Talk:Jesus/Archive 85

message: Please discuss and do not remove this article! There is no copyright violation!
(Copyvio from (JAMA 1986; 255:1455-1463) redacted by Jpers36 -- see here and here)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.141.14.231 (talk) 21:53, August 25, 2007 (UTC) 
:This really isn't something for the talk page, maybe more like in the Reference Desk. Even so, it's a pretty weak, last-ditch argument if you ask me. We are supposed to believe that Jesus after suffering severe blood loss from being flogged and crucified was able to breathe better with a spear through the lung? Moreover, we are supposed to believe that the ancient Romans knew about the management of hydrothorax and hemothorax by chest drains? bibliomaniac15 Prepare to be deleted! 22:00, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't something for the talk page at all, unless it's relevant to some proposed edit to the article. Nor is it suitable for the Reference Desk either, since it's not a free discussion forum. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Medical history is a viable field, at least. bibliomaniac15 Tea anyone? 02:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, medical and forensic anthropologists do it all the time.  When they have evidence.  Real research would be to excavae 1st century skeletal remains to establish statistically significant pathologies, and ry to link that to what we know of sanitation and diet based on historical records and archeological remains.  That is fine.  And I have a lot of respect for Wm. McNeill and his colleagues.  But in this case it is just MDs ignorant of history playing at being historians and ill-equiped to do so.  Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was Jesus "cured" by the soldier’s spear when he was crucified? 

message: An idea:  
"Other Christian beliefs include Jesus' Virgin Birth, performance of miracles, fulfillment of biblical prophecy, ascension into Heaven, and future Second Coming" 
could read 
"Other common Christian beliefs regarding Jesus include belief in his Virgin Birth, performance of miracles, fulfillment of biblical prophecy, ascension into Heaven, and future Second Coming."
Emerymat 22:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how anyone could have a problem with that. Feel free to be bold, and change it.--C.Logan 22:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Idea for Change to a sentence in the "Christian Views of Jesus" intro paragraph, for clarity 

message: The intro to the "Jesus' life and teachings, according to the gospels" section states:
"Christian scholars generally believe the gospel accounts to be historically accurate;"
I am disinclined to believe that as a blanket statement (and I speak as an ordained Christian clergyperson).  Possible ways to edit the sentence that would make it more likely to be true:  "Christian scholars are inclined to accept more of the gospels' account as historically accurate" or "Most Christian scholars accept are inclined to accept the general outline of the gospels' accounts as historically accurate", or even at the very least "Many Christian scholars generally believe the gospel accounts to be historically accurate"
There has been so much debate within the circle of Christian scholarship around the historicity of this or that aspect of Jesus' life as told by the biblical accounts that the blanket claim that "Christian scholars" generally believe the accounts to be "historically accurate" is tenuous at best.  Plenty of Christian scholars would question the historicity of the virgin birth, for instance.  Plenty of Christian scholars acknowledge the difficulty in reconciling the timeline of Jesus' life presented in the synoptic gospels with the timeline presented in John.  Plenty of debate has been had, by Christian scholars, about the historicity of various miracles.
Emerymat 22:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. We had a similar discussion back in May (top of archive 83), but we never really reached a conclusion that I was satisfied with. I believe it is an overstatement of conservative views to present the universal Christian view on the historicity of the gospels in the manner we do in that sentence. Your suggestions are an improvement.-Andrew c [talk] 00:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was a part of this discussion back in May, and I was the one who inserted "Christian" as a modifier for "scholar." The statement is not whether or not such-and-such scholars personally believe that certain events recorded in Scripture are true, or that they are known to be true with 99.99% accuracy. That would be a matter of faith, for we cannot know for sure why the New Testament authors felt compelled to record such events. What the statement is meant to convey is that there are "plenty" of scholars out there who hold that the New Testament documents are historically reliable. The term "Christian" was inserted as an acknowledgment that these scholars also often happen to be Christian.  I am not attached to this wording -- we can go back to saying "Many scholars" (or something along those lines) instead of "Christian scholars." BTW, as I mentioned then, the term "Christian" implicitly meant "orthodox Christian" (N.B.: "conservative" is an inaccurate, transient political adjective -- there are many cases where an orthodox Christian might hold views considered politically "liberal" today; orthodox views that are now considered "conservative" may have been liberal in bygone eras). The term "Christian" first appears in the Book of Acts, written by the historian Luke (who, incidentally, provides quite a bit detail on the Virgin Birth), and these individuals suffered persecution and death for bearing the label. LotR 19:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I realize that the Gospels themselves reflect the early Church's view of Jesus.  But (as work by Christian scholars like elaine Pagels demonstrates) today they are themselves primary sources that is the object of Christian views.  For that reason, I think that there ought to be a section on "Christian views of Jesus" which includes the views of scholars since the effective canonization of the NT.  However, if we are also to have a section on "Jesus according to the Gospels" I do not think it should provide the view of any scholar, Christian or non.  If we have this section at all it should be as neutral as possible an account of the Gospels.  At most, we can begin or end with a note that scholars are divided as to the theological and historical value of these texts with a link to articles on NT scholarship.  I have in my mind the idea that there is a difference between a literal account of the Gospels and the claim that the Gospels ae a literal account of the (theological or historical) truth; I am of course advocating the former, and neutral (for present purposes) regarding the latter.  Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian views on gospel's historicity 

