Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Archive 14

message: The relevant paragraph (which has been a stable consensus for a while) at Gospel of Thomas reads:
:There is currently much debate about when the text was composed, with scholars generally falling into two main camps: an early camp favoring a date in the 50s before the canonical gospels, and a late camp favoring a time after the last of the canonical gospels in the 100s. Among critical scholars, the early camp is more popular in North America, while the late camp is more popular in Europe (especially in the UK and Germany). While the majority of Biblical scholars at large favor a later dating, the majority of scholars who primarily study the Gospel of Thomas favor an early dating. The dating of The Gospel of Thomas is hotly contested.
The current article states that "it is generally dated to the second century", which I feel is a significant oversimplification.  My initial change in what I hoped to be a more NPOV direction got reverted.  Perhaps we could include some of the more nuanced discussion from the Thomas page? Grover cleveland 14:11, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I am the one who changed it.  I am not saying that you are wrong.  I don't know.  But it would be good to name the scholars that give an early date, and see just how many they are (and who they are).  Personally, I know of few, and there are serious criticisms of this view.  Honestly, I would say that I find the paragraph in the GoT article to be a bit journalistic. Lostcaesar 17:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: GC's edits should be incorporated into the article.  The statement that Thomas "is generally dated to the second century" is indeed an oversimplification. Dating Thomas early is hardly a fringe position.  And the remarks in reference no. 25 should be partly clarified and partly cut.  What does it mean to say that the GofT "is not quoted in contemporary writings"?  Does this mean writings supposed to be contemporary with the Gospels and the Epistles?  Because there aren't very many Christian documents that date that early; an absence of citations would thus not be surprising.  And the lack of early manuscripts has absolutely no bearing on the question of the GofT's date.  There are also no early manuscripts of Catullus.  But are we going to re-date his poetry to the eleventh century?  Next, the reference to the article on Answers.org needs to go.  This article's purpose is apparently to convince the Christian faithful that the GofT is "unreliable" (whatever that means) and towards that end it deploys a lot of incomplete argument and sloppy thinking, cites no authorities beyond Koester (and completely ignores the implications of his statement, whether out of mendacity or sheer ignorance), and is generally irritating and misleading.  The reference in the same note to the table at www.ntcanon.org should also probably be replaced with something better: a mention of which early authors know of the Gospel of Thomas (Origen and Eusebius), and a citation to some monograph on the topic.  ECKnibbs 09:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Check this website - it is usually a good source .  Sophia 20:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well Nibbs I don't disagree with your points.  I do think, however, that an early date of Thomas is minority and (I suppose we disagree here a little) is closer to fringe than you feel, but this aside I think the solution is to find some sources that talk about it, rather than relying on our own opinions.  What does Miller say?  He is the ref we're using atm.  Also, I agree we can drop the website.  Oh, and on Catullus, that warmed my heart - I've used that example numerous times when trying to explain to certain hyperskeptics that we shouldn't expect to find first century autographic texts of the Gospels!  Lostcaesar 10:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: At the moment, I don't have time to go about collecting references.  However, I do have the ever-so-standard Schneemelcher (ed.) Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (Tuebingen, 1990--the sixth edition) in front of me.  The article by Beate Blatz, at vol. I, pp. 93-7, remarks on the difficulty of dating and placing the GofT, but says that much evidence speaks for a second-century date in eastern Syria, and notes that somes of the sayings may go back to the first century (p. 97).  I vote for changing the article to reflect this opinion at the very least.  The Schneemelcher volumes are standard and oft-cited reference works.  There is an English translation as well, which we might want to cite instead (I don't have access to it). ECKnibbs 14:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  In terms of the nuancing -it is fair to say that most would date the Gospel as it is to the 2nd Century at best.  That is a different question from whether it draws on earlier 1st centry sources or not.(Be Dave 22:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Dating of Thomas

message: The definition given in this article on January 5, 2006 for "higher criticism" is actually the definition of "lower criticism". I am unsure whether a definition of "higher criticism is even needed. I am in a hurry today and Wikipedia is rejecting my password again. Maybe I will come back in a few days and do an edit. If anyone else wants to please feel free - Kleinecke
It is still January 5, 2006 and a few hours later. Some unseen hand appears to have changed "higher" to "textual". This is OK by me. I don't see why the difference between higher and lower criticism is of any importance any longer. But that unseen hand should have left a comment. Thanks anyway. Now my password has been fixed. DKleinecke 05:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry I didn't comment. Textual Criticism and Lower Criticism are synonymous. lower criticism redirects to textual criticism so I chose to use the name of the actual article. I noted in my edit summary "Good catch" refering to your comments here. Thanks again.--Andrew c 05:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Higher Criticism 

message: The opening paragraphs of this article (and many of the later paragraphs as well) are really problematic, on the basic level of grammar and sense.  I tried to make some changes but they were reverted; someone wanted to "talk through" the changes because they were arrived at "through a good bit of talk."  Wonderful, I will talk about the lead section:
"Scholars draw a distinction between reconstructions of Jesus using historical methods, and the Christ of faith understood through religious methods."
This sentence is nonsensical.   Perhaps "Jesus as reconstructed through historical methods" is intended. But "reconstructions" (whatever their object) are doubtless distinct from "Christ," though scholars are not the only people who draw the distinction.
"The veracity of the historical existence of Jesus impacts a number of academic disciplines..."
The phrasing is noun-heavy and clumsy; I'm not sure how the "veracity of the historical existence" can impact anything, or even what that means.  If we must have this sentence, can't we change it to something like "the historical figure of Jesus is relevant for a number of academic disciplines..." ?  
Skip to third paragraph, first sentence: aren't the writings of Paul THE earliest Christian documents?  This would be a good place to say that.  In any case, it doesn't make a lot of sense to call the Gospel of Thomas a "possibly early source."  It IS early and it IS a source, there can be no debate.  The Signs Gospel and Q may be both "possible," in the sense that their existence has been hypothesized.  Can't we fix this?
 Fourth paragraph: Scholarly views on the historicity of the New Testament accounts are diverse, from the view that...."
If we must have this sentence, which does nothing but say the obvious (scholarly views on almost any imaginable topic are diverse), we should at least make it grammatical.  Could we change the wording to "Scholarly views...are diverse, and they range from the view that...." ?
"Questions relevant to the matter include..."
Again, do we need this sentence, really and truly?  If we do, then we should say that these are questions which ALL historians ask of ALL narrative sources.  And we should, again, make the sentence grammatical and reasonably felicitious.
ECKnibbs 23:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All excellent points,. Feel free (be bold) and edit away! rossnixon 00:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did edit away; my edits were reverted.  Talking seems to be the only thing to do.ECKnibbs 09:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Just one comment, re Thomas as an 'early source'.  That it is early, in terms of the history of Christianity, is doubtless correct.  However, how early is early is debatable - there are arguments suggesting a date in the 50's, or in the second century.  My guess is that "possible early source" is supposed to have an emphasis on the early as compared to other potential sources - i.e. it's possibly early compared to the other relevant sources..  TheologyJohn 02:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is that Thomas is not a "possibly early source": the phrasing is bad.  If we mean to say that it may be as early as the Gospels and Paul, we should say that, but calling it a "possibly early source" without further explanation in the lead, and without distinguishing it from the two texts marked as "hypothetical" (Signs and Q) is confusing and misleading.ECKnibbs 09:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The writings of Paul are not necessarily the earliest Christian texts, as they may be antedated by Matthew.  Its something best avoided in the lead - it is covered below. Lostcaesar 08:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Scholarly opinion is mostly unanimous that Paul predates the Gospels.  Footnote opposing views if they're so crucial, but the early dating of Paul's epistles is at the center of much textual and historical reasoning about the historicity of Jesus.  So we should say this up-front.ECKnibbs 09:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wording of First Paragraph 

message: Michael Grant wrote:
* Judaism was a milieu to which doctrines of the deaths and rebirths of mythical gods seemed so entirely foreign that the emergence of such a fabrication from its midst is very hard to credit.[70] 
The quote is not a good rebuttal of the sceptical line imo.  It looks like rhetorical sleight of hand, in particular the finessing of the distinction between emergence of a story and the story itself.
The reasoning goes: this is the most unlikely place for such a thing (our attention is drawn to the story itself, which we are told is implausible in this setting) so we can therefore discount that the fabrication of it took place (our attention is now drawn to the emergence of the story, not the story itself) and therefore (and here our scepticism of the story gets palmed off to the question of its fabrication)..... the event is real.     
So that's one problem.  In addition it contradicts somewhat the sentence preceding it: there is no known case of a mythical deity in the mystery religions with clear and early evidence that a resurrection was taught prior to the late second century AD.  Well if so there is nothing exactly foreign about religious death and rebirth in Judaism.  It's meant simply not to have occurred anywhere else. Hakluyt bean 00:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PROPOSAL - I think this section should be excised and simply left with a pointer to the Jesus as myth article, otherwise we end up with, effectively two separate articles which actually contradict one another. Any objections? Mercury543210 20:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jesus as myth  

message: This page states that quote "A few scholars have questioned the existence of Jesus as an actual historical figure."  Critism of the Bible however says that "Another critical view supported by the majority of scholars, however, is that Jesus existed, as a Galilean Jew..." Obviously both can not be true.Max18well 04:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I am missing something. It is true that a few scholars do not believe that Jesus was a historical figure, and the rest (or majority) believe Jesus was a historical figure. Wikipedia isn't about "The Truth", but instead reporting various POV in a neutral manner, giving due weight in accordance to each positions dominance. -Andrew c 05:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The problem here is that the "small minority" and "a few scholars" claim is wrong, as I have just now exposed in my response in the Source Problem topic.  Dionyseus 18:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This page and [[Critism of the Bible]]

message: The paragraph on TF is a bit unclear in one place and seemingly misleading in another. First, when quoting Origen it should, in my opinion, also mention that Origen said his words in reference to another passage and exhibited no knowledge of TF's existence. Similarly, a bit down from there, the current copy says that some early writers are silent about TF when in fact it is all not some. I think these two points should be fixed. Sorry for not reading the discussion above. idiotoff 23:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Josephus