User talk:Bertsche

Parking permit?
Hi, The section that I had cleaned up and moved that you added back is still unsourced. I am parking it here. If you would like to add it back, please do, after you add sources to it. As is, it is still unsourced. I also commented on that on the Shroud of Turin talk page, asking for general help to clean up that section. Your help in cleaning up that section will be appreciated. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 23:27, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Comparison with Biblical Text
The Gospel of John uses the word "othonia" (linen cloths or strips) to describe the burial covering of the body of Jesus: "Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes [othonia] lie, and the napkin [soudarion], that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself" (John 20:6–7, KJV). Some claim that "othonia" refers to the Shroud of Turin, but others claim that the plural "othonia" is inconsistent with a singular shroud. The Gospels of Matthew (27:59), Mark (15:46), and Luke (23:53) all refer to a singular "sindon" (fine linen cloth), but this was "wrapped" (entulisso) around Jesus' body, not laid flat like a shroud. In other Greek usage the word "sindon" refers to a wrapping such as a toga (Mark 14:51-52) or a mummy wrapping (Herodotus 2, 86).

After thought: I changed it to the following that does not include teh claims and added it, so it should be ok.
 * Gospel of John refers to two separate burial cloths, one for the head and one for the body. Matthew, Mark  and Luke  refer to a single cloth.

Cheers. History2007 (talk) 16:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your addition is too short to be useful, and is in fact incorrect as it stands. The point of this section is that there are tensions between the descriptions of Jesus' burial in the biblical text and the claims of shroud devotees.  The tensions do not come across unless you point out 1) that John has PLURAL cloths or strips around the body, and a separate napkin on his head, and 2) that the SINGULAR cloth in the synoptic gospels is described as being WRAPPED around Jesus' body, not laid flat.  I provided the biblical and Herodotus references and the Greek words involved.  These should be sufficient sourcing; I can't imagine what else you would like.  I'll try to add the essential pieces to your change, without adding all of the extra fluff that used to be there.


 * The fact is that if I did not understand that as it was, it was obviously unclear. But just citing Herodotus is clearly WP:OR. This article already has enough flags on it and that addition as you suggest will immediately require a WP:OR flag as well. What you need is a Google book ref or something that says that, for the sak eof those who do not speak Greek. I did a quick search and found nothing. Please do more searches to avoid WP:OR. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 23:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't understand. The WP:OR description says to cite sources.  I cited Herodotus.  Are you claiming that all sources must be in ENGLISH, and that any sort of translation is "original research"?  This doesn't make sense.  Can you please point me to a WP policy that classifies translations as OR?  (The point is moot here; I see no need to put the Herodotus reference back in the article--it is fine as is.  But I'd like to understand the policies for the future.)Bertsche (talk) 23:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

It looks like we are heading towards a "heated agreement". I have no problem in your new version, although multiple may imply more than 3 and the text is unclear as to how many pieces, 2, 3, 4, 17, 97, etc. The OR issue is usually hard to get used to. I explained it to someone else a while ago here as: "if you happen disprove Newton's work, and you happen to be correct, you can not add it to English Wikipedia until some reputable physics journal in English publishes it." So ideally you need to find a book that says Herodotus relates to the discussion here. Else you are mixing Herodotus with the Greek translation and the bible and making a new inference. Sounds strange but Wikipedia dislikes "new ideas" until Physical Review publishes them. They will even reject Einstein if he comes back to life and tries to present a new idea here. They will tell him to send it to Nature first! Cheers. History2007 (talk) 23:48, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you check the biblical text in John, you'll see that it DOES imply 3 or more pieces. There are PLURAL linen strips that were on the body, plus a separate singular cloth that was on the head.Bertsche (talk) 02:23, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it says strips so certainly strips means more than 1, plus one more means more than 2, so X is 3 or higher as you said. But I think that is as far as one can use our own reasoning here. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 07:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)