Talk:Historical Jesus/Archive 4

message: Template:Bibleref has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Jon513 19:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  TfD nomination of Template:Bibleref 

message: Its a good article but the title is a bit awkward.
It seems to assert that Jesus existed (which Historicity of Jesus claims is disputed rather than universally agreed upon fact), and that its content is a completely factual reconstruction of exactly who Jesus was (c.f. various Christian groups disputing this).
What it does not contain is Historical critical analysis of the Bible and early Christian traditions in order to assertain scientifically how much of the Biblical description of Jesus is likely to be true, and a reconstruction of the significant details of Jesus' life based upon this
What it actually contains is a Scientific reconstruction of the day to day life of a person of similar cultural background to Jesus living in the same time period and carrying out a similar style of ministry. But that isn't a very good title - its far too long for a start.
I think the article desperately needs renaming, but Im not sure what people think would be more descriptive in regards to its content? Clinkophonist 14:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points. There is this article Cultural and historical background of Jesus, however it almost exclusively deals with the historical background. Maybe we could change that article to Historical background of Jesus, change this one to Cultural background of Jesus, and then create a new article based on something similar to my outline User:Andrew c/Historical Jesus (except we wouldn't need the "Overview of characteristics" section because the Cultural background article would cover that).--Andrew c 15:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's wrong with asserting that Jesus existed?  Sure it is disputed that he was a historical person, but only by a tiny minority of, well,  crackpots, with an obvious axe to grind...  Way more than enough reputable historians agree that he existed, to be able to "assert" that there was a historical Jesus.  ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's wrong with asserting that Jesus existed? the fact that its an opinion and disputed by different opinions. Much like how asserting that Creationism is nonsense is also inappropriate in Wikipedia. One could equally argue that the supporters of Creationism are a tiny minority of crackpots with an obvious axe to grind... but to do so would be a violation of several policies [big hint]. Clinkophonist 17:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Well it's also the overwhelming mainstream view that he existed.  It's a bit like saying we can't assert Julius Caesar really existed, just because some people might have a "different opinion" that he did not. We can't totally cater to every revisionist theory out there that disputes the generally accepted version of history -- but we can have articles about them, like this guy: New Chronology (Fomenko), who actually thinks Jesus lived in 1054 AD (Check this out for a laugh!) ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Andrew c, I think your idea has some merit, though I don't see why there should then be an article under the title "historical Jesus" any more than there must be an article under "historical Napoleon". Clinkophonist 17:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The title 

message: In this article I miss too many references Atenea26 19:52, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More references 

message: I've set up three archive pages and linked them together with archive templates, so now this page is easier to navigate. :-) If there are any discussions that anyone feels that I cut off too soon, feel free to migrate them back here. אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 21:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archives of talk page 

message: Do we keep "of Nazareth" in the infobox?
#Yes. For reasons stated above. אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 13:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Of Nazareth poll

message: Does anybody have anything relating to the life of Jesus betwen his childhood and the time of his death? There seems to be no records whatsoever... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.134.135.208 (talk • contribs) 
The only records that we really have are the Gospels. Many scholars have also worked on reconstructed hypothetical sources  of those texts. Not much else, overall. What sources about his childhood other than the late infancy gospels are there? אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 16:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jesus' childhood

message: That picture (the clay model) looks ridiculous, surely there has to be something better. Lostcaesar 00:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First, it is not a clay model. Second, please don't double-post. You've already said this and no one has responded to it. Third, see the above discussion, and it would be appreciated if you were to contribute to it. :-) אמר Steve Caruso (poll) 03:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

text: If there is something better, by all means bring it to our attention. I'm not terribly fond of the picture, but I don't see a good reason to get rid of it unless there's a better forensic reconstruction to replace it. Wesley 16:00, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why on earth should we have a forensic reconstruction of a guy who's not Jesus, anyway?  We don't have this forensic reconstruction as an image on our multitude of articles about Judaean contemporaries of Jesus, even though the image is just as appropriate for those people as it is for Jesus. john k 16:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree with John on this. Out with the fictitious image. Str1977 (smile back) 08:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree as well. I daresay most of the "holy pictures" of Jesus don't look at all like him, but at least they were produced as pictures of Jesus. Why would we want one that was not conceived as Jesus? We could just as well add it to the articles on St. Joseph, St. Peter, etc. AnnH ♫ 22:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I too find the reconstructed skull obnoxious. Also, the forensic scientist who made it intentionally made it look as "African" as possible (but within the range of features assumed to be present in 1st century Israel). Hence the darker skin and curly black hair. At the other end of the spectrum, light skin and straight brown hair was an equally valid choice for the reconstruction. Annoyingly, the publicists of the project were as deceptive as possible, to imply this actually was Jesus and was exactly what he looked like. Nevertheless, that said:
The forensic reconstuction is archeologically important and belongs in this article. The "clay model" is an actual human skull from Israel's Roman Period. Who knows? Perhaps its one of Jesus's distant relatives. The skull should be here as an example of what the ancient Jews looked like. However it should be clearly labeled as a contemporary of Jesus whose genetic features may be suggestive of what Jesus looked like, including the roundess of the skull, dark hair, olive complexion, and so on. I feel strongly that a (clearly labled) picture must be here. Haldrik 03:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's with the picture 

