Talk:James the Brother of Jesus (book)

message: I included the full subtitle in the article title because James the Brother of Jesus is already taken. Maybe James the Brother of Jesus (book) would be better. dab (𒁳) 12:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would definitely be better.--SidiLemine 09:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: A central point Eisenman makes in the book is that the Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism that survive today are the Roman-approved versions.  Other threads of Judaism and Jewish-Christianity were suppressed because of their apocalyptic and revolutionary tendencies.  Although many of Eisenman's hypotheses have been overturned by physical evidence, this conjecture remains intact.
Another point that Eisenman makes repeatedly is that the Acts of the Apostles is a tenditious document, rewritten as a Roman-friendly apologetic.  This has become the mainstream scholarly opinion, as evidenced by some recent discussions on academic blogs.
Eisenman explicitly identifies James the Just as the Teacher of Righteousness.  This has been discredited by physical evidence (carbon-14 and paleographic dating of the DSS).
Also, Simon Peter is not the third pillar (as Paul says in Galatians) but Simeon of Jerusalem, who may be the same person as Simon the Zealot.  I will have to check this out to be sure. Ovadyah (talk) 23:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see it's in the external links as a review. Ovadyah (talk) 23:16, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some comments 

message: It seems to me that Eisenman's theories, particularly regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, his way of interpreting the text of the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls to reach conclusions as to what he purports is the apparently otherwise unknown "original" version of the New Testament contains, etc., cross over between books, such as the book "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins" and the "sequel" to this book. In fact, the Painter book makes a direct statement to that effect. And, of course, there is the matter of the later volume, which contains material which deals with substantially the same subject, James and the Zealots/Ebionites/Qumran Covenanters/whatever. It seems to me, based on what little I know of the other books (and, at this point, it ain't much), that it might make most sense to gather material about all the books which deal with these related books in a single article. The question would be, of course, what to call that article. Any suggestions? John Carter (talk) 17:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Any one point is sufficient. Do you hear that? --Michael C. Price talk 20:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If that incendiary comment is directed at me, I believe it is possibly yet another comment from the above party which is perhaps less than can and should be expected, particularly considering I am the first one to discuss that topic here. And the caustic perhaps somewhat insulting comment above does not directly address Dab's point about the notability of the "theory" per se. John Carter (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: My comment is about the book, not the theory, although I should have thought the latter notable as well, given the author's credentials, irrespective of whether the theory is fringe or not.--Michael C. Price talk 20:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed retitling

message: I believe Lawrence Schiffman's comments on Eisenman's theories deserve mention. In his article "Inverting Reality: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Popular Media, Dead Sea Discoveries, V12#1, the following comments can be found on pages 28-29, quoted verbatim:
"To be sure, the initial secrecy of the international team has always helped to foster such conspiracy theories regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is the case with the theories of Barbara Thiering and Robert H. Eisenman who see Christian figures as having lived at or visited Qumran, and Norman Golb who claims that the scrolls are the remnants of the Jerusalem library of the Temple, brought to Qumran for safekeeping during the revolt of 66-73 CE, and not the library of a sectarian group who lived at Qumran. These theories are actually impossible from an objective - that is, scientific - point of view."
On the basis of this quotation, which refers to Eisenman's theories without specifically indicating books to which it relates, I believe that there is sufficient cause as per WP:RS to indicate that the book contains conspiracy theories, and that those theories have been considered "impossible" by other involved academics. To do otherwise, given the timing of the article, after all of Eisenman's books, would seem to me to be a fairly clear violation of WP:OR. If Schiffman  doesn't differentiate between the theory as expressed in a number of Eisenman's works, then we can't either.  John Carter (talk) 00:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Also I note in the November 15, 2010, issue of Booklist, on page 15, in a review by Ilene Cooper of the book The Missing Family of Jesus, the following comment is made: "He [the author of the book] relies overmuch on the work of Robert Eisenman, author of James, the Brother of Jesus (2002), whose writings are considered on the fringe of biblical research." That would seem to be an even more current indicator that the book is more WP:FT than WP:RS. John Carter (talk) 20:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources