Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Archive 6

message: :Some scholars have argued that the (largely Greek) Pauline Christians were unfamiliar with Jewish culture and that the term "Nazarene" was unfamiliar to those transcribing Aramaic oral tradition into Greek. This school suggests that a more appropriate translation of the historical rabbi Jesus, who came to be so thoroughly mythologized, was "Jesus the Nazirite".
:Some scholars argue that there is no evidence Nazareth existed before the 4th century AD.  Against this theory is the fact that all four Gospels specifically speak of a place named Nazareth (see Mark 1:9, Luke 1:26, John 1:46) in contexts where it cannot possibly be a confusion with "the Nazirite".  (See also Matthew 2:23, which also speaks of a location called Nazareth, but has a quote which adds to the Nazarene/Nazirite confusion.)  In addition, Dr. Ray Pritz observes that the Gospels frequently give examples of Jesus drinking wine, which was forbidden for Nazirites. One such example is Luke 7:34, in which Jesus says, "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard.'"
:In 1962, a 15 cm x 12 cm marble slab with four lines of inscription in Hebrew square character was found by Israeli archeologists in Caesarea, indicating that priests from Jerusalem were assigned to live in the village of Nazareth in Galilee. The slab bears the first non-Christian mention of Nazareth and is dated from the late 3rd or 4th century AD. This suggests that Nazareth at least existed around the time the Gospels started to be transcribed.
:Dr. Stephen Pfann of the University of the Holy Land has been conducting excavations in Nazareth since 1996, and claims to have found pottery dating from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, associated with agricultural terraces and wine presses . Based on this evidence, Dr. Pfann argues that in the 1st century, "Nazareth was tiny, with two or three clans living in 35 homes spread over six acres (2.5 hectares)" .
There. At least it's out of the way. -Silence 03:14, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Nazareth or Nazirite?''

message: Does anybody here know how the Martin (atheist)-Parrish (Christian) debate of 1993-1994 ended? 
From this link we know that Parrish (Christian) seemed to have had the last say: Martin -Parrish debate.
I am interested to know because it offers very good material for this article. 
Parrish's first critique appears here: Parrish's book review. Arturo Cruz 06:23, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Martin-Parrish debate on the historicity of Jesus 

message: I think that it is ridiculous to think that Jesus is simply inspired by myths. I might point out that many of these myths probably were made up after the historical accounts of Jesus were written. Also, even if they were there "before" the historical accounts, it is completely logical to believe that the similarities between the accounts and mythology are coincidental. There are many examples of this. The similarities between two stories that were written at different times don't mean that events from one of the stories were plagarised by the other; it is most likely that the author of the one accused of plagarism simply had not heard of the other story, or he had but did not realize how similar his story was to the other, much less with a historical account! Scorpionman 02:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  mythology 

message: An school of thought starting in the 19th century that has to be presented in Wikipedia:
see: http://www.radikalkritik.de/ Andreas 23:32, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this the same as the Earl Dougherty/Timothy Freke idea that Christianity was invented out of earlier pagan religions? My German isn't that strong, but it looks like that site is mainly concerned with debunking the "usual" accepted history of Christianity. Is that right? And as for presenting something that isn't here in wikipedia yet, edit boldly, within the usual wikipedia policies. Wesley 23:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The ideas are similar to those of other authors questioning the historicity of Jesus. My point is that all these 20th century thinkers base their ideas on 19th century European authors. What is missing here is a history of this area of thinking. See also: http://www.egodeath.com/drewshistorymythiconlyjesus.htm Higher criticism. Andreas 23:38, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radical criticism 

