussion of specific efforts, and a larger standalone section below on the topic generally. As described above in Talk:Biblical_criticism, the standalone section is 18% of the body and the two sections about Historical Jesus together are 27% of the body.

Alt 2: In this version (current), the content in-context discussion about specific efforts has been de-sectioned and blended in. The standalone section has been trimmed a little, and as described above at Talk:Biblical_criticism, is 16% of the body.

Alt 3: In this version, (self-reverted test edit), the content in the historical section is unchanged from Alt2; the former standalone Historical Jesus section has been removed, and a new subsection within "source criticism"" has been added, copied from the lead of Historical Jesus per WP:SYNC, and edited it a bit to fit here better. As described above at Talk:Biblical_criticism, this is 4% of the body. (NB: i made an error in the sectioning in the version there; it should be one more sub-section down, like in this earlier test-edit version)

Alt X no additional section? Other ideas? --Jytdog (talk) 21:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)(add NB about subsection)

!votes

 * alt 3 or none. The topic is discussed in-context in the flow of the narrative about the history of the field. If we are have a subsection focused on it, it should be carefully in sync with the main discussion of the topic in the Historical Jesus article, and should have appropriate WEIGHT.   The "historical Jesus" is both a hypothesis or research direction that has driven work in the field and a set of findings that are themselves treated as "sources" for further work.  In this regard it is very similar to the two other subsections of the "source criticism" section, the documentary hypothesis about the Hebrew Bible and the synoptic problem about the New Testament.  We also could massively expand the content about either one of those as well, and lay out how scholars decide whether to call some passage P or D or J or E (and how that affects the reading of Genesis rather severely), or how people deal with the Synoptic problem. We could massively expand the Textual criticism section with methodology and findings.  There are many other subjects that could be treated in great depth here, where biblical criticism has been applied and hypotheses have shaped work in the field, like the entire subject of Authorship of the Bible, whether The Exodus actually happened to one extent or another, ditto the subsequent Conquest of Canaan, etc  etc.
 * Alt3 is appropriate WEIGHT, if we are to have a section on this at all.
 * Alt1 and Alt2 are starkly and indefensibly UNDUE in our main article on this topic, not to mention out of SYNC. Jytdog (talk) 22:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion
I would like to see an '''ALT. X which contains some combination of my version and Jytdog's version, minus its problems: The first paragraph of his ALT 3''' contains redundancies of the history section, a factual error, three undefined statements, and an omission of a majority view that does exist while he implies there is none. The third paragraph, on the other hand, is good and would work well in the criteria section.

This breaks down to three issues:
 * 1a) Is the quest for the Historical Jesus (HJ) a topic of biblical criticism, and if yes, 1b) how important a topic is it? Due weight will be determined here.
 * 2) Are the criteria considered part of the methodology of biblical criticism?
 * 3) If included, should the HJ be placed under source criticism?


 * 1) 1a. In The Historical Jesus: critical concepts in religious studies, Volume 1 (isbn 0-415-32751-2) C.A. Evans describes the HJ as beginning 200 years ago as an aspect of the critical evaluation of the Bible. All sources say exactly that. There is no source that says HJ research is anything but a spawn of biblical criticism from the very beginning, and even though Evans says it has now become ecumenical,he explains that means Protestant, Catholic and Jewish scholars now participate instead of just Protestants (page 5). Life of Jesus research is an aspect of biblical criticism.  It always has been; without biblical criticism, it would not exist.  Therefore, it belongs in an article of this type. Not doing so would be a failure to cover the topic adequately and fairly.


 * 1) 1b In 2014, C.A. Evans edited The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus (isbn 978-0415-97569-8) where he opens the introduction with the statement: "Interest in the Historical Jesus continues unabated. Scholarly and popular publications are more numerous than ever." Stanley Porter in Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research (isbn 0567043606) writes that "Books on the Historical Jesus abound. More books on this topic are being written all the time and there is no perceivable sense of this trend abating ... Jesus research has become a growth industry in its own right." This is the single most significant and influential topic of biblical criticism in our modern day. Therefore, due weight should convey that.

2.) The Encyclopedia of the Historical Jesus assesses methods and criteria. Tobias Hägerland in Jesus and the Scriptures: Problems, Passages and Patterns (isbn 978-0-56766-502-7 ) says "Methodological issues hold a prominent place in Historical Jesus research" (page 3) then goes on to discuss the criteria in depth. This approach will be found in any good reference on this topic.  The criteria are the method of critical evaluation used in this area. Jytdog wants all discussion of the criteria removed.  Including historical Jesus research as a topic, without including any discussion of the criteria it is based on, would be an undue weight of its own. 3.) Jytdog has already stated he does not care too much where the historical Jesus is placed. It is not a subtopic of any of the other methods. It is a topic unto itself. Therefore I feel strongly it should not be placed under source criticism, as though it were a subtopic, and it should not be separated from the criteria connected to it.

New research indicates scholars no longer refer to the Historical Jesus. According to Bruce David Chilton (Studying the Historical Jesus, Major trends, page 33) this topic is now being referred to as Life of Jesus Research. The heading should be changed accordingly. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * 1a), 1b, and 2 are great arguments for including that stuff in Historical Jesus. As for 3, Synoptic Gospel and Documentary hypothesis are also topics "onto themselves". Jytdog (talk) 07:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * As repeatedly stated, every topic in this article is a stand alone topic elsewhere. That does not disqualify it for inclusion here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:43, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You made the argument that HJ should have its own section because it is a "topic onto itself". Hm. There is no point us trying to work this out. That is why I did an RfC. We'll see what others say. Jytdog (talk) 07:58, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you have that backwards.  Above under Historical Jesus you said One of things that makes this so jarring, is that it is "one of these things is not like other" issue. "historical jesus" is a topic; like "synoptic gospel" is a topic, like the "documentary hyptothesis" is a topic, etc. It just shoe-horned in here, topically. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
 * And I responded ALL of these are topics of their own. They all have their own articles already. That argument carries no weight. It is in no way shoe-horned in any more than any of the rest of it is. Do you understand HJ is a sub-topic of biblical criticism? Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand the confusion; no HJ is not same kind of thing as textual criticism; it is however a notable topic with its own article like textual criticism.  HJ is much more the same kind of thing as the documentary hypothesis and the synoptic problem (which also are notable topics).  Textual criticism is a discipline rooted in classics studies (as noted by PiCo in the section above, here); it is not a specific focus of biblical criticism but rather a set of tools used in it.  HJ, documentary hypothesis, and the synoptic problem are all research themes or hypotheses; they are alike in that regard.  Hopefully that helps explain.
 * We are not going to agree, this is clear. Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 4 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Please do explain, perhaps up in the Talk:Biblical_criticism, what you mean with regard to The first paragraph of his ALT 3 contains ...a factual error, three undefined statements, and an omission of a majority view that does exist while he implies there is none. The third paragraph, on the other hand, is good and would work well in the criteria section. As noted, this is taken from the lead of Historical Jesus with a bit of editing. If there are errors at Historical Jesus, we should fix them. Jytdog (talk) 08:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This was done already. The redundancy and undefined statements were created by moving it here. The error and omission are noted above. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes you did. I'll reply up there. But i'll note that the "error" is by the The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, not me and not the Historical Jesus article. Problematic claim. Jytdog (talk) 17:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Actually I don't believe that is entirely correct. Two sentences from the source were conflated which slightly altered their meaning. I am using the full first sentence below for ALT X, ending it where it ends in the source, and summarizing what comes after in the next several sentences, so that it is more accurately representative of the totality of what the source actually says.


 * I would like to make an offering of ALT X that is, as near as I can make it, part of your material and part of mine and part new. (I moved your third paragraph from Alt 3, in its entirety, to the section on criteria (which must be kept in my opinion). It was a good paragraph.) -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenhawk777 (talk • contribs) 21:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

, do you mind if I publicize this RfC in a few more places? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:30, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your note. In this diff, I am pulling this, so that I can sharpen it and relaunch. I think I am understanding the key point of disagreement and perhaps this can be resolved by focusing on that. Jytdog (talk) 13:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Well enough. I was thinking about Talk:Historical Jesus, Talk:Bible, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Judaism and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:19, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

ALT X proposal
Patristics scholar Frank Leslie Cross writes that this area of criticism seeks to "reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth by critical historical methods." After Albert Schweitzer's Von Reimarus zu Wrede was published as The Quest of the historical Jesus in 1910, the phrase provided the label for the field of study for eighty years. However, as Cross says, the phrase implies a contrast to "Christological definitions...and other Christian accounts of Jesus" which has, in turn, produced "spirited protest." The phrase has largely been replaced by the alternative phrase, life of Jesus research.
 * Life of Jesus research

Portraits of Jesus differ. These portraits include Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish messiah and prophet of social change. Underlining these differences, Bible scholar Gerd Theissan writes that there is only limited consensus among historians on the broad range of issues within the very large topic of the life of Jesus. Yet Bible scholars James Beilby and Paul Eddy say there is some: consensus is "elusive but not entirely absent". The majority agree "Jesus was a first century Jew, who was baptized by John, went about teaching and preaching, had followers, was believed to be a miracle worker and exorcist, went to Jerusalem where there was an "incident", was subsequently arrested, convicted and crucified." There is also near unanimous agreement that Jesus must be understood within the context of the first century Judaism in which he lived.

There is not only disagreement on Jesus and aspects of his life and teachings, there is also disagreement on the value of historical research concerning him, yet the majority of scholars, such as John Meier, N. T. Wright and Gregory A. Boyd, maintain the value of historical research, say objective understanding can be derived even from biased material, and say some recognizable version of the Jesus of tradition emerges from critical study of the Bible texts. Robert Funk and J. D. Crossan are among those who support historical research, say facts of the historical Jesus can be discerned from biblical texts, but focus on the humanity of Jesus without a supernatural aspect. Rudolf Bultmann and Burton Mack accept the possible existence of a historical Jesus but argue that the stories of him are so saturated with legend and myth that we can know nothing about him. Last, since the days of Reimarus, there have been a few scholars, such as Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), G. A. Wells (1926–2017) and the modern day Robert Price (1954– ), who have argued that Jesus is a fictional character, the Gospels themselves are fiction, and the historical existence of Jesus is therefore impossible to verify.

Biblical criticism is only one element in historical Jesus studies. In the twenty-first century, investigation into the life of Jesus is continued by Christian, Jewish, and independent Bible scholars and historians. Increased knowledge of first century Judaism, the renaissance of Roman Catholic scholarship, acceptance of critical methods, sociological insights, and modern literary analysis, insure this ongoing investigation corresponds to both theological and wider cultural interests.

-- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenhawk777 (talk • contribs) 21:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This is not the whole proposal, as you are also proposing to keep the "criteria"; is that correct? Jytdog (talk) 22:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I am trying to take it one partial step at a time and find what we can agree on and go from there. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I will not support the criteria being here but we can bracket that for a bit. With respect to this as "the paragraph", there are two issues.  First, this is out of SYNC with Historical Jesus and I cannot support bad meta-editing that has WP saying different things.  Also the findings of various people working in that field in the third paragraph are for the most part UNDUE and OFFTOPIC here.  Otherwise I it seems OK. The last sentence takes language from the Oxford dictionary which is not OK (and i think you mean "ensure") Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Four source hypothesis to support historical authenticity
Hello again, thanks for working on the article. I have noticed a change leading to this sentence: "this uses the four-source hypothesis asserting multiple sources for the Gospels to support historical authenticity". I unfortunately don't have the source, but it seems a bit confusing to me considering that an understanding of how the compilation occurred does not necessarily support the historicity of the texts, only historical information about their development. It's possible that a word change or addition could clarify the sentence, if I'm misinterpreting it. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 17:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello back at you! How are you?  Yeah--I was fiddling with that sentence because I'm not happy with it.  I went back to the sources and may be closer to plagiarizing now--just kidding!--but I think this is more accurate than my initial paraphrase--which of course makes it longer. Why does everything make it longer?  I really wish it was appropriate to discuss each of these criteria in more length and include what the many current objections to them are, but I have to leave that to the historical Jesus page I guess. Thanx for calling attention to it and giving me the chance to fix it. You are welcome to make any contributions you see fit to make of course. I am in the process of trying to prep to take it to FA--I'm doing the mentoring thing--criminitly they are strict! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:25, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Hey, I just got a note from my mentor saying a little peer review might be worthwhile--do you want to play? Hit me with your best shot. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:28, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm doing good, thanks. I noticed the change with the context and I think it's much more comprehensible.  I'm not sure that I want to officially get more involved with this article, but it's among the many I monitor (nearly 3000, meaning I should try to cleanup the watchlist down to 2000 soon).Face-smile.svg  If I notice something else that I don't understand and can't fix myself, I'll of course gladly post another message here.  Thanks for your work and happy editing, — Paleo  Neonate  – 21:11, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No way--dude! Are you kidding me?!? I monitor 20! How long have you been doing this?  Wikipedia I mean... :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Unofficial reviews will be just as appreciated--do a section if you feel like blowing off the other 2999... I value your views and opinions--for real...:-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:51, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Pre-FAC commentary
A few comments on the lead:


 * I think you need to start by saying, as clearly as possible, what Biblical criticism is. Drop the age of reason stuff; just tell the reader what it is. Imagine you're talking to a bright person who has never heard of the discipline before!
 * "The scientific revolution of the 17th century created a revolution in thought as well as science." Hate it. Science is a kind of thought! I'd focus the first paragraph entirely on what the methodology is; deal with the history/origins after that.
 * And wikify! Add relevant wikilinks. ✅
 * I'd avoid rhetorical questions in the lead
 * "This revealed problems concerning Mosaic authorship, and the documentary hypothesis was developed in response" I think some explanation of these terms is needed. I think you will have lost some readers by this point; try to make the lead as reader-friendly as possible --  the lead...going under for the third time now...
 * Be consistent about whether you're including lifespans for historical authors.✅
 * "rhetorical criticism, canonical criticism, and narrative criticism" No links and no explanation --
 * I feel there's a lot of rhetoric in the lead. For example, "Such change created a revolution in biblical criticism that had nearly the same sweeping impact as when it first began" feels like editorialising/commentary; I think it also violates the show, don't tell rule!

I'm not sure this quite does the job it should. It feels more like it's trying to convince readers how interesting/important the history of biblical criticism is. Focus on saying what it is; if I have a few minutes to read about Biblical criticism enough to sound like an expert, what do I need to know? Josh Milburn (talk) 20:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I will work on making these changes. My GA didn't like my other lead so I went and looked at two FA examples of good leads and tried to copy their style.  I apparently failed! :-) My first one must have really been bad if this was an improvement!  :-)  I think I must suck at writing leads!  I will definitely work on improving this.  ::Wikilinks in the lead?  What?!?
 * More specificity, no jargon, more clarity, less rhetoric--got it! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can... me and the little engine that could. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:30, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay. I re-did the lead--it focuses on method now and has less rhetoric--I think--I hope.  Biblical criticism is not simply a method though.  It is also a philosophical approach. That is now excluded from the lead except in that first sentence.  If you think that's okay, I will leave it, but it does mean philosophy is mentioned and not explained. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:54, 9 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I added one sentence back in to the reworked lead to include philosophy--see if you hate it as much as you did "scientific thinking". :-) Is the reworked lead any more show don't tell? This is a rather dry esoteric subject.  I find it interesting--but I am a little odd... I tried to incorporate all your suggestions. Also, I got some help from the Teahouse and I think the references are fixed now.  All the references in anthologies have chapter titles now--I think. I believe. I hope.  I found that David Barr reference and got rid of it.  There are two more that are questionable, but I kept them because of the people --one is a translation of Israeli scholar Zvi Adar, and the other is Rosemary Radford Reuther.  Reference numbers 112 and 153 respectively.  If you hate them I will remove them too.  Next assignment Captain! (if this passes)  Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jen; it's been a funny old week for me. I'm traveling this weekend, so I'm not sure how much I'll be around, but I've got a "decompress" day on Monday when I will hopefully have some time to sit down with this properly. I'll say now, by the way, that it might be worth looking towards peer review in the medium term; the trouble is that peer review is a little hit-and-miss. I know there are some people around who should find this topic and interesting one, so we can get in touch with them. I'll help you polish it a little before then, though! Josh Milburn (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Ok :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok, taking a look through: The final three sentences ("For over two hundred years, white Protestant males were the dominant voices under the large umbrella of historical biblical criticism. Their work permanently altered views of the Bible. By 1990, biblical criticism had irrevocably changed from a single historical discipline to a field of disciplines with often conflicting views.") are unclear and feel rhetorical. First let me say --Holy cow!-- so--got that off my chest--I won't say I will only saying attempting desperately to find a way to sum up a whole field of study in a sentence or two--hey that's pretty much what I've been doing this whole article, right?--piece of cake--I'll get back to you... Okay, I did something. I don't know if you'll like it but if you do then this is ✅
 * The new lead is improved, but I think it's still very historical in character. This doesn't seem to reflect the main article, in which the history section is only one of four substantial sections (and not even the biggest). I'd look towards the "Major schools" as the important thing to get across. Maybe that's the right way to go, but you still need to give a clear indication of what Biblical criticism is. The second sentence is vague; I assume you mean something like "leading thinkers in early modern Europe", but that's going to throw some readers; they want to learn about Biblical criticism, not early modern Europe, which is (according to the first sentence) before Biblical criticism existed. Perhaps you could consign the history to later paragraphs of the lead? --  bunch  latest attempt in place
 * "revolutionized thinking about Jesus", "the world-wide controversy it produced that continues into the twenty-first century" feel like rhetoric.
 * "Literary criticism changed understanding of method, goals, and philosophy." Vague.
 * I know when Hobbes and Spinoza were alive; most readers won't. I think some dates in the first paragraph of the history section would be useful. You give date ranges for authors in the second paragraph; I'd mirror that. (Actually, I think the second paragraph is very good. I feel you've got the level of detail and tone just right.) ✅
 * "philological-historical method" What is this? linked and explained both--is that ?
 * "History of Religions School" Are you committed to those capitals? Also, I note that your German doesn't match the German in our article on the school. You also seem to have lost a reference. capitols; added alternate German--(kulte =religion) so if you're okay with that this is ✅
 * "founders of form criticism" This has yet to be introduced.
 * "Professor James A. Herrick" We generally don't included titles like this. You could indicate his area of expertise, perhaps; "The philosopher John Smith" etc.✅
 * "Professor of biblical studies John W. Rogerson" Again, how about "The biblical studies scholar John W. Rogerson" ✅
 * Repetition of "paved the way" in the final paragraph of Beginnings --oops--
 * "with Professor of Oriental languages Hermann Samuel Reimarus" Again, could I suggest a more general explanation of who he was? I like the description of Lessing, for example! Added content--is it ✅?
 * Given that they're the same book, I don't think you need to link both "Die Fragmente eines unbekannten Autors" and "Wolfenbüttel Fragments"
 * "the mythical school of biblical interpretation, which differentiated between historical myth and philosophical myth and applied these definitions to Bible interpretation." I think we need more. Attempted--is it sufficient?
 * "postulate a sharp contrast between the apostles Peter and Paul" I think the significance of this needs to be explained.
 * I added some author dates in the "the historical Jesus" section; I appreciate that maybe you don't want to do this for more recent scholars. Thanx
 * "Professor Richard N. Soulen and Professor R. Kendall Soulen" how about "The biblical scholars Richard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen"? Sure ✅
 * I find the claims about the consensus about who is the most important in the first paragraph of the 20th century section a little tricky.--I agree--See if it's {Fixed}}
 * "which emphasized the literary integrity of the larger literary units" What does this mean? Aargghh! See if that's any better--without going into too much detail which is covered to some degree at least later under major schools -- if this is okay, it's
 * "The theologian C. H. Dodd pioneered the biblical theology movement, which was a more descriptive approach of the Bible text than traditional historical criticism." Again, I think a little more would be good. ✅
 * "paradigm altering work" This sounds like rhetoric (and beware compound adjectives!) That is an accurate description of the impact, but I will attempt to rephrase.✅
 * "had permanently altered it" This feels like rhetoric. I also note that we're not in a position to say whether something that lasted for almost 300 years but ended a couple of decades ago has been "permanently altered"; we may be in a blip. This is what all the sources I found say. If it's rhetoric it's theirs.
 * "Scholars such as Charles Buchanan Copher, James H. Cone, and Gayraud Wilmore altered the long established assumptions, perspectives, and goals of biblical criticism." Vague.
 * "shifted the understanding of much previously believed about the Church and biblical criticism itself" Again, very vague. This also feels like rhetoric.
 * "The criteria of neutral judgment had given way to a critical awareness of the various biases the researcher brings to the study of the texts." Is this meant to be a description of postmodern criticism, or of these late 20th century developments generally? Also, are you meaning to classify the likes of feminist Biblical criticism under the umbrella of postmodern criticism? This could all be a bit clearer, I think. See if this is any better.

