Talk:Ernest Renan

Vie de Jesus
Amazing -- this doesn't mention his bestselling "Vie de Jesus." Not my field or period (or preference) so I won't put it in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.247.154 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 22 November 2003

I have at least put it in, but this page still needs masses of work, and lets down an interesting chap -- Rob

Siblings of Celebrities
Henriette had accepted in the family of Count Zamoyski an engagement more lucrative than her former place. She exercised the strongest influence over her brother, and her published letters reveal a mind almost equal, a moral nature superior, to his own.

Where can one find her published letters? And do you know more on this Count Zamoyski: full name,marital status,position,and duration of association with Henriette Renan? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.6.182 (talk • contribs) 08:56, 26 February 2004

On Daniel and the Apocrypha
This entry claims that Renan called the book of Daniel apocryphal. This is preposterous since "apocryphal" means "not in the canon" -- and Daniel is certainly in the canon of scripture for both Christians and Jews. I looked up |Renan's original entry in the 1911 Britannica, and I noticed that the error began there. Be that as it may, I changed the entry here in Wikipedia, assuming that a clear and correct meaning is more important than being loyal to the 1911 Britannica. Perhaps Renan argued that the book of Daniel ought to be apocryphal; I don't know. I do know that he made a case in the Vie de Jésus that Daniel is a very late book, a view with which modern Biblical scholars agree. --Hapax 21:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * according to wikipedia: Apocraphy "are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned."--Dwarf Kirlston 13:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Biased?
"He did indeed write that if "the essential element of a nation is that all its individuals must have many things in common," they "must also have forgotten many things. Every French citizen must have forgotten the night of St. Bartholomew and the massacres in the 13th century in the South.""

sounds a bit biased? like someone doesn't like the french... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.5.70.1 (talk) 10:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * What on earth are you talking about? Renan was French. Paul B (talk) 15:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Date of death
There seem to be 2 schools of thought: 2 October or 12 October. Can anyone verify the exact date? -- JackofOz (talk) 06:45, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Vital dates - revisited
It's both his vital dates that show discrepancies. I've done a quick survey of Renan's articles in other languages and these are the results:
 * born 27 February, died 2 October: Czech, German, Latin, Slovenian
 * born 27 February, died 12 October: Spanish
 * born 28 February, died 2 October: Esperanto, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian
 * born 28 February, died 12 October: English, Dutch, Swedish, Turkish
 * born 27 or 28 February, died 12 October: Bulgarian
 * born 23 February, died 2 October: Welsh.

I haven't checked any of the talk pages, but not a single one of these articles makes any reference to the fact that his vital dates seem to be a matter of opinion rather than of fact.

We really do need to get to the bottom of this. Does anyone have authoritative information about either date? -- Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   09:53, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

(http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710457), p. 478 (n.24). Eusebeus (talk) 17:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * October 2. Henry Brewster mentioned his death in a letter of October 9 1872. "...when Renan died in 1892 Brewster mourned his passing as follows: "Renan's death is the loss of a friend to me. I rejoiced to see him honoured. I think he is the only man to whom I owe the debt of intellectual gratitude one owes one's master." (Letter to Ethel Smyth dated October 9, 1892)" From Martin Halpern, Henry B. Brewster (1850-1908): An Introduction, in American Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1962), pp. 464-482
 * He definitely died on October 2. Renan's early biographer William Francis Barry says he was born on 27th Feb (p.4) . However, Lewis Freeman gives evidence that he was born on the 28th, since the birth certificate is reproduced in Théophile Janvrais' Ernest Renan en Bretagne. There is also a letter sent by his sister on his birthday, which is dated 28th. For some unknown reason Renan apparently sometimes told people his birthday was the 27th, and that date appeared in some early biographies. Paul B (talk) 21:56, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks folks. To forestall future good-faith edits based on erroneous sources, it might be good to mention the discrepancy among sources, and explain why we prefer the dates we show.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   02:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Quote
This random quote was added without source: "We aspire not to equality but to domination. The country of a foreign race must again be a country of serfs, of agricultural laborers or industrial workers.  It is not a question of eliminating the inequalities among men but of broadening them and making them law." I think it's from Caliban, but we need to source it. Paul B (talk) 15:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's cited by Aime Cesaire in Discourse on Colonialism. I'm not sure of the original source. ~ Peter1c (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Cosmos
Phrases like "the splendour of the cosmos" sound as though they have been translated from French. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 13:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The florid language derives from the Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.), from which much of this article is copied verbatim. Paul B (talk) 13:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 14:38, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

"defensing discourse"
"defensing discourse". That's not English, is it? Or did the person who wrote it mean to write something like "defensive discourse"? Can the author rewrite or explain, please? Thanks. 82.27.181.141 (talk) 09:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

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Ernest Renan: French Nationalist?
Continued from User talk:96.87.73.241.

