Talk:Persecution of Christians in the New Testament/Archive 2

message: While I still think "Jews" is the most appropriate generic term to describe who was charged with carrying out the alleged persecution in the NT, I've come to feel that it is not critical to use the word in the title.  Thus...
How about moving this article to Persecution of Christians in the New Testament?  Yeh, I know this isn't far from the original move proposal but, as I commented before, "Christian persecution" is ambiguous.  If I write "Roman persecution", what do you think of?  "Persecution by the Romans", right?  Since there are articles describing both "Persecution of Christians" and "Persecution by Christians", I think it's important to be clear which we are referring to.
Here's yet another proposal... how about Rejection of early Christians by the Jewish establishment?  I agree with you that "persecution" is a POV word.  If a bunch of Messianic Jews come into a synagogue and start calling everyone sinners for not accepting Jesus as Messiah, what is the natural reaction?  Maybe to engage them in dialogue but certainly not to tolerate rude and disruptive behavior.  Are we sure that the early Christians weren't rude and disruptive (as religious fanatics are wont to be)?  And are we sure that they weren't ejected from synagogues for what we here at Wikipedia consider disruptive and uncivil conduct?  So, let's not call it persecution.  Let's call it "rejection".  Note: I suspect that even "rejection" is only supported by the NT but, at least, it's a less POV word than "persecution".  I believe that there are theories that Christians co-existed peacefully with other Jewish sects until a bifurcation occurred.  The date and circumstances of this bifurcation are the subject of scholarly debate.  In brief, it didn't necessarily happen the way it is depicted in the NT.  See this URL for an example of what I'm talking about.
Another point in favor of saying "Jewish establishment": since almost all the earliest Christians were Jews, it's not reasonable to say that the "early Christians" were rejected by the "Jews".  Instead, we should say that the Jewish establishment rejected the Jewish sect which were later called "Christians" if indeed such rejection occurred as the NT claims it did.
Another possibility is Christian-Jewish relations in the New Testament.  However, that starts to expand the scope of the article significantly and I'm contemplating the creation of a separate article on this topic.  See my comment on Talk:Christianity and Judaism for some insight as to what I have in mind.
There might even be a case made for an article titled Christianity's break with Judaism.  I need to research this more, though.
In summary, given the much wider scope implied by Christian-Jewish relations in the New Testament or Christianity's break with Judaism, I think we're better off keeping the scope of this article what it is and thus I prefer Rejection of early Christians by the Jewish establishment or Persecution of Christians in the New Testament.
--Richard (talk) 09:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I quickly ran this by some people in my office this morning and the "consensus" was that Persecution of Christians in the NT is a much better title to early Christian persecution in the NT and between your arguments and theirs, I'm convinced. I agree Christian Jewish relations expands the article scope dramatically and therefore is problematic. When I was first trying to come up with an alternative to my first move proposal, it was something along the lines of "Rejection of early Christians by the Jewish establishment." The problem I faced with that though was due to the fact that the ambiguity of the word "early" doesn't avoid us having to distinguish/reconcile the rejection of the different divisions/splits including, among the Jewish Christians, the Cerinthians, Ebionites, Elcesaites, Nasoraeans, and the Nazarenes, let alone the various sects practicing forms of Judaism. By framing the discussion around the NT, we can draw clearer lines as to the abuse suffered by the Christians, which gave rise to the anti-Jewish polemic and is the focus of this article's content at present. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's a workable title. Majoreditor (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So it's now the evening of the 5th here in NYC and a week has passed since the revised move was proposed. Presuming this article will continue dealing exclusively with ancient allegations (up to the fall of the Roman Empire), thus satisfying Bikinibomb's valid concerns about future expansion of Persecution of Christians, I believe consensus has been achieved and the article can be moved. - CheshireKatz (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed compromise

message: If "Jewish" is an anachronism (and I agree that it is, see for example S.J.D. Cohen, "The Beginnings of Jewishness:  Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties" [Berkeley: U of Cal Press, 1999]), so too is "Christian."  It is debatable whether an entity called "Christianity" existed at the time of the writing of the New Testament - and, indeed, the words "Christian" or "Christianity" never appear there. fishhead64 (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Er ... Acts 11:25 says "It was in Antioch that the disciples were called Christians for the first time" (New American Bible). See this link for other New Testament translations (KJV, NAS, ASV, ERV, Yong's ,etc.) -- they all say pretty much the same thing, using the term "Christians".  Majoreditor (talk) 06:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Majoreditor. Presuming the NT was copyedited by fellow Christians throughout history (which, considering the consistent Christian identification among the revisions, seems reasonable to me), the self-identification as Christians in the apostolic texts suffices to give rise to the same questions of historical context as the names they use to describe the other various residents of Judea, particularly those they were in conflict/competition with (see Richard's commentary on this subject above in his response to me). Also, while not a dispositive argument, when it comes to historically imprecise names, I'm more concerned for those controversially accused of persecution than those uncontroversially alleged as victims. - CheshireKatz (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: More anachronism