message: Is this talk page automatically archived? =David(talk)(contribs) 16:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it is not; currently, it is only archived when done manually. --Storm Rider (talk) 16:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Would you like to archive it this time or would you prefer someone else do it? --Storm Rider (talk) 16:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it is rather large (212 kb), and so it seems to be time...but I'm a relative newcomer.  I've archived other TPs before, but I'm also aware each page has its own conventions on which threads to keep on the main talk page, how to link, how to summarize, etc. so I'd prefer to see how it's done before I tackle it this time around.  If no one else wants to do it, I suppose I could tackle it, though. =David(talk)(contribs) 20:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Another (related) question; the RfM tag is still at the top of the page, even though the RfM was rejected.  Is there an established procedure for this? =David(talk)(contribs) 20:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have archived the page. Here is what I did. I first opened a new window to the start an article page for the new archive (#84). I then scanned the current talk page to see what discussions were still open, and decided to archive everything before the 21st of last month (basically everything 10 days or older). I then copy and pasted all of that into the new archive, and added the  header. I saved. I then went back to the current talk page, and added a summary and link at the top under "Recent Archive log" for #84. I do this by scanning the topics and headers, and making sure the most important discussions are mentioned. I then saved the talk page. Finally, I added the topic summary entry for #84 (the one I just wrote in the last step) to the bottom of Talk:Jesus/Archive details. If you have any questions about what I did, feel free to ask, and hopefully you will be comfortable archiving the next time!-Andrew c [talk] 21:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks so much for your help, and for letting me know what you did.  I'll keep this for future reference.  Thanks again! =David(talk)(contribs) 22:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, one last thing to keep in mind. In the future, you may find yourself in a situation where you will need to add a link to the new archive to Talk:Jesus/archivebox. I didn't have to do this step because archive 84 was already linked (as a redlink). But we will need to update the archivebox once we get to archive 86 (as you can see, #85 is currently redlinked).-Andrew c [talk] 22:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not too jargony at all (per your edit summary).  I appreciate the tip.  Thanks again!=David(talk)(contribs) 22:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving 

message: What is the argument in this article about using the BC/AD system as opposed to the BCE/CE system? -- Avi 20:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Basically, every argument used in the main debate which is archived somewhere has likely taken place on this page as well at some point, since the subject of this article is the ultimate reason for both dating systems. (Since AD/BC was based on the subject, and BCE/CE was created directly in response to it). Homestarmy 20:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: However, I would think that while articles that are not exclusively Christian have a valid argument using the CE/BCE system, articles about Christianity, and Christ himself, should be using the dating system that directly refers to him. -- Avi 20:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is about Christianity and is not a Christian article. Therefore the choice of dating convention should be the one that most editors feel works the best, which is why we have the composite dating system.  Sophia 21:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it's about Jesus. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 16:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

