Talk:New Testament/Archive 1

Greek Wikisource
Can somebody verify that the link to Wikisource of the Greek text is the original text, and make a note of which text it is. Or is it a modern translation from Koine Greek into modern Greek?

Writing of the original New Testament
"It was written in me how blub blub

The New Testament today is not the same as the original writing...so I shall change the statement accordingly.

"The original texts were written..."

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.229.159.4 (talk) 19:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC).


 * I don't see how you can say that. Except for some transmission corruption here and there, each NT book is the same today as in the autograph.--Hurtstotalktoyou 01:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. The corruption was major.--SubtleV


 * It may have been, but if so there is no evidence for it.--Hurtstotalktoyou 23:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, variant readings and interpolations are covered in the "additions to the text" section.--Hurtstotalktoyou 04:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Saying that the orginal texts were written at that time is saying nothing. It implys a possibility that the texts that were written years ago are not identical to the ones that are being printed today. Even though, historically, the texts are were changed greatly by the vatican. SubtleV

I deleted "of some" from the discussion of Paul's authorship - the inclusion had implied that certain epistles are not disputed as being of Pauline authorship (plainly false from a cursory glance at the critical literature).Topologyrob 12:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The gospels were written a mere 10 years after they happened. That alone tops Herodotus, Aristotle, and Plato for accuracy by thousands of years! We're talking about you remembering what happened in grade school accuracy. And the changes are really quite miner. The biggest change is leaving out Mark 16:9-20, but what is mentioned there is also seen with more detail in the other 3 gospels. In fact, what is mentioned is also implied in the proceeding verses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.57.15 (talk) 01:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are at least 7 Pauline letters that are not disputed. I don't remember them off the top of my heads.--Nate5713 (talk) 02:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

NT use of the OT
I wrote up an article on the New Testament use of the Old Testament at Theopedia. Is that something that would be linked to from this page? I can't find an article on Wikipedia along the lines of this issue. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. JordanBarrett 00:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Replacement of summaries
I wish to rewrite the summaries of the Gospels on this page- I will leave this comment here for a week for feedback before I edit. Certainly current content like this, "Summary of John. A dove landed on Jesus when he was baptized, so he went into a temple and forced them to close the shop selling doves", is incorrect and does not aid the page! I will rewrite the summaries a lot less biased and definately more factually.

Please do. This page is a disgusting mess.


 * I have been reverting those additions, which read as personal interpretation of the NT. I'm not sure if summaries of every book are need, since the books have their own articles linked from the NT article. &mdash;Wayward Talk  07:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits
I'm not sure what 4.241.xx.xx was trying to do over the past couple of days. The result wa na article that had become hard to read or understand. Someone might want to look and see if they were doing anything useful or just putting up a POV. Here's an example and another. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 18:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

After seeing this it's clear that the editor is just vandalising. Read the "Books of the New Testament" section in the above difference. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 22:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

intro of new testament page
Editprotected The New Testament is the final forth of the Bible, the history of an ancient religion that believes in one God. It's about how that religion changed its practices to get more people to join, because of invaders who believed in many gods. The book often includes maps and a concordance, which is a written search engine printed in the back of the book. The New Testament is also published alone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.241.33.155 (talk • contribs) 15:23, 26 April 2006.


 * This seems like a bizarre and inappropriate introduction, for several reasons. If the reasons aren't immediately obvious, let me know and I'll try to spell them out, but in brief, the reasons are: (1) speling errors; (2) inaccurate or misleading description; (3) confusing publisher's supplementary material with the text of the New Testament itself. Wesley 17:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've read it. It's about the old teatament religion being changed into christianity.  It is the last fourth of the Bible. Compare the total new testament pages with the total pages of the entire bible. The New Testament is a book.  Since nobody speaks ancient greek, that language is probably like Klingon from Star Trek, a lot younger than English.  Shouldn't the introduction be about what the book is, rather than some of the other names it's called?  I looked at the 2001 intro, and it wasn't so messy looking.


 * The first line of the entry makes reference to the NT as a "collection of ancient Hebrew writings". The vast majority of Christian biblical scholars accept the NT as originally written in Koine Greek, not Hebrew. There is a school of though of (mostly conservative literalist) Christians that holds that the Greek texts were a translation from Hebrew (not even Aramaic, but Hebrew), but that idea is usually considered to be revisionsist history and without much real scholarly validity. I was alarmed to see the Wikipedia entry so blatantly state the minority opinion without comment about the scholarly dispute. However, given the highly contested nature of this particular page, I don't feel comfortable editing it myself.

I've removed the editprotected request, as the page is no longer protected. AmiDaniel (talk) 07:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

+   +    +

Chuck Marean added the following to the introduction: "It was translated into Greek by various authors..." It was, in fact, originally written in Koine Greek, not translated into it later. He also added a would-be clarification of the New Covenant: "the promise of salvation by God to people as individuals on the basis of grace rather than law or irrational acts." I think there are Christians who would dispute that, especially given the implication that works play no role. In addition to those two corrections, I've made some minor changes in an effort to improve the language. --hurtstotalktoyou

Oh, I forgot to add this: Scholarship has quite firmly placed the NT between 45-140. There is little or no dissention to those dates, except that evangelicals would argue a narrower range of 45-100, which is a minority view which is compatible with the 45-140 range anyway. --hurtstotalktoyou


 * The intro is confusing as to the number of "books". It states that there are 27 books and then breaks them down as 4 Gospels, 21 Epistles and finally Revelations.  That's 26 in my math.FelixCab (talk) 17:14, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

"The original texts were written... after c. AD 45 and before c. AD 140" This line is clearly biased, as secular schools consider severl epistles to be forgerys dating to the 2nd and 3rd centurys. I have made an adjustment to the page to remove the POV. 217.155.32.111 (talk) 16:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Keven A Tolken

 * "Καινή Διαθήκη" (translit. Kaine Diatheke) is Greek for New Covenant and is the term I learned. The article intro has problems, but none of the reverted edits was an improvement.  Robert A.West (Talk) 09:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * From a verb meaning "settle, deposit". Several related senses, but note that LSJ ascribes the LXX and NT uses to sense III; "Compact, covenant", contract.
 * Yes, agreed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.68.79.66 (talk) 19:27, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

New Intro
Chuck as a show of good faith that should have been discussed on the talk page prior to inserting to obtain consensus. You have now introduced the same errors (spelling & capitalization) that you did when editing as the anon. I would suggest merging the two introductions as follows:

See New Covenant for the concept translated as "New Testament" in the KJV.

The New Testament is the collection of ancient Hebrew writings that Christianity is based upon. It's the last fourth of the Bible, which also includes the Old Testament of pre-Christian monotheism. The New Testament uses the term New Covenant. The earliest known codices of the New Testament are written in the ancient Greek language (Καινή Διαθήκη). These codices are sometimes called the Greek Testament, the Greek Scriptures or New Covenant.

They were written by various authors c. AD 48–140 and gradually collected into a single volume over the next few centuries. Some minor groups commonly refers to the New Testament as the B'rit Chadashah, Hebrew for New Covenant, or the Apostolic Writings.

CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 19:54, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Corrected spelling, New Covenant is linked, We don't speak Hebrew, Some groups refer, Luke refers.

"New Testament Covenant" section
What is up with the last section? In addition to having POV issues, there are two redlinks (one with improper capitilization). "Michael zarlengo" gets 277 google hits. I'd propose removing this section, but I wanted to see what others felt, and perhaps give other editors a chance to improve this section if it is necessary.--Andrew c 05:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It has to do with Christians not offering burnt offerings like the Mosaics did in BC times. I also wonder where they get the dates claiming it took 90 years to to write the New Testament. Would it take you 90 years to write such a short book as Luke or any of the others? My suggested outline for revision of this article was already posted.--Chuck Marean 20:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, it is pov pushing. It should be referenced with Reliable Sources or deleted as Original Research. See also What wikipedia is not.63.201.27.144 04:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Very POV, badly written. Almost sounds like a promo for a book. A little blight on the end of an otherwise good article. Jaems 09:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

New Covenant. Hello. I think that the article by Gary Amirault about this issue should be considered in order to integrate it into the main article about the New Covenant. Amirault's article can be found at http://www.tentmaker.org/books/PillarLaws.html. To sum it up, the name of the New Law is "The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:2), and the two commandments of the New Law are found in John 13:34-35 and I John 3:22-23. Thanks. Cristorly (talk) 04:20, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It's Moses, not "Mosaics". Moses was the first judge of Israel who lived from 1619 B.C. to 1491 B.C., mosaics are surfaces covered with small, multicolored pieces. to mention the New covenant with Christ is as important as calling it the New Testament (that's where the name comes from by the way). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.57.15 (talk) 01:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

c. AD 48–140
If you think about it, c. AD 48–140 seems a bit long and after the fact. . . where ever that figure comes from. Let's see. . . 140 minus 48. . . That's 92, and 48 minus 33. . . that's 15. Why would it have taken 15 years for anybody to start writing, and why would it have taken 92 years instead of 92 days to write the New Testament? I seems writers are confusing age of artifacts & publication dates.


 * To say that the New Testament was written c. AD 48-140 does not suggest that it took that whole period to write the text. The NT is composed of many different individual texts, none of which probably took very wrong to pen, but they were penned at different times over that time period--the earliest ca 48, and the lastest ca 140. Various explanations are offered for the 15 year gap before anyone "started writing". Many scholars find evidence for an earlier, possibly written, source ("Q") that both Matthew and Luke relied upon. Many point to the expectation of the very first Christians that the "end of the age" would come very soon, and that there was no real need for written documents. Remember that the society at that time was much more oral than our own very literate society. Once you get into the epistles, you're dealing with very practical writings that deal with issues encountered as the Christian church spread beyond its birthplace and into the greater Roman Empire.–RHolton ≡ – 22:33, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

There are literally dozens of documents that we assume are fact that were written hundreds, sometimes thousands of years before our earliest copy, and we only have a few hundred or a few dozen of these originals. the four gospels were written a mere century before our earliest copy, and we have nearly 150,000 copies! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.57.15 (talk) 01:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Neutralisation of Dates
Since the date of the New Testament is still disputed, I have written in that "the majority of scholars believe it to have been written.." instead of "It was written...". This means that anyone with contrasting views shall be less offended by these claims.

Date of composition
In the second last sentence of the section it mentions "Clement". Which one? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Isn't that Pope Clement I, one of the Apostolic Fathers?63.201.27.144 04:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

There is also a source document called "The Sayings of Jesus" that was most probably the earliest source

This page needs loads of work
...to put it mildly. While most of the information seems fairly accurate, some of it is a bit presumptuous, while more is just plain off-topic. Consider the historical Jesus paragraph in the "authorship" section, for example of the latter. As for the former, I'm concerned there's an emphasis on anti-Christian scholarship. Granted, the line between Christian and non-Christian scholarship must be difficult to walk, but it seems like the Christian POV is largely ignored. New Testament scholarship is deeply divided; we cannot ignore the Christian perspective, however non-scientific it may seem to non-Christians.

I propose a major re-work of the article. I'm afraid to do it myself, because I have an impatient streak, and I might jump the gun without expertise.

If nothing else, let's clean up the structure of the article; help to organize it.

Thoughts?

Recent edits seem to be very POV. Who dates the Muratorian fragment c. 170-*400* AD? Also, the Eusebius quote verbatim is confusing; better to summarize it, as had been done. Another Muratorian mention has been deleted, suggesting an anti-Muratorian sentiment. What's more, the editing user didn't log in to be identified. Because of this, I have simply reverted edits.


