Talk:James the Brother of Jesus (book)

[Untitled]
I included the full subtitle in the article title because James the Brother of Jesus is already taken. Maybe James the Brother of Jesus (book) would be better. dab (𒁳) 12:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It would definitely be better.--SidiLemine 09:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Some comments
A central point Eisenman makes in the book is that the Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism that survive today are the Roman-approved versions. Other threads of Judaism and Jewish-Christianity were suppressed because of their apocalyptic and revolutionary tendencies. Although many of Eisenman's hypotheses have been overturned by physical evidence, this conjecture remains intact.

Another point that Eisenman makes repeatedly is that the Acts of the Apostles is a tenditious document, rewritten as a Roman-friendly apologetic. This has become the mainstream scholarly opinion, as evidenced by some recent discussions on academic blogs.

Eisenman explicitly identifies James the Just as the Teacher of Righteousness. This has been discredited by physical evidence (carbon-14 and paleographic dating of the DSS).

Also, Simon Peter is not the third pillar (as Paul says in Galatians) but Simeon of Jerusalem, who may be the same person as Simon the Zealot. I will have to check this out to be sure. Ovadyah (talk) 23:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Much of the content of this article was lifted from an online article by the Institute of Higher Critical Studies Robert Eisenman's JAMES THE BROTHER OF JESUS: A Higher-Critical Evaluationby Robert M. Price. Why wasn't it referenced? Ovadyah (talk) 23:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I see it's in the external links as a review. Ovadyah (talk) 23:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed retitling
It seems to me that Eisenman's theories, particularly regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, his way of interpreting the text of the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls to reach conclusions as to what he purports is the apparently otherwise unknown "original" version of the New Testament contains, etc., cross over between books, such as the book "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins" and the "sequel" to this book. In fact, the Painter book makes a direct statement to that effect. And, of course, there is the matter of the later volume, which contains material which deals with substantially the same subject, James and the Zealots/Ebionites/Qumran Covenanters/whatever. It seems to me, based on what little I know of the other books (and, at this point, it ain't much), that it might make most sense to gather material about all the books which deal with these related books in a single article. The question would be, of course, what to call that article. Any suggestions? John Carter (talk) 17:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Professor Eisenman's books touch on much more than just his theories, including interpretation and translation of the scrolls. I think it best to keep a separate article and prefer the idea of gathering his books together into a single article. A possible title might be "interpretive books related to the Dead Sea Scrolls"? ScouterRay (talk) 07:51, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that this is all so far out on the WP:FRINGE scale that the coverage we currently keep at Robert_Eisenman is more than enough. I do not think that this book meets WP:BK, and I would prefer it if this article was just merged into Eisenman's biography article. But I am not going to campaign for this, as I think keeping around articles on specific books with dubious notability doesn't do any damage.

Moving the article to a title that implies that this is about a "notable theory" is a different matter, and would raise serious concerns of WP:NOTE. --dab (𒁳) 15:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There seem sufficient independent reviews listed in the article to pass WP:BK. --Michael C. Price talk 21:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The excursus at the end of Just James by Painter on the topic of this book by Eisenman would be at least one instance of the subject being notable. I would however agree that there is at least so far as I have seen no real clear evidence that I have seen to date that the theory meets points 3 through 5 of the nutshell summary. John Carter (talk) 19:50, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Any one point is sufficient. Do you hear that? --Michael C. Price talk 20:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If that incendiary comment is directed at me, I believe it is possibly yet another comment from the above party which is perhaps less than can and should be expected, particularly considering I am the first one to discuss that topic here. And the caustic perhaps somewhat insulting comment above does not directly address Dab's point about the notability of the "theory" per se. John Carter (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * My comment is about the book, not the theory, although I should have thought the latter notable as well, given the author's credentials, irrespective of whether the theory is fringe or not.--Michael C. Price talk 20:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)