message: This section cites only religious materials to support the idea of Jesus performing miracles. Therefore, it relates to a Biblical Jesus and not a historical one. DoItAgain 15:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I restored the section, as it is about much more than Jesus performing miracles. It also tries to present different scholars' conclusions regarding the 'religious materials', including things like the question of how many years Jesus' active earthly ministry lasted. Wesley 15:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

text: It needs to be edited to stay within the bounds of history. Regardless of how many scholars discuss the Bible, its stories hold no weight in historical discussion. You can summarize the historical debate without summarizing parts of the Bible. It`s a well-written section, but much of it belongs elsewhere. --142.227.45.20 08:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that (excluding a source a priori) is not a scholarly take on things, 142.. Str1977 (smile back) 08:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do I really have to explain why you can`t use religious and mythological writings from thousands of years ago that tell supernatural stories as a source for historical truths? I think it`s pretty damn scholarly, myself.DoItAgain 13:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Just to play devil's advocate, can you empirically disprove the Bible? If you can't actually SHOW how it is false (besides your own beliefs for or against the "naturalism"), then why should it be denied when other works by those who considered the Emperor to be a god are accepted?128.211.254.142 09:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "Works and Miracles" Section 

message: The following is a quick straw poll:
Q: Should we have the Jesus Template at the top of this article, or the Jesus Infobox as it is now?
;Template
#At this point in time I believe that the Jesus template should take its place. אמר Steve Caruso (desk/poll) 02:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jesus Template vs Jesus Infobox 

message: Why is it that much of an article titled "Historical Jesus" is based on non-scholarly, speculative works like Graves, Eisenmann or even fiction like Messadie? Str1977 (smile back) 09:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the theory if historicity of Christ is mostly speculative and besides Messadié did actually historical research to write his works.  For the same reason, why is that much of the article based on the gospels?-->User:Atenea26
18:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discrepancy

message: The Thadman has reverted "Jesus's" back to "Jesus'", saying in the edit summary that "Jesus' is proper grammar." I assure you that I am aware that it is acceptable to end Jesus, Achilles, and Brutus with just an apostrophe for the possessive, rather than an apostrophe followed by "s". However, I tend to use that only when a certain grouping of words has come down through the centuries: "Achilles' heel", "Achilles' tendon", but "Achilles's heroism"; "Brutus' Portia", but "Brutus's tendency to use words of one syllable". I never use it for Jesus, for the simple reason that I don't pronounce it as Jesus when it's possessive: I pronounce it as Jeezussez. That said, I wouldn't have changed what was already there except that I was editing the page anyway, and I saw there was a place where there were quotation marks around "Jesus" (not sure why) followed by the apostrophe. In the editing box, the double quotation mark looks quite distinct from the apostrophe, but when the page is saved (at least with Internet Explorer on Windows XP) it looks awful "'. Anyway, I won't revert back.
By the way, I also have a preference for the -ize spelling where words can be spelled with -ise or -ize. For one thing, it is more correct, showing which words come from Latin and which from Greek, Oxford and Cambridge use it, and as far as I know, the -ise spelling is only correct in British English, wherease the -ize spelling is always correct.  (That is, unless it's a word which requires -ise, such as surprise, circumcise, etc.) I don't normally change an existing article to -ize spellings unless I find that is has a mixture of ises and izes. Whichever spelling we use, we should at least be consistent, and as the one taking the trouble to make them consistent, I claim the privilege of using the one I prefer. So in the next day or so, I'm going to change "baptise" to "baptize", since there are already some "baptize"s in the article. If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace. AnnH ♫ 21:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heheh, understand how you feel completely, and many times I also use "Jeezussez" when I speak. Reading "Jesus's," however, makes me cringe for some reason (probably because I was raised in an elementary school that had the occasional "grammar Natzi" as a teacher :-) ), and I know that under standard english grammar (for all forms of english that I am familliar with) it's not "proper" per se, and none of the Jesus literature uses the additional "s". :-) As for "-ise" vs "-ize," I agree with you completely. "-ize" appears to be the best way to go, and we should have some sort of standard spelling for this particular article. אמר Steve Caruso (desk/poll) 22:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jesus' versus Jesus's 