 * See Biblical Canon. The Anchor Bible Dictionary dates Muratorian as late as the end of the fourth century. The Eusebius quote is not at all confusing, it is a direct quote, better a direct quote than a pov summary. The Muratorian fragment need only be mentioned once, there is no need for an additional sentence latter on to mention it again, removing multiple mentions of the same thing is hardly an "anti-Muratorian sentiment". As for logging in, there is no wikipedia requirement to do so. 209.78.19.213 19:53, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Firstly, I'll need a page number and publisher info so I can verify the alleged Anchor Bible Dictionary reference. I've certainly never heard of any date other than the late second century for the Muratorian fragment.  Even if this source of yours says what you claim it does, I hardly think it matters in the face of centuries of scholarship on the text, placing it squarely between 170 and 200 AD.   Secondly, this is not original research.  While the Eusebius quote is informative, a simple list by categories is more efficient and therefore better suited to this wiki entry.  The list is by no means pov, as you claim.  I'd very much like to revert to the last edit, but I will wait for other input.  Also, please log in so we know who you are.  --hurtstotalktoyou


 * The Anchor Bible Dictionary is a Reliable Sources. That you discredit it: "Even if this source of yours says what you claim it does, I hardly think it matters in the face of centuries of scholarship on the text, placing it squarely between 170 and 200 AD." shows your pov bias. As for your contention that a "simple list by categories is more efficient" than a direct quote from Eusebius doing the same thing, this shows that you are pov pushing. See What Wikipedia is Not. I also point out that your "simple list by categories" is incorrect, see the direct Eusebius quote to discover your error. See also No Original Research. 209.78.19.213 21:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * This is ridiculous. I have no POV bias; rather, I'm just trying to keep this page as honest and truthful as possible.  I am not attempting to discredit the Anchor Bible Dictionary.  I've just never seen any reliable source give such a broad range of dates for the Muratorian fragment.  Always it has been c.170-200, or thereabouts.  Now, certainly there are some who believe the fragment was written much later, but to my knowledge those scholars are very much in the minority.  Anyway, I'm headed to the library soon, so I'm still waiting on a page number so I can look up your reference.  As for the Eusebius quote, I don't much mind having it there.  I just think a simple list would be more efficient.  Such a list would certainly not violate NPOV or NOR standards as you claim.  --hurtstotalktoyou

Look up Muratorian Fragment of course.

Some more refs:

http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/extras/Muratorian.html

The date of the original Greek composition lying behind the present Latin text has generally been agreed to lie in the middle or end of the second century because of the statement in the fragment that "Hermas wrote the Shepherd very recently in our times in the city of Rome, when Bishop Pius, his brother, was sitting in the chair of the Church of Rome." More recently, Sundberg and Hahneman have contended for a fourth century date for the original of the fragment, emphasizing especially comparisons with eastern fourth century canon lists. Although their arguments have been persuasive to some, many scholars remain skeptical of their late dating. All would probably agree, however, that their work has stimulated fresh consideration of the development of the New Testament canon, to which the Muratorian Fragment is an important witness. Bibliography

Hahneman, Geoffrey Mark. The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.

Sundberg, Albert C., Jr. "Canon Muratori: A Fourth Century List." Harvard Theological Review 66 (1973): 1-41.

Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux. Canon Muratorianus: The Earliest Catalogue of the Books of the New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1897.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198263414/104-9962040-5612751?v=glance&n=283155

The traditional date of the fragment, however, was questioned in 1973 by Albert C. Sundberg, Jr, in an article of the Harvard Theological Review that has since been generally ignored or dismissed. In this book, Hahneman re-examines the traditional dating of the fragment in a complete and extensive study that concurs with Sundberg's findings. Arguing for a later placing of the fragment, Hahneman shows that the entire history of the Christian Bible must be recast as a much longer and more gradual process. As a result, the decisive period of canonical history moves from the end of the second century into the midst of the fourth. As a decisive contribution to our understanding of the development of the New Testament canon, this book will be of considerable importance and interest to New Testament scholars and historians of the early Church.

http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/pdf/fragment_hill.pdf

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html

The Muratorian Canon, by an unknown author, is usually dated to the end of the second century; attempts to date it later have been unconvincing, according to Metzger, although McDonald provides an opposite view dating it to much later that contains some persuasive elements. A very persuasive case for a fourth-century date is presented by Hahneman[Hahn.MurFrag], from whom we gain much of our material below on the subject.

http://www.etsjets.org/jets/journal/42/42-4/42-4-pp645-671_JETS.pdf

The date of the Muratorian Fragment is still in dispute. A. C. Sundberg, Jr. argues for a fourth-century date in “Canon Muratori: A Fourth Century List,” HTR 66 (1973) 1–41. An earlier date and a response to Sundberg is provided by E. Ferguson, “Canon Muratori: Date and Provi- dence,” Studia Patristica 18/2 (1982) 677–683.

"Eusebius quote verbatim is confusing"
Can you be more specific? What is it exactly that you find confusing about this direct quote?:

Eusebius, c. 300, gave a detailed list of New Testament writings in his Ecclesiastical History Book 3, Chapter XXV:
 * "1... First then must be put the holy quaternion of the Gospels; following them the Acts of the Apostles... the epistles of Paul... the epistle of John... the epistle of Peter... After them is to be placed, if it really seem proper, the Apocalypse of John, concerning which we shall give the different opinions at the proper time. These then belong among the accepted writings."


 * "3 Among the disputed writings, which are nevertheless recognized by many, are extant the so-called epistle of James and that of Jude, also the second epistle of Peter, and those that are called the second and third of John, whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person of the same name. Among the rejected [Kirsopp Lake translation: "not genuine"] writings must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to these the extant epistle of Barnabas, and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles; and besides, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper, which some, as I said, reject, but which others class with the accepted books. And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews... And all these may be reckoned among the disputed books"


 * "6... such books as the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrew and John and the other apostles... they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics. Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejected writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and impious."

Revelation is counted as both accepted (Kirsopp Lake translation: "Recognized") and disputed, which has caused some confusion over what exactly Eusebius meant by doing so. From other writings of the Church Fathers, we know that it was disputed with several canon lists rejecting its canonicity. EH 3.3.5 adds further detail on Paul: "Paul's fourteen epistles are well known and undisputed. It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul." EH 4.29.6 mentions the Diatessaron: "But their original founder, Tatian, formed a certain combination and collection of the Gospels, I know not how, to which he gave the title Diatessaron, and which is still in the hands of some. But they say that he ventured to paraphrase certain words of the apostle [Paul], in order to improve their style."

A direct quote is always preferable to an unreferenced pov summary. In addition, it is easier to detect and correct vandalism and pov pushing when direct quotes are used. 209.78.19.213 20:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Authorship
Hey, all. The authorship section was a bit redundant. Without significantly altering the content, I have cleaned it up a bit. The problem is, I need some expansion of and a citation for one paragraph, which is currently a single sentence: "The authorship of the non-Pauline books remains disputed, with most secular scholars rejecting traditional ascriptions, and many, perhaps most Christian scholars accepting them." I'm almost 100% sure this statement is true, but it is far too general, and should have some backing sources. Any help would be much appreciated! --hurtstotalktoyou


 * I re-added the caveat about Hebrews in the "Pauline epistles" section. Since the epistle is anonymous, I think it is a good idea to note in that section why it is listed as Pauline. I think it's bad form to list it as Pauline and then say it is anonymous, and not explain the disparity.


 * The section on "Authorship" currently has two sentences discussing the dispute over Paul's actual involvement with Hebrews, but it does not mention other potential candidates, link to the other wiki article on the Epistle itself, or mention why the epistle is listed as Pauline. If you want to move the information from the "Pauline epistle" listing to the authorship section, that's probably reasonable; but in your edit you called the information "redundant". It isn't redundant if it isn't repeated.


 * Just my two cents. --shift6 22:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi there, Shift6. My reason for removing the caveat was twofold:  First, by focusing on Hebrews alone as not Pauline, an implication is given that all of the other traditional Pauline epistles are authentic, which is not the case.  To avoid this implication, one must either talk about every pseudographical epistle, which I think would be redundant and off-topic for that section, or else remove the caveat.  Second, you said in your caveat that the "themes...are Pauline and for that reason the epistle is listed here."  That is not quite true.  The reason Hebrews is listed in the Pauline corpus is because it has traditionally been attributed to Paul.  Even today some Bibles give Paul's name in the title!


 * That said, you do have a point about the other candidates of authorship not being mentioned elsewhere. I have therefore moved the caveat to the authorship section, with some small changes in language which I think are fitting.  Check it out and see what you think.  --hurtstotalktoyou


 * Looks good to me. Certainly it explains the whole thing better. shift6 19:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Tetragrammaton in the New Testament
This article has been worked up well, and mainly discusses why some scholars feel the name should be included in the NT. Anyone care to join in? George 13:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Assignment of authors
I don't think this assignment is true. I don't believe that any of the gospel writers were part of the original group of apostles. Can someone check this out and give evidence that Matthew and John were part of the original 12 apostles? jdoherty


 * There is no evidence as to who actually wrote the gospels of Matthew and John. Tradition attributes the Gospel of Matthew to the apostle Matthew (Levi), and the Gospel of John to the apostle John (the son of Zebedee; the "disciple whom Jesus loved"). &mdash;Wayward Talk 04:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Regardless of anyone's opinion, the only evidence of the list of origianl apostles is in the accounts themselves, attested to since the second century, and they tell us that Matthew and John were among the twelve. The only thing requiring evidence would be the claim that they were not a part of the original twelve. George 16:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The Gospels are internally anonymous, and external evidence for authorship only dates back to the second century, at least 80 or so years after they were supposed by Christian tradition to have been written. Given the general gullibility and deep bias of these second-century church fathers, their testimonies do not hold much weight.  In the mean time, internal evidence (textual & form criticism) places the earliest Gospel at c. 66-70 (corresponding to the Jewish revolt) and the latest Gospel shortly thereafter.  This late time frame, in conjunction with other textual and even early external evidence, makes it extremely unlikely that any of the Gospels were written by any eyewitness (which rules out any of the alleged Twelve).  Whether or not the Gospel authors were disciples of eyewitnesses is another story, however.  It remains possible that GMark and GLuke were written by John Mark, disciple of Peter, and Luke the physician, disciple of Paul, respectively.  Nevertheless, that their involvement cannot be ruled out does not mean that it is likely tradition holds true.  IMHO--and this sentence must be read carefully--Mark and Luke remain the most likely of all individual candidates for authorship of GMark and GLuke, but each tradition is still unlikely, taken individually.  These disputes are discussed, albeit with little detail, in the Authorship section of the article.--Hurtstotalktoyou 14:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Copy Errors
Should there be an extensive section on the large amount of variation within the New Testament within the first four centuries of the C.E. due to mistakes in copying. There are key passages in the New Testament which are either absent or heavily modified in the earliest drafts found. In the words of Bart D. Ehrman (Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina): "There are more variations among our manuscripts [of the New Testament] than there are words in the New Testament."--Roland Deschain 03:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * For example: the last twelve verses of Mark are added much later by scribes.

Actually, both the longer and shorter endings of Mark were added in the second century. See J. A. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission (Tübingen 2000).

Protestantism
The stuff on Protestantism is a very American POV and in an international perspective not a NPOV. I have clarified it by adding words liek "American", "in the USA" etc. But as a non-American Protestant I could relate to some of it. The terms "conservative" and "liberal" have different means in the USA and the UK and I do not consider them NPOV words. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) only relates to the USA and the Creationism/evolution debate is not such of a big deal outside the USA.

Ideally this whole section could be rewritten to be country-neutral and not be so USA-centric, although it was quite interesting to find out the American perspectives.

Apocrypha notes
To user:75.15.207.241: The Didache's "teachings" are attributed to the Apostles, but the document itself is not. The Gospel of Thomas was not actually written by Thomas, but is an anonymous document written by an unknown author. Thankyou, though, for correcting the Gospel of Peter entry. I added some further info, too.--Hurtstotalktoyou 22:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Complete Gospels, Robert J. Miller editor: "Prologue: These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded." In the note of the prologue: "The title, which occurs at the end of the gospel, ascribes it to the apostle Thomas, who was thought by the early church to have evangelized eastern Syria and India."

Sure, that's what the document says, but of course it wasn't actually written by Thomas.--Hurtstotalktoyou 22:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The Apostolic Fathers, Michael Holmes editor, 2nd ed.: "The teaching of the Lord to the Gentiles by the twelve apostles" See also Talk: Didache. 75.15.207.241 21:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, the document claims its authority and message is from the Apostles, but it does not claim the author of the text is an Apostle or Apostles. I've therefore reverted that bit.--Hurtstotalktoyou 22:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

This kind of statement:
 * Gospel of Peter, mostly lost Synoptic narrative which falsely claims Simon Peter as its author (14:3, 7:2); written by an unknown author c. AD 70–160.

is not NPOV. 75.15.207.241 21:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see how that's NPOV. The document claims to be written by Peter but was not. The author is unknown. I've restored the "by an unknown author" but omitted "falsely" in the new edit.

Also, while I appreciate your additional entries, I think the list is becomming to long, which detracts from the topic of the overall article. I propose we limit the entries to ten. These are the entries I'd keep: Didache (due to its uniqueness and early date), GThomas (this one's a no-brainer), Epistle of Barnabas (due to its importance in early canons), 1 Clement (unique for its probable authenticity), Apocalypse of Peter (because we should include at least one example from the apocalyptic genre), Shepherd (due to its importance in early canons), Gospel of Judas (another no-brainer), Infancy Gospel of James (because we should include at least one example from the infancy genre), Laodiceans (to demonstrate the existence of apocryphal Pauline literature), and the Gospel of the Egyptians (just because it makes an even ten). --Hurtstotalktoyou 22:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

dates (general range)
Finding a scholarly consensus of dates is very difficult. As far as I can tell, the earliest NT writing was probably 1 Thes, c. 45-50 AD. The latest writing is unknown. It could be 2 Timothy, Acts, or perhaps even GJohn. It seems to me that all these writings were completed before c. 110 AD, but there is sufficient doubt to extend the range somewhat further. I thought 140 AD was appropriate. Perhaps we should tighten it back to 110 or 120, though. What do you all think?

