Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Archive 4

message: This whole section is dubious, and I've marked it as such. There are many acaedemic historians who believe in the historical signficance of Jesus but don't look towards naturalistic reasons for miraculous events like his life and death and resurrection. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:32, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That sentence seems very POV cast, and quite subversively so. Are you sure you do not mean There are many academic historians who believe in the historical signficance of Jesus but do look towards naturalistic reasons for unusual events like certain elements of his life and resurrection, interpreted by others as miracles ? (P.s. I don't think there is an unnaturalistic explanation usually offered for Jesus' death)CheeseDreams 22:13, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's wrong. There are actually many historians who are Christians who believe in the supernatural evidence of Jesus' resurrection. One of them is Bloomberg, who is pretty well respected. I can find others if you want. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:24, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree entirely that "There are many acaedemic historians who believe in the historical signficance of Jesus but don't look towards naturalistic reasons for miraculous events like his life and death and resurrection."  Aside from this point (which refers to one clause in the paragraph) I don't see what is dubious about the section.  I have read a good deal of work by academic historians and the rest of the section seems pretty valid.  What else do you have a problem with? Slrubenstein 19:27, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Academic historians and religious texts

message: Pathetic, totally pathetic. CheeseDreams 14:27, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've asked for a temporary injunction against this editor for the way they've been editing this article and for making personal attacks. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:53, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet another revert war 

message: Let's see, a fan of Kevin Spacey, multiple references to CheeseDreams - I give up, it's a total mystery. I don't think we shall ever find out, either. --Viriditas  | Talk 06:53, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I apologize.  I just had a look at the history of your User page and it appears to be a strange coincidence that your User page mentions Kevin Spacey.  On December 13, a user by the name of Wjw edited your user page and added the entry, Anti-Kevin Spacey Editors in the Public Service Announcement section.  Are you aware of the content on your User page?  In the movie, The Usual Suspects, "Kaise Soze" is revealed to be the character as played by Kevin Spacey. --Viriditas  | Talk 03:34, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: I left the comment on my user page, as I found the juxtaposition amusing. CheeseDreams 22:18, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who is [[The Usual Suspects|Keyser Soze]]? 

message: From the article:
*The increased importance of the Christological argument for the existence of God in modern evangelical teachings has formed questions of the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth with an enhanced urgency. The usual historian's criteria of authenticity, documentation, and the like, tend to be removed from ordinary historical discourse, to take up newly important places in Christological theology.
This could stand expansion.
*Taking a starting point loosely connected with Higher criticism, which was a rigorous historical analysis of Biblical texts in the 19th century, also known as the "Tübingen School" because it was connected to the Eberhard Karls university in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, a number of critics have proposed that there was no historical Jesus. They argue from the internal features of, and inconsistencies between, the Gospels and other canonical and non-canonical Christian and Gnostic writings to argue that Jesus was a mythical (or mythologized) figure. The paucity of non-Christian historical sources that corroborate Christian writings is adduced as support for this position.
We spend half the paragraph on Higher Criticism, which has only tangential relation to the topic. (I won't get into the "a number of critics" bit, and similar problems.)
*Rudolf Bultmann was convinced the life of Jesus was theology in story form. He spoke of "demythologizing" Jesus' teachings by making them a modern day reality, not something that stays and belongs to an ancient primitive world. Essentially, he considered the question of the historicity of Jesus to be unimportant compared with the meaning of the teachings that arose (in whatever way) around him.
If so, why are we mentioning him here?
*Proponents of this view generally assign much later dates to the gospels than is normally done, and assert textual corruption or interpolation in the passages supporting the existence of Jesus in Paul and Josephus. Flavius Josephus was trained as a Pharisee and the passages attributed to him do not read true to this; moreover it contains vocabulary not used by Josephus per the Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus, ed. K. H. Rengstorf, 2002. Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an Arabic version of the tenth century. It does not show the same signs of interpolation as the Christian version circulating in the West. Cornelius Tacitus echoed popular opinion about Jesus and had no independent source of information. The passage in the Annals as written in 115 CE has no value as a historical evidence for Jesus.
The middle part is OK; we could give some examples for the first part; BUT the Tacitus stuff seems a bit off.
* The Gospel of Mark is considered by historians to be the earliest of the four. These scholars date it between 55 and 65, although the most common dating of Mark is 65-80 CE,
So which is it?
*The figures that Jesus repeatedly attacked were leaders of two Jewish sects noted for their strict enforcement of Scripture; people who had a good knowledge of the Tanakh were able to supplement it, and take advantage of the fact that there was a spiritual or mythical void in that part of the world when competing, older religions were being spread and discussed thereto from other parts.
Huh?
We could stand to switch "Scholarly Defense" and "Skepticism", since the latter seems to be a response to the former.
*Unlike religious fundamentalists, who assume that such texts as the Gospels are entirely and literally true, and unlike some critics of Christianity, who assume that such texts are entirely false, most academic historians believe that such texts are legitimate historical sources. However, like other historical sources (for example, the works of Josephus), they were written by human beings. Some argue that a text with a clearly identified author (for example, the Gospel of Luke) was nevertheless written by someone else, or by several authors, or by an author drawing on several sources. Furthermore, historians assume that a text that is based on real events may nevertheless reflect the biased view of the author or authors, or a bias that is meant to appeal to an intended audience. They also don't generally believe in supernatural phenomena, and tend to look for naturalistic explanations of any supernatural phenomena that were recorded. Consequently, they believe such texts contain information not only about a described event, but also about the authors and audience. Historians then use information about the cultural, political, and economic context (from sources outside the text in question) as a basis for reconstructing the intended or understood meaning of the text. Although historians use established methods, there are often vigorous debates over the validity or strength of a given interpretation. Moreover, historians strive to revise their interpretations when new linguistic, literary, or archaeological evidence becomes available. 
Why is this disputed? The only questionable part is the comment about Luke.
:The bit about the Gospel of Luke is why it's disputed. Can this be cleared up? - 203.35.154.254 01:53, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bennett Standeven's Comments 

