Talk:Caesar's Messiah

An article by this title was deleted in 2008. A deletion review was held here in 2016: Deletion_review/Log/2016_March_25

The conclusion of the deletion review was: Unprotect and allow recreation.JerryRussell (talk) 20:13, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Conflict of interest declaration: I (the originator of this article) am, basically, a long term fan of this book. After reading it, I approached author Joe Atwill and we eventually began to collaborate. I have a blog / webpage, www.postflaviana.org, which features content by myself, Richard Stanley, and Mr. Atwill. This is not a profitable endeavor, and I have no financial interest in Joe's book sales. I don't know if this is a sufficient conflict to merit a warning template for the page. But if any other editor thinks so, I would not object to placement of a template. JerryRussell (talk) 02:04, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Several problems
This article has several problems. It's an article pushing a mad conspiracy theory, and attempting to make it sound like respected scholarship. The author of the book is not a scholar, and the whole scholarly world has been unanimous in rejecting this "theory" as nonsense. Under WP:NPOV, we can have articles on WP:FRINGE theories, but even those articles must make it clear what the scholarly consensus is, and not try to create a false balance where none exists. Jeppiz (talk) 21:25, 22 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello Jeppiz, thanks for your comments. It is not true that "the whole scholarly world has been unanimous". On the contrary, as described in the article, there has been substantial academic support as well as criticism. "Conspiracy Theory" is a pejorative, but it is true that this page describes an alleged conspiracy on the part of the Roman imperial court.


 * I would absolutely agree that this article represents a minority view, one that the vast majority of the scholarly world has never even heard of. As such, I am trying very hard to comply with WP:FRINGE although I don't believe that the word "fringe" should be applied to this theory.


 * If you have any specific suggestions for how to improve compliance with NPOV, I am eager to make whatever changes would be appropriate.JerryRussell (talk) 23:07, 22 May 2016 (UTC)


 * If you say there has been substantial academic support, why is none of it in the article? There's a large section on support from non-experts; in fact, the longest support is about yourself in a strong WP:COI issue. That's exactly what false balance is about, you write as much about your own views and the views of a few others with no academic credentials in any relevant field. I'm removing that section as obviously  WP:UNDUE. It's also a problem that so much of the article relies on blogs instead of reliable sources. Jeppiz (talk) 08:40, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello Jeppiz, the academic support has been from Hudson, Blackhirst, Koster, and Eisenman (with reservations.) It's not in the article any more because you removed it. Also, the support from "non-experts" is essential for meeting the notability criteria, and these sources are reliable sources to determine notability. I need to restore those items, otherwise this article would be immediately a candidate for AfD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JerryRussell (talk • contribs) 15:55, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Not sure if blogs by Carrier and Ehrman are any more reliable than blogs by JP Holding, D Murdock or myself. But, the materials by Holding and Murdock were not necessary, and for that matter neither are Carrier & Ehrman. I also disagree that writing a few sentences about my own views is COI, on the contrary it is a disclosure of the very limited potential conflict that does exist, but that material is not essential to the article either.
 * If necessary I am willing to go to a dispute resolution process to keep the materials I have restored, regarding the many discussions of the topic in reliable mainstream sources, and the academic support that the material has received.JerryRussell (talk) 16:25, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think dispute resolution would be good, because this is getting silly. You've now reinserted most of the material, in a clear breach of WP:BRD. I don't know if you don't know the rules or if you chose to ignore them, but this article breaks just about every policy there is. Could I ask you to read WP:RS? Once again, we do not use blogs as sources. Possibly if it's a blog by a respected expert in the field, but even then only to state what that expert says. As for Hudson, Blackhirst and Koster, they are most definitely not reliable sources. None of them has any academic background in the field, or even any remotely related field. Eisenman is different, but he has not offered any support for Atwill's conspiracy plot. The fact of the matter remains: this article tries to portray a mad conspiracy theory by a person without any expertise as a viable academic theory, and only manages to do so by violating more or less every policy (including WP:RS, WP:FRINGE, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:COI, WP:ACADEMIC and WP:FALSEBALANCE. If, as you say, the article would be a candidate for AfD if you didn't include support from bogus sources, then it should be a candidate for AfD. Sorry if I sound harsh (it's not personal, on the contrary I find you perfectly nice), but Wikipedia has very strict rules against promoting stuff by making it seem what it is not. Jeppiz (talk) 19:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Source debate
My interpretation of BRD is that you reverted my initial material, we had a discussion, and then I made another "bold" move that accepted much of your argument, and eliminated many sources per your request, while insisting on preserving others. So I disagree what happened was a breach of BRD. I'm starting another cycle here.

