Talk:Jesus/Archive 120

Merge this article with Christ myth theory?
I am just typing this to get it out in the open. But the edits by user:Humanpublic seem to want to effectively merge in all the discussion of non-existence of Jesus, 1st century sources, Remsburg-type ideas, myth theory etc. here; and that type of text has to appear here now to deal with that. I do not think it makes sense. But let us have a general discussion on that please and see what the consensus may be. I will also mention it on that page as a formality. History2007 (talk) 03:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 182,261+177,197=359,458. Nope. That'd be the longest article on wikipedia and call for a split again. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 03:28, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Good point. Actually the official numbers used for WP:LENGTH are 68868 + 74878 = 143746 and they run over the guideline by over 50%. That article is even longer than this one it seems. But my main reason for it not making sense is that Christ myth theory is a clear WP:Fringe item. So the Remsburg-type ideas that Humanpublic keeps advocating as highly relevant here, are not and should be there, not here. That was the consensus 4 sections above, but he is still saying that, so we shall keep dancing... History2007 (talk) 03:37, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No indeed. that and Historicity of Jesus might be the better merge, but that is 122k, which I suppose is why we have the splits we do. Johnbod (talk) 03:42, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Excuse me John, do you ever sleep? But you are of course right. And that merger will also not make sense. History2007 (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. The titles themselves should be kept neutral. Jesus (secular) and Jesus (non-secular) perhaps? Many Christians would consider the terms 'myth' and 'theory' as being POV.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That would be far more POV, implying that secular scholars subscribe to the myth theory, which (in its fuller versions) hardly any do. Johnbod (talk) 01:24, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge this article
That's right. Dilute and dissolve any objective discussion of Christianity on Wikipedia. Let's use the Nicene Creed as the starting point to all activity and pray to Jesus for our sins if we do so much as to question anything - Heaven forbid an objective article on Jesus on Wikipedia Baron master (talk) 01:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you have any suggestions, or is this just an exasperated rant? Huon (talk) 01:12, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You sound like a god-fearing fundamentalist who approves of the litany being expressed on Wikipedia Baron master (talk) 01:18, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Life of Jesus - suggested improvement to article
Can we add one example of the Life of Jesus into the article that was not modelled on any Old Testament text. What part of the Gospels relate to the life of Jesus that is not based on an Old Testament text. Here you are, a suggestion on improving the article. Baron master (talk) 01:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit by NE Ent while discussions are ongoing
NE Ent would you like to explain your bold edit here while discussions are ongoing? You know that it is being discussed right now. You know it has been on WP:RSN. You know there is no talk page consensus for the change, and existing consensus has been discussed about that wording; following a request for assessment on WP:RSN. This did not happen by chance, it was discussed, independent RSN assessment was requested, etc. And yet you just do it? You edit means there may be a 51%-49% consensus, but the sources indicate a far, far more widespread agreement among scholars. I did not boldly revert you, for your action would then in effect start a useless edit war. Bold may be a pillar, but WP:V is not to be forgotten. I see no source for your edit. In any case, someone else reverted it, and so we can hopefully avoid revert ping-pongs, and build consensus in general. History2007 (talk) 20:06, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * After coming here from the ANI thread, I saw no evidence serious discussions about the article where taking place; comments about other editors are not content discussions.
 * Content is reliably sourced. Phrasing is not. If fact, taking phrasing directly from sources is copyright violation and prohibited by policy. As to the edit at hand, Virtually all is an absolute (all) preceded by a weasel word (virtually). What encyclopedic purpose does it serve when the simpler, more direct Consensus is will serve just as well? NE Ent 21:48, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * So you are not disputing the source. Good. But the difference is between a luke-warm consensus and a landslide consensus. And please see FAQ Q 3a regarding the use f virtually, and the search therein. So you really need to be frank about the other issue: is your objection on possible copyright grounds, or deeper grounds about the very widespread vs luke-warm nature of the scholarly consensus? You can of course be very frank/upfront about that and just say it out loud. History2007 (talk) 21:56, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Lukewarm consensus? Landslide consensus? What is wrong with plain ol' unadjectived consensus? NE Ent 22:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The difference is between 99% of scholars vs 51% of them - a huge difference. Take dietary cholesterol. Is there a 99% consensus among physicians about its impact? No way. No way. They would be lucky to get a 52% agreement and hence they debate it in conferences for ever. A very different situation with going faster than the speed of light among physicists where 99% oppose it. Does the article on speed of light say that there is a consensus about it? As far as I know there are probably 2 physicists that dispute it. History2007 (talk) 22:09, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Guys, this is hardly a matter to get upset over :-) I can understand NE Ent's edit, though I think History2007 is also right. As the case is a bit stronger than just "consensus", I'd opt for virtually all, but let's not get drawn into a discussion of such a detail at this stage.Jeppiz (talk) 23:53, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Done deal, will just move on. History2007 (talk) 23:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The consensus among scholars of antiquity is that Jesus existed. is better because the implicit emphasis ends up being The consensus among scholars of antiquity is that Jesus existed. 
 * On the other hand, with Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, the emphasis ends up being  Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed. The "virtually all" phrasing is unusual and immediately draws the reader's attention -- specifically "Virtually?? That means "not," right?"
 * Consensus just means consensus -- it doesn't mean 51, 99 or 31&pi; %. Insisting that some percentage of scholars agree to something is unnecessary and problematic; it's unprovable and not particularly relevant and shows a lack of confidence in the statement-- Thou doth protest too much. as the Bard would say. NE Ent 13:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it is fine the way it is right now. If it is changed, in my opinion it should be changed to something like "The overwhelming consensus among scholars of antiquity is that Jesus existed". The "virtually all" statement is sourced to the secular historians Bart Ehrman and Michael Grant, Ehrman says ""He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" and Grant says "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few". In his survey of the sources cited as scholars who deny existence recently on this talkpage, History2007 found two or possibly three scholars, or experts, or whatever you want to call them, who deny that there was ever such a person as Jesus at all .Just to say "consensus" sounds like there is a debate with most "serious scholars" coming down on the side of existence, but the truth is that there is no debate among qualified authorities on that question. There are however a multitude of self-published authors and websites pushing the "Jesus never existed" fringe theory. I believe wikipedia's policy of neutrally summarising reliable sources requires this article to carry a clear, unequivocal message that the bare existence of Jesus is no longer something that is debated among "serious scholars" whether religious or secular.Smeat75 (talk) 23:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Why not just remove the sentence altogether, and simply start the paragraph with "While the quest for the historical Jesus..."? NE Ent 23:48, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Why would we do that? Because it upsets "fringe theorists" who disagree with the overwhelming agreement among the relevant authorities that Jesus existed and was crucified (which is the only thing about him that they do agree about)? To quote Bart Ehrman again, in a rebuttal of a negative review of his recent book "Did Jesus Exist?" and referring to the self-published author and "mythicist" Earl Doherty, he says "The reality, however, is that every single scholar of early Christianity that Doherty appeals to fundamentally disagrees with his major thesis (Jesus did not exist). This is completely unlike other works of true scholarship, where scholars are cited as having disagreements on various points – but not, universally, as an entire body, on the entire premise and virtually all the claims (foundation and superstructure).  I was urging that Doherty should come clean and inform his readers in clear terms that even though he quotes scholars on one issue or another, not a single one of these scholars (or indeed, any recognized scholar in the field of scholarship that he is addressing) agrees with the radical thesis of his book....the evidence that I adduce in Did Jesus Exist," (in which he answers the question with a firm "yes") and realize that they are the views, in popular form, of serious scholarship.  They are not only serious scholarly views, they are the views held by virtually every serious scholar in the field of early Christian studies." I did not put that sentence  "Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed" in the lede of the article, but in my opinion it is a neutral, accurate, well sourced and important piece of information and it should stay. Smeat75 (talk) 04:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Link to above piece by Ehrman:Smeat75 (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Smeat75, why would we removed the sentence? It is well-sourced and relevant for the introduction.Jeppiz (talk) 11:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Early Christians did not think Jesus was God
I feel a rather important aspect of Jesus life is not sufficiently addressed in the article. There is broad academic support from experts in the field (Bart Ehrman, Geza Vermes etc.) that Jesus did not consider himself God and that early Christians did not consider him God either. The idea that Jesus is God is later invention (not much later, but still several decades later) and would have been alien to Jesus, to Peter, and to all of Jesus's followers. That is at least what a fair number of highly regarded experts say. In my view, there is enough support for that to have an expanded section on it, probably also a sentence about it in the introduction. I realize that might be controversial, so I'd prefer a discussion about it before making any edits.Jeppiz (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That sounds like something a Muslim would say. Are you Muslim? Pass a Method   talk  23:23, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment on content, not on other users. And no, I am not a Muslim. Neither is Bart Ehrman or Geza Vermes. Further comments like the one above will be reported.Jeppiz (talk) 23:32, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The above comment by Pass a Method was a very unhelpful one, not to mention rather thoughtless. Why would Muslims have a particular opinion on the beliefs of early Christians? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:47, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually that comment is not entirely unhelpful, because i was wondering if this viewpoint should be added to the Muslim subsection of this article. Pass a Method   talk  23:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * @Stephen, Muslims see the Christian view of Jesus as God as blasphemous. In fact theres a verse in the Quran which states it is so blasphemous that even inanimate objects such as mountains and the sky are about to split from such an "evil utterance". In fact this is one of the reasons Islam came about; to supersede what they view as idolatry. Pass a Method   talk  06:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You could have said that, rather than asking an editor about his own personal religious beliefs, however. That aspect of the comment was certainly uncalled-for. Regarding the question about what some modern scholars say about what they think the early Christians thought about Jesus, a few things come to mind. One, I would think that, in all honesty, that information is probably more relevant to an article about the early Christian church being spoken of, because it relates to the beliefs of that church. Second, I myself would very much prefer that, in cases which are both widely written about and widely speculated upon, that if possible some recent reference source which addresses the subject were produced to provide evidence regarding how much weight to give the idea, and in which relevant article.
 * As we all know, this subject is one of the most widely discussed in academic literature for some 2000 years now. That being the case, several modern academics, hoping to make names for themselves, and/or money, have had real problems finding anything new to say. Ehrman himself alluded to that at least once, when he said that the way academics in the field today make names for themselves is often by making sensationalist statements which might not have much support in the academic world, but which are of the kind that gets them invited to chat shows and gets their names out, and also, generally, helps increase sales of their works. That being the case, I think it not unreasonable to see what the prevailing academic sense of this idea is before determining what weight to give it where. John Carter (talk) 00:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * We should start by seeing where this idea is covered in other articles, make sure that is full and well-referenced etc, then see if it needs expanding here. Deity of Jesus redirects to Christology, where 2 and 2.1 cover this area, but not perhaps very fully. No doubt other articles touch on it. I think one would need to cover the closely related issue of who thought Jesus was the Messiah, and what that meant. Johnbod (talk) 11:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * John and John, thanks for good points about the topic, and thanks to Stephan for his comment as well. If I can start from the back, the early Christians did think Jesus was the Messiah. They did not think he was God, the idea of the trinity and Jesus's deity came later. Needless to say, these are claims that need to be sourced. I'm at the office right now and cannot give the exact quotes, but the ideas come from the books and articles by Bart Ehrman, Geza Vermes and James Tabor. As James Tabor makes the most "sensational" claims, I would prefer relying more on the rather scholarly works by Ehrman and Vermes, in line with what John Carter says. The actual paragraph would of course go under the history section of this article, but I do think there should be a sentence (properly sourced) in the introduction making it clear that the first Christians did not believe Jesus was God; the fact that the idea of Jesus's deity developed later is a rather important one to understanding who Jesus was. Needless to say, the sentence should also make it clear that the view I just mentioned is held by some scholars, there is of course no unanimous consensus on the matter, but neither is it a fringe view.Jeppiz (talk) 13:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
 * You would certainly want other sources as well; these issues are very far from new, and Tabor verges on fringe. The Gospel of John is obviously crucial here; that "the first Christians did not believe Jesus was God" is pretty over-emphatic I would have thought. Then there's Paul. But do it more fully at Christology first. Johnbod (talk)

I agree with all you say. Tabor's view about the "dynasty" is certainly what I'd call a fringe view and I would consider it WP:UNDUE for this article. Then again, there are several points where Tabor is in line with other researchers, and he is of course a professor in the field satisfying WP:RS. But as I said above, I would not want to rely too much on him. I'd even go further and suggest not using Tabor exclusively for any claim. Then again, when Ehrman, Vermes and Tabor all make the same claims, we already start to have a case. Concerning the Gospel of John, it was of course written (most scholar would agree) many decades later, 50-60 years after Jesus's followers came to think he was the Messiah. And once again, I don't plan on making any edit to the article on this topic untill we have had a good discussion about it here first. As we're beginning to have :).Jeppiz (talk) 14:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with you and John that that Tabor is really fringe. He still has his professorship, and used to have some respect, but once he went off the edge he became fringe. These days he has as much scholarly respect as a historian as Elmer Fudd has as a marksman really. And the parts of his writings that agree with Ehrman and company are also supported by other scholars, so you can always find better sources for his non-fringe views.


 * However, on that very topic of "claims of Jesus", there is no scholarly consensus on historicity either way and the situation is quite complicated. But you could know there is no consensus on that because beyond the obvious consensus on existence and crucifixion, there are only a few other things (the list of 8 fact in the Historical article) on which there may be weak agreement - far from consensus. Perhaps something this article needs to clarify in a more prominent way. I will suggest that below.


 * Back to this issue, his claim to be God, and the perceptions of early Christians, there are really 3 separate items that could have been held by Early Christians: being the Messiah, the Son of God or God. But the issues are complicated. The person who has spearheaded that research in the past few years is not Ehrman but Larry Hurtado, e.g. see the list of his books on his Wiki-page. One of the elements in the debate about Jesus' image in early Christianity is of course 1 Corinthians 16:22 's usage of the Aramaic "Maranatha" and the debates do place around that. There is some agreement that it predates Paul, but the question is whether this usage was in a Jerusalem or Antioch circle. So a complicated topic, with no scholarly consensus.


 * By the way, the entire set of articles on early Christian beliefs in Wikipedia are pretty weak and there is not even an article on pre-Pauline beliefs and creeds, and how 1 Cor 15:3-5, Philippians 2:6-11, etc. reflect the mindset of the early Christians. But I would not add these to the Christology article, for as "a field of study within Christian theology" it does not deal with this type of historical analysis. By the way, also note that there is a debate about the claims being either direct or indirect, e.g. he may have not "claimed it himself" on Jewish grounds but when called as such would have not objected, leading to speculation among his followers, etc. A pretty long and pretty complicated story on which there is no scholarly agreement, and can certainly not be tweeted in a simple form. History2007 (talk) 00:00, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I think Christology, or other articles, should be added to rather than here, initially and also at fuller length. But I agree there is plenty of room for a new article (or several) if anyone adds the material. But generally it is best to add to the appropriate existing articles until there is a good amount of material, before branching off into a new one. In general we have too many too short articles in this area as in many, imo. Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is room for lots of work, but as I stated below about the Quest article, some of them have been mostly untouched for over 2 years. But to be upfront with you, the pre-Pauline material is complicated enough that I do not think it will even happen anytime soon. It certainly does not fit here anyway, but the issue needed clarification, that is why I mentioned it. History2007 (talk) 00:34, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Jesus Christ redirect
Since using the name "Jesus Christ" implies one is talking about Jesus as the founder and central figure in Christianity, I wonder if Jesus Christ, which currently redirects to Jesus, should redirect to Jesus in Christianity. I was looking at the inter-wiki language links and noticed many wikipedias have a Jesus Christ or a Christ page, which is from a Christian perspective, and a Jesus of Nazareth page, which is for the historical person. They are the same person, depending on how you look at it, but I think they are two sets of information, and that someone who is looking for Jesus Christ is more likely looking for Jesus in Christianity. --JFH (talk) 19:59, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * That is an interesting observation. As I'm sure you know, there is already a Jesus in Islam article. But while my observation has been the same as yours, I've been thinking a bit in the opposite direction. I think that articles such as Abraham and Moses are reasonable well written. I'd like to see a bit more of a scholarly view (Abraham is certainly a mythical figure, Moses probably is one) but they are at least acceptable. Unfortunately, the articles Abraham in Islam and Moses in Islam are quite bad. While the general articles discuss Abraham and Moses from a Jewish, a Christian, a Muslim and a historical point of view, the articles on each biblical person X in Islam is always 100% religion and ignore all research and all facts. If a person follows one of the countless links to, say, Abraham in Islam, he won't get any academic information, no religious perspective, nothing but "pure" religious islamic views, not even Abraham's name in Hebrew. So no, I don't think we should make separate pages for the same person, and I think we should ultimately delete the ones we have.Jeppiz (talk) 22:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I see that problem. Of course one of our "X in religion Y" articles will give a purely religious perspective - that's what the title says, isn't it? Is, for example, Abraham's name in Hebrew in any way relevant to the role Abraham plays in Islam? I don't think so. Similarly, I wouldn't expect Eagle (Middle-earth) to deal with biology or to give the latin name of the bird family.
 * However, I'd say it's better to have the redirect point to the main Jesus article; readers interested in the purely Christian perspective will still find an overview of what they're looking for. Huon (talk) 23:01, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Why? Isn't someone looking for Jesus Christ almost certainly looking for the purely Christian perspective? --JFH (talk) 23:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Huon on both points. I think the redirect issue is really minor, and will be subject to discussion for the next 12 years. No need to sweat it, but the the other issue Jeppiz brought up is wider. There are a number of articles:


 * Jesus in Islam
 * Muhammad in Islam
 * Jesus in Christianity
 * Judaism's view of Jesus

which deal with the various religious perspectives on Jesus/Muhammad/etc. as their titles indicate. I think the chance that an Afd on these articles will fail is 100% because the topic clearly meets WP:NOTE and what the "Muslims teach about Muhammad" or the "Christians teach about Jesus" is a notable topic, and needs an encyclopedic entry. And a merge of any of these articles is also impossible, given WP:LENGTH issues. So those articles will be there. Can the content of some be improved? Probably so, but that is a separate discussion, not related to this article. History2007 (talk) 06:08, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I think that "Jesus Christ" should redirect here, not to Jesus in Christianity. Many people are not aware of the particular meaning of Christ, and use it like a name, without making or accepting a religious statement, but simply to disambiguate. So they should get to the most general page on the subject, which is this. Secondly, I think all the "X in Y" articles should indeed have a short summary with a link to the main article to establish proper context. This is analogous to WP:FRINGE, which requires it for the presentation of fringe views, and makes sense even in cases like this where the covered opinion is not particularly fringe, but where there is a fairly refined mainstream interpretation of the topic. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:03, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Total agreement on that on my part. History2007 (talk) 08:19, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * And mine (to all of Stephan's points - the short summary and link seems important). Dougweller (talk) 09:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree with all three of the preceding posts... Jesus Christ this topic is getting tiring.Crumpled Fire (talk) 10:07, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Me too. Johnbod (talk) 15:33, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is tiring. But what would a scientist say when he observes a phenomenon? I have asked that question. There is a fundamental reason for the turbulence we are observing, not just in this thread, but in some others, and it has underlying causes. My explanation is that Crossan is right on this issue: "those who write about Jesus think they are doing biography, but do autobiography". The details of the life of Jesus and "who he was" is the prototypical Blind men and an elephant situation where every 5 scholars see a different person: Ehrman seeing an apocalyptic prophet, Vermes sees a Charismatic healer, Bockmuehl sees a Jewish Messiah. And as the article on Historical Jesus indicates the trend has been towards increased turbulence, not scholarly agreement. I think that is the underlying issue that gives rise to the turbulence we see. What is likely to happen is this:


 * User A reads Ehrman's book and says: Oh no, this article is all wrong, Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. Change it to say that.


 * User B reads Bockmuehl and says: Oh no, this article is all wrong, Jesus was a Messiah claimant, change it to say that.


 * User C reads some internet blog and says: Oh no, this article is all wrong, Jesus never existed, change it to say that.

The mindset of the users gets formed by what they read, and the turbulence in scholarly (and non-scholarly) opinion gets reflected here. Given the Wikipedia editing model the situation may continue as such. There is only one conclusion: In ictu oculi is the smartest user in Wikipedia, for he knows the topic so well, and does not edit this article. History2007 (talk) 11:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions to improve balance in first part of the article
This article has received quite a few complaints of bias lately, albeit often directed at the entirely accurate and well sourced sentence, 'Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed" and reading over the first part of the article, parts one - three, I do agree that there are problems with it. I hope I will be forgiven for a rather long post which is really intended as a springboard for discussion rather than wanting to gain consensus for specific edits.For this reason I am not going to include  references and sources for all my points.

Parts of the article do read like a Sunday School lesson, contradictions between the synoptics and John are glossed over, various difficulties unmentioned or downplayed and the focus in my opinion is too much on theological aspects and almost nothing on the more human side of a figure, who, if as most of us working on the article agree, certainly existed, was a real person, not just a divine figure who was transfigured, resurrected and ascended, etc.

The most glaring omission to me is that there is no mention at all of his ethical teaching, not a word about "love your neighbour as yourself","turn the other cheek", "inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these my brethern you did it unto me", etc. This cannot be right, to have as the main "overview" wikipedia article on Jesus a piece which completely ignores what many through the ages have thought was the most commendable thing about him and the most precious element in the Christian tradition. Also completely lacking is any mention of Jesus' outreach to the poor and outcast of his society, his association with "tax collectors and sinners", his (reported) teaching that " the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you."

And although the lede does mention that some scholars have seen Jesus as " the leader of an apocalyptic movement", that is the only reference to what the most notable "Jesus in history" writers such as Schweitzer, Michael Grant and Bart Ehrman see as the central fact of his thinking and ministry, and needs more than a passing reference, also "apocalyptic" needs to be explained - he thought the world was about to come to an end.

I am going to address specific sentences in parts one - three that I feel there are problems with in another post, otherwise this section will probably be too long and no one will read it.Smeat75 (talk) 01:58, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You are completely correct on a wider issue, namely the "glaring omission" of a thorough treatment of the Ethical teachings of Jesus from Wikipedia in general; not just here. But it used to be much worse, see Wikipedia the land of invention. There used to be invented material that as user:SimonP said did not exist elsewhere. Now that has been partially cleaned up. But a long, long way to go and no one is even working on it. Simon had done a lot in that area, but is far less active now. So I think if you start an article on Ethical teachings of Jesus that ties all of that together may be good, and then a summary can appear here. But it is a vast topic, and subject to wide ranging disputes among Christian denominations and must be treated carefully, as just that there are at least 36 different interpretations of the message of the Sermon on the Mount. Which of those 36 is going to appear in this article? That type of issue will be hard to manage in Wikipedia, given its editing model. Similarly "Jesus' outreach to the poor and outcast of his society" is a real hot topic of disagreement among scholars, and the underlying tenet of the "social reformer model" of viewing Jesus but no scholarly agreement exists on that at all. Perhaps Crossan said it best: "those who write about the life of Jesus think they are doing biography, but end of doing autobiography" for each sees something different. A very complicated topic really, and most statements/interpretations will likely be challenged by a new source and a different scholar. History2007 (talk) 06:38, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Non neutral and / or problematic passages in parts one - three of the article
The following are passages or sentences in parts one to three of the article that I feel are non neutral or problematic. It is intended as a starting point for discussion and to see if others agree, so I am not including references or sources for everything as these are not edits I am intending to make right away.

the meeting of Priscilla and Aquila who were expelled from Rome about 49 AD/CE - shouldn't this say who may have been expelled about 49?
 * "Year of death" section -

The remaining period is generally accounted for by Paul's missions (at times with Barnabas) - what is the significance of Barnabas here, what difference does that make?

There is a brief discussion of the fact that various events are put in different orders in the synoptics than John, but I feel that somewhere it should be mentioned that the personality of Jesus also varies in John. In the synoptics Jesus tells homely parables, in John there are no parables but Jesus makes grandiloquent theological "I am" statements such as "I am the way the truth and the life" which are absent in the synoptics
 * Canonical gospel accounts section -

Although there are differences in specific temporal sequences, and in the parables and miracles listed in each gospel, the flow of the key events such as Baptism, Transfiguration and Crucifixion and interactions with people such as the Apostles are shared among the gospel narratives - this is quite wrong in my opinion, outright false as the Transfiguration is not mentioned in John at all.

I am not entirely happy about The five major milestones in the gospel narrative of the life of Jesus are his Baptism, Transfiguration, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension - who decided that, and why is the Transfiguration included and not the so-called "Cleansing of the Temple" when all four gospels include that episode but John does not have the Transfiguration?
 * Key elements and the five major milestones section -

Parables represent a major component of the teachings of Jesus in the gospels, forming approximately one third of his recorded teachings, and John 14:10 positions them as the revelations of God the Father -this is absolutely false, John does not contain any parables, John 14:10 says " Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works."It does not refer to parables at all, that statement has got to go.

''The Final ministry in Jerusalem is sometimes called the Passion Week and begins with the Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. In that week Jesus drives the money changers from the Temple, and Judas bargains to betray him.'' This glosses over the notorious fact that John does not place the "cleansing of the temple" during Passion Week at all but at the start of Jesus' ministry.
 * Ministry section -

As I said in my previous post, there has really got to be some coverage of Jesus ethical teachings somewhere, how can you have an article meant to be an overview of Jesus with no mention of the Golden Rule or "turn the other cheek", and his proclamation of the imminent coming of the"Kingdom of God" with the implication that the world was about to end, ie "apocalyptic". I note that this section does say "the Gospel of John includes no parables", which makes the earlier statement that John 14:10 "positions" the parables as "revelations of God the Father" rather absurd.
 * Teaching and preaching section -

During the week of his "final ministry in Jerusalem", Jesus visits the Temple, and has a conflict with the money changers about their use of the Temple for commercial purposes - a very sanitized and toned down account of a violent disturbance created by Jesus in the most sacred place in Judaism - Mark - "he overturned the tables", Matthew and Luke,"he drove out all those who bought and sold", John, "he made a whip of cords and drove them out"
 * Final week: betrayal, arrest, trial, and death section

During these trials Jesus says very little, and is mostly silent - in the synoptics only, he has quite a lot to say in John.

While at Bethany Jesus sent two disciples to retrieve a donkey that had been tied up but never ridden and rode it into Jerusalem- Matthew 21:7 "They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on." It isn't really good just to leave out inconvenient contradictions in my opinion.
 * Final entry into Jerusalem section


 * Trials by the Sanhedrin, Herod and Pilate section

Although the gospel accounts vary with respect to various details, they agree on the general character and overall structure of the trials of Jesus. - I dispute that, in my opinion that is not a neutral statement at all, the structure of the various trials do not agree at all. Matthew/Mark have Jesus tried by the Sanhedrin at night,Luke in the morning, John not at all, Luke has Jesus sent to Herod, the others do not, in the synoptics Jesus stays silent, in John he does not, there are many other differences, yes that statement along with a few others I have noted does indeed indicate a pro-Christian bias in this article.