message: I came here expecting an article about the historicity of Jesus. Why is it about the supposed Gnostic beliefs of St. Paul? DJ Clayworth 05:26, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to the brave new world of CheeseDreams edits. She's reverted back all her edits into the article and caused us considerable trouble. We're trying to fix it all up now, but it's bloody hard to do. Especially as I've reached the end of my limit of reverts. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:51, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: What?

message: Thanks to CheeseDreams unilateral edits, we no longer have a lead section. Great. Do I have to go through an edit war to get this into the article, or will CheeseDreams play ball and assist with an NPOV (yeah, that's right. NPOV) lead section. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:49, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead section is Perspectives on historicity. That should be there, unless someone actually deleted it. It's just a collecting together of most of the original article in one section, and trimming off bits which detail issues such as textual sources (as these are expressed in those sections), or of syncretism (for the same reason).  CheeseDreams 23:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next problem: no lead section! 

message: :Many Christians use a passage from Josephus (found only in quotations apparantly from it by Eusebius) as evidence that the Bible is not the only contemporary document proclaiming the truth of their faith (such as the Resurrection of Jesus as Christ, part-God, who was executed at the suggestion of Jewish leaders, and won many converts). However, critical scholars note that the passage uses terms Josephus nowhere else uses, the passage is a rather odd thing for a non-Christian Jew to write, the other text reads more continuously without the passage in question, and that the first person known to have claimed that Josephus did not mention Jesus was Origen (who lived centuries before Eusebius who is the first person known to have claimed (or quoted) that he did). The discovery of a more neutral 10th century version, bolstered Christian hopes of the validity of the passage, however, it fails to explain why the earlier 9th century manuscripts should have the flaws, and may itself be a forgery.
* "Many Christians use a passage from Josephus", source?
::For example, the fact that so much discussion evolves around Josephus' evidence rather than anyone else's. See google, type in "textual evidence of Jesus" without the quotes, there are masses of christian websites going "ah, but Jesus is mentioned in Josephus, look at all this detail....", never pointing out that that mention is the only one even coming remotely close to actual evidence.
* "(found only in quotations apparantly from it by Eusebius)", source?
** The earliest copy of this dates from Eusebius of Caesarea's time and is cited by him. Origen does not mention it. Thus, CheeseDreams assumes that Eusebius wrote it. Mpolo 18:52, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
:::Thus many many scholars assume that Eusebius (arch heresy-hunter of the Church) forged it to act as something to hit the "but there is no evidence from respected historians" groups of his critics with. CheeseDreams 00:16, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: A link to hapax legomena under the words "terms Josephus nowhere else uses" would be appropriate. CheeseDreams 23:48, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Josephus of course being a Jew who didn't approve of Christianity. So obviously the sort of person who would go "if we can..call him a man", and  "he was the messiah" (Jews do not believe the messiah has arrived yet, thats why they are Jews not some wierd sect of Christians, excepting of course the Messianic Jews). CheeseDreams 00:16, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Basically, the quote Eusebius makes is AAAAABBBBBBCCCCCC, the Jesus bit being BBBBBB (and the only bit discussed above), the other bits are AAAAA and CCCCCC. Essentially AAAAACCCCCC reads more continuously (i.e. looks more like one piece of text than a haphazard series of random sentences) than AAAAABBBBBBCCCCCC. CheeseDreams 00:16, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: The stuff in brackets explains the significance of mentioning Origen. Basically, Origen states quite clearly that Josephus does not mention Jesus. Eusebius two centuries later then claims to have quoted Josephus. Which is thus quite suspicious (particularly as Origen would have wanted Josephus to have mentioned Jesus). Not having the bracketed bit there renders it rather inexplicable as to why Origen is mentioned at all. The bracketed part puts the explicit denial of the claim by Origen into the context of Eusebius' violation of that denial. CheeseDreams 00:16, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: POV paragraph 2