Now let's have a discussion about the remaining sources at issue. Since there are no deadlines at Wikipedia, I'd prefer to go through one item at a time, and see how it goes. I might learn something as we go along. I'm a newbie, I appreciate your patience. If you get tired of discussing on the talk page and want to start dispute resolution I'm OK with that. I just don't want the article left in the condition where I couldn't defend against AfD.

Let's start with Eisenman. You agree he's an academic with relevant credentials in the field. He chose to endorse the book, saying that the thesis is challenging and provocative. He didn't say it's fringe and he didn't say it's BS that should be put in the trash bin. Can we include this information, or not?JerryRussell (talk) 21:09, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm back: decided not to wait for more comments from Jeppiz before going through the rest of the sources.

Blackhirst's resume is here, I think it looks like the resume of a qualified expert in the field.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/staff/profile?uname=RBlackhirst

Koster has his own wiki article, Jan Koster. He's a linguist. As such, he should be well qualified to interpret the significance of linguistic parallels, on which this work is based.

Hudson received a graduate degree from the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham, and is currently the artistic director of the Dark Lady Players. I would mainly argue that Hudson should be included on the basis that self-published materials may be used as information sources about themselves.

Jeppiz didn't mention anything wrong with the citations to many mainstream media outlets that have reported on the the topic.

PS: BRD, how about another interpretation? Jeppiz made a bold move to nuke all my sources, I reverted some but not all of his deletions, and now we're having a discussion.JerryRussell (talk) 22:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