message: What are these sections about First Quest, Second Quest, and Third Quest? They make no sense. Could someone please put them into context? Asarelah 04:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are different stages of the Quest for the Historical Jesus, as outlined by Schweitzer, Crossan and others. I'll let others give the details, but I believe that Haldrik is working on fleshing out the section. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 04:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It just needs to be made clear what the "Quests" where (as in "'The No Quest'refers to..."), who calls them quests,  and what the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" was. I'm assuming that its a book or something, but that just is not clear at all from the article. Asarelah 20:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: "Flesh" is a very ambitious word. How about "skeleton". ;) --Haldrik 04:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ezekiel 37:1-14. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 04:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  :D --Haldrik 21:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Quests?

message: I propose taking information from Cultural and historical background of Jesus and Historical Jesus and creating two seperate article: one focusing on history, and the other focusing on culture. I'd also propose less POV titles. For example Cultural background of 1st century Judea and History of Israel, 600 BCE - 150 CE. Reasoning: this article is really long, and this article doesn't really describe the cultural background, and parts of historical Jesus don't really describe the historical Jesus. I would love imput on this, and perhaps better title suggestions. If people agree with this proposal and we get some support, I'd propose creating two sandboxes in my userspace to start this process and I'd urge anyone interested to help contribute.--Andrew c 16:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting idea...it has my provisional support. But why not just Late Second Temple period Judaism? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 17:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure if Roman Period would work because the Cultural and historical background of Jesus article starts back in ~580 BCE. Look at History of ancient Israel and Judah, I think Arch's suggestion of Late Second Temple period works better.--Andrew c 21:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  proposal 

message: Perhaps we should tag the article, or some of its sections, with the cleanup tag in order to encourage more contributions. Lostcaesar 08:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, maybe a very good idea. Ideally the entire Jesus and history group of articles would harmonize much better together. Currently, there is much overlap. I mean take the article Cultural and historical background of Jesus, this has a section about the historical jesus. Then the original Jesus article has a section on the historical Jesus. All these sections are quite different in nature. --Vesal 18:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup tag 

message: The paragraph reads: 
:Jesus, like many holy men throughout history, is said to have performed various miracles in the course of his ministry. These mostly consist of cures and exorcisms, but some show a dominion over nature. Scholars in both Christian and secular traditions debate whether these miracles should be construed as claims of supernatural power (which would be rejected by naturalistic historians, while possibly accepted by others), or explained without recourse to supernatural occurrences. Naturalistic historians generally choose either to see the texts as allegory or to attribute the healings and exorcisms to the placebo effect.
I wonder if this paragraph adds any relevant information.  To summarize its points, it says that miracles have been attributed to many holy people, that there is debate as to whether the miracles of Jesus are real, and that "naturalistic historians" say they are not real.  The last sentence is tautological in that naturalistic in this context means "denies miracles", and besides it is a philosophical view.  This article at its lead asserted that it does not take up theological (and thus presumably is uncomfortable with philosophical) points.  I could sum the other points of the sentence as follows: "Some people in history are claimed to have been miracle workers, and people argue over whether Jesus was one or not."  That does not seem all to informative.  The only really useful information is that Jesus' miracles are part exorcisms, part cures, and part dominion over nature – but that point seems to have potential as informative only if an analysis of such miracles followed, which doesn't.
Lostcaesar 17:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Works and miracles 

message: About the lead-in, I agree it is more mature now. I would still like it to make slightly stronger points on the problems of applying historical methods on a religious text. But anyway, the historical methods section needs lots of work! Currently the part in  the cultural background is better. Anyway, I'm slightly confused, if this article is about scientific Jesus research, it should discuss the methods, the main problems, and then present the different Jesus theories. But I find the current material very interesting, it's like a debate on each issue. These two approaches to the subject don't work very well together, so I wonder what are the plans for this? --Vesal 19:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholarly methods, the outline, what to do... 

message: OK, what's going on? I pratically got into an edit war with three contributors on the HoJ page, because they (and one of them would be you, Lostcaesar) insist that HoJ is about examining the sources, not debating whether or not he existed, because the "majority" of scholars all agree, even the header on this page directs one to HoJ for disputes about his existence. Is the HoJ page just a POV fork? Seems like these two articles are about the same thing. Would someone please help me find the page that is about the debate of whether or not Jesus existed? And not Jesus-Myth which is about one side of the debate. Any insight into this issue would be appreciated. Thanks. Phyesalis 05:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not trying to be rude, and thought I acknowledge this next comment will be a little snide: If you want a debate, maybe you should go to a message board. WP:NOT The position that Jesus did not exist, in full, belongs in the JM article. It is summarized in the HoJ article. And is briefly mentioned here and at the main Jesus article. Is this not enough? For what exactly are you looking? Have you come across another topic that treats debate differently that you could use as an example of what you would like to see? What is wrong with the 2 subsections dealing with the JM in the HoJ article? I'm not trying to put you on the defense, and I sincerely apologize if I come off stern. I am just trying to figure out a little bit more in detail your concerns. Thanks!--Andrew c 06:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: None taken. I'm not trying to debate it out in an article, but it seems that this article, as opposed to Jesus and Historical Jesus, is for the purpose of going over both sides of the issue, which is not an issue of consensus, but a matter of significant debate. As for the JM subsection, you mean the one that starts out "Many scholars, such as Michael Grant, do not see significant similarity between the pagan myths and Christianity." and then goes on for two decent paragraphs to discount the theory and then ends with a small paragraph summarizing the position? What's wrong with that? A lot. Total POV. A brief mention is not enough, the full spectrum should be addressed even-handedly. I want to remove the POV "most" and "majority", again unsupported. I would like to see this article cover the positive estimate, the negative estimate, as well as a section on scholars and historians who say that the evidence is inconclusive (Because I think these are the actual majority, those who claim otherwise just have an agenda, IMO. Not that I'd write it into the article, NPOV and all). And thank you for not erasing all my contributions. But could you explain what was wrong with my dab header? Just saying it was improper isn't all that helpful. Thank you. Phyesalis 06:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's the difference between this page and [[Historicity of Jesus]]? 

message: The lay reader should read this header and think "This is where I learn about Jesus' death on a cross." Instead, this is where you see dueling critics and apologists. The cross  is of little interest to historians of Jesus. It is of immense importance to people defending the literal interpretation of the Bible and to those attacking such an interpretation. The historical consensus is that Jesus was crucified by Pilate for trouble-making, maybe for whatever it was that the gospels record as the cleansing of the temple. Historians are interested in why he was executed, whether he intended to be executed, and so on. But they don't spend a bunch of time on "Y-shaped crosses" and such. In fact, Markp88 just did a big POV overhaul of the section and I don't care. The material that was there before is also largely irrelevant to the historical Jesus. Jonathan Tweet 03:11, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. When I saw the recent changes, I also noticed all the fact tags. And the changes made that section all the more argumentative. This shouldn't be a section to rehash debates between believers and non-believers, but instead provide information from the leading scholars about the topic. This section is one of the weakest in the article, and maybe we should start by deleting all the fact tagged stuff, or maybe delete everything and start from scratch.--Andrew c 14:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I won't interrupt a "start from scratch" process.  Lostcaesar 15:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had my own hard work deleted often enough that I don't feel like starting from scratch. If I did it, I'd feel obliged to find a new home for this material. But Andrew, if you want to clean the slate, be my guest. Jonathan Tweet 01:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going out of town, but I will have computer access. I'll see if I can't pack my Meiers, Ehrman, and Acts of Jesus books, and try to come up with something over the next week. --Andrew c 02:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I didn't bring my books with me when I went out of town, so sorry about that. I will still try to work something up in the next day or so now that I have returned.--Andrew c 23:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Death on a cross" section is terrible 