message: If anyone wants to read it, it can be found here. Someone want to read it to verify what was said about syncretism and Jesus? - Ta bu shi da yu 07:02, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alexander Hislop and the "Two Babylons" 

message: It's pretty obvious to me that this is an article I feel strongly about, and will never be able to edit because some parties have been drowning out all other parties with their POV writing, leaving the article in a POV state (which they admitted in the edit history no less!) and leaving it in a structural mess. Any objective and neutral viewer will clearly see the bias. Any non-objective viewer will probably have their viewpoints more entrenched. It doesn't look good for Wikipedia and our policy of writing from a neutral point of view though. To those authors still engaged in trying to fixup the story: I might come back sometime later and see if you're doing OK. But it appears that my help isn't wanted or needed here and that my questions are seen as attacks on CheeseDreams. That's a pity because that isn't the case, but as CheeseDreams doesn't seem to want to compromise or fix up objections to her edits I don't see the point in battling it out on this article. Especially as any Christians editing this article have been told by various parties that they are censoring the article with their edits and placing their own POV into it. I have no intention of getting directly or indirectly attacked because of my faith, or because of my edits on this article. 
I hope the article becomes accurate, fair and NPOV, but with the way things are going I don't see this happening until some of the editors on this site work out how to write to achieve consensus. Properly sourcing would be a start, but here also I've been told by at least one editor that my comments appear to be biased and begging the point. So good luck! You'll all need it. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:21, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I can't help myself. I must like pain. I'm back. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:34, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm bowing out of this article 

message: Rd232 has kindly created a temp page for us to work on, at Historicity of Jesus/Temp. Can I request everyone look at this page? It looks pretty NPOV, but could use some cleanup. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:37, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ta bu shi da yu has moved the Temp page to the main page. I wouldn't have done this yet (still a bit early draft) but let's see what people say and where it goes. Rd232 11:38, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, sorry about that. I should have mentioned it. Forgot to. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:34, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Temp page to work on new draft 

message: At present the article says: "Judaism sees him as a false teacher and false Messiah."  This statement makes it sound as though there is a "central authority" for Judaism, or the functional equivalent of a "pope" for Judaism, and that some position on the status of Jesus has been taken by this competent authority.  Who claims to speak for all of Judaism?  Nobody would claim to be the 'speaker for all of Islam', but there is a position on the matter in the Koran that surely is regarded as authoritative by believers in Islam. Maybe the author was trying to suggest that "the consensus of opinion among recognizes scholars/teachers in Judaism is that..."? Some citations should be given to establish the truth in this matter. P0M 09:05, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some comments 

message: "Christianity's dominance was finally enforced by a decree in 394 (by Theodosius), completely banning non-Christian religion. After the ban, mithraeum (the Mithras temples) were converted into churches, and according to certain scholars specifically Mithraic beliefs transferred to the archangel Michael, since the previous adherents of Mithraism still continued to worship in the same location, just claiming to be Christian." Given that this is about the historicity of Jesus (and not about early 4th century Church history), what has this got to do with the article? - Ta bu shi da yu 04:50, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It should probably be moved to one of the syncretism and Christianity type articles. It might even be duplicated in one of them. Wesley 05:40, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevance of paragraph 

message: If we want a balanced article, I think we should at least be looking at what William Lane Craig has to say about the historical Jesus. See  and The Evidence For Jesus.  - Ta bu shi da yu 04:05, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources that should be included