One last thought here. Jeppiz is upset that an attempt is being made to portray Atwill's theory as "respected scholarship". I had originally described the book in the introduction as "popular nonfiction". I didn't mean that as an unsupported assertion of best-seller status, I meant that its genre is "popular non-fiction" as opposed to "academic treatise full of uncontroversial information".JerryRussell (talk) 22:29, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Several problems there. And no, you did not accept much of my argument. You did remove yourself (so we avoid a strong COI), apart from that you only accepted the part of my argument that removed criticism of your pal while reinserting all the nonsense support of him. Weak as that support is, it's actually even weaker if we go through it
 * You say that Eisenman endorses the book. Where is the source for that endorsement? And please note I'm taking about a real source, not Atwill claiming Eisenman endorses it.
 * Same thing with Koster and Blackhirst. Not that they are RS (I'll come back to it), but there's no sourced endorsement from them. There's a self-published book by Atwill claiming support. That counts for absolutely nothing, anyone can self-publish a book saying absolutely anything.
 * Blackhirst has a PhD on Plato, I'd have no problem accepting his as an RS on Plato. It does not make one an expert on Jesus.
 * Jan Koster (who's not even the most famous Dutch academic called Jan Koster) is certainly no RS. Being a linguist is absolutely no qualification for research on Jesus.
 * Hudson... This says it all. The article calls him a "scholar", which is pure nonsense. Hudson has no PhD. So he's not in a relevant field, and not a scholar even in the unrelated field in which he is. His opinion on this academic field is as authoritative as Kim Kardashian's, and it really shows how utterly bad and imbalanced this article is.
 * Please not I am not arguing against having this article; we have articles on just about any weird conspiracy theory out there (and this is among the weirder). My argument is against the effort to portray Atwill's book as more respectable than it is. Jeppiz (talk) 22:41, 23 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello Jeppiz, thank you for your comments. I especially appreciate that you are not arguing against having the article.
 * Eisenman, Blackhirst and Hudson appear in the video documentary, so interested readers can check for themselves the extent to which they support the ideas. Atwill's book was picked up by Ulysses in the US and by Ullstein Buch Verlage in Germany, so the self-published problem does not apply to the later editions. I would have to check which endorsements carried through to the published editions, my copy is the self-published version. I know that videos are not normally considered good sources, but if the question is whether Atwill is lying about their endorsement, I would think that would be sufficient.
 * Disagree that Koster and Blackhirst's qualifications are not relevant to judging Atwill's theory. Academic specialties have become very narrow, and collaboration is often necessary to make forward progress.
 * Based on your comments, I'm making a couple of edits. I'm describing the book "speculative non-fiction" and dropping the claim that Hudson is a "scholar".JerryRussell (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * To facilitate things, we can stop discussing Hudson who has no place in the article regardless of anything else. As for Blackhirst, I'm open to discussing his qualification, they are border line. Koster is in no way relevant; yes, academic specialities are narrow and collaboration is good. That does not mean that any academic is qualified to comment on any subject. Imagine if someone needed brain surgery and was told that the doctor is unsure, but taking advice on the surgery from someone with a PhD in Irish folk dancing instead of brain surgery. That's the level we're at with Koster.
 * As you say, movies are bad sources, they are edited and cut. We need neutral evidence of support from Eisenman (definitely RS) and Blackhirst (possibly RS) before considering them. As for Koster, Hudson, Kardashian or Kim Jong-Un, it doesn't matter if we have bilboards proclaiming their endorsements as they are all equally non-RS on the topic. Jeppiz (talk) 23:14, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't say movies are bad sources, I said not normally considered good sources, but in this case I feel an exception to the general rules is merited. But to move things along, I will find out which endorsements carried over to the published editions of the book, and drop whatever is only in the self published editions of CM.
 * As to your brain surgery analogy, I suggest that a more valid analogy would be to consult a nutritionist before committing to a brain surgery which might be unnecessary.
 * Also to move the discussion along, I will drop Hudson entirely.JerryRussell (talk) 23:39, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I am able to confirm that the endorsements from Eisenman, Blackhirst and Koster appeared in the edition of the book published by Ulysses, if that helps.JerryRussell (talk) 01:13, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I've made a bunch of edits to the body of the article, trying to provide mainstream perspective. I'm not sure I'm the ideal person to be doing that, as my biases are certain to show through. But I'm curious if you think I've helped, or only made things worse. I'm about 20% through the article.JerryRussell (talk) 01:15, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality discussion
I've finished going through the article, and done my best to include mainstream viewpoints where appropriate, and to make it clear where I am using Atwill as the source of the opinions stated. In some cases, I don't even know if mainstream scholarship has ever addressed the issues raised by Atwill, but if anyone does know, I would invite their contributions. I hope it's now clear (per Jeppiz' objection above) that Atwill's work is not being presented as a generally accepted scholarly view.