text:  I feel this debate is very much like the English/American spelling issue. If an article is predominantly about an English subject e.g. the Harry Potter articles, English spelling is used. Thus, if an article is predominantly about Christ, BC/AD should be used. SparrowsWing (talk) 21:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that BC/AD should be used as well, but there will never be consensus on that. Anyone who is pro-BCE will often come here to rant about it so that's why we use both systems. Though I do feel strongly that articles should reflect our reading audience's ease of reading rather than Wiki user bickerings. Just shows nothing can truly be neutral — John Stattic (talk) 11:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Talk:Jesus/Archive_84 and about one in three of all previous archives. The last time people agreed that there was no consensus to change (which, apparently, is different from a consensus not to change, but whatever...), or maybe only that there was a consensus about the fact that there was no consensus to change. Again, whatever ;-).  --Stephan Schulz 04:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BC/AD 

message: The paragraph under life and teachings, as told by the gospels, has been vandalised. Could some-one correct this? 196.203.19.196 15:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not see any vandalism. Could you explain or even quote the problematic text?-Andrew c [talk] 16:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some people seem to think it's funny to add a message on a talk page saying that some rude word has been put in an article, or that there is unspecified vandalism. It happens regularly. They like the idea that editors will scurry off to scour the text in vain. It gives their little minds childlike joy. Paul B 16:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There was vandalism. It was corrected by CSCWEM. -- Avi 16:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I apologise to user User:196.203.19.196. Paul B 16:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

text: But hang on, that was corrected less than a minute after it was made, and it was many many hours before User:196.203.19.196 added the comment. Paul B 16:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've actually seen old versions of an article show instead of the most recent version. I don't know why. Perhaps that is what happened here. Jinxmchue 22:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Some people find it easier to shift debate from this page to linked pages.  People who care about this topic, please see this recent edit ... consider reading the section (to get the context) and commenting. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  the historicity of Jesus ... continued 

message: Under "Chronology", the article mentions that the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the birth of Jesus on January 6th, due to the celebration of Epiphany. This is not true. The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates their Christmas on that date because they have combined the Feast of Epihpany and the birth of Jesus into one celebration. The Eastern Orthodox church however, celebrates Christmas on January 7th. This is simply the date on the Gregorian calendar that corresponds to December 25th on the Julian calendar (which is the calendar we use in America). The Feast of Epiphany is celebrated later. This is the first time I have ever written anything for Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do to make an effort to correct this mistake. If anyone can let me know, I would appreciate it. Serb14325 15:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Proposing a change here on the discussion or "Talk" page is a great way to introduce changes. I believe you're correct, so I tried to incorporate your change in the article. If I got it wrong, either let us know here, or make the further change in the article directly. Wesley 04:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry I'm coming in late to this parade, but Serb14325 has is backward. The single feast celebrating the mystery of the Incarnation on 6 January, from the Nativity to the Epiphany, was the original Eastern tradition. The separate feast of the Nativity was a Western import, as Epiphany was an Eastern import to the West. The Armenians didn't combine the feasts; they never separated them in the first place. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chronology Mistake 

message: Why is there no Criticisms section in this page?--ॐJesucristo301 12:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been raised before, and my response is the same:  What kind of criticism?  This is an article about the historical person, not about the movements that surround him or were sparked by him.  =David(talk)(contribs) 12:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article claims that according to most historians he was executed for sedition - that is certainly a criticism.  Also, according to the Gospel account, the Sanhedrin convicted him of blasphemy.  So two different criticisms of Jesus are already in the article.  Do you have any other verifiable, reliable, notable sources tht mention any other criticisms? Most people would say blasphemy and sedition are pretty harsh criticisms. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms of Jesus 