Stopping there for now. Please double-check my edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 08:33, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * A quick aside: I note the passing reference to Heidegger. Has there been a school of Biblical criticism inspired by analytic philosophy? I know that Wittgenstein has had some influence in religious studies more broadly... Asking as much for my own curiosity as anything else! Josh Milburn (talk) 09:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Wow! Didn't expect you today!  Your last question first.  Biblical criticism has been heavily influenced by philosophy--originally Kant, then others.  I had to decide about including that and thought, then I'd have to explain the philosophy and that would get really really long and somewhat off topic, so I didn't, but if a passing reference is sufficient, perhaps I should add that back in. One of the comments you made is why did the Protestant university students pick up and spread source criticism--I can't really answer a why question (I can't explain why my own children do some of the things they do nevertheless college students from 250 years ago)--but it's possible it was partly because of Kant's philosophy and the thinking that started the German enlightenment--that damn scientific thinking again.


 * I will work on all of these, but I have to admit I am confused by terminology. I don't understand the comments about rhetoric.  To me, the whole thing is rhetoric since I understand rhetoric to be the use of symbols like language to communicate. So whatever it is you were trying to say with that term has gone right past me. I understand what it means if something is vague or unclear and I will attempt to clarify and specify those more.


 * I am also struggling to understand your comments on the lead. The first sentence is a definition. That definition could be expanded to include the application of scientific thinking to the study of the Bible, but you said you hated that, so I took it out. I don't think there is any other definition so I am unsure what it is you are looking for. I want to cooperate but the goal is unclear to me.


 * The first two paragraphs in the lead explain the development of all four of the major schools of criticism. As the first and probably most significant, source criticism got its own paragraph--the first paragraph. The other three are in the second paragraph. You say it's history but if what you are looking for is a description of the actual technical process of comparing the phrasing in one sentence and the words in another and tracking the evolution of the Hebrew and the other kinds of things involved in the search for evidence of sources then I am concerned.  That gets very technical very quickly--and I am not a Hebrew scholar. Is that what you are looking for?  I can probably find something if that's what you're looking for, but I can't imagine an article on a scientific process explaining the process in that kind of detail--especially in the lead--so I am concerned.  I know where to look, but whether or not it can be summarized in a way that will make any sense is questionable. And before I do that, I want to be sure that technical is what you want more of in the lead. Have I understood correctly? Jenhawk777 (talk) 14:10, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, some quick replies: 1) On philosophy: I'm a philosopher, so it's only natural that I'm going to be drawn to that aspect; my initial reaction is that I don't think this needs to be an article that's heavy on philosophy, for the reasons you state. I will muse on this, though; we've already had a bit of a back-and-forth about biblical criticism as (a) philosophy, so maybe we do need more philosophy than we have. I've not finished reading the article yet, though, so I'll hold off. 2) On the college students: I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, sorry. I'm not sure where I asked that, so we may be talking past each other. 3) On rhetoric: Point taken. I am meaning to suggest that the article does not feel "neutral" and factual/objective, but is rather deploying language in such a way to convince the reader of a point of view. "Editorialising" might be another term to describe what I mean. 4) On the lead: It feels like you're telling the history of the discipline rather than the nature of it. Compare this to (a discipline picked at random) the lead of our article on chemistry. This has two paragraphs about what the discipline is/what it does/what it concerns, and only in the third paragraph is the history of the discipline introduced. I feel that a reader could take a look at the lead and say "Ok, I know a little about the history of the discipline, but I still don't really know what it is". I may be wrong, here. Let me think about this a little further and I'll come back with more concrete suggestions which we can explore? Josh Milburn (talk) 16:37, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Reading through again:
 * "The two chief works of the first-century Roman historian Tacitus, Annales and Historiae, each survive in a single medieval manuscript. Homer's Iliad is currently found in more than 1,900 manuscripts but many are of a fragmentary nature." Relevance? I think I  it--I flipped the order--see if it makes more sense now
 * "The differences between them are called variants" The differences are called variants? Do you not mean that the different versions are called variants? Or am I just wrong, here? --- No, you're right. If a word is misspelled in one set of manuscripts, that is a variant Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I know this goes into much more detail than you would in the lead, but the second paragraph of the Textual criticism section gives an excellent impression of what textual criticism is all about. The Ehrman quote is great. This is my second compliment!! Thank you!! :-) I am so glad you said that too--I love quotes! My GA reviewer made me take out nearly all my quotes--he only actually liked the one from Clark.  But if I quote, I am ensured of accuracy... sigh...Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * "as well as additional Alexandrian church fathers" Do you mean texts by the Church Fathers? --- Every now and then something will turn up that someone trying to be helpful has come along and added and I don't notice. That was an error.  I didn't recognize "Alexandrian church fathers" so I went back and checked the source.  It is  now.


 * Is this Arthur C Clarke the scifi writer? That's what the wikilink suggests, but I'm guessing this is wrong. --- NO that's not right! That's a typo--it should read Albert not Arthur!!  Jeez!!  Who added the wikilink for Pete's sakes!

Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC) Stopping again. I should say that the comments I'm presenting here are very much in the style of a FAC review; you could think of this as a "dry run" from a sympathetic reviewer :) Feel free to break up my comments to reply to particular bullet points, whether it's to note that you've made the fix (as much for your own sake, to keep track of things) or to query/dispute/explain. That would be usual at FAC. And please don't feel you have to rush. I'll be in and out, and there's no deadline! Again, please check my edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * "Clark was right all along" Is this now basically universally accepted? I think the debate as an example of contention in the field is brilliant, but I'm reluctant to have the article come down on one side of that debate unless it's now basically a closed case. --  I believe it is accepted.  The conclusion is on page 214 if you would like to read it for yourself--be sure to get the fourth edition; it says Royse concluded scribes were more likely to omit than add, but peer review during my GA review thought "Clark was right" sounded better. I thought it was interpreting, they thought it was two ways of saying the same thing and one sounded better.  I decided not to argue with consensus--but if you disagree, I can change it back to how I had it originally. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:07, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I wonder if something like "requires judgement from the scholar" would be preferably to "subjectively applied", which I fear gives the "anyone's guess is as good as anyone else's". --- A guess is actually how it works! They are educated guesses of course--but how can they know some of these? They guess-- but "judgment" is also fair and accurate--and perhaps less offensive.  It's
 * I'm really struggling with the quotemarks in the discussion of Amos. Could you check them, please? -- Haha!  Sorry!   now!
 * "generally considered definitively" We're sure about this? It's a big claim! --  It's what the source says, however, I happen to know that while it is the predominant view it is by no means universally accepted--so maybe I should change that-- ✅
 * I'm a little puzzled by the relationship of the two-source hypothesis and the Q hypothesis. As it's written, the two-source and four-source hypotheses were battling it out, and then along came the Q hypothesis, and this was (basically) definitively proven, and this proved the two-source hypothesis. But then the two-source hypothesis, as explained in the paragraph's final line, posits Q; so how could there have been a two-source hypothesis before the Q hypothesis? (Am I making sense?) There's also something a little odd about introducing the two- and four-source hypotheses, and then only explaining them a few lines later. (I feel like everything that needs to be there is there, it's just about presenting it in the right way...) --Okay--this explanation makes me feel tumbled along in a barrel, so if that is how you are feeling, I should definitely figure out how to fix that!! Let's see if I can...  I won't use my NT intro book it has over 140 pages on this...  Hmmmm...  See if you follow this any better.  I think it's


 * I will take you up on that offer. I will do them one at a time, mark what I think is fixed--and it will take awhile.
 * One of my undergrad majors was philosophy so you have my sympathy on being congenitally unable to stop thinking that way. I will be happy to go exploring with you anywhere you so desire. :-) There is not more philosophy in the latter part of the article. I simply did not include it anywhere but that single comment on Bultmann. I figured I wouldn't have to explain it there. :-)
 * I took your prompt and added a little more detail of what source criticism does--via Astruc--in the source criticism section. If it is more what you had in mind for the lead, I can always move it, or summarize it--or do something!
 * On the college students--I was responding to the edit summary you left on one of your changes which was simply--"why?".
 * Editorializing! Yikes!  It is entirely possible--I take notes on paper from the sources I use, then attempt to summarize, but I find the flavor of the sources sometimes leaks through in focus or phrasing. I will attempt to go back through and eliminate (or attempt to change) everything you mention in that vein.  (All these sources think BC is the greatest thing since sliced bread.) I suppose that's because I have no fundies represented... (wicked laugh)...
 * I will go read chemistry and see if I am capable of reconstructing their method to extract the point you are trying to make that keeps going over my head. Perhaps part of the problem is that biblical criticism is not one thing. I will try Josh. I promise I will do my best. Perhaps before I make any more changes, I will come back with what I think I have figured out and ask you if I am on track. If I am--then--I will make changes. I go read now. :-)  Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:02, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * One very quick response: The "Why?" was in relation to the change I made: "Why is this an uppercase U?" So nothing to worry about! Josh Milburn (talk) 21:51, 13 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Ha ha! We were indeed talking past each other!  I went to chemistry and attempted to deconstruct its approach. Chemistry is... it addresses... etc. etc. Then I went to my sandbox and built a new first paragraph following what I saw as chemistry's guidelines. It is now so dense and technical sounding I can't imagine anyone reading it all the way through--nevertheless anything beyond it.  I really and truly hate it--and somehow I think you will too--even though I do think it follows chemistry and does what you asked.  I would like you to go look at it please.  It's here []. I am off line for a few hours now. Later dude. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Believe it or not, I actually quite like it, but I certainly see your concern about it being technical, and, obviously, there's no point us "agreeing" on a lead that you don't like. I've put something together (though left some blank spaces) that might work as a kind of compromise between our approaches? To be clear, I really like the history, but I worry that some readers aren't going to care too much about that aspect of the discipline. Josh Milburn (talk) 08:38, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I trust your experience in this and will go with whatever you recommend--you liked it?!? Really?  Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Did you see my suggestion for a lead in your sandbox? I think that might work as a rough compromise between the kinds of approaches we favour. Josh Milburn (talk) 08:58, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Ha ha--we are both leaving comments strewn all over this page! Josh--do you have a sense of humor? Humor is difficult to convey here bit it's important to me.  You seem like someone who is able to laugh at life and human quirks--especially mine.  I think you are awesome by the way--humor or not--you are patient yet thorough--insightful--you ask pertinent questions and make valuable comments--and I have no doubt you are quite brilliant--of course. :-) This has been extremely helpful to me, not just for this article but for all the things I will take away from this experience that will make me a better editor.  When I stop and think about it, I feel quite overwhelmed with gratitude.
 * Yes, I saw what you did in my sandbox--hmmm--that doesn't sound good does it? :-) Anyway, I posted a comment below under 'lead'.  I liked it. I thought changing it meant you didn't like what I had written but then I read later that you did like it. No compromise is necessary on something like this. As far as I am concerned, you're the Captain here.  I am learning from you.  You tell me, 'this is good', and I will say--how about that? This is good, let's put it in. That's pretty much where we are--I'm the idol worshipping middle schooler--you're the rock star.  I told you I suck at leads!  You are the only person who has ever really attempted to explain to me what good lead actually is. I feel like the light is starting to come on there. Enough I went back and took out a bunch of the history from the whole thing. It's three paragraphs now. Part of my brain is going...OOHHHH!  I get it!  That's all due to you.
 * I am also going to go back and get more references on the laws of oral development thing. Your response indicates this could be controversial so I will get more. Thank you again Josh.  Hope you had a good weekend!  Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:38, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