Currently the article only refers to his belief in the superiority with regards to Africa. That would be eurocentrism but not nationalism. I would indicate inclusion within the article of a description of Renan as a nationalist previous or at the same time that the Category:French nationalists is included. Ernest Renan is also not mentioned neither in nationalism nor in French nationalism. He has works on the nation, and I do not necessarily dispute that he believes in the superiority of his nation, but even then I think the specific label nationalist would be WP:Original Research unless used by WP:Reliable Sources. I tried searching in google for both {"Ernest Renan was a nationalist"} and {"ernest renan, nationalist"} and neither found any sources. It seems the article as it is reports accurately on how he is seen by RS: "He is best known for his influential historical works on early Christianity, and his political theories, especially concerning nationalism and national identity." - As a thinker of nationalism but not a nationalist himself, as I understand it he defined the nation in What is a Nation?, if nation is still being defined in his era, if it is still not a solid concept, I think perhaps that is a good reason for RS to reject labeling him a nationalist.--User:Dwarf Kirlston - talk 13:50, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

"Known For"
Some IP editor keeps changing the introduction by claiming that Ernest Renan was "known for" his Antisemitism and racism. This is not true: Renan lived in the Near East and was expert in Semitic languages. He was sympathetic to the Semitic cultures; his sister Henriette is buried in Lebanon. He may have had some remarks on the subject that are no different from the Zeitgeist of the times: many many other writers were vastly more "known for" than him and we would have to rewrite all bios on Wikipedia.

Also note that "known for" has a strict meaning on Wikipedia: the core of a person's contribution. Renan is known for his "human", nonGod, Jesus. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 06:46, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

All civilisations [have] been the work of aristocracies
Renan said this. I don't know anything about his reasoning or when he said it, but if it reflects some theory he had rather than just a passing comment, it seems worthy of inclusion. I leave it to those who know more about him to judge. 11:06, 27 October 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LastDodo (talk • contribs)

Regarding source #4
Regarding the source of "now discredited" Ashkenazis descended from Khazars, a better source should be put here because this source claims "Khazars did not convert to Judaism", a completely different and irrelevant topic. 176.240.170.180 (talk) 10:53, 3 May 2022 (UTC)


 * As Solzhenitsyn explained, the kings of chiefs of the Khazars did marry into the Jewish faith and were Jewish by ancestry beyond a certain point. The bulk of the ordinary Khazars were not of Jewish descent, but merely adopted the religion. The text here is confusing - the ruling class of the Khazars were Jewish in ancestry, but few Jews today are of Khazar ancestry. It is pointless to edit this, as all Wikipedia articles are defended by antifa leftists who won't allow accurate edits. 2A00:23C8:A7A3:4801:733E:646C:63DA:CF9D (talk) 14:10, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

tendentious argument in support of Renan
This paragraph is problematic and should be removed:

"However, it is questionable whether Renan can be considered a racist, much less an anti-Semite. American historian George Mosse, in Toward the Final Solution. A History of European Racism, mentions Renan only a couple of times (pp. 88 and 129-130), and in both cases speaking of Renan's Life of Jesus. In these pages, Mosse argues that according to Renan, the intolerance would be a Jewish and not a Christian characteristic, but biblical Judaism would have lost its importance even among the Jews themselves as civilization progressed. That is why modern Jews are no longer disadvantaged by their past and are able to make important contributions to modern progress."

Any reader of Renan's "Islam and Science," for example, will be hard-pressed to come away with any sense that Renan is not racist. For his time, his racism is almost completely unexceptional, and I don't understand this paragraph's need to defend Renan in terms of his degree of racism. Even so, to say he's not racist because he's only mentioned a couple of times in a book about anti-Semitism is hardly a strong argument. Ingrambd (talk) 18:58, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * George Mosse was a world-famous scholar --he trained hundreds fo historians at the University of Wisconsin (and also was a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem). The job of anonymous editors is to report what the reliable sources say. If there is criticism of Mosse by reliable sources, then the rule is to include it not to erase text.  The article's coverage of the race issue is out of date. Anyone interested in the matter should start with Robert D. Priest, "Ernest Renan's Race Problem." The Historical Journal 58.1 (2015): 309-330. online here.  Priest writes: "Renan is an ambivalent figure: from the 1850s onwards he used ‘race’ to denote firm differences between the ‘Aryan’ and ‘Semitic’ language groups in history; but after 1870 he repeatedly condemned biological racism in various venues and contexts." Rjensen (talk) 08:01, 31 May 2023 (UTC)