message: I have added this in the Principal View. This is an account of a Roman official and writer, which is considered the "earliest external account of Christian worship" (see Pliny the Younger). I believe this should be included being the earliest non-Christian historical account of the Principal View.
:In the second century, the Roman official and writer, Pliny the Younger (63 - ca. 113) stated that Christians were "singing responsively a hymn to Christ as to god" (carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem). Ref: Pliny the Younger: C. Plinius Traino Imperatori Liber Decimus Epistula XCVI.
This additional information and expansion of the section is in accord with my earlier proposal on NPOV proportionality, i.e. more extensive treatment of the Principal View based on the NPOV policy: to fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. People then agreed to my proposal. 
*Marax 02:42, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we have Josephus on Jesus and Tacitus on Jesus...so why not Pliny on Jesus? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 16:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pliny: carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem

message: Hello I am very open to ideas and I have been researching and discovered the name Jesus comes from Greek/Latin, the Greek part is Je or in Greek Ge which means Earth or Soil and sus is latin for Swine or Pig and Iesous is Greek for Man Horse the site that explains this information is the following site please read, http://www.seekgod.ca/htwhatsinaname.htm thank you if you have any comments please contact me at moogle1979@gmail.com  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moogle1979 (talk • contribs) 21:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess those on the extremes of belief will buy into anything, even direct misinformation and crackpot theories. Additionally, note the earlier discussion concerning names. This is actually a fairly informative site, but it seems that Moogle1979 has misread the link (as I did, initially)... the website presents the above claim as a fallacious assertion that the writer has heard, and he goes on to refute this notion, along with several others. The site is a good response to proponents of "Yahshua"-only usage, but it doesn't seem acceptable for incorporation as a source.--C.Logan 06:04, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Jstanierm, I think that the above user simply misread the text. First of all, he conflates a few different arguments into the short mess above, to which you have replied. The site itself actually lists such "theories" as silly propositions that the writer has heard. It seems apparent that Moogle didn't read past the initial listing of "theories" when he'd made the comment, because the writer goes on to discredit these later in the article.--C.Logan 02:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  some truth 

message: I have added http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Jesus to this article.  Kathleen.wright5 03:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed http://christianity.wikia.com/wiki/Jesus from this article. I don't see why we need to link to an article that is basically a mirror of this exact article, with the NPOV stripped from it. Plus, wikis are not considered reliable sources.-Andrew c [talk] 14:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention that the CKB article was originally a fork of this article (from March 23, 2006). Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 15:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Link added to Christianity Wikia 

message: Sorry about posting this on this page, but I cannot view this article anymore. Whenever I go onto this article (and only this one) I can only see a gigantic pixillated picture which takes up all of the screen. I could look at this article fine, until today, but now I can't read it at all. Any help will be appreciated, although I realise this may not be the most appropriate place for this comment. Thanks.86.150.251.208 11:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help 

message: In the text we have:
:"Though Christian views of Jesus vary, it is possible to describe a general majority Christian view by examining the similarities between Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and certain Protestant doctrines..."
Wouldn't it be instructive to also examine the differences in Christian views of Jesus more critically. It would be useful to have an insight into why different Christian groups are sometimes so full of hatred about each other. S = k log W 12:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you like to elaborate a bit?--C.Logan 18:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

text: This is a biography of Jesus.  There is also an article Christianity that deals with the religion and beliefs.  There is Christian denomination that deals with the different denominations.  There might already be a table comparing the main theological differences between the denominations somewhere ... I know there used to be anyway ... but I don't think this article is the place for it. --B 19:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of critical discussion 

message: This article is far too long. If you would write any other article not in contact with christianity it would be marked to be shortened. And again the neutrality of this article is to be nominated. Skele 13:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about shortening the "Religious perspectives" section?  It could be condensed to a paragraph on the mainline Christian view and a paragraph on other religions.  Everything else could go into Religious perspectives on Jesus.  This section is a gigantic portion of the article and a laundry list of the intricacies of what everyone believes doesn't really add that much. --B 14:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Amen. There have been numerous attempts to move details to the various subarticles, in the series, but people keep adding details to the main article. It was too long when it was 80 K. Now it's what, 109K? Wikipedia:Article Size and Wikipedia:Summary Style both apply. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 19:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for supporting the idea of shortening the article. B, your idea of shortening is excellent.Skele 12:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  3 & 4 could be shorter. It's so long. The new intellectual analysis being written on this subject should be given it's own section. Such as Christian Scholasticism or Gospel Analysis or something. Neutralaccounting 21:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Again 