(Generally, I think the form criticism section is pretty tough going.) --  Generally, I have to agree. It is the most embattled school of criticism going right now--even worse that poor old Wellhausen. I wanted to say that up front--to emphasize --beware--everything that follows is bad... :-) but my GA reviewer said no--he didn't like that idea at all.  I included three notes in this section--which I have never done before and generally don't approve of--say it or don't say it in the body--but there was just so much negative I didn't want to include it all.  There are about a dozen basic tenets of form criticism and all but the basic two have multiple battles ongoing right now.  They are losing those battles too.  Form criticism may not survive at all. I don't know how to make that less tough.  Can you help with that?  Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * documentary hypothesis or Documentary hypothesis? I suppose it doesn't matter too much; just try to be consistent!
 * "Also, studies of the literary structure of the Pentateuch have shown that motifs and themes cross the boundaries of the various sources." I think the significance of this as a criticism of the documentary hypothesis needs to be explained. (Or perhaps more context is needed to understand the weight of the criticism.) ✅
 * "However, the majority agree the premise of the Pentateuch as a composite is well established" I wonder if this could be a little clearer/smoother. And, again, how sure are we about majority agreement on these things? I think it's great to report what the scholarly consensus is, I just want to make sure that this is the scholarly consensus (and/or reported as such in very reputable secondary/tertiary sources). ---  That was a not very good summary statement, so I went back and added some detail and hopefully clarity--see if you agree and if you do it's  Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * "remnants of forms developed during" What does form mean, here? --  changed it--see if it's clearer --or muddier!  07:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * "for nearly 80 years" Would it be fair to say "for nearly 80 years in the 20th century"? -- well yeah--but why bother?  It seems unnecessary.
 * "demonstrated that there is no inherent connection in oral tradition between length and complexity and comparative dating" What is the significance of this claim? I think it will be missed by many readers. Rewrote the whole sit im leben section-- is it ???
 * "Therefore, the contemporary consensus view agrees with E. P. Sanders: "There are no hard and fast laws of development of the Synoptic tradition."" Just flagging, again, a claim about contemporary consensus. These are very valuable additions if we're confident about the claim/source! -- It's a quote! A direct quote! There is no doubt it's accurate either.  E.P.Sanders did that "paradigm altering" thing you didn't like me using.  Literally everything that came after his work was different than what came before.  His was probably the first axe to the base of the tree of form criticism--but no one has since refuted him. I've read a couple of his books and I am not a fan--but the quality of his scholarship is sort of breathtaking.


 * Because your response indicates this is controversial, I spent the entire afternoon attempting a rewrite that would be less so. I conflated the two paragraphs on Sitz im leben and laws of development into one and anything I thought might start an argument--and stop FA approval. See if it is less of a slog to get through. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:17, 15 July 2018 (UTC)


 * "the process of editing multiple sources into a single document often with a similar theme" What has a similar theme? The sources? If so, how about "the process of editing multiple sources, often with a similar theme, into a single document"? --  okay, sure  ✅

Stopping again! Josh Milburn (talk) 09:47, 14 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay for you to say! :-) I messed around with the lead some more--since you liked it... :-)  And took out some of the history--most of the history--please give me your honest opinion.  Is it an improvement?
 * I'm just sitting around here now with nothing to do... :-) Hah!  I'm fast aren't I?  :-)  Thank you again for all of this.  I do think everything we have done has added clarity and specificity--and less rhetoric.  I go 'leep now--it's 2 AM here...  Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:54, 15 July 2018 (UTC)


 * "This perspective is key to understanding the sense of depth in the Bible's representation of reality" This doesn't sound very neutral -- I don't suppose it is because it's from Auerbach--an advocate of narrative criticism. I went back and found a slightly more neutral quote and included that instead. It should be
 * "but so far, the criteria remain" What does this mean? -- the criteria remain the criteria used to assess authenticity... I'm at a loss how to rephrase this. Should I simply add that phrase?  Have a suggestion for rewording? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:06, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I it


 * Paragraph two of "New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus" is lots of he-said-she-said, but I'm not sure it really tells us all that much. --
 * okay. I was a little uncomfortable with it anyway...  I hope this is better--maybe even  Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:06, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I replaced one of the photos at the bottom. It seemed to go with the text better. I hope it's okay.  Wasn't there something you wanted me to do with those pictures? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:06, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Got to dash again. This stop-start reading isn't ideal, but it does mean I can get through it a lot quicker! Josh Milburn (talk) 18:53, 16 July 2018 (UTC)


 * It's okay! You're fine.  I have attempted to go through and anticipate some of what I think you might comment on--anything that makes anything more specific less rhetorical and so on.  I don't catch all the ones you do, though I hope I caught a few!  Hey, I had an idea that under contemporary responses, something on Islam or any other religion I can find that has picked up any critical method should probably be added in here--what do you think of that idea? I will start digging and await your response. How is the lead now?  What do you think?  Take care! Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:06, 16 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I checked your edits and note that you are going through putting in "the" and "that" right after I have gone through and removed them!! We need to come to agreement on this!  My high school journalism instructor is on my shoulder telling me to get rid of them!  Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:43, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, sorry about that. This might be a personal preference thing. False titles (the thes) are considered informal in British English, but if you're writing in American English, I've no business objecting. As for the that-clauses... Remove away, I suppose. It doesn't read well to me, but maybe I'm too verbose! I don't think there's anything in the MOS, and I couldn't find anything definitive online. (Interesting that you mention your journalism instructor... Remember that journalese is often much too abbreviated!) Josh Milburn (talk) 07:04, 17 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Ha ha! My journalism instructor would not approve of any of those!  :-) He used to call 'that' the most unnecessary word in the English language!  I find most sentences are just as clear--often clearer--without it, but every now and then, I feel the need for one!  I always make sure and feel suitably guilty though.
 * So I can tell you're busy, and this is all voluntary, I know, and I am trying not to bounce around from foot to foot too much, and I really don't mean to nag, but, well, can you at least read the lead and tell me if it's actually better? If you like it?  If you hate it?  It doesn't really summarize the body much anymore--does that matter?  Sigh.  I can add more summary back in if you like.  I'm like an eager pesty puppy aren't I?   Additional sigh... I'll go away and wait patiently now.  Really.  I will. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:20, 17 July 2018 (UTC)


 * okay, I put three sentences in the lead about history. It's close to a summary. I added one paragraph about Islam under contemporary responses. I am looking up Buddhism and Hinduism. I am going throughout the article looking for "rhetoric"--apparently having a source for it doesn't make it less so.  That's about it right now.  I will continue to attempt polishing along lines I think you would advocate. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:30, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Going away again. For real this time.  Promise. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:55, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Back again--hope all is okay with you. I think I will remove the paragraph on Islam I just put in because it's off topic--they don't use the Bible and this is biblical criticism not historical criticism. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:07, 18 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Josh, I'm worried about how long this is. I'm wondering if I should cut out some of history--maybe some of the lesser changes. If there's cutting to do, it should be what gets cut and not the descriptions of the methods themselves. Should I shorten it?  I can cut it a lot I think. I might go ahead and do that.
 * I have another question too about "The Developing tradition" part. I had a paragraph in there on the early creeds as the oldest information available on the oral period--which there is agreement on.  I had 'note' that listed all the agnostic and atheist scholars on it I could find--I went looking for them specifically. I still cut it out because I was afraid it sounded like arguing a point of view--now I wonder if it should be there. It's pretty significant as part of the whole historical Jesus thing. I don't know what to do on this one. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:20, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I have attempted to shorten history as much as possible. I have also attempted to "soften" form criticism a bit in hopes it will be less tedious to read--added a "nice" quote at the end. I think it's improved. (Under form criticism I added genre criticism--then took it right back out--there's no room for everything, only room for main things. But I can put it back if you think I should.) I added back "The developing tradition" to the historical authenticity section. I decided it was important enough to the topic to at least include a paragraph mentioning it. I moved that paragraph on criteria--after rewriting it--to the criteria section. I think it's improved and pertinent--(people are trying to get rid of the criteria but can't agree on what to replace them with.) I removed Islam and the stuff I was doing on Buddhism. This is "biblical criticism" and they don't use the Bible, so I limited it accordingly. Other religions are covered in the articles on the different methods. I hope you are well. I am concerned about you since I haven't heard from you. I hope you are just busy with "real" life. Hope to hear from you soon that all is well. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:33, 19 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I was attempting to shorten the article overall but by adding to form criticism and historical authenticity, the end result is the article is only one sentence shorter. A lot of work for nothing much! Ah well. At least it's not longer! Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Lead
I saw the new attempt at a lead. (I know--I hated mine too.) :-)  I like your shortened version--less is definitely more in this case. One quick comment... it doesn't "avoid reconstructing history according to contemporary understanding." It does it that way.  I cut out another sentence on contemporary experience providing objective data for understanding history. BC is a historical discipline so how they saw history is significant to it.  But it made my eyes roll up in my head.  We know better now--but they didn't. And a question--what is ETC i.e. Textual criticism is ETC'???  So do you want me to go ahead and change this out or do you want to do it yourself?  I give you first dibs. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:07, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, you go ahead and do that; I was meaning "fill in the gap to give a one-line description", but I was just putting the paragraphs together as a rough indication of how I might approach it; I wasn't going to spend time crafting the descriptions in case we decided to go a different direction! Josh Milburn (talk) 22:02, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I knew that. I'm just yanking your chain a tiny bit. It's actually already ✅. And I redid the rest of the lead, removing history, and redid the controversial paragraphs in form criticism into one. See if you think they are better. Later 'gator! Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the lead is about as good as it can be now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I've made some tweaks to the lead; have a look and see what you think. The second paragraph strikes me as a little vague and a little disjointed - it's not clear what the Jesus of history concern has to do with the early origin of the approach! Josh Milburn (talk) 12:49, 22 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I've read them and they are good--I don't know why I don't remember to do links while I'm writing--I always have to go back, and I wonder about where to put them sometimes. So thank you. I am a little concerned about the first paragraph, but I'm not sure if I should be!
 * The source I used said there are two identifying characteristics of biblical criticism, and I was able to verify that claim (w/one modification) in a couple of other supporting sources. It said the things that set biblical criticism apart from what came before and after--(since biblical criticism of some kind has been practiced as long as there has been a Bible)--were its central concern for that neutral pov and its use of history. The modification added literary qualities.  Those are its distinctive traits. You said describe what BC is, and now I am wondering if it is described clearly and accurately with what seems like a lesser emphasis--but then clearly I tend to emphasize more than you do and that comes across as editorializing!  I don't know!  I will accept your greater experience--it's probably a judgment call, so you tell me: two things set BC apart--is that clear to you the way this is written?  If so, then this is fine. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:11, 22 July 2018 (UTC)