If anyone still has concerns about the neutrality, let's discuss them here. I would like to remove the 'neutrality disputed' tag.JerryRussell (talk) 14:54, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Jerry, I very much welcome your exemplary willingness to discuss! I'm a bit busy and may not edit/participate much on Wikipedia for about two weeks and don't really have the time to go through your changes and discuss them. I don't want my absence to be any hinder, so as a small goodwill gesture, I've removed the tag for now. I'll get back to you when I'm back to editing WP more actively after 10th June, to discuss the article and the changes. All the best in the meantime. Jeppiz (talk) 19:02, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Jeppiz, I look forward to your return.JerryRussell (talk) 20:13, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
 * While I appreciate your work to include the mainstream view, I believe such an endevour violates WP:OR. All sources cited in the article should mention the subject of the article (Caesar's Messiah) otherwise we are engaging in the original research of assessing the validity of the arguments. If it turns out that no reliable sources have commented on the book, we have to accept the the article must be very small, or mark it for deletion. Ashmoo (talk) 07:57, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello Ashmoo, thanks for reading the article, and for your comments. I agree that in some cases I might have resorted to OR to include the mainstream view. But before I get started in fixing whatever errors I might have made along those lines, I'd like to make sure we agree on a couple of guidelines. First, WP:PARITY says that it's acceptable to use blogs by reputable experts which refer to CM to represent mainstream viewpoints, do you agree? Are you willing to accept the likes of Acharya and Carrier as sufficiently reputable to critique CM, especially when the views they express are clearly in alignment with the mainstream?
 * Also, I was surprised by your edit summary that I presented a "shameful summary" of Carrier's views. I think I was correct that Carrier argued that the Romans were not smart enough to invent a religion, which seemed like a rather bizarre claim to me, but he did say it. Was there anything else about my summary that seemed "shameful" to you, or that you believe it would be important to include? JerryRussell (talk) 22:23, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to respond. First, I'd like to apologise for using that language in the edit summary. It wasn't helpful. I'm quite busy at the moment, so if you would give me a day or two to check the PARITY policy and the sources you mentioned I would appreciate it. Ashmoo (talk) 07:55, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I had a look. I agree with you about parity. I think Carrier and Acharya S are reliable enough sources for descriptions of Atwill's work. I think the safest way is to always include the source of the appraisal of Atwill's argument in the text itself. I think as long as the source engages with Atwill's work directly (and is reasonably reliable, like Carrier) is should be OK. I am also surprised Carrier would say such a thing, although not that surprised since he has a tendency to be very flippant about arguments he does not support. Sadly, the link is dead, so I cannot assess whether I would feel that the text summarises the article correctly. But maybe it is a moot point, since this article is about Atwill, not Carrier's view of how smart the Romans were. Maybe the text could be made a bit more neutral to avoid a tangent on Carrier's view of the Romans? Ashmoo (talk) 14:17, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Ashmoo, editor Jytdog was kind enough to find a current link for the Carrier review of Atwill's book. It's been more than a year since I wrote this article, and it hasn't gotten a lot of editor participation. So let me say again that I appreciate your review. I read through it again and I don't see much that I would consider WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Could you explain in more detail what you're seeing?
 * Atwill's work has been discussed and critiqued in a recent book "Creating Christ" by Valliant & Fahy. 1 The book provides some new lines of analysis supporting the Romans Origins thesis. Valliant is known as an Objectivist movement (Ayn Rand school) author. The publisher is Crossroads Press. I think this falls into the category of a questionable source at best. I'm curious if you think any use of it could be made in this article, under the WP:SELFSOURCE exception Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field... I am wondering if "articles about themselves" can be construed broadly, as including other advocates of the WP:FRINGE Roman Origins thesis, in addition to Atwill himself. JerryRussell (talk) 02:52, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
 * My main criteria is that the source should directly address Atwill's claims. That is, the source needs to mention Atwill. Once we start looking for sources that simply contradict the claims Atwill makes, as we understand them, we are engaging in WP:OR. For instance the second paragraph (starting "Atwill's theory contradicts...") has a lot of sources but I do not think any of them actually mention Atwill (maybe the Ehrman once does). I believe these sources should be removed. A lot of weak sources do not equal a good source. If it turns out that no-one, or only Carrier and Arch S have addressed Atwill, then so be it. That would be an indication to the reader of the impact of Atwill's work. What do you think? Ashmoo (talk) 08:49, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * First, to your point about the sources directly addressing Atwill's claims. The various articles about Atwill in mainstream press outlets discuss his views at a very superficial level. The articles by Carrier, Acharya S, Ehrman and Price go into much more depth. The second paragraph was, of course, copied from the Wikipedia article on the Christ Myth Theory. So those sources don't mention Atwill at all. In the rest of the article, a more common case is where Atwill is a secondary source regarding claims made in a cited primary source. I believe there's no possible objection to use of primary sources cited by Atwill.