Dating Is Too Arrogant
Although I agree that the original New Testament writings were written in the times specified, we do still do not know everything. I think we should consider philosophically what we can really be sure of, and realise that todays fact could be tommorows myth.

This is why I say we should state the dating of the New Testament as the major opinion, instead of a fact.


 * But it is a fact. That some folks dispute the exact dates isn't at issue.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a philosophy.  Every fact has some chance of being proven wrong.  That doesn't mean we need to put a caveat on every assertion.--64.107.201.150 15:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Ummmm no, the dates are based on opinion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.102.200.208 (talk) 08:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

Written dates
If it was really written sometime long after Jesus died, how can it even be accurate? Why is it written from a 1st person perspective? Are you telling me the people Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John simply held everything in for 10-20 years moved to Greece and then wrote their gospels? I don't believe that. There were obviously early lost documents the Greek New Testament was based on. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.101.237.13 (talk • contribs).
 * The information was given by God to them to write! Yes I am a Christian and God is real!Yet to keep wikipedia nuetral I can only say that God is real on the talk pages. 76.100.206.73 23:27, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Two words for you: oral tradition. The "early lost documents" are lost because they were never written down, but were conveyed orally. The gospel writers clearly selected from a common oral tradition when they composed their narratives. Wesley (talk) 05:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Church of latter Day Saints
I undid User:Amuffler's entry on the Mormons. Thousands of churches take the New Testament as the gospel, ergo, this entry is hardly fitting. Nothing against the Mormons, it's just a non sequitor.

Accuracy
Parts of this article are not accurate and/or clear regarding recent liberal scholarship being at odds with orthodoxy (esp. the sections on the development of the canon).

Authority section
I removed a lengthy POV note in the Authority section. This section seems quite at odds with an encyclopedia entry - it veers into off-topic areas and needs a major cleanup.Topologyrob 13:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

The entire section does not belong in an article on the "New Testament". It's discussing the various Christian doctrines of the inspiration and interpretation of Sacred Scripture, which equally includes the Old and New Testaments. These topics are discussed in separate article(s), and since it has nothing to do with the New Testament as such (and therefore quickly switches to speaking merely of the "Bible", the whole section should just be moved to one of the other articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.46.194.175 (talk) 22:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added notices in the article that the "Authority" section is off-topic and should be moved and merged with a different article. (It will then need to be replaced with a section on the "Interpretation of the New Testament and so-called 'New Testament theology'".) Any objections to the move and merger??91.46.219.39 (talk) 23:33, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Type-types
"For example, Codex Washingtonianus consists of only the four gospels, and yet, different parts are written in different type-types."

I suspect this should read "...different parts of it are written in different text-types." D021317c 16:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The first edition of the New Testament
is not mentioned in this article. Assuming that the NT was written in Greek, the date of the editio princeps is not in doubt, but is frequently given incorrectly. As 1516, the date of Erasmus' version printed by Froben at Basle. The NT was in fact printed on 10 April 1514 by De Brocar at Alcala de Henares as the 5th volume (but first to be completed) of the Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes. This confusion arose because, although printed in 1514, the set was not published until 1522. Colcestrian 02:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Jesus commands
I was just wondering...does Jesus actually command people to "believe" on Him to be saved in the original Greek/Aramaic, or did He say something else that was twisted in the translations? Scorpionman (talk) 16:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The New Testament Is Origionally Hebrew
I bet yiu guys didn't know this, but after searching and studing the origion of the New Testament I found out that it was not origionally Greek but Hebrew. We should add this to the article for one reason and one reason only, it's true. If you don't believe me study for yourself and later on I'll try to find the site so yuo can look there if you need proof.The K.O. King (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't what evidence you would adduce for this, but the scholarly consensus denies it. --Midnite Critic (talk) 20:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the site yet but they found the New Testament in Hebrew writings under the old Yerushalem (Jerusalem).The K.O. King (talk) 17:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry. But I can´t understand your thesis: The New Testament Is originally Hebrew.Tell that to the Marines! By the way I've study Theology (PHD). MacriHO (talk) 16:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

"Though Jesus spoke Aramaic, the New Testament (including the Gospels) was written in Greek because that was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire"
Would it be safe to say it was written in Greek because that was the lingua franca of the EASTERN Roman Empire? In the Western Roman Empire (even before it was partitioned for administrative purposes in ) Latin prevailed, but in the Eastern Roman provnices (and some of the places Hellenized after Alexander the Great-especially in the cities. Ex:Alexandria, Egypt), I believe Greek was always the de facto language with the exception of government officials. Small change, but I think it would be an relevant one..

See 'background' in > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire and... > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Roman_Empire and... > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Greek and... > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jire%C4%8Dek_Line Im assuming all these things have sources and are the facts (this is Wikipedia, lol)..

Check this out too...

Under the "History" section: "Militarily Greece itself declined until it was conquered by the Romans from 168 BC onwards, though Greek culture would in turn conquer Roman life. A province of the Roman Empire, Greek culture would continue to dominate the eastern Mediterranean and when the Empire finally split in two the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, centred on Constantinople, would be Greek in nature, as well as encompassing Greece itself." > http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/definition/greek

I just think that it would give people a more accurate idea of the possible places where the New Testament was most likey written (Eastern Roman Empire, specifically the places where Greek was the dominant language of the day), places that were Hellenized during the Hellenistic Era. I dont know if it should be taken into account in the article or not..because it could have been written by anyone anywhere - who knows..a Spanish guy in Iberia.

My two cents 134.121.247.116 (talk) 20:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Apostle vs Disciple
"The traditional view--that is, according to most orthodox Christians--is that all the books were written by Apostles (e.g. Matthew and Paul) or disciples working under their direction (e.g. Mark[5] and Luke[6])."

This sentence, at the beginning of "Authorship", is slightly misleading.

- Paul is described as an apostle, but "Apostle" is a link which takes you to a page about the Twelve Disciples, which Paul obviously wasn't one of.

- Is there a technical distinction between apostle and disciple? There is in the Greek, but they're usually used interchangeably in English. If anything then I'd think that "disciple" implied the 12 disciples with "apostle" being a wider term.

- Personally I don't think it's sensible to use "orthodox" in an article about Christianity/Christian stuff unless it's specifically the Orthodox Church that's meant, at least without qualifying it. 194.200.70.203 (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * You are right that "orthodox" should not be used, so I've removed the bit ("--that is, according to most orthodox Christians--" because it adds nothing anyway. The Twelve Apostles article actually does refer to Paul, the problem is it needs to be renamed to something like Apostles (Christian). As for disciple versus apostle, the New Testament usage is to call all followers of Jesus disciples (see its usage in Acts, e.g. Acts 15:10, Acts 18:23 etc), and some (many? most?) Christians still use the word in that way. So I suspect most people would say apostle is narrower than disciple. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:52, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the wikilink, as I think this solves the problem; plus, it was wikilinked earlier in the article. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 03:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Francesco Carotta
... has some interesting ideas about Biblical history ... interesting in a way that I think is the fringe of the fringe. There is thus a vote for deletion here. Those of you who are knowledgable and care about Biblical history, please check it out. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Francesco Carotta is wrong because....... more reasons than I care to enumerate at this time. In short, he's stupid.--Nate5713 (talk) 16:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Paulinicity of Hebrews
The article currently gives Hebrews as being a General Epistle, while the discussion of authorship considers it to be Pauline. I've only ever heard of it being considered Pauline (and it isn't general in the literal sense of the word: it is addressed to a specific audience.) I know that the actual authorship is currently considered by everyone to be unknown, but it is traditionally considered to be by Paul, and, when dividing the New Testament, it is often grouped with the Pauline Epistles. For these reasons and for consistency with the authorship section, I'm going to be bold and move it to the list of Pauline Epistles, with a note that its authorship was disputed even in antiquity and very few people today consider it to be by Paul. mkehrt (talk) 01:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Repetitious wording in article regarding variations of the word "tradition"
The repeated use of variations of the word "tradition" in this article is bad form. The word "tradition" itself with regard to ascribing authorship of the books mentioned is ambiguous in that the word itself does not specify whose tradition is being referenced as ascribing authorship. Is it the tradition of early church fathers or is it the tradition of modern denominations or is the tradition or is it some vague oral tradition that has somehow survived to this day and been altered over time?

In most cases this ambiguity could be eliminated simply by replacing "traditionally ascribed to" simply with "ascribed to". Would there be any objections to this modification? Euswdwj (talk) 01:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization of section headings
I will be visiting this and other articles needing to conform with Wikipedia rules on capitalization of headings: Section headings Main article: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings) Use sentence-style capitalization, not title-style capitalization: Capitalize the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest lower case. Thus "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations". R/T-รัก-ไทย (talk) 03:43, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

New testament - Original language.
I am a Hebrew speaking person. Unless I am mistaken, I think It is pretty obvious that the new testament (Or at least some of the books) have been written in Hebrew. This is my simple reasoning:

There are various references to names which supposedly have a meaning in the translation. For example, Matthew 1:21 - 'She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ The only language this can make sense is Hebrew. Any other language and the name Yeshua has no meaning. Just Like Moses,Jacob,Izaac,Israel and many others have no meaning in any other language except Hebrew.

I was wondering if this type of reasoning was mentioned anywhere by scholars. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleniko17 (talk • contribs) 22:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines
I'm removing the notice placed over the "Further Reading" section suggesting that there are "excessive, less relevant or many publications with the same point of view". Some of the works listed here do indeed need to be incorporated "into the body of the article through appropriate citations": Someone really needs to entirely replace the "Authority" section with one on "Interpretation of the New Testament", dealing with it's interpretation and so-called "New Testament theology", and citing, e.g., Bultmann, Neill and Wright, and Schnelle. But I suspect the objection to the 14 works listed here is not that it's "excessive", or that any of these standard, classic works are not "relevant", or that the works--written by Protestants, Catholics, agnostics, and by German, American, and British scholars--all represent "the same point of view"; I suspect there must be some other basis for the objection, and if so, it should be discussed here on the discussion page. I know there's no French scholarship listed, but I was under the impression that most of what is cited on this English page of the article should preferably be in English translation.

So, the article's "Further reading" section does indeed follow "Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines" linked in the notice box: It's not a mere collection of external links or Internet directories; it's not a mere collection of internal links; it's not a mere collection of public domain or other source material; nor is it a mere collection of photographs or media files. Moreover, it fits the description of "Further reading" on the linked page in the notice box, which reads as follows: "Contents: A bulleted list, usually alphabetized, of a reasonable number of recommended publications that will guide the reader to the more important published sources. The items may be annotated to provide additional information not in the title. This section may be substituted by an External links section; editors will occasionally merge the two if both are very short. When an article contains both sections, some editors prefer to list websites and online publications under External links. Publications listed in Further reading are cited in the same reference style used by the rest of the article."

Removal of verified information, article sections and sub-sections, etc.
There have been some removal of corrections, fixed links, references, more accurate information, etc. this morning. Any such changes--especially those that re-introduce factual error into the article or unnecessarily duplicate sections--should be discussed here first. 91.46.191.162 (talk) 10:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

The few of these changes that are actually helpful (namely, the simplification of the section titles for early translations and the introduction of an image of a Byzantine lectionary) have been kept. The others (reversion to false information about the Bohairic Coptic translation, the duplication of the sub-section on the Pastoral Epistles, the deletion of the section on Textual variation, the deletion of material on the disputed Pauline Epistles, removal of a reference to Vööbus's Early Versions of the New Testament, the reintroduction of references to "Palmer, 1881" when in fact Harnack and Eusebius are being quoted, the reintroduction of broken links, the removal of information in the "External links" section, and altering the layout of the final section so that the "See also" section is entirely askew) I consider to be vandalism. I sent the editor two messages (warnings), but he only responded by sending me warnings about my reversal of the vandalism. Since he is unwilling to discuss his changes here, all but the first two changes I mention above have been reversed.91.46.191.162 (talk) 12:24, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Dear Ari (if I may),

I thought you'd be interested to know that I adjusted your image of the Byzantine lectionary so that it now fits in the proper section.