 * That second paragraph was my summary of the whole history section in three sentences! I thought you'd approve!  You were right about too much history but some needs to be mentioned for the lead to qualify as a summary, so I thought--one sentence per section!  As far as the historical Jesus goes, it is a major deal in the area of biblical criticism for a lot of people and leaving it out would be an inaccuracy. If it seems awkward, we should try and figure out how to make it less so without excluding it. I'll look it over again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:19, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the first paragraph is very good; I agree with you that it can be tricky to stress the importance of something without coming across as non-neutral. You could actually, I think, make the second paragraph a little longer. Something on origins, 19th century, then 20th century. I agree that a note about the historical Jesus belongs in the lead; it just doesn't fit very naturally where it is right now, because it isn't obvious what it has to do with the history of the discipline. Trust me- I think we're on pretty much the same page about the lead at the moment! 17:24, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
 * You know what? I do trust you.  I read your name page, I went to your web-page, I think I am lucky you responded to my inquiry. Any questions I have are not because I doubt you--they're just, maybe, because I haven't quite caught your "vision" yet. So more would not be better in the first paragraph, but more is needed for the second one.
 * So--longer eh?--groan... I guess I should give up trying to shorten the damn thing... :-)
 * Did you read the form criticism section yet? Is it better?  Please tell me it's better... Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:30, 22 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I flipped the order, is that okay? It's not the exact order of the body, but the two paragraphs that have "dates" are now together and the paragraph explaining each method seemed to fit better under the first paragraph describing "what it is". Hopefully you agree! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:46, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Done! I think! Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:01, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Deleted subsections on Synoptic Problem and the documentary hypothesis
I deleted these two subsections - quite large - because they are not forms or methods of criticism, which is the subject of this article. Rather, they are two (among many, many other) areas to which critical tools have been applied. There are perfectly adequate separate articles on each, and they can be referenced through the See Also section - but the article needs to stay focused on the tools of criticism.PiCo (talk) 11:24, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

By the way, I think the section on the history of biblical criticism needs to be re-written. It began when the tools of source criticism were taken up from the study of the Greco-Roman classics and applied to the bible - that's the central point to make in the first paragraph. Then the section should talk about the growing suspicion that source criticism was yeilding fewer and less reliable conclusions than had been thought, and the growth of other approaches. These were at first seen as supplementary, but by the late 20th century they had pretty much replaced source criticism. PiCo (talk) 11:30, 6 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I have restored the two examples of the application of source criticism. Please do leave them. The other sections have examples and these two are among the most famous of the products of biblical criticism. Examples are necessary for understanding. Removing them leaves source criticism without and shortens it to a point it communicates source criticism was not particularly important.  I added a sentence at the end of the introductory paragraph so it is clear these are examples of what source criticism produced. Please don't make such a major change without consensus again.
 * On the section on history, I also disagree. The central point is made in the first paragraph. It doesn't go on to talk about the evolution of source criticism alone because it is the history of biblical criticism all together. And you are mistaken in your timeline. Source criticism was overshadowed by form criticism in the early twentieth century which was then replaced by literary criticism in the mid twentieth as the most popular approach which was then changed into multiple new forms by 1990. Jenhawk777 (talk) 14:24, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * And btw, this article does not specify "tools of biblical criticism" --that is an interpretation. It's just biblical criticism, so including examples of its use and application is perfectly legitimate and I think necessary for understanding. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:35, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Reference formatting
Hi Jen; at FAC, problems with reference formatting can hold things up, and perhaps even sink the entire nomination. This is something that you need to spend some time with before FAC. Below are the problems I've seen with formatting in just the first 15 footnotes - in case it matters, this is the version I'm looking at. I advise you go through the footnotes closely to make sure that the formatting is completely consistent, completely accurate, and contains all necessary information.


 * "Richard A. Muller (1998). McKim (ed.), Donald K., ed. Handbook of Major Bible Interpreters. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978 0 83081 452 7." We're missing the chapter title, the editor is referred to in an odd way, and I'd advise against redlinks in references (though I am generally supportive). Also note the inconsistent way you include the ISBN.
 * "Soulen, Richard N.; Soulen, R. Kendall (2001). "Priestly code". Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Third ed.). Lexington, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22314-4." Editor?
 * "Nicholson, Ernest (2002). "chapter 4:The theory under attack". The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-925783-6." That's a mongograph, so there's no need for a chapter name. We're missing a publishing location.
 * "Jarick, John, ed. (2007). Sacred Conjectures: The Context and Legacy of Robert Lowth and Jean Astruc. New York: t&t clark. ISBN 978-0-567-02932-4." If this is an edited collection, you should be citing by chapter name. I also note the odd capitalisation on the publisher.
 * "Law, David R. (2012). "Chapter 2: A Brief history of Historical criticism: the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century". The Historical-Critical Method: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T&T Clark. ISBN 978 0 56740 012 3." Again, if this is a monograph, no chapter name is needed. Check the ISBN formatting.
 * "Soulen, Richard N.; Soulen, R. Kendall (2001). "Biblical criticism". Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Third ed.). Lexington, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22314-4." Editor? Or are you citing the editors as the authors? Don't do that!
 * "Behere, Prakash B.; Das, Anweshak; Yadav, Richa; Behere, Aniruddh P. (2013). "Religion and mental health" (Full text). Indian Journal of Psychiatry. 55 (Suppl 2): S187–S194. doi:10.4103/0019-5545.105526. PMC 3705681 Freely accessible." "Full text" is not needed!
 * "Soulen (ed.), Richard N.; Soulen (ed.), R. Kendall, eds. (2001). "Kultgeschichtliche Schule". Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Third ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0 664 22314 1. Retrieved 11 July 2018." Who's the editor, here? Who's the author? Very confused! We also don't need retrieval dates on book sources, online on web-only sources.
 * "J. W. Rogerson (2000). "Higher criticism". In Hastings, Adrian; Mason, Alistair; Pyper, Hugh. The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860024-4." Surname first for the author?
 * "William Baird, History of New Testament Research: From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann, Minneapolis: Ausgburg Fortress, "HISTORY OF RELIGION AND RELATED METHODS", ISBN 0-8006-2627-3" No year, author cited wrong, commas all over the place, block capitals, no need for chapter title for a monograph, etc.
 * "Soulen (ed.), Richard N.; Soulen (ed.), R. Kendall, eds. (2001). "Religionsgeschichtliche Schule". Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Third ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0 664 22314 1. Retrieved 11 July 2018." Is this the same chapter as a previous reference? If so, they should be merged. Who's the editor? Who's the author? Fix the ISBN format, no need for a retrieval date on a book source.

I've fixed a couple of references to show you the kind of thing I'm talking about, but even that isn't perfect, as you should choose whether you are listing article titles in sentence case or Title Case. Once you've had a good look through and made fixes, let me know and I'll have a close look. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:40, 26 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanx Josh! I wondered about that redlink--I will fix that one. The Soulens are the authors, there are no others and no other editors. I listed the section titles since there aren't really chapters as such either. I listed the title of the section that was referenced.  Josh, I don't understand how these errors occur, I am using the citing form from the drop-down menu.  I fill in everything exactly as it is written in the reference--that would be why the capitalization varies. I am copying. I will start going through them all.  Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought monographs were papers. These are sections in a book. They really are chapters written by the Soulens, or Rogerson, or Baird. The books are anthologies--encyclopedias of a kind. McKim has separate authors and he is the editor, but the Soulens don't.  They wrote it.  So I don't see how that qualifies as a monograph. And there is no editor listed just the authors.  Am I missing some nuance here? On Jarick, that is how the publisher was written so that's how I wrote it, but I can easily change it to suit. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I fear we're talking across each other. If the entire book is from one author or one team of authors, you can cite the book as a whole. (This would be typical of a monograph or a textbook, at least in my field.) If the book contains a range of authors (an edited collection, some anthologies, encyclopedias, handbooks) then cite each chapter individually, but include the editor of the work. If the editor(s) wrote a particular chapter in an edited work, that's fine, still cite it as a chapter (So it'll look something like this, though this isn't the citation style used by our citation templates: ) Does that answer your question? Cite book will do this all for you; for books with a single author (or author team) use just the author, year, title, location, publisher and ISBN parameters. For books with multiple authors/author teams use the author, year, chapter, title, editor, pages, location, publisher, and ISBN parameters. (There are a few different ways to do "author" and "editor" parameters - "last" and "first" or just "author", for example - it doesn't matter which you use, just try to be consistent.) Josh Milburn (talk) 19:52, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is how it is done for McKim who is the editor of an anthology with different authors. But that will not work for Soulen. They wrote the entire book, there are no other authors or editors, yet it is still encyclopedic with different section titles. I had previously cited the book as a whole and you said that was wrong, that I needed more than that so people could find what they were looking for more easily than just by using page numbers. So I went through and changed them all Josh because you said so. It was a huge pain to come up with different reference names too! Now it sounds like you are saying it was right in the first place. I'm beginning to think you're mad at me about something and are punishing me Josh!  Please just let me apologize instead! Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:07, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not angry - I promise! I may have misinterpreted the source (I probably assume that any "handbook" is a multi-author source... I'm currently reading through The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics, for example) but my advice has always been that works containing sections by different authors need to be cited by section, while works entirely by the same author(s) can be cited as a whole. I don't think I've commented on this particular source before now, but looking at the Google preview, I think you could do it either way. Don't feel that you have to change it back;  for example, looks very good to me. It may be raised again at FAC, but, for now, we can stick with that! Josh Milburn (talk) 20:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you Jesus! Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:50, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, you know how I always put my page numbers outside using the double bracket rp format right? Someone in my GA review complained about having any page numbers inside the reference since there were numbers outside the reference, plus if I use it twice and they are different page numbers--it looks weird.  So I went through and made sure there were no page numbers inside any reference.  It took days.  Someone recently came through with the robot cite-bot and added url's everywhere, and 978's to the ten digit isbn's that are listed without them (several of which then turned red), and added page numbers inside a bunch of references.  Do I have to go back through and take them all out again?  I do don't I?  I just need you to tell me--I can't seem to make myself to do it all over again on my own... Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:03, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I know it has to be done. I just wanted to whine a little first. I'm doing it... whine ...Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:45, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
 * If bots are messing up your formatting, you could consider adding bots template to tell bots/a particular bot to stay away. The big rule with references is consistency. We'll need page numbers to help locate claims, but as long as those page numbers are presented in a consistent way... I would recommend including page numbers for journal articles and chapters in the footnotes, but they're not necessary for single-author books, as you provide the page numbers in the article body. Josh Milburn (talk) 06:40, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Adding a note: using rp is fine as long as it's consistent. What is suboptimal is using multiple full/long citations to the same work with only a page change, in which case rp or shortened footnotes (i.e. sfn) are better; some prefer shortened footnotes, others prefer inline page references with rp.  Both are fine but an article should ideally be consistent and use one of the two.  If an article already uses one style, it's recommended to keep following it rather than massively change it to another style.  Even if I'm part of the citation cleanup Wikiproject, I still learned while reading Milburn's above suggestions (particularly about monographs), thanks for that.  — Paleo  Neonate  – 18:51, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Another look
Ok; the reference formatting is looking much better, but still not perfect. A few comments below should help us tweak it in the right direction... First, some general comments.
 * The issue that I've raised a couple of times before: We don't need chapter titles for monographs (e.g., Nicholson). I've fixed this in a few places, but perhaps there are others. We do need chapter titles when the book contains a range of separate works by separate authors/separate author teams. (There's a "middle ground" when the book is a collection of separate works by a single author. I'd recommend including the chapter title in that case.)
 * You don't need to include "chapter 2" or similar in chapter names.
 * Technically, you should probably choose one ISBN format and stick to it.
 * Similarly, you should probably choose whether article/chapter titles are in Title Case or sentence case.

