Talk:Paul the Apostle/Archive 4

message: Okay, I have a major grievance here. This article has been utterly hijacked and taken over by Roger Arguile (and perhaps a few others), an admitted Roman Catholic priest with limited, if any, NPOV. Roger, your tending to this article and overt bias is all over the place. Give it a rest, please. We know where your POV is coming from. You are not the sole arbiter of perception or perspective here. Yes, there is a so-called majority viewpoint that is well known about Paul; but there are many others who have valid issues to provide about Paul without your personal grooming of the article against anything you simply disagree with. Just because you feel an issue about Paul is somehow "settled" (ie. Maccoby and Jefferson) does not mean that it is with others who have a much wider point of perspective than you allow yourself to have. Big deal if you're British and don't care about Jefferson. There are a lot of folks who would like to know what Jefferson thought and did with the canon. Are you the thought police also?? This article does not have to be "orthodox", it needs to be balanced and historical. Please restrain yourself from constantly grooming these articles with your own personal mission of bias even if you may disagree. --Solascriptura 21:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Roger, first you say your are a priest, now you say you're not. So which is it? What is everyone supposed to believe about you? You said, "I am a parish priest in England and so am subject to bias. ... Roger Arguile 16:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To say someone has "hijacked" an article is a strong accusation, and is perhaps not the most generous read on the recent edits of this page.  That said, how about a compromise?  Yes, "Saint Paul" is used by most Christians -- Roman Catholics & Orthodox (there's 60% of the world's Christians), but also most Lutherans, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists.  The aversion to calling him Saint Paul - at least within the Christian community - does represent the small minority -- mostly American non-denominational evangelicals.  One option - which recognizes the use of the title saint while preserving a more nuetral tone - is to use Saint in the lead (Saint Paul the Apostle ...) and then simply refer to him as Paul throughout the rest of the article (See Maximus the Confessor for an example of how this looks in the article).  -- Pastordavid 18:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Further, as style comments, in general usage "St X" refers to a building, town, etc; "Saint X" refers a person.  Further, self-referential section headers are to be avoided per the wikipedia manual of style (avoiding the issue there altogether; Life of Paul or Life of Saint Paul ought to be simply "Life").  Pastordavid 18:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, I would say that the consensus for the article title, from the discussion below, is Paul the Apostle.  And, actually, the Roman martyrologies do in fact speak of Saint Moses, Isaiah, & David.  Further, not all all 670 million Protestants agree with your position - as I noted above, in fact the majority use the term Saint.  That is why I suggested the compromise above, "Saint Paul the Apostle" for the first mention in the article lead, simply "Paul" throughout the rest of the article. -- Pastordavid 19:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will agree with a title construction which I have attempted to add and the removal of Saint throughout the article. The other issue here is that this article is literally FILLED with a bunch of Catholic doctrine of what Paul presumably taught, which is subject to wide interpretation. This needs to be removed and place within its own article, such as maybe, "The Doctrines of Paul" with various perspectives. As it is now, Wikipedia is complaining about the length of this article. --Solascriptura 19:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I think the cuts you made were fair and appropriate.  I followed behind with a slight change, as the consensus in the discussion below is for "Paul the Apostle" not "Paul of Tarsus", and a move is impending (Although, NB: I only use "the Apostle" in the first reference - along with "Saint" - and then all qualifiers or titles are left off throughout the rest of the article).  -- Pastordavid 19:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Please elaborate, if you will, on what exactly you see to be a problem. If you believe changes should be made, suggest them here, or be bold and add them yourself. If your change is removed, join the discussion and argue over the merit in including your changes. As it is, I see no problems with the article, so explain to me what you feel is an issue. --C.Logan 20:27, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Complaint

message: I archived the old conversations. --Ephilei 16:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive

message: Paul is never called "Paul of Tarsus" in the New Testament, other non-cannonical documents, or the contemporary Christian Church and only rarely in academic circles. This causes confusion to the many readers ignorant of the minor location, Tarsus. I propose moving to either
*Paul the Apostle or The Apostle Paul Google count 400,000 + 1,200,000= 1,600,000
*Saint Paul (and move the current saint disambiguation to Saint Paul (disambiguation)) Google count 3,200,000
"Paul of Tarsus" has only 100,000 Google hits. These titles follow Christian tradition, contemporary Christianity, academia, and many Christians. Only the over simple term "Paul" is more common. Both "saint" and "apostle" are NPOV titles that do not mean inherent ordination by God, unlike "prophet" or "messiah". They signal the approval of Christianity. There is a long precedent of using this on Wikipedia. Compare the 12 apostles of the Gospels:
* John the Apostle
* Philip the Apostle
* Bartholomew the Apostle
* Thomas the Apostle
* Saint Andrew
* Saint Peter (also called Simon)
* Simon the Zealot
* James, son of Alphaeus
* James, son of Zebedee 
* Matthew the Evangelist (also called Judas)
* Judas Iscariot
The only exceptions are all people who share names with other apostles (James, Judas, Simon). All them are called by these names in the New Testament (except Matthew). Paul neither shares a name nor is named anything other than Paul (except "Saul", the Hebrew to Greek transliteration of "Paul"). Note that he is already called "Apostle Paul" on the Christianity tag on this article. Do you prefer Paul of Tarsus, Saint Paul, Apostle Paul, Paul the Apostle or Saint Paul the Apostle?
--Ephilei 15:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are several St. Paul's - St. Paul of Contantinople, St. Paul of the Cross etc. but otherwisde schoolls and cities are named after the apostle. I would go for 'St. Paul the Apostle'. Roger Arguile 16:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I like Saint Paul the Apostle most of all! --Ephilei 20:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would go remain as is, Paul of Tarsus. Obviously, some qualifier is needed, other than just "Paul."  Paul of Tarsus is, as I see it, the most neutral term and is also specific enough to clearly identify the person in question. (unrelated to my own opinion, I am cross-posting notice of this proposed change on the talk pages of some interested wikiprojects).  -- Pastordavid 01:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Sorry to come into this late. I don't like "Paul of Tarsus". He was called "Saul of Tarsus", but never "Paul of Tarsus" to my knowledge. "The Apostle Paul"/"Paul the Apostle" I prefer slightly to "St. Paul", but I prefer both to "Paul of Tarsus". I agree with the person who said that "Apostle" or "Saint" are used widely on Wikipedia and do not imply a POV judgement. They are simply the most common designation for many people. Rocksong 03:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto, late here. Why not Paul (apostle)? I've never heard of many of the apostles named as "X the Apostle" (altho' I have heard "The Apostle X"), but then again "I've never heard of ---" cuts about as much ice as WP:IDON'TLIKEIT. But since the naming conventions, as I understand them, generally eschew the "Saint" title, why not just use the common name and with the disambig? And if that has already been discussed, my apologies... --SigPig |SEND - OVER 13:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and High Protestants use the title. That means that nearly 1.7 billion individuals use the title 'Saint' when referring to Paul, whereas around 400 million do not (and even amongst these, there is no universal opposition to it).--C.Logan 01:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Who says the Bible is the only determining factor? I'm a Protestant and I happen to agree, but we also need to be aware that this is a dictionary for all people, and Catholics and Orthodox tend to prefer "Saint Paul". I slightly prefer "Paul the Apostle" because it is a more "universal" term, but I do not like the way that you seem to be unilaterally changing it without seeking consensus. Peter Ballard 00:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Paul the Apostle. Paul was designated a "saint" by the RC church. The NT refers to all regenerate true believers in and followers of Jesus Christ "saint."
I wonder why there cannot be a little more tolerance. Throughout most of the article the Apostle is called 'Paul'. He is only called St. Paul at the beginning (and in the ref to the painting by El Greco (who would have known him as St. Paul). He is thus distinguished from Paul of Samosata, Paul the Deacon. St. Paul of thebes, Paul of the Cross and St. Paul of Constantinople. The article is headed 'Paul the Apostle'. If this degree of flexibility and tolerance cannot prevail amongst Christians, let alone editors, it is a  shame. Religious people, of whom I am one, are not made to seem more credible by being intolerant of different views. I would hope that those who take the Bible as the Church's rule book rather than its necessary handbook, might accept the other point of view. 
It's a pity we can't meet face to face. A grin would empty out our firmness of purpose and determination to have our opinion take precedence. Isn't it OK to have BOTH usages in the article? Roger Arguile 08:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