There are (in all but two cases) some major problems with your reversal of my editing, and I assumed you were making the revisions in good faith, though perhaps without having looked through my revisions carefully, or having overlooked something, or perhaps simply being unaware of the subject matter. But it's difficult to know what you're thinking or your reasons for reverting back to earlier forms of the article when you're not discussing your revisions on the discussion page. If you think there is a good reason to remove or reverse an edit I've made, I'm all ears. But I haven't heard anything from you apart from warnings about my reversals of your revisions.

Please take a few minutes to look at the discussion page. If you have any questions--whether it's about Coptic, the disputed Paulines, secondary literature, anything--I'm more than happy to discuss them. But if you don't discuss them, and you simply re-introduce factual errors and remove useful information from the article, then you do give people the impression that your edits are merely vandalism (even if that's not your intent).

We're on the same side, Ari: we both want to make this a good, accurate, useful article. Let's not work against each other.

Dear Ari (if I may),

I thought you'd be interested to know that I adjusted your image of the Byzantine lectionary so that it now fits in the proper section.

There are (in all but two cases) some major problems with your reversal of my editing, and I assumed you were making the revisions in good faith, though perhaps without having looked through my revisions carefully, or having overlooked something, or perhaps simply being unaware of the subject matter. But it's difficult to know what you're thinking or your reasons for reverting back to earlier forms of the article when you're not discussing your revisions on the discussion page. If you think there is a good reason to remove or reverse an edit I've made, I'm all ears. But I haven't heard anything from you apart from warnings about my reversals of your revisions.


 * I restored around 90% of your edits which were great as I spent a long time going through each of your edits. You have not assumed good faith, and you have constantly attacked myself. That will achieve nothing. Simply, problems were identified and removed whether they be stylistic or expansions outside the scope of a growing article which already has problems.

Please take a few minutes to look at the discussion page. If you have any questions--whether it's about Coptic, the disputed Paulines, secondary literature, anything--I'm more than happy to discuss them. But if you don't discuss them, and you simply re-introduce factual errors and remove useful information from the article, then you do give people the impression that your edits are merely vandalism (even if that's not your intent).


 * Point to the factual errors that were re-introduced.

We're on the same side, Ari: we both want to make this a good, accurate, useful article. Let's not work against each other.

91.46.191.162 (talk) 13:27, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

The problems with your reversions remain those that I mentioned here on the discussion page.

1) You keep re-introducing at least two bad links.

2) I understand your objection to the use of the term "pagan", but that's why I put it in inverted commas. This religious aspect of the broader society (e.g., meat sacrificed to idols) is what is primarily at stake for Paul, and to draw the parallel with "Judaism" and "other Christians" I included this term to point to the religious sphere of Graeco-Roman society.

3) You have removed all indication of the disputed Paulines. Why?

4) I suspect that most people don't realize that 2 Corinthians is composite. Why would you remove this useful piece of information?

5) You've introduced a second section with the exact same title as a sub-section a few lines above it (on the Pastoral Epistles). Why do you not want to keep the discussion of these letters immediately before the list of the letters? I know they're not genuinely Pauline, but they did become part of the thirteen-letter Pauline corpus and it seems reasonable (and easy for the reader) to read about them there.

6) The phrase "Christian or otherwise" to describe historians of early Christianity or specialists in early Christian literature is entirely irrelevant.

7) The textual criticism of the New Testament is significant to the history of Christianity, to biblical interpretation and Christian theology, and for that matter it is of great popular interest these days. Why would you delete the section on "Textual variation"? If you want to expand the section, that'd be great, but don't cut it out.

8) Why do you keep removing the reference to Gamble's The New Testament Canon? This is a standard and accessible work of good scholarship for the non-specialist.

9) On the translation of "testament"/"covenant", the statement "Thus, it is common to translate using either of two English terms, testament and covenant, even though they are not synonymous" is simply wrong. The translation in the Douay-Rheims version doesn't mean that it's "common"--it's anything but.

10) Why would you remove a reference to Vööbus's Early Versions of the New Testament?

11) When Eusebius is quoted, and when Adolf von Harnack is quoted, and then--in the respective notes--neither H.E. nor the work by Harnack is cited, but instead "Palmer, 1881", this is a citation error. Why do you want to include this incorrect citation?

10) You keep reverting my more cautious statement that the first translation into (Sahidic) Coptic was made at least by the third century to read "The first translation was made by the end of the second century into the Sahidic dialect". What evidence do you have for this? Do you know of Coptic MSS that can be securely dated to the second century? If so, by all means, please let me know - they need to be published and brought to the attention of Coptologists. The Crosby-Schøyen Codex (which contains 1 Peter) might date to the third century, and the famous Schøyen 2560 (which isn't in Sahidic) is early fourth century, but there's no evidence that the translation already existed in the second century.

11) Also, why have you removed the paragraph of the use of 1 Corinthians in the celebration of Holy Communion and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer (as found in Matthew) from the section on the New Testament in the liturgy. I've experienced both of these in Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, and Baptist churches!

12) What do you have against the descriptions in the "External links" section, and why do you keep removing one of the links?

13) Also you keep going back to a format in which the "See also" section is entirely askew. Why?

There are actually more problems with your reversal of my corrections, some substantial, some less so (including some simple editing having to do with spaces, commas, parenthesis, places of publication, etc.), but I think the above are enough to show you my concerns. 91.46.253.158 (talk) 15:00, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * A long list of attacks and invisible issues there. Attacking editors isn't the best way to form consensus. --Ari (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Ari, you keep changing the date of the Coptic translation back to the second century from "at least the third century" which I've provided with a reference. Would you please discuss that here.91.46.253.45 (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Consistency with referenced content in the other section. If you have a problem, provide a source to the contrary. --Ari (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Referenced content in what other section? My problem, Ari, is that for whatever reason you don't want the article to accurately state that the Coptic translation of (some of) these works was made by at least the third century. I have provided a source saying as much (Vööbus, Arthur: Early Versions of the New Testament. Stockholm, 1954, pp. 229-237). But you keep deleting this reference—a reference to a classic work, by a giant in the field, and one of only two books on the subject (along with Metzger's) in any language. That is my problem.91.46.253.45 (talk) 16:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said, consistency with the article on the topic. If you want a content fork, reference it. Accusing me of deleting the reference is just confusing. --Ari (talk) 01:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry you're uncomfortable being called on your dishonesty. Just stop deleting verified information (and the verification!) in the article. 91.46.208.162 (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You are aware that you are not fooling anyone by falsely attacking editors, right?


 * You also keep removing the indication of the disputed Paulines, and the composite nature of 2 Corinthians. Again, would you please discuss these proposed changes here on the discussion page.91.46.253.45 (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We are providing a list of the Pauline epistles - the main page for each is linked with discussions on authorship. A selected and arbitrary annotation on some of the texts impedes on the list. --Ari (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It is neither selective, nor is it arbitrary. Only those letters that are widely regarded as composite or pseudnonymous are so designated (so, e.g., the proposed lack of integrity in Philippians is not mentioned, since it is not widely held). It does not impede the list.91.46.253.45 (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Why are we diverging into a discussion on a list? That is the point. This article is a base article about the NT not an exhaustive elaboration on everything about it. The scope is amazingly broad. --Ari (talk) 01:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You also keep removing the discussion of the Pastoral Epitles. Please discuss that here, on the discussion page.91.46.253.45 (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Above. --Ari (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No. Above you talk about notes in the list of the Pauline Epistles. The introduction to the sub-section on the Pastoral Epistles is the same sort of introduction offered to the Gospels, Acts, Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse.91.46.253.45 (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, as above. The Pastoral Epistles are part of the Pauline Corpus and are internally attributed to Paul. We list them that way. There is sufficient link to the debate on the issue. So, as above, introducing every debate into the article grants unlimited scope. Keep the list of Pauline texts clear and to the point. --Ari (talk) 01:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Please also discuss why you keep deleting the entire "Textual variation" section. This is an important topic regarding the New Testament and the discussion in the section deserves to be expanded, instead the whole thing is being excised. Please share your thoughts on this here on the discussion page.91.46.253.45 (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As explained, merging it into the manuscript section. That kinda got lost in your mass reverting but I am sure it may come back soon. --Ari (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I noticed your "Edit summary" saying that you were combining the "Textual variation" section with the "Early manuscripts" section. (I'm not sure it would make much sense there anyway, since manuscript witnesses are only one source of information about the text of the New Testament in that period; the versions and citations in other literature are also used.) However, when I went to see whether in fact you *did* incorporate the "Textual variation" section into the "Early manuscripts" section, I found that you didn't. Maybe it was just a one time mistake. Then you did it again. And again. And once more. And now I see that it's a five time mistake. If you really are going to incorporate a discussion of textual variation into the "Early manuscripts" section (which, as I've already mentioned, I don't think fits the section), then do so. Please do not say you are doing it, and then merely delete the section.91.46.253.45 (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Links to other articles for sub-divisions of the New Testament
What does everything think about these two alternatives: There could either be a link to the "Main articles" at the beginning of each subsection of the New Testament, i.e. links to the Canonical Gospels, to the Acts of the Apostles, to the Pauline Epistles, to the Catholic Epistles, and to the Apocalypse of John. Or, we could just link these other articles via a hyperlink in the intro of each paragraph.

I would think the second option is better, since for Acts and the Apocalypse there's only one book in the "section". Also, I don't think we need to list "main pages" to each of the individual Four Gospels (since they're linked in the text) and being consistent and doing that for the Pauline Epistles would really look quite messy. It seems it'd be better to just consistently not list the "Main article" before each subsection.

Perhaps we could discuss this here before changing it in the article.91.46.253.45 (talk) 14:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * wp:style and WP:MOST. --Ari (talk) 15:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Commentary on origin of the NT
This edit and several subsequent edits on 8 May 2010 by IP editor 91.46.208.162 introduced a large amount of commentary to the list in the "Books" section which is highly controversial. It is well referenced with academic sources, but the issues involved are highly divisive. (For those just reading the talk page, it consists mainly of commentary on which books of the New Testament were actually written by their purported authors and which are pseudonymous.) Presenting these ideas on the origins of the New Testament as the entirely unanimous belief of all scholars involved is disingenuous. mkehrt (talk) 00:28, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no reason for a commentary on a list. You are another editor who has opposed the edits of the IP editor who has avoided blocks by use of a dynamic IP address. The IP editor seems to oppose all but their own edits through constant edit warring. I propose that the page be semi-protected to stop edit warring by unaccountable IP editors circumventing consensus. --Ari (talk) 06:47, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * A quick skim of the 'talk page does not reveal any discussion on what information should be included on the authorship of the books of the New Testament in the initial list of books, so it is not clear to me that there was a consensus so much as a status quo. Please correct me if I missed something.  However, I think we should try to reach a consensus on what information about authorship should be presented in the initial list of books.  The main issue is that there is no unified scholarly agreement, and we should not present one set of ideas as though they were universally agreed upon.  Because of this, it seems that any information about authorship should be deferred to a later section which can discuss the issues in detail, as in the pre IP edits version.  This avoided discussion of the actual authorship, though it did mention the traditional authors.  I think that this is a reasonable solution as the ascription of the traditional authors gives some information about the contents of the books.  Moreover, the traditional authorship of the epistles gives a categorization of epistles into two classes, Pauline and general (with Hebrews being a special case; see my comment above on the talk page).  Finally, we should make sure there is a note at the top of the section saying that many of these claims to authorship are disputed by many modern scholars, and that there is a fuller discussion below.  Essentially I am arguing that the version of the list before the IP edits should be used. (Full disclosure: I had some hand in editing this list previously).mkehrt (talk) 07:06, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Agree to get it moved back to the last consensus of content (minus some structural changed and changed in accordance with wp:mos) found here -Revision as of 14:15, 9 May 2010? --Ari (talk) 10:11, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I looked through this article last week, noticed the edit warring, and reported it. I know that Wikipedia is (by design) not edited by specialists in the respective fields, but since I happen to be one (in New Testament and early Christian literature) I'd be happy to give my input here on the discussion page. I've just glanced through the article again, and to your comment on the material in the "Books" section, Mkehrt, I would say that there's actually nothing there that is either controversial, divisive, or disputed among specialists in New Testament studies. What's there now (as of lunchtime on Monday!) doesn't really mis-represent the scholarly consensus. I've no doubt that a lot of conclusions regarded as entirely cogent by specialists may be surprising and perhaps even offensive to some non-specialists. I certainly do not intend that statement to be elitist; in fact, colleagues who are very conservative and those who are not (and I regularly interact with both) all work with the same evidence and at least on some basic historical issues come to rather similar conclusions. There are maybe one or two outliers that are notable as exceptions, but it looks like those views get mentioned in the notes of the article in its current form.
 * Whether or not mention should be made, in the main Wikipedia article on the New Testament, of the historical setting out of which the books came and their authorship is certainly a worthwhile discussion to have. This strikes me as pretty basic information that someone coming to the article would be interested to know. I would even think the addition of a phrase or two after the Pauline, pseudo-Pauline and Catholic Epistles that currently have no such commentary would be very welcome. So I would disagree, Ari, that this commentary doesn't belong in these lists. It's already there in the "Gospels" sub-section, and offers, I think, a really helpful, brief overview of each specific book.
 * It doesn't belong in the lists, especially when it is being discussed in the Authorship subsection. The list is grouping those within the Pauline corpus and internally attributed to Paul. There is no reason to duplicate authorship content when there is a whole section dedicated to such. --Ari (talk) 11:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, most of the information isn't in the "Authorship" section: there's absolutely nothing on the Apocalypse, the Catholic Epistles or the Pastoral Epistles there. While the "Authorship" section certainly ought to be expanded, to remove all of the information that is currently in the lists, particularly the information on the gospels, would be a huge re-write. And honestly, when the average person encounters books that bear titles like "The Gospel according to Matthew", "The Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians" or "The Second Letter of Peter", notes right in the list itself - right next to the works - addressing the issue would be extremely helpful, since it has to do not merely with authorship, but with the title of the works, their place within the New Testament (e.g., as part of the Corpus Paulinum) and even their inclusion in the canon. So it's not just about authorship. For that reason I think we ought to keep some kind of brief mention of the issue right in the list itself. GradStud28 19:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I should also say that before reporting the edit warring last week I looked through this discussion page. The anonymous editor with the floating IP had clearly reworked a great deal of the article. (And honestly, I found most of what they'd introduced to be good and informative.) They didn't, however, appear to discuss much of it here on the talk page until - so it seems from the article's history page - many of these edits were undone by you, Ari. At that point, they rattled off a whole litany (no pun intended) of reversed edits to which they objected and also described your editing, Ari, as vandalism (here). They apparently either misunderstood (or misrepresented) the use of this term on Wikipedia, but, having said that, a number of their objections to your reversals of their edits struck me as very reasonable, from a professional perspective, i.e. those regarding the content of the article. For this reason, it seemed to me that you were engaging in "edit warring" just as much as they were and (since they did not have a stable account) that's why I reported only you.
 * It doesn't appear that you followed my editing at all. Last week, I reverted the IP editors edits to fix consistent problems - such as removal of sources, divergence from the internal style of the article and the Wikipedia Manuel of Style - and restored essentially all of the content they added. Don't worry about justifying reporting me, I often report my edit warring activities. That said, your most recent report does betray an ignorance of my posting history. For example, the comment states that I am removing sections when in fact I expanded the section on TC.--Ari (talk) 11:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * One of the good things about Wikipedia is that anyone can easily go back and see the edits that have been made to an article. With regard to your other comments about me, I would refer you here, and with regard to reporting yourself for "edit warring", I would simply refer you here. GradStud28 19:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * With an eye to the usefulness of the article, I would think the sections that are currently in decent shape (for example, the "Books" section) should remain fundamentally as they are, and that attention should be given to cleaning up the "Authorship" and "Canonization" sections (and, as mentioned above, getting rid of the "Authority" section, which is marked for merger anyway). I'd love to see the New Testament article get bumped up from a "C" rating and I suspect it's the weak sections that are preventing that. GradStud28 11:10, 10 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TBSailors (talk • contribs)
 * We are also running into problems (Edit Warring) with Ari at the Gospel of the Hebrews 96.22.215.70 (talk) 04:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe you mean "I am running..." as you seem to be the only one who has a problem with multiple editors objecting to you wanting a wp:fringe theory to dominate the article. --Ari (talk) 13:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Again
Once again, why are we restoring a non-consensus edit that duplicated content? Myself and mkehrt have identified numerous problems with annotating the list. In annotating it, we are again repeating the content under authorship. The list is for traditional and internal attribution. Critical questions of authorship are within the section that specifically deals with this. So, those who are blindly reverting the article due to personal grudges, stop and let consensus and discussions take their shape. We are not going to subvert everything WP stands for because you think your opinion is supreme. --Ari (talk) 09:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I too don't know why you keep restoring a non-consensus edit. mkehrt never responded to your agreement to remove and re-write all these sections, nor to the response to his/her comments by GradStud28, who also responded to your view. (He favoured the current form of the article that you keep changing.) talk then posted that they are also running into problems with you "edit warring" on the article on the Gospel of the Hebrews. You've been a Wikipedia editor long enough to know you're not supposed to do that. This doesn't have to be so difficult; in fact, I read through your expansions to the sections in this article on "Authorship" and "Canonization" (following the British and American spelling) and, although I made a couple minor changes in their wording, by-and-large I thought they were good, Ari, and would like to thank you for taking the time to write them. 91.46.218.213 (talk) 13:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You finally came to the talk page. I am quite surprised. I know he never responded to that, but he voiced similar concerns to myself with the transformation of the article. TBSailor was responded to, and his criticism was that the authorship section was incomplete. I agree with him to an extent that it was, and I have started expanding it. That said, you are yet to address duplicating material. Instead you, without discussion, restore it including the mistakes. Discuss it. Explain this:


 * Gospels - we talk about traditional authorship
 * Under authorship section we talk about critical authorship
 * Yet for Paul, we are going to talk about it in both sections.
 * 96.22.215.70 is mad that I and other editors oppose his POV edits in arguing the Markan priority is subordinate to an idiosyncratic theory of Gospel of the Hebrews priority so I don't very much care what he accuses me of.
 * --Ari (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Good Lord, you two are at it again?!?! Ari, why did you just delete my edit arranging the section on 'Authorship' by author and chronologically? I'm going to restore the page (and my edit) back to the way it was, and if either of you (talk or Ari) keep screwing with this article, I'll report your edit war. BlueEyedM (talk) 14:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't delete it, I restored the order that follows that of the page (i.e. canonical as outlined below). Similarly, you didn't just change the order but you restored a version with multiple problems that was a matter of dispute for a long time. No need for threats. --Ari (talk) 08:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Just so it's clear, I'm still as unwilling to tolerate "edit warring" as I expressed in my comment above from 11 days ago. BlueEyedM (talk) 17:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Given the choice between an anonymous editor and an editor who chooses to indentify, I go with the latter. Could someone other than the two involved in the edit war please explain the history and why we have sided with the one editor over the other? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, BlueEyedM, myself and the IP editor were blocked for edit warring. What exactly are you trying to make of that? Note that the anonymous editor has not joined the discussions here; nor does it appear they have any intention of. --Ari (talk) 00:04, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What I'm trying to make of this is that an edit war is in no one's interest. Let's discuss why these changes are being made and if they're right then after consensus has been reached, apply the consensus. However, the article should remain in its current state (with your redactions omitted) until that consensus has been reached. Make your points for where there is duplication and why it's not needed. You have a willing audience. The anonymous edits is also free to make counter-points, however, I would take the editor more seriously if they were to create an account. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:24, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Umm...what is most similar to my version was the consensus page. The anonymous IP editor has been trying to implement the version for a while, and it was immediately disputed by myself and other editors. You actually just restored the non-consensus version in a dispute that has been going for a while. All my edits have been discussed above, so willing audience go view them.
 * As you are new and I am about to leave, I will summarise some of the disputes:

1. An admin earlier changed the MoS issues that I addressed in my last edits. Anon has without reason restored them. 2. The content on authorship is duplicated. The first list is for traditional authorship - this is evident with the gospels; however, the Authorship subheading is for the scholarly question of authorship, as again is evident with all the content. There is no reason to mix critical and traditional for ONLY one section (Pauline epistles) and contain duplicate material when that happens for no other section. I hope this brings you up to speed, there is more discussion above. Note, the anonymous IP editor has not joined these discussions. --Ari (talk) 00:36, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Or you can ignore the request for consensus, have me place a warning on your page and have me take this up with admins. I don't mind. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * What request for consensus have I ignored? I have been trying to reach consensus for a very long time through extensive discussions. However, this discussion has been one way. All these fly-by editors or disruptive anonymous editors refuse to take part in these discussions. You claimed you were open to discussion, yet you jump into attack - ironically enough accusing others of not assuming good faith when that is exactly what you are doing.
 * So, please join the discussions instead of making threats. Threats are unproductive, discussions are. --Ari (talk) 03:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The request for consensus was made by the two previous editors and I tried to be neutral. It seems you are taking ownership of this article, which is frowned-upon. I'm not a NT expert. My role here is to help avoid vandalism. However it seems that you're the one who is not assuming good faith. I actually assumed good fiat on your part when I reverted the anonymous editor's removal of your changes. I assumed that your edits were in good faith. Then I'm told by another editor that you have had a history in this group and have been sanctioned for your previous actions here. I am trying to avoid escalation. You just keep coming back and reverting without discussion. Please start a dialog instead of intimidating. That is reaching a consensus. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I did not "come back...reverting without discussion". I implemented changes that brought the article back into line before the consensus version. I also moved content around and will continue to edit in a prudent manner. You do not seem interested in discussing the edits but moreso in attacking myself. I have assumed good faith, but at this stage it is getting hard to do so. You refuse to read the discussions, you refuse to discuss the actual issues but when it comes to attacking the editors from your position of limited knowledge on the history of the article, you are full force. --Ari (talk) 03:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And then you have the audacity to place a comment on my talk page for not assuming good faith. You are starting to become irksome. I did assume good faith. You are the one who was sanctioned for bad behaviour on this article. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I placed a very welcoming comment asking you to join the discussions. I also responded to your claim that I was not assuming good faith. Everyone is free to see my comment here and it is quite clear that it is not malicious as you are stating above. I, once again, request that you join the discussions instead of attacking users. --Ari (talk) 03:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

And yet it continues. I would say it hasn't quite reached consensus and an edit war is not in anyone's interest. Are the parties really interested in continuing this edit war or would it be better to discuss it? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It is evident on the discussion page that I want to discuss the issues until the cows come home. However, this is not reciprocated by the anonymous editor. Not once have they come to the discussion page to discuss the issues yet they are intent on forcefully implementing their changes. Furthermore, there is a blatant lack of candour about it. They remain on a dynamic IP and use this to avoid their blocks - and even now they are using false edit summarise in an attempt to disguise their edits. This simply isn't how Wikipedia works. --Ari (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Anonymous editing isn't against the rules. Not discussing is annoying. The summaries are not entirely false statements. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I never said that anonymous editing was against the rules, but I am pretty sure avoiding blocks by unplugging your modem then getting back to circumventing consensus is. Not discussing is quite annoying, especially when I have been waiting here like a crazy man for a month or so. But I have to say, the edit summary was most definitely false. "removed "do" in header and "theoretically" in Date of Composition section" =/= reverting article. I may have missed it, but I am pretty sure I didn't see any removal of "do" or "theoretically" in that edit either.
 * Anyway, have you looked at dates at all? --Ari (talk) 14:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Ari, I had discussed things here on the talk page earlier. But after you admitted that you were merely engaged in edit warring, I took that to be an indication that you were no longer editing in good faith. Walter Görlitz, a user called Lung salad has added a few times under the "dating" section that the dating of books in the New Testament is theoretical. Since the context of the article itself should make that self-evident, I removed those comments and wrote a more nuanced description of the dating of the works that is based only on the evidence we have. (Confusingly Lung salad in a later edit wrote that Justin Martyr was the first writer to refer to gospels - but I don't know how he could possibly date Papias after Justin.) Anyway, until Ari reports himself for edit warring again (an odd practice, I admit; but he said he does it), I'm not going to consider reverting his non-consensus edits that have already been extensively discussed here on the talk page to require further discussion here. 91.46.199.16 (talk) 07:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Glad you decided to join the discussions anon, although I wish it were under better circumstances. When was I no longer editing in good faith? Not quite sure what that is meant to mean in any context. I have consistently edited in good faith, so no need to try and needlessly pull me down into the dirt.
 * Please do not attempt to mislead us about your edits. You did not remove the comments by Lung Salad, I did. What you did was restore non-consensus edits that you are currently avoiding discussion on. Please do not be so disingenuous in your edit, especially when you have done what you claimed you were not going to do in the very comment I am responding to. --Ari (talk) 07:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The only problem with an edit war is that it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Ari can't do it on his own. If you want to see consensus, it must be discussed. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * this is becoming ridiculous. The main difference between the two versions are conservative interpretations and liberal interpretations. Y'all may just be spending eternity together so perhaps some discussion as to how both sides of this discussion could come together might be a good place to start. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:56, 6 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It is becoming impossible to edit this article because of the edit warring. And the comment that this is not a liberal/conservative scholarship issue but a "correct" scholarship issue is ignorant. Liberal scholarship is no more correct than conservative scholarship it just starts with a different set of assumptions. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I found that comment about scholarship quite troubling. WP is about verifiability; if a reputable source argues something per NPOV we include it. For that reason, we may include a wide array of views. However, the issue with the anonymous editor seems to be something more than scholarship and I cannot quite put my finger on it. I reverted their recent disruptive edits, noting that once again the edit summary was not very accurate. For example, it claimed that it was restoring a section on Textual Variation and changing Translation to Version. As anyone can see, there was no removal of textual variation to be restored or change of translation/version. Furthermore, the claim about the pastoral epistles doesn't seem to have anything to do with the structure of the article. They claimed a misrepresentation of the pastoral epistles. Can the anonymous editor demonstrate that the pastoral epistles were not ascribed to Paul? Why you insist on inventing edit summaries and issues is beyond me. --Ari (talk) 12:26, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On Pastoral Epistles, the only times I have heard that the Pastoral Epistles were not written by Paul and were pseudopigriphal or written in Paul's name were from liberal theologians. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:53, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * And the question of scholarly discussions on authorship goes under the section of Authorship, not the section on traditional authorship. There is a clear and consistent treatment of the books throughout this article in that way. --Ari (talk) 15:07, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Authority
Suggestions on continuing the merge discussions? --Ari (talk) 14:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The current proposal per the tag seems to be merging it with Biblical inspiration. I am not sure as to whether it would be merged and removed from this article as I believe there should be some discussion on why the New Testament has authority in these Christian circles and what this authority is. The current Authority section does some of that task, but it also forays beyond a NPOV discussion of this.


 * Furthermore, I believe that it may be best dealt with if merged (in this article) with the question of canon. The authority of the New Testament is most definitely related to those books being deemed authoritative in some sense and coming together in a book.


 * Any suggestions? --Ari (talk) 04:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Order of Authorship
user:BlueEyedM objected to the earlier order of Authorship on the basis that it be listed "chronologically". However, I disagree and had logic in doing in the way I originally expanded. The main reason is that the article itself consistently follows the canonical order up until that stage. That is, it begins with the Gospels > Acts > Pauline Epistles > Catholic Epistles > Revelation. It does not seem justified to change the order from that in the Authorship subsection as a matter of inconsistency to: Paul and Hebrews > Synoptic Gospel and Acts > Johannine Literature > James, Peter & Jude. But then again, that brings up the issue of where to place the Gospel of John with regard to the Johannine Epistles.

Any suggestions on maintaining consistency throughout the article in this regard? Or is it a non-issue to others? Thanks --Ari (talk) 04:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a time-line of authorship would be appropriate. EasyTimeline could be used. The time-line could include earliest possible date and latest possible date. It could also remain in canonical order or it could be done in the order of assumed authorship. There are many possibilities. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I am not too sure about using the time line for ordering authorship, but it would be a great idea for the dating section. It would be a quick visual that would easily get the fact across that the canon was not set regarding the order of the texts. I am not too sure how it would work regarding the general malleability of the dates.
 * I think we should establish the dates to use. --Ari (talk) 04:28, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * We can't really start until we have dates. There are usually a span with conservative dates much earlier than liberal dates. With that said, the range would then be a horizontal bar representing the range of dates. When I studied NT in university each of the books had conservative dating which differed slightly from the dating in my NASB study bible. Some of the texts in the library showed later dates than both. I suppose we could start a section here and ask for sources of dates and start with that. Once we have date range, I could create the timeline. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yep, we should stick with mainstream dating (which itself blurs at the lines that may cause problems). The problem is that we cannot be too accurate with dating, and there are always great arguments outside of the general mainstream position! This is my proposed categories. 27 books in a 50-60 year timeline would be quite messy, so it may be better to group some.

Possible Categories: --Ari (talk) 04:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Synoptic Gospels
 * Gospel of John
 * Acts of the Apostles
 * Pauline Epistles (minus pastorals)
 * Pastoral Epistles
 * Catholic Epistles - probably individual (e.g. 1 and 2 Peter have a very wide range between them.)
 * Revelation

Synoptic Gospels (and Acts?)
"The overwhelmingly dominant view is that the Gospel of Mark was the pioneering work, the earliest extant attempt to give a connected narrative account of Jesus' ministry, and that it probably appeared sometime between 65 and 72." Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. 260.
 * Gospel of Mark:


 * For Synoptics in general probably marking out 60-85. (Ari (talk) 08:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC))

Gospel of John

 * 85-100?

Pauline Epistles

 * 49-...

Authorship
I redid the section on authorship to align it with Authors of the Bible which itself condenses the information in the individual biblical books. The section before was poorly cited and full of weasel words. The section is now well cited.RomanHistorian (talk) 16:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:03, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Epistle to the Laodiceans
I copied over a bit about the Epistle to the Laodiceans from the article for that work to the canon section. It appears to have been considered canonical in several Latin, German, and English bibles. I'm seeing this as a counterpart to the bit about Luther excluding 4 NT books from his canon. I've avoided combining the sections for now. I think it puts a little perspective on what Luther was doing, in as much as there had been books included in bibles in the region that were later deemed non-canonical. It makes him look a little less radical. Ekwos (talk) 19:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Authorship of Revelation
Here is a segment from my term paper on Revelation's authorship - which my professor said was highly insufficient - notice however that it contains more information than this wiki-article.

So it must be settled for this study, who wrote Revelation, the presbyter John or the Apostle John? Lioy lists: “Justin (the) Martyr (ca 150-ca 215), Irenaeus (ca 130-ca 200), Clement of Alexandria (ca 150-ca 215), Tertullian (ca 155-ca 220), Hippolytus of Rome (ca 170-ca 236), and Origen (ca 185-ca 254)” as early Church fathers who all attributed authorship to the Apostle John.4 It was only “Dionysius of Alexandria (ca 190-ca 265)” “who did not believe it was the work of an apostle” and “Eusebius of Caesaria (ca 260-ca 341)” who attributed Revelation to the presbyter John.5 Lioy concludes that “the consensus of the early church consistently favored the apostle John as the author of Revelation, and there seems to be insufficient evidence to overturn this view.”6

4. Daniel Lioy, The Book of Revelation in Christological Focus (Studies in Biblical Literature, V. 58) (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2003), 5. 5. Ibid., 5-6. 6. Ibid., 9.

I do not know how to edit this article but you now have a lead to some more thorough information on Revelation's authorship —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.198.76.102 (talk) 18:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Apocalypse/Revelation
I was about to make a quick change when it dawned on me that this is likely quite a contentious article, and therefore I'd better come here first. In several places in this article, the Book of Revelation, is referred to as the Apocalypse, or the Apocalypse of John. "Revelation", or "The Revelation of John" is more commonly used. Would there be serious objection to using "The Revelation of John, also known as the Apocalypse of John"? Joefromrandb (talk) 10:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It should definitely be standarized throughout the article. I would prefer Book of Revelation or Revelation, with an initial mention of Apocalypse, but I don't care that strongly as long as it's made uniform. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 16:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It is more commonly referred to as Apocalypse in Roman Catholic circles, but I would take the lead from the Book of Revelation article. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:37, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is more commonly referred to as the Apocalypse in Roman Catholic circles, so we should probably leave that in the article. The minority terminology can also be given parenthetically after the first occurrance.

Wikilink from this article REDIRECT to new article
For anyone with their settings "watching" this article, and therefore the Talk Page, they may wish to be aware of the discussion on Talk:canonical gospels. That wikilink, which is linked from this article, used to REDIRECT from this article to Gospel but now REDIRECTs to new article written over the REDIRECT by a single editor. The new article appears to have several issues including: There is discussion at Talk:canonical gospels of how to proceed and whether to restore the REDIRECT as follows: In ictu oculi (talk) 20:01, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. Content forking (which qualifies among Deletion_policy)
 * 2. to be counter to two of Wikipedia's "three core policies", namely (A) Neutral point of view, (B) No original research.
 * 3. to actually be 30% duplicate of material at Gospel and 70% about the noncanonical gospels
 * canonical gospels as original REDIRECT to Gospel
 * noncanonical gospels REDIRECTS to New Testament apocrypha
 * apocryphal gospels REDIRECTS to New Testament apocrypha

Language paragraph, Correcting POVfork in mainwikilink
I have made this edit as NPOV breakout of the text from "Language of the New Testament". The rationale is to put the mainstream view (as per text anyway) as the main wikilink, and relegate the Aramaic primacy (which is an article that probably needs renaming) to the foot of the paragraph clearly identifying it as a minority view. While instinctively "unfair" to present academic mainstream views first in this way it is what WP:POVFORK and WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE require. As we wouldn't expect to have in the article Hamlet under a paragraph Language the mainwikilink "main English primacy/Danish primacy" as two equal mainwikilink options, etc. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:08, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually this edit is mine. The new article needs to be improved before we direct people to it. And removing material from the existing articles is also not acceptable even if you're adding that material to your new article. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 13:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello Walter, yes, that edit is your reversion of mine. The point is the "new article" is the "old article"; it is not "my new article" the only thing that has changed is a rename/move leaving the unrelated material of Hellenism behind. And yes I note that I did leave behind a chunk tagged OR because I wasn't sure whether to move it to Talk. So back to the problem here, the current linking on this paragraph represents a WP:POVFORK. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The new article is the old article? It is your new article as you are the one who created it without input from any of the existing editors. You removed material from existing articles without checking first to see what else links to those existing articles. I have no problems with making radical edits, but be prepared to back-up your actions with reasons. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Walter. I'm sorry but the move of relevant content from Greek primacy to language of the New Testament was not "without input from any of the existing editors"? Please if you will kindly look at Talk:Greek_primacy you'll see I mooted this move (of the relevant material) to Language of the New Testament on 5 June, got 1 approval 6 June, then no response, and waited till 20 June for further input, got none so did it. If you were that interested in the Greek primacy page then perhaps you should have had it on your watchlist. But anyway, better late than never, do you object to the move? Do you want it moved back to Greek primacy (which is what you've done without discussing on Talk:Greek_primacy). I'm sorry but the Greek primacy page did not have a note on the Talk page, "do not touch this without first discussing on Talk of New Testament since it is linked there."
 * It's somewhat unusual for a link to wag the dog (in this case a link here to override the Talk page of the other article) but I'm fine with that as New Testament is a more important article with a wider selection of editors. So what do you want? In restoring the equal weight wikilinks that recreates the equal-weight WP:POVFORK between Greek and Aramaic. Is that what editors here want? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I made the change before reading the talk page (my apologies), but it seems only natural that the Language section in this article should have more detail in an article called Language of the New Testament. Now maybe that secondary article could use some work, but it still seems the natural article title. 75.15.197.96 (talk) 06:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess that possibly resolves the issue as regards this Talk page and this New Testament article. I haven't reverted Walter's edits to "Greek primacy" since he and any others are very welcome to participate in the discussion at Talk:Greek_primacy. The Greek primacy -> Language of the New Testament move, while de-POVforking per Wikipedia policy, does present an odd situation - under normal circumstances I would have done a straight move, and deleted the (history of Hellenism) "Greek primacy" (the real thing, not the Wikipedia editor's invention) content, which I'm not sure is notable, other than as a footnote to articles like Megasthenes etc. That would have carried the page edit history. And I'm still of two minds, as to whether that wouldn't be better and develop "Greek primacy" out of the stub left by a move-redirect. But am more than happy for others to input/play around on that. The important thing is that the POVfork has gone, while (?) maybe leaving room for a properly sourced description of the Syrian church's view of the canonicity of the Peshitta (?) to develop from the "Aramaic primacy" POVfork - which appears to probably be in line with exceptions to Wikipedia POVfork policy. (?) In ictu oculi (talk) 07:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Tags
These seem a bit excessive, so I removed them from the top of the page:
 * Coat rack|date=May 2010
 * Off-topic|biblical authority|date=May 2010
 * Off-topic|biblical inspiration|date=May 2010
 * Off-topic|biblical hermeneutics|date=May 2010
 * Merge to|biblical inspiration|date=May 2010
 * Ibid|date=October 2010

Tom Harrison Talk 23:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Written in Greek?
I have searched and searched for proof that the New Testament was written in Greek and have found no evidence. Why do the dogmatic editors here not want this information out.

