Talk:Barbara Thiering

message: WikiProject Biography Assessment Drive
The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 21:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Class_parameter|Biography assessment rating]] comment

message: The article says:
"They wrote according to the theory of pesher that is illustrated in the Scrolls, in two levels. For the “babes in Christ” there were apparent miracles, but the knowledge of exact meanings held by the highly educated members of gnostic schools gave a real history, of what Jesus actually did."
:But Thiering hardly mentions the gnostics. In response to the question, "Are any of the gnostic gospels written in Pesher?", she replied on her website: "They are in Coptic, translated from Greek, so since the complete pesher only works on Greek, it is difficult to be certain. But it does not appear that they give a word-for-word pesher. Rather, they are written for insiders, the 'knowing ones' or gnostics, and draw on the inside knowledge, in undisguised form. Much of it is symbolism, eg the marriage symbolism of the Gospel of Philip, which is the richest source of their thought."
:The people Thiering says wrote the pesher documents (the gospels in the Bible, the books of Acts and Revelations, some New Testament epistles, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and some of the Nag Hammadi Library) were the monastic inhabitants of Qumran, that is, the historical Essenes mentioned by Josephus, not the gnostics. To be precise, they were the original Christians, and included Jesus himself. D021317c 05:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Gnostic connection

message: Including journal articles? Is this standard Wikipedia practice for a scholar? I don't think so. I mean, maybe list her books. The full list belongs either in her C.V. or an External link, not on Wikipedia.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.20.132.128 (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it belongs under a separate article on her theory. Unfree (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why The Exhaustive Bibliography? 

message: A single editor made a whole bunch of changes which seriously damage the NPoV status of this article.  As such I am reverting to an older version, several revisions earlier.  Please understand that this is because, after reviewing the history, this was the last good version. Thank you.Simonm223 (talk) 18:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: And done.Simonm223 (talk) 18:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, needed doing. Dougweller (talk) 19:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  About to do a big revert 

message: I'm very disappointed that this page, presumably being a "biography of living persons", or another page (such as "Thiering theory") doesn't go deeper into the theory, controversial or not. Unfree (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a small discussion at Pesher, and a mention in Jesus the Man (book). Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The theory

message: Somebody's been vandalizing this page like crazy. I'm sure it once listed three or four of her books, and quite a few scholarly articles, and it had a link to an article (now removed?) on a related subject. Unfree (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure, but it appears that the comment above suggests that a single editor had introduced material that violated WP:NPOV, and this edit reverted the article. I am happy to (slowly) help restore some of the material but a very quick look makes me think that some of the removed text was a problem with respect to WP:OR, and the extensive bibliography might have been overdoing it. Re NPOV, we definitely do not use descriptions like "scorned", and we just say "documentary" rather than "award-winning television documentary" because the latter appears to take a promotional stance (and the award might not have been for anything related to the content which is the only thing relevant to mentioning the documentary here). Re OR, a statement such as "An immense body of detailed hypothetical minutiae must be accumulated in order to make sense of Thiering's 'pesher' method." needs to be sourced, and the statement is overly flowery. The list of books definitely needs to be added, and a little more on the general pesher concept. Johnuniq (talk) 00:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you very much, Johnuniq.  I see what you mean about the WP:NPOV and WP:OR issues.  The Thiering books written for the general public certainly deserve mentioning, and I would like to see more than a little discussion about the general "pesher" concept, but I'm not sure this biographical article is the place for it.  I'd very much appreciate your help deciding what should and should not be restored. Unfree (talk) 06:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Johnuniq wrote, "'An immense body of detailed hypothetical minutiae must be accumulated in order to make sense of Thiering's pesher method.' needs to be sourced, and the statement is overly flowery."  I suspect I wrote that, and can't think of a less flowery way of putting it.  I don't know how to "source" it, but it's true and evident in her books.  For example, in the one that is available in America, half the book is made up of appendices full of such minutiae.  It's all hypothetical in the sense that one must postulate the possibility that it's accurate before seeing how it fits together to give the full story.  She says that Qumran was the center of a sort of theological seminary which sent out teachers all over the world, and had a complicated hierarchy.  You have to understand the hierarchy and its grades in order to make sense of the vocabulary, which appears in a later book.  By the way, the hypothetical minutiae are built upon a corpus of strictly historical minutiae, including Herod (the Great), Simon (Magus), Hillel (the Great), Qumran, the Essenes, and many sources widely regarded as illegitimate, but which Thiering says are accurate, such as the Nag Hammadi "library", the Dead Sea scrolls, the Apocrypha, the Clementine literature, many pseudepigrapha, etc. Unfree (talk) 19:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalism

message: Start:
:The Australian scholar Barbara Thiering claims that the title Justus, Latin meaning “just” or “righteous” was that of the David crown prince. It was applied to James the next brother of Jesus, called James the Just by the contemporary historian Hegesippus (chronicler).Quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History II, xxiii, 3-9. James was the crown prince for Jesus before he had a son of his own. He appears as Joseph called Justus in . 
:However, Theiering takes this a step further by saying that the name Jesus Justus is that of a son of Jesus, also called Jesus, with the added title of his crown prince. He received this title as Jesus Christ is said to be a prince so any offspring would be royalty as well.
:By using her own pesher technique Thiering believes that he was born in June, 37 AD to Jesus (having survived the crucifixion)and Mary Magdalene. In Revelation he appears there as the "Name" in ; ;
. Revelation also describes his marriage and the marriage of his son Jesus III.
Finish. If someone wants to include this here go ahead. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: OR moved out of tiny [[Jesus Justus]] (one-mention Christian in Colossians) article

message: It's absurd to say, "Her analysis has been rejected by many scholars in the field." There are no such people. She considers herself a scholar and a Christian, but her understanding of Jesus Christ is utterly different from that of others. It's only a matter of time before the whole world comes to realize that she's right and everybody else is wrong. Herod the Great was fabulously wealthy, and his wealth came from Jews all over the world who came to the shores of the Dead Sea to learn religion. He was the main sponsor of fabulous banquets in Rome, which went on for days, and required the best food and most impressive spectacles imaginable. Jesus was the messiah of his day, just as his father Joseph was in his day, and Joseph's father Heli was in his day, and Heli's father Hillel was in his day. Ever heard of Hillel? Jesus was the legitimate "Davidic" king of the Jews, descended from David on both his parents' sides. The academy at Qumran was of immense importance to the Jewish nation, because the true priests and leaders of the nation had been ejected by force from Jerusalem, and everybody knew it. They established a new center in Qumran and attempted to restore, not only the temple and its practices, but the divinely-established kingdom. This is not trivial business. But it isn't at all the phony story which has perverted the true history Jesus wrote about in "The Gospel According to John". He wrote clearly, though using words and syntax only initiates could decipher, all about his story up until the Crucifixion and beyond. Only Barbara Thiering has been able to penetrate the true meaning behind the gospels, Acts, Revelations, etc. The poor state of the present article distresses me very much, and the continued emphasis on whether people of other religions have come to agree on the validity of her theory is annoying. Should an article on Presbyterianism focus on the simple fact that most people aren't Presbyterians? Of course not. (I am the person formerly known as "Unfree".) 172.56.27.167 (talk) 05:39, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether one side or the other is "correct" or not, and who exactly decrees where the boundary of "the field" should be drawn, that sentence is unbecoming to the dignity of wikipedia. It violates WP:OR and WP:NPOV. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead is meant to summarise the article. And to meet WP:NPOV it somehow must say that she's been rejected by other scholars. The IP thinks she is the only person who knows the truth, and most of the IP's post is a forum style post. Dougweller (talk) 12:21, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The IP's post shows partiality, that's true. Wikipedia doesn't include statements on a page about a person in a dramatic profession such as "generally considered to be a bad actor", and I don't think that statement belongs here. "Dr Thiering has an enemy who publishes" would seem to be a fair summary of the situation, though I am not suggesting that that statement should be included. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That's just insulting to the academics who have criticized her. The fact is that she is a fringe author who has not been accepted academically. Like Zecharia Sitchin, whose lead makes it clear his ideas are rejected, but in a different field. The lead is a summary of the article and must make it clear that she is not accepted by academics if it is not to violate WP:NPOV. Dougweller (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: And another critique. In Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions - The Second Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2007 Peter Flint offers a critique of her work. He calls her reconstruction of Jesus's live bizarre, says that "Thierings theories on Jesus and Christian origins have little basis in the scrolls or in the New Testament. Her pesher technique misuses the concept of pesher, her datings of the scrolls are suspect, connections she draws between Qumran and other nearby communities in the Judean Desert are questionable, and the links she finds between the scrolls and the New Testament are almost always without foundation. We concur with the assessment made by N. T. Wright in 1993: “it is safe to say that no serious scholar has given this elaborate and fantastic theory any credence whatsoever. It is nearly ten years since it was published; the scholarly world has been able to have a good look at it; and the results arc totally negative.”" Dougweller (talk) 16:22, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd accept "her work has been criticized/rejected by X, Y, and Z" if those critics have pages in wikipedia, but not this blanket "many scholars in the field", where "field" is an indefinable thing in these days of interdisciplinary research. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:48, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Then just leave out "the field". Reliable sources do not have to have articles on Wikipedia. That's not how we work. 18:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Field 

