Talk:Jesus/Archive 26

message: The non-Christian writings should be the first thing mentioned here. Since there would be no motive for those writers to make it up, they are the most likely to be true. TheTruth12 02:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Historicity section's sole purpose is to discuss evidence for and against the existence of Jesus. No source is going to be worth more than another unless proven unreliable. Please keep in mind the section is titled "Historicity of Jesus" and not "Why Jesus didn't exist." —Aiden 17:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historicity 

message: Should minor religions be mentioned in the intro? (Sure 5 million followers but that's worldwide). Surely After the main religions all minor religfions and cults should be restricted to the body of the article not the intro? Robsteadman 19:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the Bahai's should be in the intro.  While their view of Jesus is laregly the same as the of Muslims, they do not claim to be Muslims (unlike Jehovah's Witnesses and LDS assert that they are Christian).  They are a significant enough group, and they do not fit well into one of the other world religions, so I think they should be in the intro.  Guettarda 17:15, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bahai Faith

message: I won't object to anyone deleting the specific names, although perhaps they should be replaced with citations.  That said, the people I name in the paragraph I moved up are critical historians and it does matter.  Anytime an article represents different points of view, it is worth saying whose point of view it is.  The people I cite are widely used in secular courses on Biblical history and late Hellenistic Judaism, and these scholars are widely cited in academic literature.  It is NOT appropriate to say "generally" when these people have reached their conclusions after many years of scholarly research and publication in peer-reviewed journals. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What does 'critical mean? Are they critics, skeptics, pedants or just highly regarded in their field? Is there a clearer word? Just wondering...rossnixon 10:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The term "critical" comes from the historical method known in scholarly circles as "higher criticism," or the attempt to deduce from the words of the text of the Bible what to them are the original sources of the Biblical books. It is a reasonably neutral term for scholars that depart from the older techniques of understanding the origin and meanings of Scripture. The other alternative is "liberal," which is seen by many as a POV label. --CTSWyneken 12:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hold on a second, now we've mentioned the scholars twice, in the intro and in the body, and now we've mentioned almost the exact same sentence about the 4 canonical gospels at least 3 times, what's going on here? Homestarmy 13:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: This is wrong.  Remember, Christians are mentioned in the body of the article too.  To use the word "generally" is misleadingly vague.  "Critical Scholars" may or may not represent a "general viewpoint, I can not say and I know of no verifiable sources to demonstrate this.  But I do have verifiable sources as to what "most critical scholars" think.  Critical scholarship is one point of view, just as Christians is one point of view.  It should be represented in the introduction. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 12:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  critical scholars