message: Is there an agreement on how this should be done? I checked the archives, but there was only one that I found, and it was from 2004, and there was not much discussion. I don't want to scour the myraid archives, so if it was discussed somewhere, tell me. 
The way I've learned, when you have a singular possesive noun ending in -s, you add 's. When you have a plural possesive noun ending in -s, you add s'. These
three
sites agree with that.  This page says (#3) singular proper possesive nouns ending in -s take an s'—specifically proper nouns, non-proper singular noun get 's. This is the only page I have seen that on. This page says either. This article specifically mentions Jesus, and says we use s'. However, this is not supported by the other sites, except this one, but for different reasons. This page says that singular possesive nouns ending in -s take 's, but plural take s'. This is from the Purdue University website, so it should be reliable. Therefore, I suggest we change Jesus' to Jesus's. i said 04:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a summary of different positions on this issue at Apostrophe#Singular nouns ending in s, z, or x; basically, one can find reliable sources to justify either position. That article also notes: "Jesus' is very commonly written instead of Jesus's, even by people who would otherwise add 's in, for example, James's or Chris's". My impression is also that Jesus' is significantly more common that Jesus's; e.g., the bibliography linked from the article includes five titles using the former and none the latter. EALacey 08:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's interesting to find this division over the form, because I was most certainly taught that "Chris'" or "Jesus'" is the proper form in my school years. Maybe they took a simple approach. In any case, I'd have to agree that "Jesus'" is the more popular format, as I've never actually seen "Jesus's" prior to this discussion (and this is my area of interest).--C.Logan 09:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Archive 49 discussed this as well (and I could have sworn there was another one, but I couldn't find it). Anyway, this is a case where both uses are acceptable, but we should probably choose one and stick with it and not switch between the two (similar to US vs. UK English). I agree that Jesus' is more common than Jesus's, and I see no compelling reason to change. (I just noticed that we have 3 instances of Jesus's when I believe a year ago we had zero. We should standardize and just use one form. Do others agree?)-Andrew c [talk] 15:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possessive of Jesus 

message: A couple of questions: (1) What are these religions? Obviously Islam is one (as mentioned in the text), but what are the others? (2) Can we name these religions instead of being vague here? Perhaps the answer is "no" due to the possibility of inflaming things. It occurs to me, for example, that some would consider Mormonism to be one of these religions, but that would imply they're not Christian, which they would dispute. (Of course, two is not "several".) I notice from the article that other religions have something minor to say about him, but would not consider him "important" (except Bahá'í where he is important in a good way and Mandaean where he is important in a bad way). Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 15:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The religions are mentionned further on in the article - I thought it would be a good idea to mention these in the introduction to maintain neutrality (Jesus is a very important figure in Islam, for example). Sfacets 15:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, and arguably in Bahá'í and possibly Mandaean (which I'd never heard of before). Is that enough to be "several"? Perhaps we could say something like "is the central figure of Christianity, is an important figure in some religions such as Islam and Bahá'í, and is mentioned in other religions such as Judaism and Mandaeism." Would that be an improvement? (Per the subarticles on Buddhism and Hinduism, those faiths don't really mention him so much as adherents of those faiths might discuss him relative to their faith. Of course, those faiths aren't exactly standardized, either, even to the fairly weak degree that Christianity is.) Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 15:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

text: It's the first line of the intro and still has that same language. I'll allow a little more time before making any changes (unless someone else beats me to it first).  Ben Hocking (talk|contribs) 20:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me try my hand at improving it a bit. Homestarmy 20:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Ehh, I can't think of a good way to improve it without being really wordy.... Homestarmy 20:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Mandeanism is a hoax? Wow, I can't believe such a thing has been in an article as well-watched as this so long.... Homestarmy 23:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Mandeanism article cites some fairly reliable sources, like the BBC, so I wouldn't say it is a hoax, or that there is no evidence it even exists. Whether it is notable enough or if we are giving undue weight for this article is another question. Surely, I think mentioning them in the lead is a bit much, but having a very small section mentioning their views somewhere seems appropriate, IMO.-Andrew c [talk] 23:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Mandaeans do exist, but seem to be in danger of extinction.  See this article.  Lima 19:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important figure in several other religions 