message: Keep it simple, Persecution of Jews by Christians, Persecution of Christians by Jews. Someone may add a source about Jews spitting at Christians in Israel or something and then it will need to be changed anyway because it is dated. -Bikinibomb (talk) 19:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention denial of Messianic Jews the Right to Return by the State of Israel, that's a big modern issue too. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For example: ARAD, Israel - The state of Israel promises religious freedom to all faiths. However, in some Israeli towns, Jews who believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah face persecution. Persecution by Gur. So yeah, it makes no sense to limit it to one time period since as the article develops more sources like this will be added. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, Bikinibomb, welcome to the discussion. You may have noticed in reading the full discussion of the prior move request and this most recent one that there are a lot of different discussions going around. Are you voicing opposition to the current proposal to move this article to Persecution of Christians in the New Testament? If so, I would appreciate you framing your comments in respect to the conflicts with Wiki policy discussed and incorporating your comments into the most recent section on the subject. We recently achieved what appeared to be consensus on the requested move, but if you observe a conflict with policy that we've overlooked or have other points to contribute, I'd like them addressed in the context of the larger discussion. - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess the question really is, do we want two articles, one just for persecution alleged in the NT, another for all other alleged persecutions? If so I'd rather not mix it up in that discussion since that scope seems limited to NT. But if you want one article for all reports throughout history, then I don't think there's a lot to discuss, the simplest title works best for that. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And, if you want two articles, then Persecution of Christians in the New Testament for just that aspect would be fine. But I'm not necessarily voting for that since it's not yet been decided if there should be two articles or just one. -Bikinibomb (talk) 20:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Well, this article arose out of the framework Richard established in Persecution of Christians. The first and, to a lesser extent, second sections of that article largely deal with allegations arising from the NT, which, due to their unique nature, lack reliable, published secondary sources. Due to the sui generis nature of those historically significant allegations (in both origin & impact) and the controversy over the anachronistic use of the phrase "the Jews" to identify the alleged persecutors in the title, consensus appears to have been achieved on Richard's proposal of Persecution of Christians in the New Testament. Later allegations of Jews persecuting Christians ought to be included in a later section of the chronologically-organized Persecution of Christians (if not their own article). However, those allegations do not share the same issues of historicity, naming in the historical context, or even refer to the same groups as the NT accusations and thus I feel two articles are not only recommended, but necessary. If those allegations became so numerous as to justify a new article, Persecution of Christians by the Jews might need to be recreated at that time, containing an initial section called Persecution of Christians in the NT with a link to this article (hopefully moved to the new title at that point). - CheshireKatz (talk) 00:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This article goes beyond the NT and into Bar Kokhba and such so now it's a bit of a WP:COATRACK since the title isn't all that accurate anymore. If there is really desire to keep this moved to the present title, then Bar Kokhba etc. should be moved into a new article for everything outside of the NT, and only events in the NT should be discussed here. That's the kind of problem I was talking about avoiding when I said to keep it simple. -Bikinibomb (talk) 00:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Ah, yes, but that's precisely why I prefaced the move with the further intent to change the Romans article name to "in the Roman Empire." I'm going to move the Bar Kokhba stuff, Roman persecution encouragement, etc. over to that article and the Pontius Pilate crucifixion material from there back over to here. I found the inclusion of Bar Kokhba here troubling due to his rejection by mainstream Judaism, but moving it to in the Roman Empire avoids that debate entirely. - CheshireKatz (talk) 05:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I'm sorry, but huh? Refuting what? Whose antisemitic and whose lying? And what's a zinger? Pardon my confusion, but the tone's just a bit intense and conjures visions of tigers.... - CheshireKatz (talk) 07:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Oh but I completely agree that this article ought to be just about the NT and analysis of it. Like I said, the historical accounts in the end of the article are due to be relocated to Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. - CheshireKatz (talk) 15:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Bikinibomb, I think I see where some of the misunderstanding is coming from. Reread the revised proposal's "anticipated objections," my response to Richard a few paragraphs above, and the talk page of Persecution of early Christians by the Romans. I should have been more clear, because I forgot that you joined the discussion midstream. This move proposal was consistently discussed in conjunction with the move proposal for the sister article. This page's move proposal was posted first, because changing this article title was inherently more controversial. Sorry for the confusion. - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Move