Please state the evidence in the article or change the statement to something like: "it is widely believed to have been written in Greek"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rziga (talk • contribs) 20:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It is written because it's true. There's even a reference for it in the Languages section. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Where is the proof? How can anyone take this article serious? - "it is because I say it is", sorry, that does not make it fact.  Where is the evidence?  State the evidence! comment added by Rziga
 * The NT comprises 27 books. All the oldest manuscripts are in (Koine) Greek. There is a minority opinion that Matthew was first written in Hebrew. rossnixon 02:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The proof is in the same place that the proof for any other article on Wikipedia is: in the references. The evidence is two textbooks on Biblical studies. I have a few more here that state the same thing. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * State the same thing? What?  State what?  You count on the fact that 99% of the readers of this article will just take your word that there is actual evidence in your "references".  I searched those references, they do not provide evidence that the original documents were written in Greek.  Only someone with an agenda would use flimsy arguments such as yours.  WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE, STATE THE EVIDENCE HERE! DON'T POINT TOWARDS OBSCURE REFERENCES! comment added by Rziga  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.245.5.112 (talk) 12:29, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I expect the readers of the article to actually read the references. The evidence is that the earliest manuscripts are in Koine Greek and the early church fathers, and they wrote stating before 100 AD, state that they were originally written in Koine Greek. You are not reading the article. You are not even being reasonable. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not being unreasonable. I want the evidence. I guess if one wants evidence one is unreasonable in your view.  You keep alluding to references, why not just state the evidence?  If the evidence exists, (which it does not), then why don't you place the evidence in this article, why would you refer to nebulous "church fathers"?   Why so dogmatic without proof?  What IS your agenda?  And remember this, if you believe in the Creator, you will account for your actions and words, particularly for what you have done here. comment added by Rziga


 * You stated that you read the references "searched those references". The evidence is that as was presented. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:21, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just so that you stop ranting, please Google "what language was the New testament written in?" and "was the New testament written in Hebrew?" follow the links. I particularly liked http://www.pfrs.org/jewish/hr08.html where it reads "One of the subtle attacks on the Christian Faith comes from the notion that the New Testament was not written in Greek". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * However, if you would like to add some reliable sources to back the claims that the New Testament was written in Hebrew, the article would be the better for it. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:40, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

And people wonder why Wikipedia is a joke.134.2.243.182 (talk) 00:54, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No kidding. What kind of moron doubts that the NT was written in Koine? That user should not be contributing to any article whatsoever. WholeWheatIgnatius (talk) 08:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Epistle vs. letter to the Hebrews
As far as I can see, the usual term these days for Hebrews is "The Letter to the Hebrews". Certainly that is the term used un the New Living Translation 1996 and the Good News Translation 1966.

I am aware that historiclly the Englich word for an item of correspondence was "Epistle" and works dating from the medeival period, such as the KJV 1611 will use "Epistle", however I am not aware of any work penned in the last quarter century of so which describes Hebrews as an "Epistle". Philadelphia 2009 (talk) 11:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, "letter" or some variant thereof has probably been the standard English word for an item of correspondence (nicely put phrase, by the way) since in or around the 14th century. Before that, there was apparently used an Anglo-Saxon word, "aerandgewrit" (an  "errand writ", it seems).  "Epistle" is merely an Anglicisation of the original Greek description for these New Testament works, "epistole".  So, "epistle" is chosen when the editor wants to affect an English which is closer to the original language, and "letter" is chosen when the editor wants to use a more common English.--Atethnekos (talk) 10:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Lingua Franca
As English are today, so Greek and Latin used (once) to be the lingua franca of many regions, the former especially in Middle East and Asia Minor and Egypt, because of the greek colonies there and the greek speaking merchants e.t.c. e.t.c.. Most (not all) of the christian texts were written in greek because the authors intended to make them available and understood by the majority. Also greek was not like latin, the language of the overlords, so were more easily accepted and spoken as lingua franca from many nations. The authors ment also to use a common language that would  not alieanate any nation of the mediterranean  world wishing it would not "spark" ethnic disputes. Finally, (though Greece is now widely known for its buncrupcy and misery, being an -ex does not mean you were never important:) greek used to be for many centuries the language of the literate in that region. The article has sources and it is sad to see this "cleanup" signGreekolga (talk) 15:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Ehrman
How can you quote Ehrman in this article. He has been recently rebuked by even his secular peers for the book Forged claiming that a document that does not claim authorship is somehow forged.

65.215.93.238 (talk) 17:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC) Are you serious.
 * Please take it up with WP:RS. Remember to defend your claim on the books quoted in the article. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you please provide some documentation as to the identities of these rebuking "secular" peers? Secondly, I have personally read the entire book "Forged." Nowhere does Dr. Ehrman use such narrow minded thinking to claim that a document which has not claimed authorship must therefore be forged.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.100.204 (talk) 01:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I will state again

" He has been recently rebuked by even his secular peers for the book Forged claiming that a document that does not claim authorship is somehow forged."

The book I claim is his own. You conviently removed the source document last time.... Would you like me to revert the document back yet again?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.215.93.238 (talk • contribs)
 * Thanks for stating that again. Where is this quote from? What reference was removed? Was it removed here or in the article? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The validity of an argument has nothing to do with who makes it. The reason Ehrman is cited in this article is because Wikipedia aspires to be an encyclopedia, and Ehrman is one of the leading scholars of early Christian literature in the world. In an encyclopedia entry it's probably not appropriate to cite his popular works, but to the degree that any of his positions are based on the evidence and cogent (and virtually all of them are--though I don't know why he keeps calling the Gospel of Thomas "gnostic" and considers the Mar Saba "letter" a modern forgery), then his arguments can and should be cited.134.2.243.182 (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Problem of dates for 1 Tim., 1 John, and Acts.
This is in response to Hashem Sfarim's request for discussion on recent edits. The following is in support of the assertion that describing texts to which Tertullian refers in Against Praxeas without qualification (including 1 Timothy, 1 John, and the Acts of the Apostles) as 'first-century' is problematic.

Re Acts:
 * "Thus I would place the date of the publication of Acts at about AD 110, though a release anytime within the first two decades of the second century (ca. AD 100-120) would have provided sufficient time for Polycarp's knowledge of the book." Parsons, Mikeal C. Acts. Baker Academic, 2008, p. 17.


 * "The burden of this lengthy and multi-faceted argument and the weight of evidence marshaled in its support is that Acts should be dated c. 115." Pervo, Richard I. Dating Acts. Polebridge Press, 2006, p. 346.

Re 1 Tim:
 * "All this evidence, indirect and inconclusive as it is when examined piece by piece, does seem to build up a fair case for dating the Pastorals at about A.D. 105." Hanson, Anthony T. The Pastoral Letters Commentary.  Cambridge University Press, 1966, p. 10.


 * "If Paul is considered the more immediate author, the Pastorals are to be dated between the end of his first Roman imprisonment (Acts 28:16) and his execution under Nero (A.D. 63-67); if they are regarded as only more remotely Pauline, their date may be as late as the early second century. " "The First Letter to Timothy" in NABRE-Compact. Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 1373.

Re 1 John:
 * "All this suggests that 1 John was known in patristic circles in the first half of the second century. Earlier than this we cannot go with any confidence, since the alleged echoes in 1 Clement are too doubtful to be of any use.  The patristic citations provide only an ante quem: the Johannines might have been newly written when cited, or much older." Edwards, Ruth B. The Johannine Epistles.  Continuum International, 1996, p. 54.


 * "How much later Polycarp is writing than the author of 1J himself is uncertain. The consensus of opinion is that this part of the Epistle dates from c. 135 AD.  If GJ is to be dated, as most scholars now believe, at the turn of the century, the Johannine Epistles may come about mid-way between the two dates"  Houlden, James L.The Johannine Epistles.  Continuum International, 1994, p. 40.

To be clear, I wish to say, I don't mean to establish second-century authorship for any of these texts, but only to establish that verification in reliable sources for the claim of first-century authorship for them is problematic. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * We should really in all disputed issues present both views - it seems to be the cases with most religious texts that there will be at least 2 views, traditional and critical. In the case of the Bible Authorship and Dating probably needs to be the 1st subheading, and have 2 sets of sources traditional view and critical view (in the relevant article and in summary overview here). It shouldn't be an either/or, unless one view is definitely WP:fringe. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The Walking Dead.what ithat?s — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.28.235.190 (talk) 09:43, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Authored by apostles and disciples
The challenged claim is:

"Some writers are thought to be actual apostles, and others to be disciples who were either acquainted with the apostles, or with their teachings."

IP 130.138.227.41 added a to the claim. Agreeing with IP, and further believing that the claim is unverifiable without WP:SYNTHESIS, I removed the claim and added alternative information on authors which was cited to Aune, David (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), a collection of sources which actually undermines the challenged claim. Why should we include a challenged, uncited claim which is actually undermined by a cited, reliable source?

The works in Aune 2010 make no unproblematic ascription of authorship to "apostles", but only to one apostle (Paul), and they make no unproblematic ascription of authorship to any "disciples" at all. Ascriptions to other apostles or to "disciples" are treated as problematic. Wiley-Blackwell is a foremost academic press. The volume itself has multiple positive reviews in academic journals, e.g.: Stenschke, Christoph W. "The Blackwell companion to the New Testament." Biblical Interpretation 20, no. 1-2 (January 1, 2012): 199-200. Aune is a the Walter Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of Notre Dame. Contributors in the volume are similarly qualified. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 06:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Your first response - removing an uncited and problematic claim - was the right one, and there is no need to go back on this. I have removed it. What we have at the moment is not ideal - a wishy-washy suggestion that "some say one thing, others say the opposite", when modern NT scholarship overwhelmingly rejects the traditional ascription of authorship. But it's better than nothing. --Rbreen (talk) 11:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of sources: http://www.hpchurch.org/what-presbyterians-believe-about-the-bible/ Clearly not a reliable source; no author and no publisher of any import.

http://godisforus.com/information/bible/ntdocs/authors.htm Clearly not a reliable source; no author and no publisher of any import.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370206/Bart-D-Ehrman-Parts-Bibles-New-Testament-written-pretend-apostles.html Clearly not a reliable source; not an academic publisher and no author of any import. If the goal is to cite Ehrman's article, then cite that (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/the-bible-telling-lies-to_b_840301.html). But Ehrman does not cover anything of scholarly consensus which isn't in the Aune edition anyway. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Athnekos, what you don't understand is that they ARE in a contextual sense "reliable sources" to the point and context and statement of "some theologians and scholars believe" the New Testament books were written by apostles or disciples acquainted with them. It's arguably, at least in a sense, a valid source reference regarding the statement made.  You can't dogmatically dismiss something as "unreliable source" simply because it's a source that says something you don't agree with, does not necessarily go with the (barf) "majority scholar view" (ad populum), and because they are not liberal "higher critics" who discount the Bible claims in general.  There are some "conservative" scholars and historians too, in the world.  These are scholars and authors here, and Biblical Theologians.  Whether you like what they're saying or not, or like how their websites and writings look or not.   These are scholars and people in the field.  Not some guy down the street who runs a pizza place, who may have slapped a web page together on his free time.  Let's not go overboard here.  Some of it is just interpretation, of what WP guidelines (not "rules") are.   Not everything is so black and white, but should be taken in context.   So I don't agree (especially in context to the point in the paragraph of "some theologians" etc) that they are "unreliable sources" necessarily.


 * Also, to Rbreen...in your wholesale removal and revising, you wrote that "none of the Gospel writers claimed to be eyewitnesses". How so?   That's incorrect.  John claims to be "eyewitness", (even if you don't believe John wrote John), also not all "scholars" doubt apostolic authorship, some do some don't...your wholesale change is very POV...and not even all that accurate. John and Matthew etc claim to be "eyewitnesses".   Unless you mean that the Gospel accounts are technically anonymous?   So therefore "no claim to being eyewitness"?     The point is if you notice in MY edit (which you totally disrespected), I (in NPOV) fashion, put BOTH views, the Bible-rejecting higher critic "the authors were forgers" point of view...as well as the Bible-accepting scholars and theologians...who accept that John wrote John, Matthew wrote Matthew, Paul wrote to the Romans, etc.   So?