Next, some specific comments.
 * "Jarick, John, ed. (2007). Sacred Conjectures: The Context and Legacy of Robert Lowth and Jean Astruc. New York: T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-02932-4." You should cite the particular chapter, here, not the book as a whole.
 * " Law, David R. (2012). "Chapter 2: A Brief history of Historical criticism: the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century". The Historical-Critical Method: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-56740-012-3." This looks like a sole-authored work, meaning that you can cite the book as a whole.
 * "Baird, William (1992). "Chapter five: Refining Historical Research: Canon and Higher Criticism". History of New Testament Research: Volume one: From deism to Tübingen. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-2626-6." This either needs an editor or doesn't need the particular chapter cited. Also, you might want to consider using the "volume=" parameter.
 * " Soulen (ed.), Richard N.; Soulen (ed.), R. Kendall, eds. (2001). "Kultgeschichtliche Schule". Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Third ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0 664 22314 1. " This one's a bit all over the place. Make it consistent with your other Soulen sources!
 * " Soulen (ed.), Richard N.; Soulen (ed.), R. Kendall, eds. (2001). "Religionsgeschichtliche Schule". Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Third ed.). Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0 664 22314 1. " As above.
 * " Baird, William (2003). "History of religion and related methods". History of New Testament Research: From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann. Minneapolis: Ausgburg Fortress. ISBN 0-8006-2627-3. " Is this an edited collection? If not, no need for the chapter name; if so, editors needed!
 * "Hammann, Konrad (2012). Rudolf Bultmann: a Biography. Polebridge Press. ISBN 978-1-59815-118-3." No location
 * " Litz, A. Walton; Menand, Louis; Raney, Lawrence, eds. (2000). The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Modernism and the new criticism (volume 7 ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-30012-6. " Chapter cited?
 * " Carson, D. A. (2002). "chapter 3, notes on chapter 3". Right With God: Justification in the Bible and the World. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock. ISBN 978-1-59244-044-3. " What's the chapter title, here? Who's the editor? Or have I misunderstood the citation?
 * " The eclipse of biblical narrative: a study in 18th and 19th centuries hermeneutics (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1974)" Completely different formatting.
 * " Frei, Hans (2016). "The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics". Sage Journals. doi:10.1177/004057367503100420. Retrieved 14 June 2018. " Needs the journal, volume, issue, page numbers. Doesn't need the publisher or accessdate.
 * " Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler (2014). Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 978-1-58983-583-2." That's an edited collection; which chapter are you citing?
 * " Holmén, Tom; Porter, Stanley E., eds. (2011). Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (4 Vols) (Volume 1 ed.). Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-16372-0. "confirmation biases" " Ditto!
 * " Mullen, Roderic L. (10 June 2009). "Textual criticism". Journal for the study of the New Testament. Sage journals. doi:10.1177/0142064X09106571. " This is incomplete, as with the above journal citation.
 * " Bird, Graeme D. "Chapter 1: Textual Criticism as Applied to Classical and Biblical Texts". Center for Hellenic Studies. Boston: Harvard University. Retrieved 14 June 2018. " This one's a bit all over the place; could you look again?
 * " Metzger, B.M.; Ehrman, B.D. (2005). "Chapter 6, Modern Methods of textual criticism: Albert C. Clark". The Text of New Testament (Fourth ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516667-5. " Do we need the chapter name?
 * " Ehrman, Bart D. (2011). Stewart, Robert B., ed. The Reliability of the New Testament Bart D. Ehrman and Daniel B. Wallace in Dialogue. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0-8006-9773-0. " I'm puzzled; could you check again?
 * " Aland, Kurt; Aland, Barbara (1987). "chapter 3: From Nestle to the new "Standard text"". The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-3620-8. "Table 1" " Is this an edited collection? Do we need the chapter name and table number?
 * " Wegner, Paul D. (2006). A Student's Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods and Results. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. p. Preface. ISBN 978-0-8308-2731-2. " p. Preface?
 * " Wasserman, Tommy; Gurry, Peter J. (2017). A New Approach to Textual Criticism: An Introduction to the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method. Atlanta: SBL Press. pp. Introduction. ISBN 978-3-438-05174-5. " pp. Introduction?
 * "David J. A. Clines Methods in Old Testament Study", Textual Criticism, in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998)" Different formatting
 * ""Rules of Textual criticism". Bible-researcher.com. Bible-researcher. Retrieved 13 July 2018." I wonder if you have a better source than this?
 * " Wenham, David (1979). "Source Criticism". In (ed.) Marshall, I. Howard. New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods (revised ed.). Carlisle: The Paternoster Press. ISBN 0-85364-424-1. " You're citing this a little differently than how you cite your others
 * " Antony F. Campbell, SJ, Preparatory Issues in Approaching Biblical Texts," in The Hebrew Bible in Modern Study, Campbell renames source criticism as "origin criticism". " Formatting different than your other references.
 * " Miller II, Robert D. (2011). "chapter 1: Oral Formulaicism in Old Testament study". Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books. ISBN 978-1-61097-271-0. " Do we need the chapter name?
 * " Bauckham, Richard (2006). Jesus and the eye-witnesses. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6390-4. " Check your capitalisation?

That's what jumped out at me from a quick look through the left-hand column in the citations; I hope it will give an indication of where improvements could still be made! I made some light changes; please double-check them. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Wow--I honestly thought they were perfect! No matter how much I think I know about referencing, there is still more to learn. On the ones where I cite Sage journal, I used the cite web template and have found that if I try to fill in that other information--whether I use web or journal--it ends up red with it telling me I have cited it in two places.  So should I use the journal template and leave off the information about the website then?  Apparently something has to go.  The journal info is all there, but if I include it and the website info on the website template it freaks out.
 * I also have a question about those isbn numbers--you know they are not all in the same format in the books themselves. When it is given as the ten digit without the 978 in front of it, and I go and put it in--it turns it red. Can I leave 978 off of the others without turning them red?  Which should I do?  Most are the 13 digit form.
 * I will get on this. Thanx Josh!  Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I would not recommend using cite web for journal articles- use cite journal. Author, year, title, journal, volume, issue, and pages are essential, doi and url are useful. (JSTOR, PMID, etc. can also be useful, but I don't personally usually bother unless I don't have a DOI.) Don't include an accessdate, don't include the publisher, don't include the website (or if you really want to include the website, use the "via" parameter; i.e., via=JSTOR).
 * On ISBNs: my understanding is that all books have both a 10-digit and a 13-digit ISBN. 978-0-664-22314-4 and 0-664-22314-4, for instance, are the same book. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by it "turning red"? Josh Milburn (talk) 20:05, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Cite-journal and cite-book are easy to use - I prefer to combine them with the sfn template, but that's not essential. I do have a real gripe with ISBN numbers - they're no more than stock control devices for publishers (you come to the end of a print run with one ISBN and you do another, and the second run is identical to the first but has a different ISBN). Unfortunately, people on WIkipedia have a great respect for ISBNs and I doubt I'll make any converts.PiCo (talk) 11:33, 6 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay. So, I needed to work on these a bit to get to a place where I had an example. All the way down at the bottom of contemporary methods is a short paragraph on post-critical interpretation. Since there was a discrepancy in that web reference, I went back to the original publication of Frei's book.  The isbn number given  in the book is 0-300-02602-1, but since "consistency is needed" I went ahead and added the 978 in front of it to make it the 13 digit isbn like most of the others. It is now red with a checksum error.  As far as I can see, the only way to make that error go away is to leave off the 978--thereby creating that inconsistency issue.  What am I supposed to know that I don't know here? How do I fix this? Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:28, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. --there is no second isbn number given and anytime I have referenced an isbn in this manner--that would be why. If you go look at the book, you will see there is one isbn and it is a ten digit isbn without the 978 in front of it and that's the only choice. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:31, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This one--"Mullen, Roderic L. (10 June 2009). "Textual criticism". Journal for the study of the New Testament. Sage journals. doi: ."--is a cite the web and that is what there is on that site as a reference. It is easy to click on and find--is that not okay? Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:03, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Like, I'm not particularly enamoured of the use of ISBNs on Wikipedia (it's not standard, and it can introduce problems, not just clutter), but if we're going to use them, we should use them consistently. It looks like the 13-number ISBN for that book is 9780300026023, not 9780300026021, so I was wrong in what I said before - sorry about that. That may be something to do with the age of the book. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:10, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As for the Mullen source: No, not really, as the citation isn't to the webpage, but to the journal article. I can do it if you like? Josh Milburn (talk) 17:14, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I am here:
 * and it says one not three--how did you find the three? where did you look? And it's no problem to be wrong occasionally--but which thing were you wrong about?
 * The Mullen source now says web--it needs to be web--that's all there is.Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:19, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I found the "3" on the Google Books page, but try searching any bibliographic database; here's Worldcat, for example. The thing I was wrong about was this: "my understanding is that all books have both a 10-digit and a 13-digit ISBN. 978-0-664-22314-4 and 0-664-22314-4, for instance, are the same book". I am not sure I follow what you're saying about the Mullen source, which, to repeat, is a journal article. If you're talking about citation templates, cite journal is more appropriate than cite web. I read the article; citing it is tricky because it is several separate book reviews sharing a single DOI. None of them are by Mullen, however. The first book reviewed is by Mullen (but, of course, the review itself is by someone else); do you mean to cite the book, or the review? It's not clear to me that anything in the review supports the claim you use it for. So there are a number of problems, here. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:28, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