That's enough for right now.Smeat75 (talk) 04:29, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Some of those issues such as Priscila/Aquila Barnabas, etc. are wording changes, and please just fix them as necessary. The other issues are really the subject of the Internal consistency of the Bible discussion. I have not even read that article, but took a quick look at its talk page and looks like no one is working on it. Issues such as one Temple visit or two Temple visits should be explored further in the Cleansing of the Temple, etc. and mentioned here. But doing a thorough analysis of the long scholarly debates on the inconsistencies of the biblical accounts takes serious effort. But overall, the internal inconsistencies in Biblical accounts could be clarified in a central article Internal inconsistencies in the Canonical gospels and related to other articles. But again, I do no see anyone working on that. History2007 (talk) 06:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you History2007 for amending almost all of the passages I identified as problematic and removing the majority of the problems! I really appreciate that. I will try to follow your advice and start articles on "Ethical teachings of Jesus" and "Internal inconsistencies in the Canonical Gospels" but that is likely to take me a looooong, loooong time. I feel the "ethical teachings" is much more important, as I say it is hard for me to believe that the main wikipedia article on Jesus says not a word about "love your neighbour as yourself" or anything of the kind. Thanks again for your help!Smeat75 (talk) 01:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You are welcome; that is what we all get paid for. I think even if it takes a long time to do the Ethical teachings article, it does not matter, because no one else is working on it anyway. So please do have fun with it. History2007 (talk) 01:25, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Disruptive edit to introduction
Despite having no consensus for his claims, Humanpublic went ahead and inserted his claim into the introduction. What is more, his edit was intellectually dishonest in the extreme, as he took a source that states categorically that Jesus existed and used it to claim that there is no evidence for Jesus's existence. Given that Humanpublic has been informed about Wikipedia's policies time and time again, his edit appears to be clearly disruptive. Controversial changes are to be discussed on the talk page, and using sources to claim the opposite of the main message of the source is just dishonest. Should it be repeated, it looks like a clear case for ANI. If Humanpublic wishes to argue for the change to the introduction, he is of course welcome to do it. Preferably with sources that support his argument.Jeppiz (talk) 01:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I just saw that and after the long discussion above regarding arguments from silence Embassy to Gaius etc. in this edit Humanpublic modified what the sources say, and added WP:Synthesis using a source by Ehrman which effectively rejects the assertions made in the very edit. I did not revert that not to start an edit war with a WP:SPA, but that was a disruptive in my view in that it misrepresents the source and the user has been informed of that in a very long discussion above. History2007 (talk) 01:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've rarely seen such a dishonest edit in so many ways . The proper way to edit is to discuss controversial changes first, then edit. Not insert controversial claims in spite of a consensus to the contrary. And talking a long article that categorically states that Jesus existed and using it as a source to claim there is no evidence that Jesus existed is certainly dishonest editing.Jeppiz (talk) 01:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * What I wrote didn't "categorically" state that there is "no evidence for the existence of Jesus." I said exactly what the source says.
 * The source says: "there’s no physical evidence or archaeological evidence that Jesus existed—which is absolutely true. There are no writings from Jesus—absolutely true. There are no Roman sources from Jesus’ day that mention Jesus—again, true."
 * I added to the article: "There’s no physical or archaeological evidence that Jesus existed, nor are there any writings from Jesus. There are no sources from the time Jesus is alleged to have lived that mention him."
 * If you'll explain how I "modified what the source says...and added synthesis" (what exactlly is "synthesis"), we might be able to work together.


 * OK, I omitted "Roman". If I add that back, will that be acceptable? Humanpublic (talk) 01:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:SYNTHESIS. And also note that a source may say Jerusalem is south of Galilee but that does not by itself qualify it for inclusion in the lede. What you knowingly did was change scholars of antiquity to NT scholars, and precede that with a sentence comment from Ehrman, an author who a few paragraphs later rejects the applicability of the lines you picked. Your edit was a clear reflection of your own views which were being discussed 2 sections above, and you were told about the scholarly views just above and how scholars see your view of having very little relevance, if any at all. So you should have discussed those, not use sources that contradict your own views. History2007 (talk) 01:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * He calls them "absolutely true". That's a weird way to "reject the assertions". The fact that there is no archaeological evidence and no contemporaneous evidence of any kind for the existence of Jesus is relevant and likely to be of interest to people. It is highly relevant to the readers making up their own minds. It belongs in the article and, if historical existince is going to be in the led, it belongs in the lede. Nothing I wrote is synthesis as the page you linked to defines it. I nearly quoted the source exactly, except for dropping the word "Roman." You are censoring. Humanpublic (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * No, as I said, a source may say that "it is absolutely true that Jerusalem is south of Galilee" and you say why should it not be added, given that I quoted the source. Please read WP:LEDE. The lede must reflect what the body of the article states. A detailed discussion of the first century sources has not been presented in the body and can hence not be present in the lede. If there is a detailed discussion of 1st century sources in the body, then its conclusions can get "summarized" in the lede. If you think a lengthy discussion of first century sources is needed in this article, it can of course be discussed. But unless present in the body can not go in the lede per WP:LEDE. But that is just one problem, and whatever goes in the lede must be a clear reflection of the scholarly consensus on the subject, again per WP:LEDE. Else another user will add something else Ehrman said next to yours, and the lede will be the size of 3 sections. There are policies and guidelines, you seem unaware of them, and are walking all over them. And please avoid multiple reverts, for an edit war will buy nothing except headaches and wasted time. Please discuss before reverting. History2007 (talk) 02:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The basic idea is already there: "Supporters of the Christ myth theory point to the lack of any known written references to Jesus during his lifetime and the relative scarcity of non-Christian references to him in the 1st century, and dispute the veracity of the existing accounts of him.". If I add info about archaelogical evidence (none) and writings of Jesus (none), will you accept that? Humanpublic (talk) 02:31, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Also, if there is scholarly dispute about the nonexistence of any evidence from his alleged time, please provide sources. Humanpublic (talk) 02:33, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem is WP:Due as well as WP:LEDE and of course WP:Fringe now. Although the "supporters of the Christ myth theory point to the lack of any known written references to Jesus" that section makes it clear that the myth theory is a WP:Fringe item. And fringe items can not get prime time in the lede. The long and short of it is that your edit is giving prime time importance to a WP:Fringe item, and is hence running over multiple policies. A few sections above there was a long discussion and a clear consensus that Christ myth theory items are WP:Fringe items and should be minimized in this article. You certainly saw that discussion. Hence please avoid the addition of WP:Fringe items to the lede, for even their inclusion in the body was rejected by consensus a few sections above here. Hence the path you are following is going to lead to nowhere for it is both clearly against the consensus established a few sections above and clearly against policy per WP:Fringe and WP:LEDE both. History2007 (talk) 02:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I saw that you added a sentence on that, and I added proper overview sources. As you see, the lack of 1st century sources is not accepted by scholars as an indication of non-existence. Hence you can not give it prime time in the lede, per WP:Synthesis, WP:LEDE and WP:Fringe. Is that clear now? History2007 (talk) 02:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * What you added was, ironically, an enormous amount of "synthesis" as defined in the link you gave me. And, NONE of it it is verifiable since it is all from books. Please cite below all of the actual source text you are using in what you jus added. Your comment about the lede doesn't make sense to me. The lede should contain what is highly relevant. The absolute lack of physical evidence is relevant to historicity, so if historicity belongs in the lede, so does the lack of evidence. Please quote the texts you cite below, so we can assess them.... Humanpublic (talk) 03:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * What nonsense. It is verifiable; if you want to verify it, get the books. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 03:09, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Seb is right of course. I did get a chuckle out of "NONE of it it is verifiable since it is all from books." You need to read WP:V as well. Books by well known publishers are the best WP:RS sources. Trust me that after writing 600 articles I know how to source. Trust me on that one per WP:AGF. I do not need to quote my source so you can assess it. Trust me on that, and read WP:RS about books being the best sources. As for lack of sources being relevant, so is the inapplicability of arguments from silence. Look, there is an entire article on Christ myth theory and you are effectively attempting to do a WP:Merge on these two articles. If you wan to do that, suggest it here, and there. All your edits are pointing to the presentation of Christ myth theory in the lede. If that is to happen, there needs to be a WP:Merge. To make it easy for you, I will suggest it in both places. And we will let the process begin. Now, remember WP:3RR, stop reverting for a day or two and let us see what people say about the merge idea. Ok? History2007 (talk) 03:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. I'm not "applying" any arguments. I'm informing readers of facts that are true, relevant, interesting, and sourced. Everything you added is just an attempt to belittle those facts. And a lot of it is synthesis and irrelevant. According to the definition you gave, the argument from silence applies mainly to writings. The facts I added are about physical and archaeological evidence. Please quote the texts you are citing. You made your edit less than 20 minutes after mine, and added seven sources. I find it hard to believe you carefully examined seven scholarly books in less than 20 minutes. Humanpublic (talk) 03:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Now, read WP:AGF and stop this. Understand? I do not need to examine 7 books in 20 minutes. I have researched this topic for years. I know exactly where to get the sources for I have spent years on that. The 7 sources I added came from... you guess. I had even given you the link in the section above, you did not even read it. History2007 (talk) 03:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Let me get this straight. You complained I was merging Christ myth theory with this article, then you took whole chunks of text and references from Christ myth theory and added them to this article. Have you actually read the sources you cited?? Humanpublic (talk) 03:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * and have you read his explanation. Not everyone here started reading books yesterday. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 03:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * By the way, I will have to stop for a while, but will be back later. History2007 (talk) 03:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I think this discussion is an instance, of a more general WP:Fringe issue, as below. I will just briefly mention that in the historical method arguments from silence may go beyond text, have been discussed since the Rankian method, are part of folk knowledge, and are a somewhat weak method of analysis in many cases from a historical analysis perspective. Nothing new to write home about. History2007 (talk) 13:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I didn't present an argument. I added true relevant and sourced facts. You then added a bunch of synthesis about the argument from silence, apparently with sources you haven't read. Again, please tell us: 1) which of the sources you added have you actually read, if any, 2) what they actually say. Thanks. Humanpublic (talk) 15:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * There is nothing wrong with the argument you made, we both could and should mention in the relevant section of the article that there is no physical evidence for Jesus. However, when so doing, we should stay true to the sources and reflect what they say. Surely you agree that the main message of the article you cite is that there is no doubt about Jesus's existence. Now, if you want to make an argument about this historical person being very different from the "Christian Jesus", you have both my support and, more to the point, the support of good academic sources.Jeppiz (talk) 15:27, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This discussion is now taking place on Chris myth theory, where he is even asking if the term exists. Good Heavens. This is eating time like anything, but here is the term The Argument from Silence John Lange, History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1966), pp. 288-301. Quite obvious actually. But this is bordering on comedy now, asking if the term exists, asking for a "basic tutorial" on the historical method, etc. Anyone can type into Wikipedia of course, logical or not, but this is pushing to the limit of absurdity. History2007 (talk) 15:42, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * This user is now running wild, cutting items all over the place based on I just don't like it. In this edit he deleted a ref to the Oxford Dictionaty and added a website. I have not looked at the website yet (which may eventually get WP:LINKROT), but the Oxford Dictionary is a good source. In the next edit just deleted a source statement that goes against his arguments elsewhere. This needs to stop. History2007 (talk) 16:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Have you read the sources you added here, or not? I see the material I removed from Argument from silence was added by you. You used a 2007 translation of a text from the year 1103 as a source. You misquoted another book that was not reliable anyway--a book on trade in ancient Greece not a source on the general validity of a type of argument, and it didn't say what you said anyway. You don't seem to bother to actually research the sources you use.Humanpublic (talk) 16:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Support topic ban. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:20, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, but may get a block before a ban anyway, and he started the ANI thread himself. I am out of breath here. In this edit he deleted a statement from Yifa based on I just don't like it really. History2007 (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I also support a topic ban. ReformedArsenal (talk) 18:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The issue of a topic-ban is discussed here .Jeppiz (talk) 19:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

History2007: Have you read the sources you added? Please provide the specific text you are citing, so other editors can assess it. Thank you. Humanpublic (talk) 23:34, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * History2007: Have you read the sources you added? You copy/pasted the text from another article. You added multiple book-length sources in under 20 minutes. Have you read them or not?
 * Please, as a matter of informing both your fellow editors and our readers, provide the text from the sources that you are relying on.
 * The argument from silence is about statements, not physical or archaelogical evidence. What does it have to do with my edit? Thanks. Humanpublic (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * My fellow editors? But of course. Yet that made me smile... I liked that one. Now, two points: Let me categorically, categorically state that as far as I recall I have read or checked every single source there some time in the past few months. Every single one. In the case of Van Voorst, I practically know that book by heart now. As I said upfront, I brought it over from the other article and AGF-ed on it because your edit was so far off. Let me say that again: because your edit was so far off. But why should I say it: another user said it to you much better:


 * Bart Ehrman's interview on Jesus-mythicists "There are no Roman sources from Jesus’ day that mention Jesus—again, true. Our only sources come decades later by biased individuals who believed in Jesus, and that they’re not trustworthy sources. Those are their negative arguments. I deal with all of those arguments. I lay them out as fairly as I can and then show why they’re not very good arguments, even though they sound really good. When you actually investigate them they’re actually not that strong." to User:Humanpublic "There are no sources from the time Jesus is alleged to have lived that mention him." (period) wouldn't of itself be a problem if acres of Talk page bytes hadn't been trying to explain to User:Humanpublic why that isn't good processing from source to high-profile article lead copy. Too much WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT on Talk, too much of being an evangelist for the WP:TRUTH. The rest of the editors on that article (of whom I'm not one) deserve a couple of weeks' rest.