message: "The lead is meant to summarise the article. And to meet WP:NPOV it somehow must say that she's been rejected by other scholars." This statement sent me on a wild goose chase. I studied WP:NPOV and a related article about leads, and found nothing to support such a wild contention. The "lead" of an article is not required to assert any such thing. Funfree (talk) 16:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality

message: Will somebody please flesh out this article. I know you all are hostile to me, Marshall Price, but somebody ought to do it. She's written three dense long fact-filled books of information critical to understanding the New Testament, and nobody else has been able to penetrate its meaning as she has. Whether you like her message or not, it must be presented. 172.56.26.204 (talk) 16:58, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Please!

message: Don't you see that most of these "scholars in the field" are "Christians" who believe that Jesus was somebody supernatural, divine, magical, etc., while she's saying he was a human being with genes from Joseph and Mary, and had no supernatural powers or knowledge? The Gospel of Matthew says "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be known as sons [or children] of God." Jesus was such a person. He opposed and antagonized the zealots, with whom he otherwise sided, over the issue of whether they should go to war against the Romans. Most of the statements embodied in Christian creeds are utter mistakes. They arise out of a "theology" which utterly misinterprets the Bible. The "scholars" who reject her are as biased as biased can be. 172.56.26.246 (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Scholars

message: In response to the statement above about "Jesus Justus" being applied to different people, here's what Thiering says regarding her interpretation of Acts 1:23, pasted from her website (under "Word for Word Pesher"):
:23. Antipas came to the podium to conduct the election, together with Theudas the deputy abbot. He gave a formal choice between the two brothers of Jesus, James and Joses, both capable of being his deputy. James, the first man in the second male row, had the surname Barsabbas like all the sons of Joseph. As the David crown prince he was a Joseph, under the David as Jacob, but Jesus had now given up the title of the patriarch Jacob to claim a more universal role. As the David in the Nazirite status was called the Righteous One, dikaios, the crown prince head of Nazirites used this title, which in Latin was Justus. (The son of Jesus as his crown prince was identified by the name Jesus Justus in Colossians 4:11). The other brother could use a name of the Kohath, Matthias. In the Clementines it is stated that the Matthias appointed to replace Judas was Barnabas. Acts 4:36 names a Joseph who was given the name Barnabas, a levite. Mt 13:55 calls the second brother Joseph.
Recall that Jesus (as well as Justus) was a Latinized name, which we've adopted into English. If he were born today, we'd call him "Joshua", the same name as the military general cum prophet after whom the sixth book of the Bible is titled. (Nobody calls it "The Book of Jesus"!) That's the name by which he was known to his contemporaries. "Justus" can be interpreted the "Righteous One", and was applied to James the brother of Jesus because he was "the David in the Nazirite status", but it's unclear whether that was true also of the son of Jesus in his time, or whether the reason for calling him "Jesus Justus" followed a different logic; that is, he may not have been a Nazirite at the time. He was certainly the David crown prince, of course. This whole discussion of naming is crucial to understanding the pesher.
Regarding the word, "pesher", Thiering states right up front that she is using the word as a term of cant, or jargon, and not in the way that others have used it before. However, it seemed appropriate to her, and does to me, because of its meaning. Those who object to it may substitute "hidden meaning" (vs. "surface meaning"), or "esoteric" (vs. "exoteric") reading. 172.56.26.95 (talk) 18:01, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Acts 1:23

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