text: What about Saul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle)?
RJRocket53 (talk) 01:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Rename 

message: Hello everyone,
Reading through the article, I came across two paragraphs that seemed out of place in St. Paul's early history.  They regarded the reliability of Acts vs. St. Paul's letters; the first paragraph argued against the reliability of Acts, and the second paragraph argued for the historical reliability of Acts.  They fell in the middle of his biography and were very disconnected from the article.
Though the historical reliability of Acts is an extremely important subject, I'm not sure an article devoted to St. Paul's life can do it justice.  Consequentially, I tried to unite and cut down the two paragraphs, pointing people instead to a link on the Acts wiki page for a full discussion.  I moved the new paragraph to a spot at the beginning on his life, in a new section, and I tried to include both viewpoints equally.
I understand why someone added these paragraphs in the first place.  Since we're trying to give the details of Paul's life, and some people are arguing that one of our two sources is in dispute while the other is not, it makes sense to mention this in passing.  It also frames the article nicely, since most of St. Paul's biography that follows cites either Acts or his letters, and we note any (possible) difficulty uniting them.  However, it's important that we don't get sidetracked from the main point of the article.
I tried to make this changes in the most NPOV way possible, and I welcome any feedback.
Take care,
--Glistenray 19:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Acts and St. Paul's letters

message: I'm new to this article, so I'm not sure if this has been discussed before.  But I noticed that several of the article's sections duplicate work found on other pages on wikipedia.  Some overlap is inevitable; if there's a specific article on St. Paul's writing, then in his biography of course we're still going to mention that St. Paul wrote.  But what about the lengthy paragraphs on the disputes over the Council of Jerusalem?  We might be able to cut that down a little, especially if there is already a separate article on this topic.  Same might go for the disputes over the authorship of St. Paul's work; if there are specific, separate articles on them elsewhere on wikipedia, there's no point in reinventing the wheel here. 
Other lengthy biographical articles must run into this constantly, especially if they're related to other sub-articles.  How did they choose the level of detail in the main article vs. the sub-articles?  I guess one concern would be that controversial material (disputes over St. Paul's writings, etc) would always get hidden on subpages, which wouldn't be NPOV.
I'm happy to make the necessary changes myself, but I thought I would check with the community first.  
Take care,
--Glistenray 20:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: General question on article overlap

message: Townsend in 1985 “Missionary Journeys in Acts and European Missionary Societies” indicated: "there is no evidence, before the preface to Acts in the first edition of J. A. Bengel’s Gnomon Novi Testamenti (1742), that any previous Christian reader or commentator on the narratives of Paul’s travels in Acts ever thought to observe, in the sequence of Paul’s various encounters and diverse experiences, a series of intentional missionary journeys" (quoted from Vaage, Leif E.(Editor). Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity. Waterloo, ON, CAN: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006. p 16.)  It seemed to indicate that the concept thereafter became quite popular and has been used since. 70.20.49.113 03:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Three Missionary Journey Format 

message: In what language did Paul write? Which languages did he speak? I have been unable to locate that information in this article. §
He wrote in Greek. That is now added ot the articleRoger Arguile 16:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  

message: Sorry, when I moved/renamed the article, I forgot about the archives.  It is now taken care of, and the archives are back where they belong.  -- Pastordavid 17:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archives are back 

message: Most of this is duplicated in Authorship of the Pauline epistles. I propose deleting the entire section, except for the first paragraph. Rocksong 23:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Authorship section 

message: had a few things to say about Paul, for the 'Alternative views' section. The epithet 'false-coiner' springs to mind. Vranak
Nietzsche said, and correct me if I am wrong, "God is dead." Now, I have one question for you, 'Where is Nietzsche?"
Virtue Lord Purple 75.195.2.74 01:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure that you're aware that "Nietzsche is dead" is not something that this user made up, being a somewhat common t-shirt, bumper-sticker and billboard slogan. Therefore, I think your response is a little rude; you're not proving anything by scolding an editor who responded to a snarky comment with a snarky comment.--C.Logan 12:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nietzsche