HELP Josh! Help! I am sinking! I went to the link you provided for Google Books and looked at the title page they have posted there and it says the same thing I have--that the isbn ends in one not three! And now I have a second old book that is doing the same thing. Clines, David J. A. (1998). On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967–1998. Vol.one. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-85075-901-4 Check |isbn= value: checksum (help). The isbn is apparently wrong--but it is the one in the book with a 978 prefix added. I understand consistency and I don't have a problem doing it, I just have a problem with them turning red! Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:59, 6 August 2018 (UTC) I will fix Mullen or die trying! Actually I will just remove him -- or do better at locating what I was referring to. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:59, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * On this one--"Rules of Textual criticism". Bible-researcher.com. Bible-researcher. Retrieved 13 July 2018."--I knew someone would have a problem with that source, but in my opinion it actually is the best of those I looked at--I looked at seven I think--if I remember correctly. This is simply a list--without commentary--but it also has the Latin and it includes two other lists of rules that have been created since Griesbach as well.  I thought it was really informative--but I know--Bible researcher--but it's the best list I found.  I think my only option is to remove it since I don't think there is a likely replacement.  It's not necessary.  It can go.  I just thought someone might be interested in actually seeing what they all are.  I will do with it whatever you think is best. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:12, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * On the ISBN issue: Click the link to the Google Books page I included in my previous message and scroll down to the bottom of that page (i.e., the Google Books page about the book - the "about this book" page, not the scan of the book). You can do the same thing with the Clines source; just check the Google Books "about this book" page and the correct long-form ISBN will be given. Again, apologies for the misleading information I gave about ISBNs earlier. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:34, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * On the "rules of textual criticism" source: If you think it would be useful for readers, consider including it as an external link rather than a reference. Be ready to defend its inclusion, though; links to people's personal websites is something tat's going to get scrutinised at FAC, even if this particular site is, in your view, a good one! Josh Milburn (talk) 18:38, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay--scrolling! This is the page you get if you just click on the isbn in the reference section right? So I can do this again as needed in the future.  And I will just go ahead and remove the  Bible researcher.  It isn't worth fighting for.  Thank you for your perseverance! Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:49, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, I have fixed these--and this after I had already looked every single one over and thought they were good. Starrygrandma was helping me back when you first told me to fix these and she said at the time that fixing references is all she does on Wikipedia, she's been doing it for years, and she still finds things she's never seen before. I don't know if she was just trying to make me feel better or if that was true--but it did make me feel better!  I am totally blown away by this--I swear--I honestly thought these were all good. I am amazed at the problems you found.  I hope I have fixed them properly Josh. I've tried to do exactly what you've said. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:23, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
 * It's really easy to fall down a rabbit hole when it comes to reference formatting; it's the sort of thing that matters dearly to a few editors on Wikipedia, and very little to almost all of our readers! I wouldn't make such a fuss out of it but for the fact that I know it's something that will face some scrutiny at FAC, so, when that's your aim, it's definitely worth spending some time on. If I was, say, reviewing this at GAC and it was written by an editor I didn't know, I'd check for reliability but basically leave the formatting alone. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Beginnings
"Turretin believed the Bible could be considered authoritative even if it was not considered inerrant, which has become a common modern view.[6]:39–42"

Should that be "a common modern judeo-christian view", or some other qualifier? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay Jenhawk777 (talk) 14:17, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

What am I missing?
"Biblical criticism is an umbrella term for those methods of studying the Bible that embrace two distinctive philosophical perspectives."

What two distinctive philosophical perspectives? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:35, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The next sentence. I had it designated as such at one time--'The philosophical aims are...'--or some such thing, I can't remember, it was in one of the many revisions of that first paragraph, but Josh didn't like it. So now the ideas are there but the word isn't. I'm not sure if there is a better term than philosophical. Point of view maybe?  If you have an idea, I would be glad of it. That first sentence has given me fits. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:21, 15 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I went and removed philosophical altogether and combined the sentences--I think it might be clearer. See if you like it more-- or less. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:42, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, should have put the sentence here. Biblical criticism is an umbrella term for those methods of studying the Bible that embrace two distinctive perspectives: it aims to avoid dogma and bias by applying a non-sectarian, reason-based judgment, and it reconstructs history according to contemporary understanding from what it discovers in and about the Bible texts. It's an overly long sentence and Farang won't like it for that--but long is better than unclear! Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:45, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's clearer, and I see the difficulty in finding a good descriptor for those two thingies. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Always source your statements, sentence by sentence - especially for the lead sentence, which defines the scope of the article. There are plenty of potential sources - here's one not essentially different from what you've written, but more concise and, most importantly, sourced.
 * My FA mentor told me not to put sources in the lead section. The lead is a summary of the body so everything said there is sourced in the body. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:23, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Then you better make sure your definition of biblical criticism is included in the body of the article.PiCo (talk) 12:31, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. I believe it's there in more than one place, but I went and tweaked things a little to make sure your concerns were met. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:44, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Redaction Criticism
Here's what the article says right now:


 * In the redactive view, the gospels are "sophisticated works with plans, presuppositions, and motifs". Therefore, "it provides a corrective to the methodological imbalance of form criticism". Redaction criticism is based on the two-source hypothesis and is usable only where identifiable sources are present.

My question is, what does it mean that redaction criticism "is based on the two-source hypothesis"? Based on the source cited, redaction criticism is used on a variety of texts other than the gospels, so I'm not sure in what sense it is "based on" a particular theory about the origin of the gospels. Does this just mean that the thinking around the two-source theory sparked some insights that became redaction theory, and which then could be applied to other texts independent of any connection with the two-source theory? Or is there some closer relationship I'm missing? Unfortunately, I don't have access to all the pages in the cited source here so I'm unable to clear this one up myself. Alephb (talk) 20:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll go look because I don't know--I was just regurgitating what the source said without really bothering to internalize what it meant. It was late--I was tired... :-) I'll find out what it means. If someone at Fac asks me, I should be able to say more than...uuuuhhh. I'll be back!  That was said in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice if you didn't recognize it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I did something--God only knows if it's an actual improvement! It might be a little clearer--but I think a lot of these things are just unclear by nature. This is all hocus-pocus! The more I know about Biblical criticism, the less impressive it seems.  None of it is clear cut --not much is clear --period! Can't say that either huh? Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:20, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you've got an improvement there. A Hebrew prof of mine (who is cited a number of times on Wikipedia, though I've never inserted a citation to him), told me (I'm paraphrasing), "You've got to just hammer the vocabulary and grammar into yourself until you can sit down and read Isaiah from one end to another comfortably. Once you can do that, you'll start seeing that most of the people you'll find published in the journals can't do that. Then you can just throw almost all of it out and just read the other people who can actually read Hebrew." I'm not as good a reader of Hebrew as I'd like to be, but I'm pretty sure he's right. The field is a disorganized mess -- there's a very limited amount of data, and people gotta keep convincing themselves they're seeing new stuff in it. But the canon doesn't change, and the amount of stuff written in ancient Hebrew doesn't change much, so forms of "criticism" just keep multiplying because you gotta publish something. The whole field's a mess -- not because the well-established conclusions are wrong, because everyone has to say something new and almost no one ever really does. If you're article fails FA, one possible reason is that it's accurately summarizes an enormously dysfunctional field that's illogically branching out in four hundred different directions. Alephb (talk) 00:31, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * OMG! Thank you for that!  Except the "well-established conclusions" seem as likely to be wrong as any of them!  Wellhausen and Bultmann have both been effectively shredded--Sanders undid Griesbach--where does that leave us?  Archaeology has proven Wellhausen had most of his claims about ancient Israel completely wrong.  Bultmann was the authority for 80 years--and continues to be quoted--and was apparently making it up as he went along!  Because he was an apologist, like Astruc.  He began from what he believed and tried to prove it.  The whole field is definitely a mess.  There's just too much for anyone to keep track of--most people have no idea the material they are quoting has been disproven--and probably don't much care. The internet makes things live forever--true or not. But Wikipedia isn't about truth--right?  I did my best to include as complete an overview as I could cram in, without getting too technical or too negative, but no one seems to even want to read it.  It is a little 'densely packed' for the average reader. But it seems important to me. And I think it's important to you. You and me Aleph--we appear to be it. At least I'm in good company. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:51, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, I'll stop here to avoid going all WP:FORUM on this article talk page. There is considerably more lattitude on userpages, however. Alephb (talk) 03:25, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Redaction criticism is definitely not based on the two-source hypothesis.PiCo (talk) 03:30, 17 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi PiCo, well, if you can find sources that say that, I'll be happy to change it accordingly. Right now, here are a couple of the references that made the claim: [ISBN 978-0-664-22314-4], go to page 159 and there's this: "Redaction criticism functions, then, only where identifiable sources are present within a composition, such as the gospels and the book of Acts in the New Testament or Deuteronomy and Judges in the Old Testament. It is important to note that redaction criticism as applied to the synoptic gospels is based on the two-source hypothesis that names Mark and Q as sources in the writing of Matthew and Luke."
 * Then there's this one [ISBN 978-0-310-23859-1]. On page 108 it says "Redaction criticism depends for its validity on our ability to distinguish tradition and redaction. We must have a rather clear idea about the sources that a given evangelist has used before we can begin speaking about his modifications to those sources. Almost all redaction critics have assumed the validity of two-source hypothesis in their research ... Those who question the accuracy of that hypothesis will also, of course, have to establish a different basis on which to do redaction criticism."
 * They both go on about Matthean priority. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:36, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Neither of those is a claim that redaction criticism is based on the two-source hypothesis. Your treatment of each type of criticism should begin with a simple statement defining what it seeks to do, and how. Relevant dictionaries should be your sources, such as the Baker Dictionary of Biblical Studies or this Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies. Begin with a definition, and then include history if you feel it's useful, but it probably isn't. Remember that each of these already has an article devoted to it (or should), meaning that there's no need to go into detail - this article should be an overview.PiCo (talk) 07:10, 17 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Maybe you're not reading the same thing I am. The article says redaction criticism of the Synoptics has been based on the Markan priority of two-source theory, and the source says redaction criticism as applied to the synoptic gospels is based on the two-source hypothesis that names Mark and Q as sources. Those are the same. The source you reference doesn't say anything else. Thanx, but I would be told not to use a dictionary and especially not Baker's. I'd just end up having to take it back out. Thanx for the heads up on the definition not being in the first sentence.  I moved it.  This article is an overview.  Redaction criticism in one paragraph is pretty short after all. Each of the literary criticisms only get a paragraph. There are 25 criteria and there are what--6? 8?--here? And they don't all even get a full paragraph. Damn straight it's an overview. There's just a lot of ground to cover that's all. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:52, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If you read those passages you quote carefully, you'll see that they're not saying that redaction criticism is based on the two-source theory (of the composition of the gospels). Redaction criticism can be applied to any text, including non-biblical texts: there's no way it can be restricted to the gospels. Also, the safest way to find a definition of a term such as this is to use a dictionary of terms - I certainly wouldn't object to either of those books, nor to most others, but you could use Eerdmans or some other mainstream publisher.PiCo (talk) 12:30, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
 * But PiCo, I never said redaction criticism as a whole was based on two-source theory, only redaction of the synoptic gospels is based on the theory about its sources. Of course it can be applied to any text. I think that's clear--the synoptics aren't mentioned till the end of the paragraph. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you PiCo for helping to improve Redaction criticism. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:54, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