message: There seems to be great store set in not offending Christians in the comments and within the Article, however, the word Pagan is used in the article:
Here's what the opening paragraph of the Wikipidia page has to say about the word Pagan:
Within a Christian context, paganism (from Latin paganus) and heathenry are catch-all terms which have come to connote a broad set of spiritual/religious beliefs and practices of a natural religion, as opposed to the Abrahamic religions based on scriptures. These beliefs, which are not necessarily compatible with each other, are usually characterized by polytheism and animism. Often, the term has pejorative connotations, comparable to infidel and Kafir in Islam.
It would appear that Pagan is an offensive word to millions of people around the world. My own view is that it is rather condesending. It is also very nondescript. But most of all, in an encyclopedia, simply to jumble up "suggested facts" into a nondescriptive term like Paganism does nothing to allow further research. Infact its lack of citation actually stifels further research. It appears to be used, whether intentionally or not, as a gratuituous comment.
Please consider rewriting for clarity of research or removal from the article for its offensive implications.
: Please log in and sign your comments. This page is for dialogue. Also, it would help if you would tell us where in the article the term is used. Not all of us have read the whole thing in great detail. If you will sign in, however, I, for one, would be willing to consider substitute terms. Do you have one? --CTSWyneken 11:51, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Pagan is not offensive to many people who actually called themselves pagans. See paganism and neo-paganism. It is the nearest equivalent that we have to a neutral word, so unless you can think of anything better, I think it must stay. Paul B 12:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  As I said above, you need to log in and sign in here to be taken seriously. We have no idea who you are otherwise. How can we know you actually know what you're talking about, if we do not know who you are. --CTSWyneken 21:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed.  Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome.  Wesley 18:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: At least three of the occasions on which the word 'pagan' is used in the article are quotations or book-titles, a fact that indicates that the term is established in scholarly usage. The other usages in the article all refer to features that are common to several belief systems, not just one religion. In any case to refer to the practices of Greece, Rome and even of Egypt as "a religion" is misleading. They were a combination of interconnected cults, not a single belief-system. Pagan is the best word we have, and it is one that is fully embraced by devotees of Wicca, Stregheria and other modern faiths that claim descent from pre-Christian traditions. Such people might well be offended by your treatment of "pagan" as a 'dirty word', and your wish to suppress its use. You do not say why you would be considered to be a pagan, or who "me and others like me" might be. It is difficult to extend 'courtesy' to you on such flimsy grounds, especially if it means denigrating people who embrace the word pagan.  Paul B 00:34, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pagan? 

message: My edit summary on this date at 18:46 should have read "removed 'linkfarm' template"...my mistake.  KHM03 18:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  11 Dec 05 

message: I deleted most of the section on Josephus not because there was anything especially wrong with it, but because it seemed to duplicate the detailed discussion in the separate article. It was nearly as long as the main article itself. If I did remove anything that isn't in Josephus on Jesus, it should probably be added to that article rather than put back here. Wesley 17:19, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Josephus 

message: There's this article: Jesus, pre-4th century Christianity, and syncretism linked to from here and from a bunch of old talk pages, which contains a very dubious section about some serpent-god Herrut. This all stems from me finding that Herrut fella, finding absolutely no basis for him or the supposed myth in any Egyptology sources, and subsequently finding a whole lot of Christianity and Jesus related articles that reference the myth.
I've made a case against the whole thing in Talk:Jesus%2C pre-4th century Christianity%2C and syncretism, but since that place is deserted I figure I should also mention it here. BTW just to be clear I have no interest in historicity of Jesus, I just hate to see pseuo-Egyptian crap made up all over the place to support crazy theories. I'd like to get some consensus on what to do with that section over on that other page. Flyboy Will 20:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it had already been discussed at an AfD at the end of which it was turned into a redirect to here, so I've restored that. Thanks for spotting it- it's one of the many hangovers from the days when User:CheeseDreams was rampaging through the system. --G Rutter 13:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jesus's alleged Egyptian roots 

message: What do we need to do to get this removed?  KHM03 21:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Warning tag

message: Shouldn't there be something about Robert Graves' "King Jesus" in this article? Its scholarship is simply stunning. (from User:213.48.73.94)
:I'm not familiar with that work.  Anyone else?  KHM03 18:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the little bit of research I just did is accurate, "King Jesus" is a novel.  I'm not sure that's appropriate for an article of this nature.  KHM03 18:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graves 

message: None of the contemporary sources quoted in this article are contemporary - i.e. at the same time as. All of them post-date the alleged date of Christ's life. The heading Contemporary sources is therefore misleading. Ian Cairns 00:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have wondered about that one myself but I didn't want to start an edit war! Can you think of a NPOV title that won't upset anyone? SOPHIA 00:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "Early sources", or "Ancient sources"?  KHM03 00:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Good idea but I suppose "Earliest known sources" is the most factual and NPOV. Nothing earlier such as Q has been found (yet). Let's see what others think. SOPHIA 01:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't have a problem with "Earliest known sources".  KHM03 01:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm fine with it, too. Alienus 01:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Contemporary versus Near-contemporary