 * As to the original research issue: in the example you gave (2nd paragraph), it should be obvious that the references are relevant even though they don't name Atwill specifically. Please consider WP:NOTSYNTH and especially the paragraphs "Synth is not mere juxtaposition", Synth is not the word "thus", and "Synth is not unpublishably unoriginal". Furthermore, in this particular case it would be trivially easy to find a source that explicitly mentions Atwill's contradiction with mainstream views of historical Jesus. It's just that any such source would be relatively superficial compared to the sources actually given in the article. So I would say that an unnecessarily strict reading of the OR policy would result in a lower-quality and less useful article. JerryRussell (talk) 17:04, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I checked out WP:NOTSYNTH and don't see how that precludes this. As far as I understand this is original research. We are taking sources that don't make the specific claim, rather we take 2 sources (Atwill & a general source about 1 century Judea) and making a statement about the strength of Atwill's argument. As it is, it seems that almost the whole article is general statements about Atwill's thesis based on sources that don't mention him. In my opinion, this opens up a can of worms for original research. If there are very few sources that mention Atwill besides Carrier/Price, than this just means that the article needs to be short and gives the reader an idea of the impact (minimal) of Atwill's thesis. Ashmoo (talk) 07:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * , I have made an edit to the specific paragraph we've been discussing, beginning "Atwill's theory contradicts the mainstream historical view...". I have added a source which specifically contrasts Atwill's thesis vs. the mainstream historical view, including a quotation. Do you think this solve the problem with this paragraph? Or do you feel it's also necessary and appropriate to delete the remainder of the paragraph after the first note? JerryRussell (talk) 19:42, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

I've provided the requested page number citations and secondary source context citations. A few instances of possible original research via juxtaposition have been removed. The article is just a little shorter. The citation to the Bell paper is still an example of either WP:SYNTH or WP:NOTSYNTH, I'm not sure which; but,, could we go to the OR noticeboard to get a 3rd opinion if you're concerned? Do you still see any other problems with possible OR in the article as I've revised it? Thanks. JerryRussell (talk) 02:55, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This is Prof. Robert Eisenman, who is not an Objectivist, on Valliant and Fahy's book: "I have rarely encountered a book so original, exciting, accessible and informed on subjects that are of obvious importance to the world and to which I have myself devoted such a large part of my scholarly career studying. In this book they have rendered a startling new understanding of Christianity with a controversial theory of its Roman provenance that is accessible to the layman in a very powerful way. In the process, they present new and comprehensive archeological and iconographic evidence, as well as utilizing the widest and most cutting edge work of other recent scholars, including myself. This is a work of outstanding and original scholarship. Its arguments are a brilliant, profound and thorough integration of the relevant evidence. When they are done, the conclusion is inescapable and obviously profound.” -- Prof. Robert Eisenman, author of 'James the Brother of Jesus'. (This is from the Amazon.com page for it: https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Christ-Emperors-Invented-Christianity-ebook/dp/B01LRP3EDG ) Also, internationally recognized scholars have been from Objectivist school, such as Allan Gotthelf, Edwin A. Locke, Tara Smith and Martin Anderson (economist), so that cannot be a disqualification. Also, the Valliant and Fahy book makes far fewer controversial claims than the Atwill book does, such as Atwill's simultaneous composition of the Gospels, sticking to more standard scholarship on such points. It takes no position on a historical Jesus, either, so it is neither mythicist nor otherwise. The Valliant book also cites and uses all of the contemporary scholars who argue for Roman provenance, including Carotta, Sheldon, Voskuilen, Eisenman, and Atwill. FYI, OCD (talk) 07:06, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Atwill book citations
Thanks to and  for reviewing the article!

I apologize for the links to Amazon. I didn't know that this was against policy. I'm a little puzzled that it's considered OK at Wikipedia to link to Google Books, but not Amazon. Google Books also sells books through their own Google Play service. As it happens, the 2005 Ulysses Press 1st Edition has been posted in its entirety as a PDF at archive.org. I don't know if Atwill considers this a copyright violation or not; I could ask him.