message: The first several sections are of little interest and are highly detailed. What's important about this guy historically is his ministry, not his home town, etc. Can all this stuff be moved to a spin-off page? Or can the ministry sections be moved to the front, in front of "biography"? Jonathan Tweet 14:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the article follows a chronological approach, then the family and hometown comes before the ministry. But yes, I agree that that part could be summarised. The ministry part could benefit from drawing on the work of Geza Vermes, putting Jesus into his Jewish context. PiCo 08:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no reason to follow a chronological approach. Historical Jesus is basically him from baptism to crucifixion. The birth and hometown stuff is relevant to religion, not so much to history. I say, put the most important stuff first. Jonathan Tweet 21:27, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps a rethink on the structure of the article would be useful? I've noticed that it doesn't follow the structure outlined in the introduction, which m,akes the following excellent point about what historians agree on regarding the historical Jesus: "Jesus was an ethnically Jewish teacher who attracted a small following of Galileans and, after a period of ministry, was crucified by the Roman and Jewish authorities in Palestine during the governorship of Pontius Pilate." So perhaps scrap the existing section-divisions (which means scrapping the biography as such), and having these three broad sections: Jesus the rabbi; His ministry; The crucifixion. The 'rabbi' section would cover the social history of Judea in early Roman times, including such things as the various Jewish sects (Pharisees, Saducees, holy men like John the Baptist, Iscariotes, etc), the education Jeus might have had, and expectations of the messiah; the Ministry section would cover what Jesus taught and how it chimed with what Jews believed at that time (Christians sem largely unaware of what it meant that Jesus was a Jew); and the Crucifixion needs to be included because it's central to the change among Jesus's followers from Jewish religious phenomenon to new religion - it obviously can't touch on the Resurrection, but there's a lot to be said about what Jews of the time believed about the resurection of the body and the end of time. In short, there's a lot to be said about the birth of Christianioty in this Jewish-Greek-Roman moment of time, but the article we have just isn't sayiung it. PiCo 10:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  biography 

message: I'd like to delete this section. My problem isn't with anything it says, but with it's relevance - this article is supposed to be about what history can tell us about the historical Jesus, so what's the existence or non-existence of a synagogue at Nazareth to do with that? Is it meant to support the case that Jesus could read? Then put something in the relevant section. Is it meant to say that Nazareth was a big place, big enough to have a synagogue? Just what is it meant to mean? In my view, a whole section devoted to this arcane topic seems more than slightly disproportionate. So should it stay or go? PiCo 08:46, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you are right that it is just dangling there.  However, I think it could be useful if moved to the right section.  It does show Jesus as literate, and as versed in Jewish scriptures.  It also shows him as involved in a Jewish synagogue, relevant to his title as Rabbi, and connects him to a form of Jewish liturgical practice.  It also gives a setting for his hometown conducive to a certain kind of religious significance. Lostcaesar 08:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So you're saying the 'synagogue' section is meant to relate to Jesus' literacy and status as a rabbi. Fair enough, but I don't think establishing the existence or non-existence of the synagogue will help the case - the existence of a synagogue can't prove that Jesus ever really read in it. I think what you need to do is to go to the section that discusses the question of his literacy and put in an initial sentence along the lines of: "According to (chapter and verse), Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth." That would lead into the existing discussion of literacy levels in ancient Judea and the likelihood of a carpenter's son getting a religious education. No-one will ever know whether Jesus really could read Hebrew (bar the finding of an old report card saying "Could not possibly do better"), and I don't think historians would expect to, but historians can tell us the soicial milieu in which he lived. PiCo 10:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: PiCo, I'm with you on deleting this section. I've thought about it a while now, and it seems to serve no purpose other than to promote the canonical image of Jesus or to attack it. Bible scholars working on the historicla Jesus take the reference to Jesus in the synagogue to say more about the gospels than about Jesus. Jonathan Tweet 02:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I deleted the Synagogue section. LC says that it's main reason for being there was to throw light on the question of Jesus' literacy, but really all it boils down to is that no-one knows for suer whether there was or was not a synagogue there - and even if there was, it wouldn't prove that Jesus read there. The Literacy section further down is the place for material on this topic. (For what it's worth, I'm inclined to believe that he could erad, but I'm inclined not to think it matters).PiCo 08:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synagogue of Nazareth 