 * He said it very well. Your edit took the first part of Ehrman's utterance, ignored the fact that Ehrman demolishes that in the second utterance and just left it there. It is of no use quoting Ehrman to suggest non-existence when he is a strong supporter of existence. It is like quoting Milton Friedman to support more regulation. Anyone who has ever read Freedman knows he was against it. Anyone who has read Ehrman knows that he defends existence. So there is no point in using Ehrman as a source to suggest that the lack of contemporary evidence maters when Ehrman's basic tenet is that it does not matter. But he said it well anyway about the past discussions on this eating time here, so I really don't know why I have to say more on that issue. The other brouhaha on the Arguments from silence page was along the same lines as this. Oxford Dictionary is no good, etc... In the end: nothing. Zero. Zero. This one will probably amount to the same. In fact that entire quote you added and what I added to it from the other page needs touch up given the above statement about Ehrman, and I will address that later today or tomorrow. The suggested vacation is over I guess... I just love Wikipedia... History2007 (talk) 18:35, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I quoted his support for the nonexistence of physical, archaelogical, and written evidence, which is appropriate because he supports those views. He calls them absolutely true. I did not say he "supports nonexistence." You are being dishonest.
 * Please provide the source texts you're using to support your edit. Humanpublic (talk) 20:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Your statement "You are being dishonest" is surprising and unacceptable to me. I issued yet another notice, and stated that a block is in order for you based on the continued disregard for WP:NPA. I can not continue editing here in the face of unchecked and continued personal attacks by you after multiple warnings that go unheeded. I will hence have to stop editing here due to these continued personal attacks. History2007 (talk) 21:01, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I felt the same way when Jeppiz said I was "dishonest in the extreme" and that I made "the most dishonest edit" he's seen in a long time. Why aren't you demanding that he be blocked? Humanpublic (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2013 (UTC)


 * My due apologies. Sorry if it sounded harsh. I thought, and I still think, it was a rather bad edit and I thought and still think it misrepresented the source. I should only have said that, nothing more, so I'm striking it in my comment above.22:44, 18 February 2013 (UTC) (user:Jeppiz)

The brouhaha seems to have died out now in any case. So I will try to make some edits, and fixes. History2007 (talk) 05:54, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * In that case, will you participate in dispute resolution? Humanpublic (talk) 19:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You were reverted by various other users. It is just not me. I have commented there already. That is it. As Jeppiz suggested above, I will stop feeding you now. History2007 (talk) 19:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Right, you think you don't need DRN in order to "win", so why bother. How about working collaboratively? Humanpublic (talk) 15:10, 23 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Humanpublic you can work collaboratively or you can engage is massive edit-warring, forum-shopping and harassing users who express different opinions to yours. This far History2007 has chosen the former while you've chosen the latter, but if the statement above means you'll opt for the former from now on, then all the better.Jeppiz (talk) 15:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Refusing DRN is refusing collaboration. Your agenda has become obvious with your latest ANI. You're just a drama-hound. At least History2007 is here for something he believes in (albeit with a lot of biases). Go back to ANI and find some new carcasses to pick at. Humanpublic (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I've written a long reply at DRN, get your facts right.Jeppiz (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, there he goes again... What can one say? History2007 (talk) 15:48, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Historical views items
As I said above, the discussion above about claims of Jesus and beliefs of early followers, seems to indicate that this article needs more on the background of that. We can already know that there is no consensus on Jesus' claim to be a Messiah or God because:


 * There are only 3 solid issues on which there is almost unanimous agreement: existence, baptism by John and crucifixion by Pilate.


 * There are 8 items on which there is general agreement, but nowhere close to unanimous, in 2 groups of 4 (as explained in this section):


 * Jesus was baptized, called disciples, had a controversy at the Temple, was crucified by the Romans


 * Jesus was a Galilean, he confined his travels to Galilee and Judea; after his death his disciples continued; some of them were persecuted


 * There is no general scholarly agreement on anything else at all and a feudal system exists among scholars with 5 mainstream schools of thought being: apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish Messiah and prophet of social change

I think something simple and similar to that needs to be added here for clarification.

The comment by Jepiz above about additional articles reminded me of the need for clean up elsewhere. If you guys feel like doing something to improve this topic, in my view is that here is the place to start, as suggested back in October. Note that the last talk page comment there was December 2010 and no one seems to be working on it. That article is really written with the mindset that the Commodore 64 is still the main force in personal computing. One can not present a study of the historical views topic without that article. In any case, the biggest positive impact can be provided by dispelling the rumor that the Commodore 64 still reigns and that the scholars mentioned in the Quest for the historical Jesus still represent the field.

Now, to add some of the historical views material here, per WP:LENGTH, some of the "life in the bible" material should go, and we can move that elsewhere. But should not be hard to do. If you guys agree, we can move out some of the life in the bible material, and add more about the historical views items such as apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish Messiah and prophet of social change. That should not be hard either. History2007 (talk) 00:25, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Lead
I've been trying a little bit to follow the discussions, but found it overwhelming. Yet, I would like to make two proposals for the lead, in the same sentence, namely in "Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed." No intent to stir up discussions again, but trying to give a compromise. The Christ myth Theory is also mentioned in the article, so it deserves mention in the lead; yet, more than that is not necessary I think. Those who are interested can find out for themselves, by following the links and references. No need to push points here. Greetings,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   17:58, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) "Virtually all contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed":
 * 2) "Although the Christ myth theory has received support from some scholars (references), virtually all contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed."


 * Please see this discussion. As you can see there, there used to be a whole section on Christ myth theory. Some users wanted it deleted because it is WP:Fringe and per policy can only get links and no sections. Being on the side of pragmatism, I favored keeping it to avoid debates with IPS. But the final decision was to get rid of it. Now, regarding "Christ myth theory received support from some scholars" as discussed on the archives there are less than handful whichever way you count them. There may be 2, 3 or 4 at most and certainly not a single professor of History or Classics supports it. So it really more WP:Fringe than those who argue against the speed of light. And given that it has no section now, and is fringe it could not go in the lede. But your suggestion for "contemporary scholars" seems valid to me, given that 50-70 years ago there were scholars, but the trends have changed and these days there are hardly any at all. History2007 (talk) 19:12, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually I mention "contemporary" because the sentence is ambigue to me: did those scholars live during antiquety, or are they contemporary? Apparently, it can even be interpreted in three ways. Greetings,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   21:25, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Unless of course one of the scholars had been Larry King (who had lived from antiquity to modern times, as I joked there before). But I guess "modern scholars of antiquity" would make it clear in any case. History2007 (talk) 21:29, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I definitely support adding modern/contemporary to those sentences for clarification. I myself initially got the impression that the sentence was referring to ancient scholars.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:20, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * It didn't occur to me that "scholars of antiquity" might be taken to mean "scholars from antiquity". Since there is agreement (at least at the moment) that adding "contemporary" to the sentence would be a good idea, I went ahead and did it.Smeat75 (talk) 04:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I've looked up Voorst, and his statement regarding the historicity of Jesus is in a section on Wells. It would be fair to start the sentence with "Although the historicity of Jesus has been questioned" - for which Voorst himself is a reliable source, since he deals with this topic. Greetings,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   09:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, but when there are very, very few fringe (mostly amateur, non-academic) people questioning something, per WP:Fringe it matters not and is never mentioned in Wikipedia when the mainstream item is discussed. The article on geology does not talk about the Flat Earth theory, of course. Does the Wikipedia article on the speed of light talk about "speed of light deniers"? Of course it does not, again per WP:Fringe. Let me put it this way:


 * "there are more professors of physics who deny the constancy of the speed of light than professors of history who deny the existence of Jesus".

Andreas Albrecht and João Magueijo are two examples of speed of light deniers. Now, (per John Dickson's challenge above) could someone find one full professor at a department of History or Classics in a good university that denies existence? Dickson said on ABC News that he will eat a page of the Bible if a professor is found.

As discussed before, per WP:Due, as Jimmy Wales explained: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."

The flatness of the earth has also been questioned, but per WP:Fringe it only gets discussed in its own tangential article not in the geology articles. There are of course some members of the "amateur brigade" who have written self-published items that say Einstein got it wrong, the earth is flat or Jesus did not live, but not many professors say that. And in the case of the existence of Jesus, no professors of history or Classics say that. Non-existence of Jesus has "no academic support" and is a pure fringe theory and per WP:Fringe can not be given any weight in the 21st century. Period. History2007 (talk) 10:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * But then it's still the question why the historicity of Jesus is mentioned so explicitly, with notes underscoring this point? I think the answer is obvious: because the historicity is denied by some, which is exactly what Voorst, and also Ehrman (2012) are responding to. At least Voorst and Ehrman deem the issue to be important enough to mention. As the lead is now, their response is being mentioned, but the issue they are responding to is not. That's not logical, is it? Greetings,   Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   13:26, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Historicity is denied by the "amateur brigade" and hence that needs to be clarified. And "some" is vague and may suggest there are 20% of the academics, but in fact they are 0% of the academics. And note that although Van Voorst does mention Wells, as has been discussed here and in the article, in the words of Van Voorst Wells did an "about face" before the end of last century, and now agrees that the Q source likely refers to a preacher whose followers grew and formed a church. And as this discussion pointed out, policy is clear on the use of WP:Fringe items. They do not come in along with mainstream ideas. That is policy. History2007 (talk) 13:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The lead is supposed to summarise the rest of the article. The idea that there was never such a person as Jesus and the virtual unanimous rejection of that idea by the scholarly community is discussed in the section "Historical Views" under "Existence". Ehrman, a secular scholar, makes a stronger statement than this article does about "Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed", he says that "every single scholar of early Christianity...universally, as an entire body...(every) recognized scholar in that field of scholarship" does, []. To mention the very fringe "doubters" in the lead would be to give them undue weight.Smeat75 (talk) 14:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll read it, thanks. The %-argument is clear. I still see an inconsistency, though, presenting the arguments against the "fringe theory" in the lead, i.e. paying attention to this debate, but not mentioning the "fringe theory" itself, against which the arguments are directed. But never mind, it's okay so. There are still plenty of links, for those who are interested in "fringe theory". Greetings,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   16:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I personally have no strong opinion on this but considering such lengthy discussions i think third opinion templates might be appropriate. Pass a Method   talk  09:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * WP:3O is only appropriate when the disagreement is between only two editors. ReformedArsenal (talk) 11:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

rather not; there's already so much discussion going on at this page. Personally I'm sympathetic toward those Christ Myth Theories, especially Earl Doherty, but History2007 has got sound arguments, pointing out that those theories are not supported by mainstream academics. That settles the discussion, I think. Joshua Jonathan  -  Let's talk!   06:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. History2007 (talk) 10:06, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * History2007 has no argument about mainstream, secular historians at all. The fact is, to date, not a single peer-reviewed source has been provided stating that it is a fact Jesus existed. THe overwhelming majority sources used for this claim are books written for a popular audience and/or theologians who got their training an degrees from Bible colleges. What History2007 has regarding consensus is not any neutral poll. What is widely referred to as the "consensus" is the beliefs of those who have bothered to express an opinion on the matter, and those are almost entirely Christian theologians and the authors of popular books. We know it is false that "virtually all" scholars believe Jesus existed, because if that were true it would be trivial to find secular historians--not profs of religion, not New Testament scholars, but actual historians--saying Jesus existed as a fact in peer-reviewed journals. And yet, nobody has produced any. None of this is surprising, since History2007 is a Bible-based SPA with 75000 edits, and 90% of them about the Bible.


 * Meanwhile, the editors who guard these pages have an evangelical majority dedicating to censoring factual sourced material, such as this. There is zero physical or archaelogical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and there is no contemporaneous mention of him in any record. Relevant facts that these editors want to whitewash and downplay, because they don't want this encyclopedia to cast doubt on their Messiah. Humanpublic (talk) 14:34, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * As has been pointed out to you time and again Humanpublic, that statement ""Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed" is sourced to Bart Ehrman and Michael Grant, among others, and "mainstream, secular historians" is exactly what they are. You dismiss Ehrman on the grounds that he went to a theological college (although he is no longer a believer in the Christian religion) and eminent classical historian Michael Grant on the ludicrous grounds that he "wrote popular books". Grant was a very high flying academic scholar who had such success with writing history for general audiences that he was able to resign his academic positions and devote himself to writing, which is a tribute to him, not something that disqualifies him as a reliable source. I recommend you read WP:Fringe and particularly the sentences in the section "In-text attribution" - Since fringe theories may be obscure topics that few non-adherents write about, there may only be a small number of sources that directly dispute them. Care should be taken not to mislead the reader by implying that, because the claim is actively disputed by only a few, it is otherwise supported. Most historians and scholars of the subject do not bother to refute "there was never such a person as Jesus" as it is simply not taken seriously among experts. I would appreciate it, by the way, if you could stop presenting yourself as being censored on this page by evangelical Christian fanatics.In my case that is so far off target as to be laughable and comes close to being a personal attack.Smeat75 (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Ehrman is not a historian at all. He's a religion professor. His background is in theology. Grant's expertise was coins. Humanpublic (talk) 15:52, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You might want to read WP:Truth. Wikipedia follows what professional sources say. It doesn't matter what you believe that the "facts" are. If virtually all professional sources say the world is flat, then Wikipedia needs to say that the world is flat.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:46, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Correction: then Wikipedia needs to say that all professional sources say that the world is flat. Which is exactly what this article does do (regarding the existence of Jesus, of course, not the flatness of the world). That there may be a bias in the academic c.q. theological world is a possibility which is emntioned in the Christ Myth Theory article. We can keep on arguing about "truth", but Wikipedia is about what secundary sources say, not about determining what the "truth" is - though we cannot completely discard notions of truth, of course. For pragmatic reasons, I think it's okay as it is now: an article on Jesus, which reflects the scholarly concensus on Jesus, and additional articles which also reflect other opinions. Anyone interested in the alternatives can find more than plenty by a simple Google search (Christ Myth Theory & Jesus Myth Theory). By the way, I also like social-constructionism, so I find "quid est veritas?" a very nice Biblical quote. We simply won't know who or what Jesus was - or wasn't. So be it. And although I doubt whether Jesus really existed, I've got a Jesus-statue hanging on the wall, for very strong personal convictions. But mentioning this may be a violating of the non-chat rule, isn't it? Face-smile.svg Best regards to everyone,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   15:30, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