 * To your "overwhelmingly rejects traditional ascription of authorship". That's fine to put that in the paragraph, but it's NOT fine to totally leave out the FACT that "some theologians and scholars believe the books of the New Testament were written by the apostles or their acquaintances".  To totally leave that out is not conveying all the facts, about this issue.   And leaves things incomplete.   With this vague "general view doubts ascribed or apostolic authorship".  That's not clear enough, that there is a significant number (in the field, not just regular joe schmoes), who accept (with good reason) Apostolic authorship, historically, etc.   It's called WP balance and objectivity.  To put just one side of it, making this article appear that it endorses the view that "no apostles actually wrote any part of the New Testament", as the only valid or possible view, is slanted POV...and not objective, and not even accurate.  Good day. Gabby Merger (talk) 01:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia policy is clear that "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." This is an issue on which there are lots of scholarly sources. We don't have to rely on apologetic web pages, and certainly not on the Daily Mail. I have quoted good scholarly sources, and I am going to put these points, fully cited, back in again. It's hardly controversial that the Gospels are, strictly speaking, anonymous, nor that none claims to be an eyewitness (Matthew does not claim to be an eyewitness, neither does John, though it claims to be based on eyewitness account). The full story is more complex than this, in that scholars would question whether the word "author" really means much in this context; these are documents which have been redacted and are drawn from different sources. It's likely that GJohn and the Q source are indeed based on contemporary sources, perhaps even from eyewitness accounts. Nobody knows, and casting this as a "Bible-accepting scholars" who go with the traditional authorship versus "Bible-rejecting higher critics" who say the authors were forgers is highly simplistic. Higher critics certainly accept the Bible, they just see it as a document with a complex process of authorship. I am going to restore your original claim for the moment, but you will need to back it up with some proper academic sources if you want it to stay there. --Rbreen (talk) 06:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * While I agree it would have been better to get a citation from a Bart Ehrman book itself, the Daily Mail thing was simply a source that quoted him. It's understood that some sources are better than other sources, but (again, not everything is always so cut-and-dried every second) that does not necessarily make something a totally 100% "unreliable" source, per se.


 * But even in your own WP policy quote it says that academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are "usually the most reliable sources." "Usually" means what?   "Always"?  No.   So that's not a hard "rule".  (WP has no real hard "rules" per se, try to remember that.)


 * But the main point was to simply (in balance and NPOV) to convey the conceded fact that some scholars (maybe even most, depending on which type of circle we're dealing with) discount apostolic authorship etc, like Bart Ehrman.   While there are some theologians (and yes who are scholars and Bible historians etc) who accept and believe the position that the apostles and/or early disciples wrote the books of the New Testament, and accept traditional ascription.   My only overall point is that both positions should be made clear in that little section, and not to make it as if "hey just about everyone knows that Matthew never actually wrote Matthew, and John never really wrote John, that's the overwhelming position of people who matter" as if that's the only valid or true or honest or accepted scholarly view.  Just because it may be the "overwhelming majority view" in SOME circles or sectors.  You mention "apologetics" page?     Well the problem is that in reality it's ALL in some sense "apologetics".  You think Ehrman's junk is not a polemic in a sense? Or an "apologetic"?  Of course it is.   And so is R.C. Sproul's nonsense (on the more conservative side).  The point again is that to the context of the statement (in question) "some theologians and scholars believe the NT books were written by the apostles or their acquaintances" the ref citation I put proves that very statement.  And these apologetics writers are people in the field who have studied the subject, not just average joes who happen to have a belief on the matter, to be hastily dismissed.  But theologians and scholars.  That prove the point.  Better sources of course could be found, but at least it's something (for now).   Gabby Merger (talk) 07:24, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I said precisely why I think they are unreliable sources above (lack of import), and I don't see anything in what you said to have undermined those earlier estimations. http://godisforus.com/information/bible/ntdocs/authors.htm is self-published by Kevin McGill.  Since it's self-published, the reliability can only be established on the basis of its author, or its reliable reviewers.  As far as I can tell, there are no reliable reviewers, so that leaves only the author.  McGill has what relevant degree?  Bachelor of Arts in Theology and Bible, from Miami Christian College, and nothing else.  I don't think anyone seriously claims that a North American Bachelor of Arts degree is itself sufficient training for establishing an author as a reliable source (at least not for a topic where Doctors are regular contributors to the scholarship), and I would agree. McGill has what publications in peer-reviewed journals and academic presses?  None are claimed.  McGill has what position in a relevant discipline at an accredited institution?  None is claimed.


 * http://www.hpchurch.org/what-presbyterians-believe-about-the-bible/ doesn't even have an author listed. The publisher is Highland Presbyterian Church, which has no reputation as a publisher at all.  As far as I can tell, there are no reliable reviewers.  Well there's nothing there to establish reliability for this case.


 * http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370206/Bart-D-Ehrman-Parts-Bibles-New-Testament-written-pretend-apostles.html is by a staff writer;  there's no way to establish reliability on the basis of that anonymous author. The Daily Mail has no reputation as a publisher in the field of New Testament studies.  As far as I can tell, there are no reliable reviewers.


 * The Aune volume is exactly as I said before (and more): Multiple positive reviews in academic journals. Published by an established academic press.  The editor in a tenured professor of a relevant discipline at an accredited and prestigious university, with multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals and academic presses, and multiple academic awards and honors.  To say that the only reason I would favor sources like Aune and dismiss sources like those other three is because I "agree" with the former would be to ignore everything that I say about the sources and also then imagine an ulterior evil motivation on my part.


 * Of course things are incomplete: this is an introductory paragraph to the topic of authorship. The topic can't be complete here: That's what the main authorship sections and articles are for (e.g., Authorship of the Johannine works). No one is excluding details there. I referred to the issues which are all covered authoritatively in overview (with bibliographies) in the Aune edition. I wrote: "Authorship is an area of longstanding and current research and debate, with different works posing different problems for identification. While the various works have traditional ascriptions of authorship, these ascriptions are in some cases defended by scholars, and in other cases disputed or rejected. *For overviews of the scholarship on authorship of the various New Testament works, see the relevant entries in Aune...*" No  point of view is dismissed or favoured with that statement. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The point again is that to the context of the statement (in question) "some theologians and scholars believe the NT books were written by the apostles or their acquaintances" the ref citation I put proves that very statement. And these apologetics writers are people in the field who have studied the subject, not just average joes who happen to have a belief on the matter, to be hastily dismissed. But theologians and scholars. That prove the point. And you think that "Bachelor of Arts in Theology and Bible" is something so easy to get, or means very little?    It proves that those "self-published" whatevers are people IN..THE..FIELD.   And have STUDIED the subject (not just on their own, but FORMALLY)...whether it's in a college situation you like or fancy.    That's not the issue.   It's not just average joes who may have casual interests in theology or biblical studies, who put some website together in their basement on their free time.  It's substantial (at least in a sense) ENOUGH...and to the point of the sentence "some theologians and scholars believe the NT books were written by apostles or their acquaintances".  That statement IS true (and sourced).  Sure, better (maybe) sources could be provided.   But to totally 100% dismiss a ref because of "self-publish" or because it's not by more "secular" sources and people, seems to miss the point, and is a bit dogmatic.


 * Look at the actual WP policy that the other editor quoted, but seems to miss the word "usually".


 * Even in your own WP policy quote it says that academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are "usually the most reliable sources." "Usually" means what? "Always"? No. So that's not a hard "rule". (WP has no real hard "rules" per se, try to remember that.)


 * People with degrees also believe in apostolic authorship.  Not all of course, and in some circles not the majority.  But they're substantial and they're there.  And there's nothing wrong in mentioning that point of fact in some way in that paragraph in that section.  Regards. Gabby Merger (talk) 23:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's very clear what "usually" means here - you only have to look at articles to see how it's used. It means that, where scholarly sources are available, they should be used. You won't find peer-reviewed academic papers or monographs on lists of Pokemon characters or football players, but in the case of NT scholarship there is a well-established body of expertise, and we should not mix and match. Rbreen (talk) 00:28, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't believe you have responded to any of my criticisms of the sources, apart from suggesting that a North American Bachelor of Arts in a relevant field is actually sufficient for establishing authorial reliability on a topic. I feel Rbreen has made the case against that position, but to be explicit:  NT scholarship is well-established, and there are dozens if not hundreds of publications on NT authorship by doctors in the field every year.  If you're suggesting that the normal 3 or 4 years of training of the bachelors were enough to qualify them as equivalent to the doctors, then what you're suggesting is that normal 5-6 years of additional training that the doctors have completed is meaningless. There's no guarantee that there was any expectation that McGill read a single recent, peer-reviewed paper dealing with NT authorship in order that he be qualified to obtain his degree. What you are suggesting is the equivalent of seeking out the medical advice of some one who's medical training to limited to a pre-med degree, when there are well-respected resident physicians also offering advice.
 * I'll just note some things relevant to how you characterize me: I never said or implied that a reference should be dismissed simply because it is self-published (in fact I was very explicit that that was not sufficient for dismissing a source, because after noting the source is self-published I go on to consider how reliability can be established based on authorship or reviews). I certainly never said or implied that a reference should be dismissed because it is not secular enough.  Finally, I never said or implied that Wikipedia has any real hard rules per se (so there's no need to give me an imperative to "remember that").  -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 07:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Gospel of Matthew
How do we attract and retain mainstream editor attention to this page to prevent WP:FRINGE theories reappearing? In ictu oculi (talk) 22:36, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Under Authorship
It says " None of the Gospel authors is thought to be an eyewitness, and none claims to be."

It would appear that John 21 (very end) would disagree: "This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true."

I don't think what the article says about none claiming to be an eye witness is accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.8.175.242 (talk) 08:56, 10 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree: And I don't know if that sentence is supposed to have the same source as the following sentence, but the next is also disputable. "There is a broad consensus that many of the books of the New Testament were not written by the people whose names are attached to them." The source is not verifiable (unless you have the book), and I don't know what the author is basing that on. The scholars that I've read say that the writers of the gospels were who they say they are. ...especially the Apostle John. --Musdan77 (talk) 02:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I do have the book (it is verifiable), and that is exactly what it says on page 102. The claim in the previous sentence is given on page 104 (the citation is given for 102–104, so it is accurate).  I don't think these issues need to be covered in this introductory paragraph, because it just opens the whole can of worms of authorship rather than giving a completely non-controverted discussion and then leaving the bulk of the discussion including controverted aspects to the main sections and articles, but obviously there is disagreement (see previous section on the discussion page here). As for John 21, if you read that as saying that the author is an eyewitness, that's fine—I don't think you would be the first.  But for the article we should only be concerned with citing the judgement of reliable sources, not representing our own interpretations which contradict the reliable sources. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


 * "These issues" are already covered by including these sentences that are from one point of view, making this intro non-neutral. The introductory section at Authorship of the Bible is much better worded. Such blanket statements as, "None of the Gospel authors is thought to be an eyewitness", "and none claims to be" (which is just wrong) and "There is a broad consensus..." should either have another citation added to back it up, or these sentences should be removed. By the way, if "that is exactly what it says," then that would be a copyright violation. --Musdan77 (talk) 18:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


 * By "these issues" I meant the issues these sentences have raised; I think we agree that the sentences are best not to be there.
 * I don't think sourcing the statements is a problem, whether they are blanket or not. Ehrman has made the statements, is qualified to make the statements, and these are not statements by him that are the source of any controversy; he's just plainly reflecting the scholarship.
 * Some of the words are verbatim, some are not. Even if it were totally verbatim, I don't think that would be a copyright violation, because they are short excerpts from the work being used to illustrate the topic at hand, and they do not undermine the ability of the copyright holder to market the work. If you think they are copyright violations, you should submit it to Copyright_problems. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:56, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


 * How does John 21 constitute a claim to be an eye witness? By referring to the content as "his testimony" which "we know", the author is explicitly ascribing the content to another person.Bygmesterfinn (talk) 21:39, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Canons table
If I recall correctly Martin 2009 says that the 27 books are part of the New Testament canon for roughly all modern (read:extant) Christian churches except that the Apocalypse of John is not accepted by some Assyrian churches. These churches apparently are not included in the table given in this article, though, as said table claims the book is accepted by everyone. Can someone clarify? Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 06:21, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Citation needs to support the point being claimed
"Though we cannot be absolutely sure who the writer was, the letter does give a few hints that help us identify certain characteristics about him. It is likely that the writer was a well-educated Hellenistic Jew (a Greek-speaking Jew) who had become a Christian. He was probably a second-generation believer who had come to faith through the ministry of the apostles (2:3), and he was firmly grounded in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament).

Nevertheless, whether we can identify the writer or not, we can agree with Origen who wrote at the end of his investigation: “But who wrote the epistle, in truth God knows.” For in the letter itself, we observe particular themes about Jesus Christ found in the gospels and certain doctrinal affinities that the apostle Paul emphasized in his letters. The letter to the Hebrews is not contained within the New Testament canon by accident. No matter who wrote the letter to the Hebrews, we can rest assured of its divine authorship."

Apart from being a citation to a personal website, albeit a well respected writer, none of this supports the point it is being used for: that many theologians, including R. C. Sproul, believe Paul wrote Hebrews. A citation needs to clearly support the point. This one does not. --Rbreen (talk) 22:15, 22 September 2014 (UTC)