Based on the assumption that the 1st edition is now public domain, I've provided a link to the PDF. Dimadick asked for page references for several statements that I summarized from Atwill. Unless someone else wants to read the book and verify that I'm quoting correctly, I'll be back later in the week to supply those page numbers. JerryRussell (talk) 20:01, 2 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I am fuzzy on the exact policy involved, but I think I read that we don't link out to online booksellers generally. On the other hand, in all my editing time here I have never seen an objection to Google Books, so I've just assumed that Google Books is allowed. I admit that's a somewhat fuzzy justification, and if anyone ever reverted me on the Amazon thing I wouldn't revert back unless multiple people wanted the link removed or unless I could find the policy that I think exists. But I think the distinction does have some wait. A link like this one to Amazon is basically an advertizement and retail space to buy the book. A reader can't use it, usually, to verify specific claims about the book, so it might as well just be advertizing for most purposes. On the other hand, the Google Books links we provide on Wikipedia usually show the page where the claim can be verified, which is very useful for Wikipedia readers. It is true that there is a "buy book" button in many cases on Google Books, but I think so far the Wikipedia community has not been worried about that. But I welcome anyone who knows the specific policy that proves me right or wrong on this one.


 * In general, anything written after the 1960's, and many things written after 1923, are under copyright unless the author specifically repudiates copyright. Alephb (talk) 20:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Atwill is very unhappy about the news that his book is available for free at Archive.org. He's asking them to take it down. And I've removed the link here.
 * Google has no preview, so a link to their page is basically useless. That is, aside from letting them grab the affiliate revenue from Amazon sales. JerryRussell (talk) 20:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In cases where no preview is available, I have no idea whether a Google Books link is generally considered a good idea. I don't think I've ever put in or taken out a preview-less Google books link, nor do I have any intention of adding or removing a link like that. Never really thought about that particular situation before. Alephb (talk) 03:48, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Typological representation of the Emperor Titus in the Gospels
This is a very weak argument and it is merely taking Plutarchs's ideas of parallel lives and allying them to the bible. It means actually nothing at all. I have read all the primary sources and it is diffucult to agree with theses kinds of conclusions.


 * Of course it's a weak argument. The entire book is pure nonsense, as every academic will agree. In fact, one of the few things everybody agrees on when it comes to Jesus is that Atwill's book is an outlandish conspiracy theory. Regardless of whether we talk about Christian scholars, or non-religious scholar who believe Jesus existed, or non-religious scholars who dispute Jesus existed, they will all agree that Atwill had no clue what he was taking about. So yes, all arguments are not only "weak", they are often laughable. Jeppiz (talk) 20:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

AfD
I'm not a deletionist, I hate that properly referenced articles get deleted, even if they are about WP:SPS and WP:FRINGE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sure, that's entirely up to you, Tgeorgescu. It was just a thought. Bishonen &#124; tålk 14:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC).

Fails WP:FRINGE
The article violates WP:FRINGE. Whenever a fringe theory is presented in an article, it needs to be clearly marked as fringe. Atwill is not a scholar, and his book is not taken seriously by scholars. Not even the CMT proponents take his ideas seriously. This is an outlandish conspiracy theory, and as per relevant WP policies, the article needs to reflect that. Jeppiz (talk) 00:27, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Has he attained any following? If not, the place to say so would be under "reception". Personally, I would not credit this as a fringe theory, since I suspect it is less than that: it reminds me of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, i.e. detective fiction masquerading as popular scholarship. But it is better to find sources that say that sort of thing than to use our own judgment to stamp it as "fringe". --Doric Loon (talk) 18:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Ehrman
Ehrman is an atheist, not a born-again Christian. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Whether he is a Christian or an Athiest or a Pastafarian is completely irrelevant here. It might be relevant for the page about the man. But he is cited here for his scholarship on the question at hand. If you are suggesting we should judge his scholarship on the basis of your jaundiced assessment of his state of salvation, you are possibly on the wrong site. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I think you'll find an excuse to tgeorgescu is in order. Their comment was merely a fact-of-matter reply to this IP edit . Could it have been clearer? Yes. But the insinuations you put forward are entirely wrong. Jeppiz (talk) 14:57, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I apologize profusely. I completely misunderstood the context here. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for clarifying. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)