"Virtually all contemporary scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed." I agree with the first person to bring this up: what an awkward sentence. Sooo..we can we change the lead sentence to "modern scholars of antiquity" or not? When I first read it, I gasped in shock since I interpreted it as showing Jesus was universally recognized by his own contemporary scholars, which is false. It's a shame if millions of readers make the same mistake. It's just a one word addition for better clarity, I don't see why there is so much debate about it. This article still reflects mainstream thought, ignores the modern day fringe, and would still be from a clearly from a Christian POV to keep the apologists of the Jesus historicity happy, even with the word "modern". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamcyclops (talk • contribs) 03:08, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree, "contemporary" is very awkward in that sentence and can be misinterpreted. Saying "modern" instead of "contemporary" would be much better.Jeppiz (talk) 10:52, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Pilate
The article could be improved by describing WHY Pilate condemned Jesus, who he found innocent of wrongdoing. (Answer:only the Romans could put a person to death. The Jewish high priests had to go to Pilate to get him to condemn Jesus. To death. When the crowd, egged on by the high priests kept demanding death Pilate said he WASHED HIS HANDS OF THE WHOLE AFFAIR and condemned him to death notwithstanding his innocence. )

Without this explanation there is no logical connection between Pilate a roman condemning a person he found innocent, and a Jew who was crucified. 04:45, 25 March 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.251.121.198 (talk)


 * That would be the interpretation of the gospel texts and probably outside the scope of this article for it will need to address multiple theories and angles on that. History2007 (talk) 04:06, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Distinguish
We should be distinguishing beteen a historian consensus on a human Jesus existing amd a divine Jesus existing because the next sentence and next paragraph speaks about divinity, possibly confusing the reader. Pass a Method  talk  13:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The existence of Jesus is hardly disputed, but some of his divine actions are. That's basically what the first two sentences of the paragraph is saying. Doesn't look confusing to me. Adding "human" in front of "Jesus" in the first sentence is somewhat awkward and maybe more confusing. I suggest beginning the second sentence with "However..." This might make it clearer for readers the lack of consensus among historians regarding Jesus's divinity.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Only in a Biblical culture would somebody say "some of his divine action are [disputed]." The "divine actions" of Jesus have the same status as those of Zeus. Humanpublic (talk) 15:59, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Other than the fact that "NO ONE" believes any of the divine actions by Zeus are anything more than fable and a significant portion of the world believes that Jesus' were.Ckruschke (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke
 * So? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ornowhere (talk • contribs) 20:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * @Ckruschke. Thats untrue, there are thousands of followers of Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism who believe in Zeus Pass a Method   talk  12:15, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Can we agree that a claim that would require no source when made in a non-religious context, should not require a source merely because it is religious? Humanpublic (talk) 17:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking, every contentious claim on wikipedia requires a source, regardless of the context. Could you give an example of the sort of statement you think would not require a source in a secular context? -- LWG talk 17:56, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Whether or not something requires a source always depends on context. So... what exactly do you claim doesn't need a source? And how does tha relate to the topic at hand, anyways? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 18:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually the one thing we have hardly ever seen from Humanpublic are WP:RS sources. He types comments based on personal opinions, deletes things at will, etc. based on his own concepts, but WP:RS "sources" have not been forthcoming from him. Getting pretty monotonous in fact. History2007 (talk) 18:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You keep repeating this, I keep explaining it, and you keep ignoring the explanation and repeating the same complaint. Ehrman is not a reliable source on what all scholars believe. He is a borderline source on what historians believe, since he is not a historian. He is a religion professor. As editors, it should seem questionable that it is a fact all scholars agree on something when that something isn't supported by a single peer-reviewed secular journal. None of those concerns require sources. There are other things that matter to an encyclopedia. Humanpublic (talk) 00:33, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I will just note that this user is breaching the topic ban imposed just yesterday. As they say... So the conclusion is clear here. History2007 (talk) 00:50, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Humanpublic, you might like to look at Bart D. Ehrman, where you will see, for instance, the information that "In his book Forged which was released in 2011, he asserts that 11 or more books of the Christian New Testament were essentially politically expeditious forgeries, intended to advance various theological positions and were in fact not written by the authors traditionally ascribed to them." Ehrman is far from the prejudiced fundamentalist Christian you seem to take him to be.He is a leading scholar of the New Testament. You are well on the way to being banned from this site altogether, and believe it or not, I do not want to see that happen. Wikipedia can and should be a place where editors of all different views collaborate in a civil atmosphere. It is not a battleground.Smeat75 (talk) 02:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with that about Ehrman, and would add that he also believes that "Jesus got it wrong" on a number of issues. And as we have said before, Ehrman is well respected (but not liked) but both sides of the debate - the Christians call him a turncoat and the others call him an ex-Christian. So he is middle of the road, and respected. History2007 (talk) 02:51, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The point didn't have anything to do with whether he's respected. He;s not a historian and this is a historical question. Mythirdself (talk) 04:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * What sourcing does the assertion regarding the "classification method" rely on? The article states "scholars of antiquity" which includes Classicists, historians, New Testament scholars, etc. all of them. And to be able to "count heads" as to who said what one does not need deep domain expertise. And again, there are zero opposing sources that count heads otherwise. I am sorry, but this has been discussed N times now. History2007 (talk) 15:10, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * That point has been made. At Wikipedia we use sources. Ehrman qualifies under WP:RS (a Princeton-educated professor of the New Testament with a large number of peer-reviewed publications and a position at a good university). As long as no WP:RS to the contrary has been presented, the whole discussion is moot.Jeppiz (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, and would again point out that Ehrman is not giving a personal opinion via the analysis of ancient texts in this case, he is just giving a "head count" based on simple arithmetic. History2007 (talk) 15:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Ehrman says nothing about his methodology at all. It seems very much like an informal opinion or impression, not a head count. Mythirdself (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You lost me on that one. Methodology for counting the number of scholars = methodology for headcount. Unless some scholars had 2 heads of course... History2007 (talk) 20:10, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, another lawyer-wannabe dwelling in the bowels (politics and religion) of Wikipedia. Cute. Mythirdself (talk) 00:21, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Mythirdself, I guess it's just a funny coincidence that you turn up here after Humanpublic was topic-banned, that you continue the discussion where he left off, that you use the same arguments that he used, that you are just as unwilling to present sources when urged to do so, and that you throw around the same accusations of lawyering that Humanpublic and Strangesad are so fond of.Jeppiz (talk) 00:35, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I do not think Mythirdself is a sock of either of those two other accounts. He has no sources as you said, but I think he is a different person. But in any case, as usual: "no source, no go"... History2007 (talk) 01:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Friendly place. Mythirdself (talk) 09:21, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * At Wikipedia as in real life, much depends on ourselves. In your first comment you challenged a WP:RS and that is perfectly fine. However, you didn't present any sources of your own and already in your third comment you instead resorted to snide comments and sarcasm about those who don't agree with you. If you want Wikipedia to be a friendly place, then consider your own behavior.Jeppiz (talk) 11:42, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * ...and getting friendlier. Mythirdself (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * ... Pot, meet Kettle. ReformedArsenal (talk) 18:55, 30 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Clever place. Mythirdself (talk) 02:53, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Virtually all scholars agree Jesus existed
There are several problems with this sentence. For example: I think we may be seeing a display of WP:CHRISTIANPOV out here. Pass a Method  talk  19:01, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It is cherrypicking sources. Multiple other sources such as those in Christ myth theory and google scholar give a different picture.
 * It violates undue weight. For example why cover consensus on his historicity but not consensus that the supernatural claims are are unfounded?
 * It is misleading since "Jesus" has different definitions to different people.
 * WP:Stick Please read the FAQ and previous discussions.---FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The phrase "virtually all scholars" is a Christian POV. The source is almost always a professor of religion or theologian, and always a popular book. When challened, the Christian POV-pushers define "scholar" narrowly to exclude critics. THere is no neutral, independent poll, which is the only real RS for a claim like that. Humanpublic (talk) 15:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * There we go again... I think you have been told about WP:RS/AC a few, a few, a few times now. And we are all still reading through the list of the 30 professors of history you provided who have written books denying existence... or did I misplace that list? Where was that list... I wonder... I wonder... History2007 (talk) 16:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, there you go again. The refutation of "all scholars agree" is not restricted to "many scholars disagree." It includes "many scholars don't express an opinion." The main reliable source of what "all scholars" think would be a poll. There is no such poll. Humanpublic (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * And some of us here are mind readers and hence know what professors may be thinking... I had forgotten about that talent... I must have misplaced my crystal ball as well as your list. But in any case, to point out a somewhat obscure, yet important item called WP:V, what goes into Wikipedia is not based on mind reading, personal conjecture, personal guesstimates or personal reasoning. It needs that precious item called a source. You were asked for sources ages, ages ago and provided two web sites (one was a blog) that did not support your position. So let us again start the mantra here: WP:RS, WP:RS... WP:RS... On WP:ANI a couple of users suggested "just ignore Humanpublic". I think that may be good advice now... History2007 (talk) 16:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

At Wikipedia we say what the sources say. That virtually all scholars in a relevant field agree that Jesus existed is a sourced statement. That does not mean that we have to include it, but then the argument against including it should preferably build on another WP:RS from an expert in any relevant field, not merely on WP:IDONTLIKEIT or opinions of people without any expertise of the field. If there is a professor in any relevant field who say that many scholars doubt Jesus existed, then we should of course pay attention to that statement. In the absence of such a source, the whole discussion is moot. Wikipedia is about reliable sources, it's not a forum for people to put forward their personal ideas.Jeppiz (talk) 16:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. While Humanpublic argues that many scholars may not have expressed an opinion, he somehow forgot to present a reliable source for that claim. So still no reliable sources disagree with Ehrman et al. Huon (talk) 16:49, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * No reliable source is needed for that claim, since it is not something anybody has proposed putting in the article. Humanpublic (talk) 16:55, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Nitpicking on a point, given that you have used that in your argument, as usual sans a source... as usual... History2007 (talk) 16:59, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Worse than nitpicking. That was given as an argument why we should ignore what other reliable sources say, for all I can tell. We won't remove relevant, sourced content without equally reliable sources contradicting it. Huon (talk) 17:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. There is no question that there is no list of professors who write books disagreeing, or that Humanpublic has failed to find a source that says so - his entire argument is based on his personal view of what may be going on in the minds of experts. That is reliance on mind reading in lieu of WP:RS sources. If he had WP:RS sources he would have presented them by now, for sure, for sure. It has been months and months and he is still arguing and when asked for a source what he produces are more arguments, not sources. One of these days I may just suggest to him to read WP:V if time allows, of course. History2007 (talk) 17:37, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I fully agree. If anyone wants to change the article or challenge any part of it, then that is fully in order with a reliable source. Requesting that we should remove a sourced statement by one of the leading experts in the field (incidentally not a Christian, though it doesn't matter) simply because some user doesn't agree with it reveals a failure to understand how Wikipedia functions.Jeppiz (talk) 17:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, if only we had not said the same thing N times now... I should write a little ELIZA-like bot that just inserts those arguments... In fact we could have two bots, ELIZA-I and ELIZA-II each simulating each side of this argument. They could just type here once every week or two so people don't get bored, but our keyboards will not wear out that way... History2007 (talk) 18:16, 13 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, and unfortunately there is no Wikipedia policy for the use of the device that would compensate for Humanpublic's lack of sources. History2007 (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

This should replace the so-called FAQ: WP:CHRISTIANPOV Mythirdself (talk) 03:42, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I am sorry, I again see no sources that dispute the virtually all scholars statement. May I suggest a look at WP:RS and specially WP:V again. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 09:56, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Ahmadiyya items
I really do not like to spend time to deal with Ahmadiyya items, but I saw that it was discussed in edit summaries. A few points:


 * It is certainly an Ahmadiyya belief, but not a mainstream Muslim belief.
 * It used to have a section,k but there was discussion sometime ago that it should just be mentioned - I don't remember the whole link now
 * Some of the sources added in that edit are less than WP:RS, or do not apply at all e.g.:


 * Nicolas Notovitch's book is known to be fabricated, and he said that Jesus traveled to India in his earlier years before his baptism; unlike the Ahmadiyya, so does not relate
 * Günter Grönbold is highly critical of the Indian travel theories, so it does not make sense to use him here - note that his Wikipedia page correctly states that Grönbold critically dismisses them.
 * Norbert Klatt is also generally critical of the issues, so no reason to use him this way.

So I think the Ahmadiyya beliefs need to be mentioned of course, but many of he items added no just do not fly. History2007 (talk) 21:10, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Good information, as always. I made a partial edit to my former reinstatement to reflect this. I also think we need to point out that virtually all academics reject the idea that Jesus migrated to India, as that is certainly a controversial view with next to no academic support.Jeppiz (talk) 21:42, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are in fact two separate issues here:


 * Going to India as a young person (say 18-20 years old) and learning things there, as suggested by Notovitch.