ref issues
Thank you so much! I think I fixed them. I have no idea what happened! I apparently moved things without their references! Yikes! I had to go run them down--but at least I pretty well remembered where I had seen them, so it didn't take long. I'm sorry about that Isbn going to the wrong book--I used the isbn converter for the numbers that weren't 13 digit 978 numbers so they would all be alike--which my FA mentor said was important. Then later for some odd reason I happened to click on one to go look at the book again to see what it said exactly--and it was the wrong book! It freaked me out! I put back in the original, converted it again--and the next time it was right--but it happened more than once. It wasn't my typing error either--I just copy pasted. Anyway--thank you. Let me know if you find anything else! Jenhawk777 05:38, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Apparently I did something to my signature that has been preventing my pings from working. I think it's fixed, so I hope you actually get this! I fixed the "further reading" Soulen reference to the third edition and the corresponding isbn, but I have to say, I don't understand how this works. I click on the isbn and it's suppose to go to the page where you click on "look this up on..." and when I click look this up on Google books, it should find that book--right? But it goes to a list of books--how can a list of books have the same isbn? I don't understand what's happening here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I am having a terrible time with this! I just rechecked it and it's messed up again! I cannot get the fourth edition to come up on Google books at all!  It has some book on preaching--what not to say--or some such thing!  The picture of the cover is there--but the title of the book is something else entirely.  The page references in question are to the fourth edition--I think--it doesn't work in the other editions because the pages referenced are hidden. I can find it on Amazon, but it has different pages hidden and revealed. I am unsure what to do. Suggestions? Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:52, 25 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Jenhawk777 (do you go by Jen? Some call me 'riggr but that's a slippery slope!). You're right, I didn't get the ping the first time, but I did the second time. There seems to be no guarantee that a person will receive a ping even when done "properly", so no worries.
 * Going by memory, what I found was that Google Books (GB) simply doesn't have the fourth edition listed at all. I noticed that a fourth edition was referenced in the "Further Reading" section, but my assumption was that the third edition (which had the wrong link to GB) was used for references. (You might want to clarify that in the citations, if so.) I did notice, similar to you, that when I entered the given ISBN, GB displayed a number of books, one of which was completely unrelated. (Edit: actually, this happens for any book when searching GB by ISBN.) If the citations are to the fourth edition (i.e. a paper copy), then just remove the links... they are not mandatory in any way, only there for convenience. Outriggr (talk) 03:54, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * How? I used the isbn, and I can't very well remove that! This makes me want to tear out my hair! This Soulen reference--which is a really good reference for this article--has been a constant source of pain in my you know what!  I've replaced it where I haven't referenced a specific statement by them--but I can't get rid of them entirely. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I meant the google books links. I don't know what the problem is? If an ISBN is correct, that's all you need--it's not the ISBN page's fault if google books is inaccurate.
 * The Further Reading is still saying that the third edition is 2011, when that's the fourth, and also I don't know why that book needs to be mentioned in further reading if it's used (repeatedly, at least it used to be) in the notes. Outriggr (talk) 06:04, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * !!Eternal blessings upon your head!! Soulen was in Further Reading when I got the article so I just left it--so DUH on me!  The exact same question crossed my mind--why is this here since it's in the article?--and I did nothing about it!  If you hadn't said something, I probably wouldn't have either!  It's now gone as is the Rogerson which is also in  the article.  Praise God Halleluja Amen!!   I figured the problem was most likely Google books, but I wasn't sure.  Now it's not a problem anymore.  YAY!  Whoohoo!  You can call me Jen, you can call me anything you like as far as I'm concerned.  :-)  When I asked about removing the links, I meant the ability to click on the isbn and link to google books--you meant the hrl listed in the inline citation itself that supposedly goes directly to the book--right? I think I will go through and check every Soulen reference in the article because of that fourth edition issue.  It is there--and it's not there--at the same time. It is possible to get a fourth edition opened on google books, but it's not possible to do so by looking for it via the isbn.  It's weird!  But I don't have to worry about it anymore! :-) Thank you thank you thank you for all your help!!  Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Historical-criticism criteria
If one reads the linked pages Criterion of embarrassment, Criterion of multiple attestation, and Criterion of dissimilarity, it is understandable that one could believe these criteria are unique to the study of the Historical Jesus - creations of these scholars and used only by them.

This is of course not true. As noted by PiCo above, the pioneering biblical critics picked up and used methods already used by classics scholars (as well as other historians). These "criteria" are just part of the historical method and particularly source criticism.

Multiple attestation for example is a basic method historians use when working with primary sources to judge the plausibility of claims in those sources. It is not unique to NT or Jesus scholars. See Historical method as well as Source criticism.

Similarly the "criterion of embarrassment" is a common method; the name appears to have arisen in historical jesus studies, but see for example here from Porter's book where he notes that this form of reasoning is present in NT studies as early as 1900ish - he cites this passage from Encyclopaedia Biblica where Schmeidel writes, in a discussion of passages where Jesus appears to be very human and not have any special knowledge of what God knows... " The foregoing sections may have sometimes seemed to raise a doubt whether any credible elements were to be found in the gospels at all; all the more emphatically therefore must stress be laid on the existence of passages about Jesus the kind indicated ....These five passages, along with the four which will be spoken of in §140, might be called the foundation pillars for a truly scientific life of Jesus. Should the idea suggest itself that they have been sought out with partial intent, as proofs of the human as against the divine character of Jesus, the fact at all events cannot be set aside that they exist in the Bible and demand our attention.... (skip to the top of 1883) All the more remarkable therefore is it that the list should close with what is not a miracle at all. It would be impossible to counteract the preceding enumeration more effectually than by the simple insertion of this final clause. The evangelists therefore cannot have added it of their own proper motion." This sort of reasoning, applied to the Bible, is what people do when they do historical-critical method, going all the way back to Richard Simon and up to today (it is common as dirt for people to argue in commentaries that the story in Zipporah at the inn is ancient, exactly due to this sort of reasoning).

Each of these criteria did develop their own particularities in historical jesus studies, but presenting them as they are, is an unfortunate product of this being "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit".

In general this article is not linked well enough to broader streams of scholarship (that was PiCo's point).

The criteria could be retained if they were a) generalized and b) added to a section about the historical critical method. The details of their development and refinement and the results of their various applications to Jesus should be in Historical Jesus

Is that a way forward on this stuff? Jytdog (talk) 15:41, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * It might be. Yes, I believe I said previously that the criteria were not exclusive to historical Jesus--just mostly used there these days.  I think it's one of the things I said that you objected to at the time.  Let me see what I can find that would be usable here.  It may be necessary to cut out anything but a short mention--your original suggestion--if there is too much to include. Cutting out all but a paragraph on the criteria would cut length which would also be a good thing.  Source criticism itself was taken from classics studies, so whether or not that deserves more than a sentence could become problematic.
 * Okay, so you noted one error in the HJ, and there are others. I hope you will maintain your pursuit of excellence and help them fix those. I will write more on that later probably--just to vent a littls--because you are fully capable of finding those yourself. You don't need me. I do want to discuss the Oxford dictionary in more detail of what it says exactly and what has been implied by the HJ though.  The dictionary gives a good short summation of events as they transpired. The HJ interp is sideways a bit.
 * Sorry for my errors in ALT X above--I was in a hurry to get that online before the hurricane hit and got a little sloppy. After all of this, I am going to feel really stupid if we end up where you wanted with the criteria at the beginning. This time I will be the one apologizing.  Oh well--so Wikipedia goes, eh?  I will be offline a while.  Later. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:34, 5 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay, I did it. The criteria are gone. A discussion of criteria is now included in an all in one section on the life of Jesus research. I included only the one sentence from the Oxford dictionary since we disagreed. I decided it wasn't worth fighting over.  I just went elsewhere.  I am deeply annoyed and unhappy with this whole event, but since I don't think the article has suffered, I am okay with the result. It's a good bit shorter than it was. I hope you are happy with it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:46, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Jytdog says In general this article is not linked well enough to broader streams of scholarship (that was PiCo's point). and since I didn't pick that up at the time, I am unsure if your concerns were sufficiently addressed. Please tell me if not. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * The entire section is now redone. I hope it is satisfactory. No more criteria. No more "historical." Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I would still be happier if any discussion of "Life of Jesus research" or similar included the facts of the agreement of Paul and Josephus on James, Tacitus and the Gospels on the execution of Jesus by Pilate but since the section does include the sentence I inserted "Biblical criticism is only one element in historical Jesus studies", thank you, I am not going to dispute it further.Smeat75 (talk) 12:29, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Smeat your sentence is there and I made sure to mention historians. I would have loved to include the other information but ended up taking out all the criteria per Jytdog and it had nowhere to go. Thank you for your input--and for meeting half way. Jenhawk777 (talk) 13:03, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
 * If you could structure a sentence that says what you would like included, I think there is a place where I can put it in the first paragraph. No dispute--it's just good information and has a valid place in this article. You decide. Jenhawk777 (talk) 13:23, 6 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Hm. That content was useful, and I have copied it (with attribution) into the Historical Jesus page and blended it there.  It needs more work, but the content is now visible in Wikipedia.  It was useful work and we should continue to improve it along with the articles on the individual criterion.  I'll have a look at the content about HJ as it stands. I will be thinking about how it fits with other content about this elsewhere in WP and the WEIGHT overall.  Am still not sure about where this goes. Jytdog (talk) 13:32, 6 September 2018 (UTC)