message: The article seems too long by far. Sure, Jesus is one of the most famous blokes out there, but seriously, 113 kilobytes? It should be split. JIP | Talk 17:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I just followed the instructions on WP:SIZE about not including templates, see also, references and all that jazz, and the page preview size was 56 KB. I think we do need to be conscious of size restraints, watch out for future expansion, consider making sections more concise. But I personally do not think it is the most critical task on the to do list.-Andrew c [talk] 17:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Size is in many cases a function not of fame but of complexity or controversy - i.e. the demands for an NPOV article. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 12:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article size 

message: :he:ישו  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.81.137.4 (talk) 14:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Hebrew]] [[interwiki]] 

message: Just a drop of hint that there is a slight sparkle of cliché in the article, due to the fact that the majority of the headings are in the same format of "[subject 1] and [subject 2]". This and is too repetitive. A split of these parts into separate headings will seem logical and give an encyclopaedic touch to the article.<FONT FACE="MS Reference Sans Serif" COLOR="#4096EE"> — Adriaan (T★C)</FONT> 11:41, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cliché 

message: Why has this page reverted to the medievil beliefs? The article says: "After Jesus' birth, the couple was forced to use a manger in place of a crib because there was no room for them in the town's inn (Luke 2:1–7)." The Bible used the word "kataluma" which was translated as "inn" but the Bible used the word twice and the second time it described what a kataluma was "a large furnished upper story room within a private house". This is what Christian scholars now generally accept. The manger is not unusual either as most houses in those days had several mangers indoors and they were sometimes used as cribs for convienence. Last time i read this page it read according to the research not according to popular myth and explained this. Wayne 18:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reworded the sentence to refer to a lack of "accommodation". I think the translation issue is probably too minor to be discussed directly in this article, though we could give it a footnote if people do think it's important. EALacey 20:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Inn 

message: Hi there, it seems to me that (because there are comparatively few high-quality resources on this important topic) Keith Akers' "recent" book (foreworded by Walter Wink) should be referenced briefly at the end of the current subtitled Reference Note #40:
I would add "See also The Lost Religion of Jesus (2000) by Keith Akers, Lantern Books. ." (He does extensive, original and scholarly work on the Essenes in that volume..)
Note 40 comes in the text after this sentence: "Other scholars theorize that Jesus was an Essene, a sect of Judaism not mentioned in the New Testament.[40] " 
Akers could likewise be mentioned under note #93, which even more specifically references Ebionites and their likely vegetarianism.  (Akers references both Ebionites and Essenes in his book.) Mr manilow 15:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at this, it does not appear as if Akers is a professional scholar, or even has an advanced degree in a corresponding field of study. I'm not sure it is exactly fair to put his book on the same footing as some of the authors we site (who are heads of religious study departments at prestigious universities and such).-Andrew c [talk] 15:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, but Akers is an independent scholar of some note whose books have been foreworded and otherwise endorsed by the likes of Walter Wink and Peter Singer. I think he should get some attention; he's done some of the best work on these subjects IMHO.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr manilow (talk • contribs) 15:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  additional citation for Reference #40 

message: The following statement (from the Jesus article) is somewhat misleading and should be more carefully nuanced:
"Some texts with even earlier historical or mythological information on Jesus are speculated to have existed prior to the Gospels,[48] though none have been found."
The Pauline epistles should at least be tacitly/implicitly referenced here, seeing as they pre-date the Gospels by a significant stretch AND provide minimal (however scant) historical and mythological data.
I suggest that this statement is prefaced with:
"Apart from Paul's letters," or "Other than the Pauline epistles," or another similar "disclaimer" statement - so as to achieve the highest technical accuracy possible with this article.
THanks Mr manilow 15:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading statement re Jesus references prior to Gospels ?