message: Could we do a spinoff page that covers all the picky, long-winded, nonmainstream ideas that both attack and defend biblical inerrancy? Then this page could focus on history, while the sister page would relate how history has been used to attack and defend the gospels' account of Jesus. Who really cares whether Jesus' siblings were half-siblings, etc.? Christians and anti-Christians, that's who. Jonathan Tweet 21:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think biblical inerrancy is a red herring. I'd just ignore those who want to quibble over each detail of the bible. History simply cannot say anything useful about the details of Jesus' life - the Gospels are the only account of such matters as the miracles, the resurrection, and all the other things which are at the centre of the Jesus story. But what history can do is provide the wider context in which the story took place - who was who in Judea, the beliefs of ordinary Jews, the other rabbis who were like and unlike Jesus (John the Baptist is the most famous, but there were others). PiCo 10:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "I'd just ignore those who want to quibble over each detail of the bible. History simply cannot say anything useful about the details of Jesus' life" Do you mean excise this material from the article? If so, I'd put it somewhere else. Someone obviously cares. Thus, the spinoff page proposal. I'd recommend a section at the back of the article for partisans to go at it, but the article's really long. Jonathan Tweet 15:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I just discovered the article called Cultural and historical background of Jesus, which covers exactly the subject-matter I've outlined above - so scrap my suggestion. That article has a section - a big one - headed "Towards a historical Jesus", which, embarrassingly, is better than this article. So what I now suggest is that we go to that section, study it carefully, and see if we can enlarge on it here. PiCo 07:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I had a look at the Discussion page of Cultural and historical background of Jesus - tread carefully, it seems there's a lot of sensitivities there! As for this article, I'm still wondering what it should best be about. I'd like to get rid of the petty quibbling. I had a quick look at the archives of the Talk page, and it seems the article has wandered far from what was originally intended. Here's a quote from user Slrubenstein, who is one of the names recently active on the Cultural and Hsitorical Background page (they were discussing a suggestion that this article be deleted): "I am oppposed to deletion. Please remember the history: in an attempt to keep the Jesus article NPOV, detailed accounts of a variety of views were added, and the article became too long for many servers. There was a quick consensus to have the article focus on the Christian POV, with sub-articles on other points of view, and very brief summaries with links as subsections of the Jesus article. The main topics spun off were on the historical and cultural context for Jesus, which placed Jesus in the context of what we know about Jewish history and culture; one on the "historicity" of Jesus, meaning, debates over whether or not Jesus actually existed; this article, and I think one or two more on the critical study of the NT and Christology. I am sure that some of the material in these different articles can be redistributed, and that many of them could use much more development. But we simply can't put all the relevant content reflecting diverse points of view in one article, which means we need subarticles like this. This article should not be an account of Jesus' life according to the NT, it should be about different ways critical historians have reconstructed Jesus' life sans theological interpretations. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

text: The topic of this article is relatively well-stated in the disambig statement and in the lead section. See above for a lengthy conversation on this topic. 05:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'll move my further comments on this subject to the "Topic of this article" discussion.PiCo 01:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Sounds fine, but there are real problems with that material and it will have to be carefully ammended.  It is currently in a very young state - its unbalanced, states theory as fact, and only cites one or two sources.  So go ahead but with caution. Lostcaesar 09:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, I agree with you that the material on the other page in Toward a historical Jesus needs work. I want the material to be on the right page. What do you think is the proper page for a lengthy treatment (or let's say the lengthiest treatment) of methods used in analyzing the Gospels? Quest for Historical Jesus? Historicity of Jesus? Jonathan Tweet 14:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical Jesus Controversy 

message: Where does this claim that the papal Mandylion is "considered to be the earliest image of Jesus" come from? It is not a scholarly view, but the province of Turid Shroud theorists and devotees. The oldest images we have are ancient Roman ones, from catacombs etc. Paul B 17:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mandylion of Edessa

message: I put some material in my user space.  Someone copied it into the article without any attribution to me.  This violates the GFDL.  I am removing the material on those grounds, but generally, I don't want my content included in this article.  I didn't understand before that the GFDL extends to User pages.  Please forgive this solecism and allow me to keep my content peaceably.  Thank you. --Peter Kirby 09:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I realize you had been working on this article in your user space, but did not realize that it was someone other than yourself who moved the text here, without your permission. That is just bad form. That said, a bit of the information you blanked was simply quotes from other authors. While I acknowledge that you typed up those quotes, and that an article which is just a collection of quotes is clearly not encyclopedic, it may be helpful for the time being to restore some of the quoted content. I totally 100% respect your right as original author to remove the non-quoted material, and would just simply ask, in a peaceably manner, 'why'? Thanks.--Andrew c 17:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please feel free (as if I have to say this...) to adopt the quotes and/or consult the original books in writing a new version of the article.  Mostly, I don't think that an article on the historical Jesus on Wikipedia can ever be really good, and thus don't want to contribute to it. I'd be content to finish my article and release it to the Internet otherwise. --Peter Kirby 00:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough. Thanks for the work you have done in the past, and your tireless work outside of wikipedia (I'm a fan). Maybe one day you'll reconsider helping here. Good luck in whatever you do.--Andrew c 00:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed content written by me and used without attribution