 * Surviving crucifixion by using some medication - it says Aloe and Myrrh here now, but on the talk of Dodecapharmacum there is a long discussion about Unguentum Apostalorum, etc.


 * The "Other views" section here does say that scholars do not agree with travels to India, etc. Shingō, Aomori page says that Jesus had a Japanese brother, and is buried there, etc. The Ahmadiyya views are "beliefs" and can hence be mentioned as beliefs, unlike the Notovitch claims that said he had been to the Monsatery, etc. There is also the swoon hypothesis - again a long discussion, and mostly fringe. So the Ahmadiyya does need to be mentioned as a belief (and that Ahmad claimed to be the second coming himself) but Grönbold, etc. are in fact in the opposite camp. There is a very long discussion of this also on the Roza Bal page, discussion of misprints in texts that were then interpreted by the Ahmaddi etc. - a really long story; and too long for this article to handle. History2007 (talk) 22:14, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I saw that Medz again added "The general notion of Jesus in India is older than the foundation of the movement, and has been researched by independent historians with no affiliation to the movement" That was of course Notovitch & company - and they do not relate to survival, but travel as a teenager, etc. so that is a confused statement. Also the swoon is a fringe item and more general than Ahmaddi and should not relate there. So the by and large that edit is not great - to say the least... And to say that just the movement considers him the second coming is also incorrect, for he claimed that himself, etc. So I touched that up with WP:RS sources. Medz if you are to add that there were "other historians" before Ahmad, please say which historians because as above that needs to be clear, not left for the reader to guess. History2007 (talk) 10:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


 * History007, the fact that Notovich had claimed that Jesus was in india at some point of his life - whether this was before crucifixion or after is irrelavent, this does not disparage the fact that the "general notion of Jesus in India" had existed independently and prior to the founder's claim. This is an important point that needs to be clearly mentioned as the notion is not just an exclusively religious belief. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medz (talk • contribs) 11:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This sounds like WP:SYN to me. Does the source relate the prior notion of Jesus in India to the Ahmadiyya beliefs? Huon (talk) 17:41, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The accurate statement there would have been "the hoax of Jesus in India had been fabricated by Nicholas Notovitch in his book Lucke im Leben Jesus before then". Just saying the notion had existed makes it imply that Ahmad built on the research of "historians such as Notovitch". But Notovitch was no historian, he was a "journalist and a spy" and if you read his own Wikipage you will see the sentence: "The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax." Schneemelcher and Wilson ( ISBN 066422721X page 84) specifically state: "a particular book by Nicolas Notovich (Di Lucke im Leben Jesus 1894) ... shortly after the publication of the book, the reports of travel experiences were already unmasked as lies. The fantasies about Jesus in India were also soon recognized as invention... down to today, nobody has had a glimpse of the manuscripts with the alleged narratives about Jesus". So referring to Notovitch as a "historian" is pretty funny. History2007 (talk) 17:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Influence network
Note: the "influenced" field for the subject of the article might become contentious, if it ever gets started. Has there been an RfC on the matter already?--76.220.18.223 (talk) 03:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Look through the archives - it was discussed at length long ago, before my time, and shelved. Any statement on the influence of Jesus on world affairs etc. will be a recipe for debate headaches and will in the end go nowhere. That is for sure. History2007 (talk) 03:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Now Question number 6 in the FAQ. History2007 (talk) 04:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Most denomination's belief in the son of God
I was surprised the opening sentence reads that only "MOST Christian denominations hold Jesus to be the son of God"

It should simply read "Christian denominations hold...", since belief in the sonship is a defining attribute of Christianity. This testified to by wikipedia, for instance here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_Council > First Council of Constantinople (381) repudiated Arianism and Macedonianism, declared that Christ is "born of the Father before all time", revised the Nicene Creed in regard to the Holy Spirit.

This article earlier states that all branches of Christianity agree with this (second ecumenical) council. This is further attested to by wikipedia's list of Christian heresies, the first, third, and other listed heresies demonstrate that Christianity in it's entirety believes Jesus to be the Son of God

Even groups such as Mormons and Jehovah Witness agree with Jesus being the Son of God (a son of God in JW), and they are arguably not Christian denominations (even though they state they are) 178.240.20.240 (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is the case that Mark 1:1 starts with that attribution. But as it happens, Christian denominations excel at disagreeing with each other, and I am not sure if there are some smaller ones which interpret that other ways. To say that "all denominations" hold that would need a source. But remember that there are new denominations forming as we speak, e.g. the Oneness groups are branching out and no one even knows what they teach in detail, for there is no central teaching office. But the fact that some hold its rejection to be a heresy does not matter, for the denominations often disagree with each other anyway. So unless you have a source hat says "all denominations" cannot change it. History2007 (talk) 14:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you History2007, it's a good point that there is no central teaching office (apart from the first 2 ecumenical councils). But I think it's fair that Christianity still needs to be able to define itself as a whole, even if loosely. I think the wikipedia page on heresies shows them attempting to do that, and that they were _extremely_ rigorous on precisely this point... But another source for you :) The nicene creed . Quoting from wikipedia: "[The nicene creed] form[s] the eponymous mainstream definition of Christianity itself" The second sentence of which starts "And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,"

I think it's impossible to find a more authoritative source, or more centrally accepted source than the above (other than Bible, which you made a good quote from. Here is another quote from the bible directly affirming that it must be _all_ denominations ((http://bible.cc/1_john/2-22.htm)))

... I would suggest that Jesus being the Son of God is axiomatic to Christianity. The earliest and most strongly accepted definitions of Christianity are extremely firm on the point of Jesus being the Son of God. This is still true today for Catholics, Protestants (from Anabaptist to Messianic Jews ), Orthodox (Coptic, Greek, Russian, or otherwise). I believe I've just referred to 99.9% of Christianity. And all of them state "we believe Jesus is the son of God, and this is a defining belief of our religion" (infact their agreement with the nicene creed shows this) ... Here wikipedia shows the breadth of Christian thought on Jesus being the son of God, and doesn't show any to the contrary

I entirely agree with you that Christianity is very wide, and encompasses a very wide range of beliefs, and so it is hard to be definitive about them. But I would suggest on this point that Christianity (irrespective of country, denomination, or point in history) has been very very very firm, and continues to be 178.240.20.240 (talk) 19:33, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I have a feeling that we are entering a theological discussion here that goes beyond the scope of this page. I will just briefly mention that the Nicene Creed is very widely accepted, but some groups do not accept it. So this is somewhat like saying "all humans have five fingers on each hand", but we know that there are some who are born with six. But in any case, please see WP:RS about how WP:Secondary sources need to be used. And as a side note Wikipedia can not be used as a source for Wikipedia, so a couple of books by professors would need to say "all denominations" for it to be used. That is how the system works. I am sorry, but those are the policies. History2007 (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

!!! Dear History2007, I'm sure it would be possible to fill pages with primary and secondary sources reflecting this. If you like, I'm not proposing you state "all denominations", but simply reflect what everybody else, writes about Christianity, and say "... the teachings of Christianity hold to be the son of God." For instance: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/basics_1.shtml

I agree the conversation is a little esoteric, in the sense we describe humans as having "2 hands, 5 fingers and 1 nose" But it's possible to say some humans don't have heads, and some humans don't have bodies, and this is entirely true; because some humans are dead... to that extent I'd agree the current text. Or for instance some creationists work as astrophysicists and say the universe is 5000 years old. But I would agree with this not being alluded to in the opening sentence on astrophysics

To state, or prove _all_ is pretty much an impossibility; it would mean asking every Christian, and even then, did they tell the truth? But then to state most, when the answer may be all is also inaccurate. And so I suggest you simply drop the word "most." Googling doesn't show anyone else implying most. When I first read your article a month or so ago, I was shocked, and wondered what strange source supported the word most. I was amused when I found it to be the Bible :) Could you find a source that says there is a Christian denomination who don't believe Jesus is the Son of God? To make sure their definition of Christian denomination is reasonable, I ask you to please find another source that shows even a small percentage of the rest of Christianity also holds them to be a Christian denomination. If that were true, I think I would agree with saying 'most' 178.240.20.240 (talk) 18:30, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Jehovah Witnesses - for one - don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. They believe that he was God's first creation. JW's are not insignificant and, whether we agree with them or not, "they" would consider themselves a Christian denomination. Mormons believe that Jesus is God's "literal" son and therefore do not agree with the Trinity concept - thus are they Christians? And then there are Christian Scientists, who I think - most - Christians would agree definitely aren't Christians by even the loosest definition.
 * I think I agree with History, that we may be getting into a theological discussion that is way beyond the scope of this page. Ckruschke (talk) 19:52, 10 April 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke


 * Yes, this discussion is now going beyond the scope of this page and belongs on the page Christianity. History2007 (talk) 20:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Jehovah Witnesses believe Jesus is _a_ son of God. Mormon's believe Jesus is _the_ son of God.... So where is their disagreement with the suggested change 178.240.20.240 (talk) 21:56, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:V, you need a source that directly says "all denominations". History2007 (talk) 22:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not suggesting "all denominations". I'm suggesting dropping "most". I cannot find sources to support the word "most"


 * For instance Mirriam-Webster. Their concise encyclopedia definition of Christianity puts Jesus being the Son of God on the second sentence, without qualifications, such as most or many. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/christianity 178.240.20.240 (talk) 23:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, thankyou guys for your thought on the issue. I notice the Christianity page's second sentence also says "most Christians..." :( I don't want to have a long debate over one word. My whole experience of Christianity which spans from Chaldean - to High Catholic - to Ethiopian, Coptic and many more says that they believe the nicene creed is definitive of Christianity, that Jesus is the son of God, and to believe otherwise is not Christianity. The way I understand the text implies that these denominations do not believe that


 * Dear History2007, you seem to have a very different understanding of Christianity to me. I respect that. I like seeing different opinions. I notice you've made a detailed effort to wind together many disparate views into one document

178.240.20.240 (talk) 23:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, may I comment on this? "most scholars involved with historical Jesus research believe he existed, but that the supernatural claims associated with him cannot be established using documentary and other evidence.[10][37]" Neither reference refers to the immediately preceding statement. The statement "most scholars believe supernatural claims about him cannot be established using documentary evidence" is I assume untrue -- given that I assume most scholars on this subject are Christian; and the Bible is documentary evidence. But also, as far as I can tell, this secondary statement lacks supporting sources 178.240.20.240 (talk) 23:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That last point needs some thinking - I have not looked at that for a while. The long and short of it is that raising Lazarus does not have any other source except the NT, and so most scholars do not see that as "historical" regardless of what the NT says. And items such as the criterion of embarrassment can not be used on them, because they are laudatory, not embarrassing; unlike getting baptized by John. That is what is meant and I have not looked at the sources or the wording for a long while. Do not even remember where it came from; but can look later. And as you said the wording can be improved. History2007 (talk) 00:20, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thankyou


 * I apologize for using blogs. I don't read Portuguese, so it's hard to give the original sources, but my Brazilian friends told me about this event when it was on their national news. http://37stories.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/16-dead-bodies-confirmed-resurrected-from-the-dead/
 * Also here: www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2662173/posts
 * I wonder at your take on such things? But it's really not hard to find modern sources claiming Jesus is still doing the supernatural. If I follow the wikipedia's guide to reliable sources, I can find you a pretty much unending stream of such. Here is the first page of a first web-search:
 * http://www.christianpost.com/news/modern-day-miracles-51263/
 * Here is another that shows a scholar's view, and fits the criterion of embarrassment:
 * www.examiner.com/article/atheist-professor-howard-storm-dies-and-sees-jesus
 * That took me all of about a minute to find those...


 * I'd like to note that I don't base my faith on these. For that I much prefer personal experience :D
 * 178.240.20.240 (talk) 18:06, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * This last item is a WP:Forum topic. History2007 (talk) 18:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * But in any case, I fixed the chronology item, in that the miracles have nothing to do with chronology anyway, and there was need for a brief overview of it upfront in any case, so thanks. History2007 (talk) 21:31, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 April 2013
Wikipedia is a helpful, widely accessed information resource. Accuracy is sought via input from multiple contributors. As such, please revise the incorrect opening sentence of paragraph two in this article regarding Jesus of Nazareth. It currently reads as follows: "Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed.[9][10]"

Kindly change this to reflect the actual state of contemporary scholarly discussion. Perhaps along the more neutral line of "There is dispute among modern scholars as to whether historical Jesus existed."

In its current form, the sentence misinforms the reader by appearing to ignore contradictory citations from respected historical, archaeological and religious scholars. To wit:

In a critical review of ahistoricist Earl Doherty's book The Jesus Puzzle, Dr. Richard Carrier, Ph.D., world-renowned professional historian, published philosopher, and prominent defender of the American freethought movement, asserts that "As an historian, I do not believe truly decisive evidence exists [for historicial Jesus] either way. It could. We might turn up proof that Jesus did or didn't exist, if we had better documentation of the 1st century, especially of early Christian communities and beliefs, but we don't, a fate that leaves many an historian in an inescapable position of relative ignorance. As it is, we must entertain the plausible possibility that Jesus didn't exist." in Did Jesus Exist? Critical review of Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle. (2002) at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/jesuspuzzle.shtml. - There are numerous additional scholars who in recent years have expressed their doubts as to the historical existence of Jesus to whom this Wikipedia article refers. Kindly note that I personally am NOT arguing one way or the other. I would simply like to help restore the legitimacy of this Wikipedia page, given its obvious importance. Hence your swift action in rectifying this discrepancy would be greatly appreciated.

Notes: Wikipedia citation for Earl Doherty - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Doherty Wikipedia citation for Dr. Richard Carrier - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier Wikipedia citation for The Jesus Puzzle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_jesus_puzzle#The_Jesus_Puzzle

Mdswartz (talk) 17:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * What you cite there is not a peer-reviewed article. We're aware of Carrier's stance, and his credentials as a philosopher or as a "defender of the American freethought movement" are irrelevant to the question at hand. He's one of very few historians with peer-reviewed publications on the topic who assume non-existence, and Carrier himself agrees that his stance is far from the academic consensus. The proposed change would severely misrepresent that consensus, which (rightly or wrongly) states that Jesus did exist. Huon (talk) 17:34, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * FAQ Q3c relates to the request. History2007 (talk) 17:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

GAN?
Is there any chance of this article passing a GAN? If not, what needs to be fixed?--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:25, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * There was talk about a year ago, another user started fixing the refs to have a uniform format, did well on a number of them, then the discussions fizzled out, sockpuppets came in, distraction arrived, etc. It will take serious work to deal with the cosmetic issues alone, refs, etc. History2007 (talk) 17:47, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I see. So what kind of ref format are we aiming for here? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 17:57, 12 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I do not even know; and did no take part in that - too much work. It is somewhere in the archives about 9-12 months ago. History2007 (talk) 18:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find a discussion on a uniform ref format. Anyways, it looks like for most shortened footnotes, the format is "Last name (year) page xxx". If there are no objections, I'm gonna try to convert all the shortened footnotes to this format. Another option we can consider is to use Template:sfn. --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 16:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I found it now. Buried there... History2007 (talk) 16:59, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Regarding reference style I'd say sfn should be the way to go, and I volunteer for the work if that's agreed upon. Huon (talk) 17:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is the best format in all likelihood, just takes effort, if you guys are ready for it. History2007 (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Cool, I'll get started on that.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 17:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I don't want to get into edit conflicts with you, so please leave a note when you're finished for today and I may have a go. Huon (talk) 18:10, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Go for it. I've done some, but there's still a bunch more to fix. I believe this is going to take a while.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:43, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Strange effects and questions I encountered: I started at the beginning and finished with reference no. 99; so roughly a quarter should be done. Huon (talk) 03:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The reference named "Kostenberger140" actually referred to page 114 of Köstenberger, Kellum & Quarles, not 140 - is that correct? I kept p.114, but we should check that. Especially as there's another reference named "Kostenberger114" that also refers to p.114. I haven't converted "Kostenberger114" to sfn yet so we can still tell them apart.
 * Should we combine two sfn cited for the same statement into one sfnm? The answer is certainly "yes" if it's the only occurrence for both of them, but what if one or both of the sfn appears multiple times in the article?
 * I've added a few books to the bibliography as needed; should we put all books there, even those we cite only once?
 * We had references displayed as "Barnett (1999)" that actually linked to Barnett (2002). I've changed that.
 * I checked the pages on Google Books. Judging by the statements the ref name was used to support, I'm fairly certain that Kostenberger140 was indeed suppose to refer to page 140. I would say that the sfn should not be combined if they appear multiple times and are not next to each other in those subsequent times. Works cited multiple times should definitely be in the Bibliography section, but I don't think that's necessary for books only cited once.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You are both right about the 114 vs 140 issue. At some point I remember I had confused the two page numbers between two windows, and I corrected them somewhere else, but obviously did not see this one. There may have also been something else on page 140, but 114 seems like the right one. Regarding Vermes needing a page, the best ref on that is in fact Chronos, kairos, Christos where multiple authors handle the issue, and Meier has a table of dates one source summary says "various factors that he summarizes in a chronology table". As the rers were consolidated some of that is harder to use now... History2007 (talk) 13:27, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I note that WP:GACR says that one of the criteria is that the article "addresses the main aspects of the topic" but I cannot agree that this one does that as it does not contain a single reference to "love your neighbour as yourself", "turn the other cheek","inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these my brethern you did it unto me", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and so on, a shocking omission in my opinion, surely one of the most important things about Jesus. HIstory2007 and I have discussed this before, he said I should write an article Ethical teachings of Jesus and then a summary of it could be put here. Somewhat flattered to be thought capable of such a task, it is a long term goal for me, but there is such a huge amount of scholarly material to try to absorb on the subject and trying to put any material into this article is treading through such a minefield of contention that it is likely to take me a long long time to do that, but in the meantime I do not think it is possible to call an article about Jesus a "good article" in either the strict WP sense or a more general one when it does not say a single word about his teaching of love for one another or "if you love me, feed my sheep."Smeat75 (talk) 05:43, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * That is a fair comment, and also a valid procedural point. The GA process has a hidden "you need to do more work" trap in it, in that it always involves extra effort. Now, regarding the ethical teachings page being a huge task, perhaps we can start modestly. The way Wikipedia works, is that when a missing page is started, often content arrives, e.g. look a this. I just wrote 2 sentences to park a Tintoretto there and may have gone back later. But before I knew it, people arrived out of nowhere and made it into San Cassiano (Venice) which is a much better item. So we can just start the ethical teachings page with 3-4 sentences, and we can add a brief pointer to it here, with a summary. That will overcome the technical objection. Then the ethical teachings page may just grow - my feeling is that it will, but quality will be a challenge. But that is always the cse. History2007 (talk) 08:58, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

There is one ref that says "Liddell; Scott. A Greek–English Lexicon. p. 824." and another one that says "An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon: The Seventh Edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek–English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 797." Are these two sources the same book? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:37, 14 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, A Greek–English Lexicon but maybe different editions. History2007 (talk) 18:22, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I think I've finally fixed the ref consistency problems. Is there anything else to do get this ready for GAN? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:42, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Some page numbers may still need checking and filling. So let us give that a day or tw please. I am not actually sure about other requirements, I guess one needs to read them carefully. It would be good not to rush it and do it systematically. Could you please wait a few days for page number checks, etc.? Thanks. History2007 (talk) 01:58, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting that I do a source spot-check? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * No, I thought there were still missing page numbers, but it seems that you have fixed them. It is just Novak302 that is in red now. But it will be good in general to wait a day or two just to see if they all have it. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 02:07, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not
certain what there is to discuss. Future trillionaire seems to have an erroneous view on what weight menas. On Wikipedia this means that weight should be established based on its coverage in reliable sources. The material i added clearly falls into that category from the comparison searches i have done. Pass a Method  talk  01:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Pass a Method wants to replace "charismatic healer" with "carpenter" in the lede. I reverted his edit because I deem the characterization of carpenter as undue, especially considering how the sentence is worded.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Your comments came after me so its confusing if you switch them around. Pass a Method   talk  01:44, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Its also your second violation of refactoring. Pass a Method   talk  01:46, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You reported me to ANI because I tried to centralize the discussion into one thread? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:23, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Irrespective of the "refactoring" issue (which seems rather lame to me) I agree with FutureTrillionaire that "carpenter" is the odd one out in that list - all others are clearly roles that might be relevant to inspiring the gospels. While "carpenter" may also be part of the historical Jesus, that on its own wouldn't have inspired the gospels. Thus it should not be part of that list. Huon (talk) 02:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how "carpenter" could be excluded from the lead. It was his occupation and including only his time on earth, he spent far more years as a carpenter than in ministry. Ryan Vesey 03:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The word translated as "carpenter" the two times it appears in the Gospels, once applied to Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, the other time to his father in Matthew, is the Greek word "tekton" - " Now, tekton could refer to a carpenter or a stonemason, but the word simply refers to “one who works with his hands.” If someone wants to describe a carpenter, the phrase they’d use would be “a tekton of wood;” if a mason, then “a tekton of stone.” The absence of either stone or wood as a modifier indicates that the gospel writers didn’t specify which occupation Jesus and his father were engaged in. Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55 simply say that they worked with their hands—they were laborers who performed physically demanding and socially shameful jobs." [], so to put "Jesus was a carpenter" in the lead would not really be accurate.Smeat75 (talk) 04:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Firslty, thats not a reliable source. Secondly, the criteria for inclusion per wikipedia policy is viewpoints are featured "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." A quick GoogleBooks search reveals that the carpenter quote has more returns than many of the other current entries in that sentence. If carpenter goes, than in terms of google result numbers the others should too. GoogleScholar yields similar results. So either we will have a major overhaul of that paragraph, or my addition stays. Take your pick. Pass a Method   talk  04:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That was just the first source that came to hand, I have seen that discussed many many times, I will look for a better source later on. "Carpenter" is the traditional translation of "tekton" but it is not a very good one, it really means more "manual labourer". Once "carpenter" became the tradition, all sorts of legends and stories grew up about Jesus being a carpenter, which accounts for the millions of Google hits. The lead cannot say "Jesus was a carpenter" without entering into a discussion of the translation of "tekton" which is not really of major importance to the subject.Smeat75 (talk) 06:10, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Let us look at how that sentence starts: "Scholars have offered various portraits of the historical Jesus". The term portrait of the historical Jesus is a somewhat technical term, elaborated further below in the article, and also expanded on in the article Historical Jesus which discusses the issue in detail and lists the five main portraits in sections 4.2.1 to 4.2.5 as Apocalyptic prophet, Charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish Messiah and Prophet of social change. That those are the main five portrait classes is discussed in the sources there are here. The Charismatic healer portraits was partly championed by Geza Vermes, vs the Apocalyptic prophet, etc. So to exclude Charismatic healer would be incorrect in that the portrait list would then be incomplete and also incompatible with the body of this article and also the substance of the Historical Jesus article. Most scholarly portraits refer to the portrait of Jesus after the start of his ministry.

A separate issue is that of the use of the word Tektōn in the New Testament, as discussed in that article, and in section 2.4.1 of the Historical Jesus article, as well as the "Early life and profession" section in this article. The point about the Tektōn is that it only appears in those 2 places in the NT and apart from later references such as those by Justin in the middle of the 2nd century does not have much correlation in other sources or within the NT itself.

It would, however, be worth noting that the healing aspect is not just a New Testament issue and there are references to it in Rabbinic sources. The way people like Geza Vermes and others construct these portraits is that they look at the big picture of the multiple ancient sources and reason based on that. An example at hand (used for a completely different reason there) is in the Historicity of Jesus article where (Tosefta Hullin II 22) refers to Rabbi Eleazar ben Dama who was bitten by a snake, but was denied healing in the name of Jesus by another Rabbi for it was against the law, and thus died. I just mentioned that one because it was at hand, but there are other cases where Jesus is accused of sorcery as part of healing, etc. Are those "historical facts". Not by a long shot. Not even close to being "historical facts" and that is why scholars debate them as portraits; unlike the question of existence which is the subject of wide ranging scholarly agreement.

But are there "scholarly portraits" that present Jesus s a carpenter/craftsman/Tekton? I have not seen a single scholar who uses that characterization for a "historical portrait" - e.g. see section 4 of the Historical Jesus article. One can speculate about the reasons, but it may well be because woodworking was probably not the reason Jesus gained followers. It would be a safe bet to say that Christians were not persecuted by the Romans because of the special type of furniture they used, and it is unlikely that Jesus was crucified because Pilate did not like the type of furniture he had made at the time. So the scholarly portraits generally do not refer to Tektōn but do refer to the other five characterizations mentioned above. History2007 (talk) 07:56, 19 April 2013 (UTC)


 * From Did Jesus Exist? by Bart D Ehrman -Our earliest account indicates that Jesus was a 'tekton' (Mark 6:3), a word normally translated 'carpenter',although it can refer to anyone who works with his hands, for instance a stonemason or blacksmith. It was a lower-class occupation. In that part of the world it meant a hand-to-mouth existence. If it does mean that Jesus worked with wood instead of stone or metal, he would have done so to make, not fine cabinetry, but roughly hewn stuff such as gates or yokes needed by the rural community."  As History2007 says this is discussed in the section "Early Life and History" already and it is better there than in the lead in my opinion.Smeat75 (talk) 14:35, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Removing the Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed?
If there is a separate page for a historical Jesus, why is this sentence in the introduction here? Virtually all scholars agree about some Jew named Jesus strolling about in first century Palestine who was crucified (and that's about it), not the metaphorical Jesus as presented in the New Testament who cured the blind, son of a hermaphrodite, and mastermind of the infinite bread receipt.DonChris (talk) 15:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If you haven't yet done so, please read the FAQ associated with this page, listed above.Marauder40 (talk) 15:15, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I did, and it doesn't answer my question, maybe I missed it? The Jesus that there is some evidence for is not the mythical Jesus as presented in various religions, including Christianity. There's a whole page dedicated to historical Jesus. I'm not debating existence. DonChris (talk) 15:24, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Then it's not remotely clear what you are trying to argue at all. The fact there is a separate page on the topic is not a reason for not mentioning it here. That's like arguing that because there is a separate page on Hamlet, it shouldn't be mentioned in the William Shakespeare page at all. In fact none of his works should be, as they all have separate pages. Paul B (talk) 15:31, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it should be rephrased to be more accurate like "Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that a historical Jesus existed" or removed altogether. The scholarly consensus is on a historical person in Palestine, whereas this page sheds light on different views held on Jesus. It can remain mentioned under the Historical Jesus section of this article, but as an introduction it either needs to be removed or clarified which Jesus scholars agree exists. DonChris (talk) 15:40, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually DonChris makes an excellent point. The way jesus is depicted in the second paragraph is not what scholars agree on. Either we should add a qualifier on what type of Jesus is accepted as historical, or we should change the second paragraph to more accurately describe scholarly consensus. Pass a Method   talk  15:45, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This page is supposed to be the overview article on Jesus, so it should include both secular and religious views of his life. I fail to see how the sentence can be read to mean "the very existence of Jesus proves he was also the son of God and will return at the end of the world". It just says he existed. Christian views are given in third paragraph. The second paragraph discusses secular views. It says nothing about divinity, curing the blind, or being "the son of a hermaphrodite", whatever that's supposed to mean, so the excellence of the point is lost on me. Paul B (talk) 15:50, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Don's hypothesis fails per WP:LEDE of course, among various other reasons, some of which are given above. Anyway, WP:LEDE requires the lede to summarize the body, and the body discusses existence as it should, etc. This has been discussed before at length, as mentioned above. To be upfront, in general, WP:JDLI is not an argument for content decisions. History2007 (talk) 16:13, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how anything religious can be read as serious in the first place, but that doesn't stop millions from believing in talking serpents and virgin mothers.. I would think that additional clarity would be appreciated. I completely agree with you History2007 that WP:JDLI is not an argument, and you being evidently a huge fan of Jesus, do not like that anyone poses a threat to your faith. DonChris (talk) 16:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * So you have given up on denial of scholarly agreement on existence now. That is progress. A few days ago you insisted nonexistence, Wells etc. Now, the article makes it clear what the scholarly consensus is: "most scholars agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judea, was baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate." and is sourced to a WP:RS source. Straightforward actually. One sentence by Amy-Jill Levine that summarizes the scholarly consensus per WP:RS/AC, of course. Straightforward. History2007 (talk) 16:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Nah, I don't know if there was a historical Jesus or not, but the little material that survives is mostly fragmented, unoriginal and has been exposed to severe interpolation and tampering, with little being considered authentic. While this is to be expected when dealing with ancient history, Jesus unlike many other ancient contemporaries did not achieve fame during his lifetime (beyond that of some illiterate peasants), his fame only being based on supernatural postmortem accomplishments. Now assuming there was a preacher/healer by the name of Jesus (or similar) when we strip away the supernatural, we are left with nothing but a insignificant preacher who became just another unfortunate victim to state brutality, this historical person deserves little attention and is no more Jesus Christ than Vlad the Impaler is Count Dracula. Either way, in regards to this article, the significance of historical Jesus is over-emphasized and quite frankly it does not represent the Jesus that most of the world has come to know him as through the New Testament and other religious scriptures. It is on the verge of being a mere fringe of the subject covering Jesus and a violation of Wikipedia guidelines. The historical Jesus enjoys four lines of introduction in comparison to two with views in Christianity and views in Islam. DonChris (talk) 21:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Most of the material you typed following Nah is "personal opinion" about interpretation of ancient sources, etc. and is of no value in Wikipedia whatsoever. It matters not what any editor thinks about the interpretation of ancient sources, for per WP:V references determine those issues, of course. Hence the second part of your comment is also of no value in Wikipedia given that it builds on the first part. Now stating that the statement on the "existence of Jesus" is WP:Fringe is not only your personal opinion, but also runs counter to scholarly opinions. The long and short of it is that you started with a suggestion to delete mention of the existence of Jesus and the rationale you have provided for it has varied as you have gone along, ranging from the existence of a separate article (which Paul B handled) to scholarly consensus (which I addressed) and now calling historicity of Jesus fringe, while scholars clearly oppose your view. I think the picture is quite clear here. Your view in effect is the "Jesus as myth" view which scholars at large reject by a wide margin. It is "your view that is fringe"; not the other way around. You are in effect positioning Christ myth theory as mainstream - that is far, far from scholarly agreement. So, let me say that again: It is "your view that is fringe"; not the other way around. You have no sources, just personal opinion. And in Wikipedia personal opinion matters not. History2007 (talk) 21:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It wasn't supposed to be anything other than a personal opinion either, anyway. I wasn't arguing that the existence of historical Jesus was a fringe theory amongst scholars but rather that it is a fringe subject when it comes to Jesus and deserves not nearly as much attention as it have received on this page. DonChris (talk) 21:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

So, you have now agreed that most of what you typed was "personal opinion". So we can ignore most of what you typed before... I just love these talk pages... But do read WP:TPG and avoid personal opinions in the future. But frankly I can not even understand your new statement now about not being a fringe theory, but a fringe subject... You start by citing WP:Fringe then agree it is not that but another type of fringe. Really I am not sure I see any coherence at all in the arguments you have presented. They have kept shifting and I see no logic that connects them. History2007 (talk) 21:59, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The obvious parts sure absolutely, I was elaborating on your comment that I no longer denied Jesus existence.. I don't believe I said it was a fringe theory either, rather that historical Jesus is a fringe topic/subject of Jesus (as a preacher, son of god, prophet etc). DonChris (talk) 22:29, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, again, I do not see what you mean about the difference. Be that as it may, you still have "no source" to support anything you have typed. That is clear. If you assert "historical Jesus is fringe" (be it theory, subject, whatever) you need that precious commodity known as a "source" in Wikilingo to support that. We have seen no sources from you, just plenty of opinion so far. History2007 (talk) 22:37, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In any case, now that it is clear that even you are fully aware that you have been just expressing personal opinions by and large and that it is clear that you have presented no sources at all, I am going to take a break from this lovely discussion. Per WP:Forum these personal opinion discussions should end anyway, when they are just opinion exchanges sans sources. History2007 (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What is it that you would like me to back up with scholarly support (other than the personal parts in reply to a personal comment by you)? DonChris (talk) 17:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, you have typed an entire dissertation above with no sources. So you have no support for anything you have typed. History2007 (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The more interesting part is to elaborate why that sentence needs to be there. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 18:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually Seb, as you know, it works the other way around per various policies that retain items rather than delete, of course. But that aside, as stated above per WP:Lede the lede needs to summarize the body, and given that it includes historicity and existence that sentence was there, given that as in the FAQ it is a question various users have about any article subject, of course. History2007 (talk) 18:40, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * My point is that I'v never seen it anywhere else; I'm sure the Romans had a vital interest in fabricating Caesar's existence, but there's no such sentence there. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 19:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there a section in that article that addresses the existence of Julius? History2007 (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No of course not. My point wasn't about the lead only. Those who doubt the existence of Jesus are already given considerable room for their position, no matter how concocted. That was my point. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 19:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, I did not quite get your last point. You mean it is so certain that it needs no mention? History2007 (talk) 19:13, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. But that's not gonna happen, and I know that. People like DonChris shouldn't be pushing it, however. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 19:15, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, removal is not in the cards. History2007 (talk) 19:18, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * My point all along. Perhaps I am just awful at articulating myself. Isn't History2007 isn't pushing it by leaving it there? (having also first put it there) DonChris (talk) 21:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Your position all along was that Jesus' existence is so certain that we don't need to belabor the point? Really? Huon (talk) 22:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Read my first comment, but ill reiterate it for you lol: "Virtually all scholars agree about some Jew named Jesus strolling about in first century Palestine who was crucified (and that's about it..." DonChris (talk) 00:48, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The statements you have made seem to have varied from edit to edit, as far as I can see as well. I see serious consistency problems in what you have typed all over. But I will leave it at that. If there is any consistency anywhere in your statements is that their focus is based on "Jesus as myth" i.e. ""Christ myth theory" and a focus on getting that implemented here. But you know that is a tiny minority topic, and will not fly. Enough of this ping pong over not much already. History2007 (talk) 02:21, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Perhaps Don may have also meant that Count Dracula existed all along, but my reading skills did not permit me to comprehend the depth of those comments and the comparison therein... But seriously, I did get a chuckle out of that one... This is getting to be too funny... History2007 (talk) 23:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Funny? Absolutely, this topic, this man, how that still in the 21th century we have more than a billion people that still mindlessly worships the central figure of a religion that has sparked some of the bloodiest wars in history of mankind. DonChris (talk) 00:48, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Akenson
"The methodology for constructing the historical portraits has been criticized by Akenson" Whys is the view of one scholar included in the lede? This seems rather undue.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:13, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I thought about zapping it altogether as well, but thought maybe should have a mention. But yes, he is one of the few who thinks the methodologies are inherently flawed. But let me again note that he does not deny existence, but the portraits. History2007 (talk) 19:16, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Can we change the wording to "has been criticized by some"? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:19, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Within 5 days that will attract a flag, because some could mean 12 scholars, etc. Given that it is just him and maybe a couple more, either summarize it or zap it given the small minority views do not go in ledes. And the portraits he criticizes are all different anyway. This whole process of methodology has a long history in fact and the fundamentals are not criticized as he does. But he does criticize it, as do a couple of others. That sentence came from here by the way. History2007 (talk) 19:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Can we put that sentence into a footnote, rather than have it in plain sight? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't mind either way, but I have a feeling that not having anything there may generate debate later. History2007 (talk) 19:28, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There's more than one, so instead of just Akenson, I'll replace it with "Various scholars", reprhase the summary and add a few references to the scholars who see historical Jesus and the research on him as problematic and not up to standards of historiography. DonChris (talk) 01:30, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Given that your material was almost verbatim from the Historical Jesus page, I suggest using Marsh that is an overview. And note that Schweitzer and Bultman are now yesterday's news, although the material is already in that page anyway, where the Akenson material came from. The blanket criticism of he methodology has been made by a few people, but comes from a rather small percentage of all scholars, and is a minority view, so "a few scholars" is the accurate terminology. And of course scholars criticize the research on many other historical issues, so can not be presented as the only topic on which scholars debate issues. They debate for ever about all types of issues unrelated to this anyway. That is their job. History2007 (talk) 02:28, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Remove/rewrite Ancient sources and archeology
Instead about making the case against arguments from ignorance, why not provide some material about archeology on Jesus? This section does not address any archeology, it merely tries to legitimize the poor historiographical evidence for Jesus and that there is no need for archeology to prove Jesus (which is a subject of its own). The historicity of Jesus have already been covered throughout this article and in its own article anyway. DonChris (talk) 00:06, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * What sources would you suggest as the basis of material about archeology on Jesus? Huon (talk) 01:00, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That section is certainly needed to address the questions of those readers who would say but "what about references/mentions in ancient sources?" That section is mostly about ancient sources in any case and the discussion of ancient sources is essential to a discussion of historical Jesus. Moreover, if there is one modern focus on new scholarly efforts on historical Jesus research it is archeology. This is evidenced by the new books by Charlesworth, Reed, Evans, etc. in the past few years, e.g. see:


 * Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus 2002 by Reed ISBN 1563383942
 * Jesus and archaeology by Charlesworth 2006 ISBN 080284880X
 * Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence by Evans 2012 ISBN 0664234135


 * So given that as the new trend in scholarly activities, there needs to be mention of it and in fact as new material on that gets published that will become even more of a focus for understanding the background of the first century, e.g. the class structure in the Capernaum area, the wealth of the upper classes contrasted to the poverty of others at the time etc. That is where modern scholarly efforts have focused in the past decade. If anything in time that section will have to grow. History2007 (talk) 05:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Galilee is not in Roman Judea
Even on the map displayed for the article, Judea is an area south of Galilee, there is a border between Judea and Galilee. I believe that this is a mistake! Whether Jesus was Jewish is unknown, at least from the Bible. The very often used term "Jesus from Nazareth" actually refers to Jesus from the capital of Galil Goyim, the Land of the Goys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.198.132.99 (talk) 10:54, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The Roman province of Judea is a bigger area than what had previously been known as Judea. Nazareth is definitely in the Roman province. Formerip (talk) 11:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)


 * That's not what Judea (Roman province) says. As far as I know, Galilee was not usually defined as a part of the Roman province of Judea, but the Romans were sometimes surprisingly vague about geographical limits of provinces. Is there a particular sentence in the article that says Galilee was in "Judea"? The rest of this comment seems to be some variant of the old "Aryan Jesus" argument that dates back to Émile-Louis Burnouf. There are many variations. Hitler thought Galilee took its name from Gauls who lived there. This has no place in any legitimate modern scholarship. Paul B (talk) 11:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, I see it's right up there at the top: "Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judea". Paul B (talk) 11:35, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not a "real" issue, just a rather tedious technicality. Of course he was born in the "Herodian kingdom", which was a Roman client kingdom (that's if Herod really was still alive when he was born), which was then divided into a tetrarchy. Matthew specifically says that Joseph and family went back to Galilee to void coming under Herod Archelaus's rule in Judea. Galilee was under the control of Herod Antipas. All this is far too specific to go in the lede section. And of course it has nothing to do with Jesus being a "Goy". I don't know what would be the best concise choice of words, but the current one does seem to be technically incorrect. Perhaps we could just say, "north of Judea". Paul B (talk) 11:48, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. It is a tedious technicality. And I think you guys are both right. As Former IP said, the term "Judea proper" is used as well. The map says "first centry" but not which part of first century. In 44 (AD, CE or whatever) Claudius established a province consisting of "Judea proper" plus Peraea, Galilee and Samaria. At the time of Cuspius Fadus the whole area was certainly called Ἰουδαία in Greek. That part is sure, given that its combined revenue is known to have been twelve millions drachme. So the map makes sense if it is a year 45 map. Whether the area was called Judea before Cuspius Fadus I am not sure. And as Paul B said, should probably not make a big deal of it say something like "Galilee, north of Judea" and move on. History2007 (talk) 12:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Tedious technicalities are what we are here for!
 * Maybe "in Roman Judea" could be replaced with ", at that time under Roman rule". That would convey what needs to be conveyed and there is no chance that it is wrong. Formerip (talk) 23:36, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually "Roman Judea" is no longer there. Where it used to say "governor of Roman Judea" now says "Roman governor of Judea", etc. And I think you are right that it could say something like "Roman ruled Galilee" if you think that is needed. But then teh Info box already says Galilee, Roman Empire. So will probably be ok either way. History2007 (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)