Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Archive 32

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POV tag

Summary for the POV tag was: "Non-religious scholars and historians avoid the subject because there are no primary or even secondary sources, how is this expected to be taken as "evidence" or with historical accuracy? It is laughable." I guess will take 2 weeks to discuss... History2007 (talk) 14:09, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

That's the POV of the editor and is not a reason for adding a POV tag. Removing. Discuss rather than tag. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not POV, if you have some sources that mankind is not aware of then please provide these. POV is when a Biblical "scholar" concludes that Jesus exists based on a Gospel that's authenticity and source itself is disputed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DonChris (talk • contribs) 16:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

No, actually, I suggest that you read WP:BURDEN, which indicates that it is incumbent on those who add material to justify it, not the other way around. And, actually, whether you want to believe it or not, I believe several clearly reliable sources like Encyclopedia Britannica discuss this subject, at least at some length in some article. Now, having not consulted them myself specifically on this point yet, I don't know how they deal with the subject, but that source, in whatever article it contains material regarding this subject, may well count as a good indicator of relative weight. Honestly, I tend to think, if they discuss it the World Book, Encyclopedia Americana, and Catholic Encyclopedia would probably be fairly good indicators of relative weight of the non-historicity of Jesus position, although I would have some reservations about the neutrality of the Catholic Encyclopedia, of course. John Carter (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I think DonChris genuinely believes that for any historical figure to exist, there must be existing remnants and documents left behind by themselves, or their immediate contemporaries. His argument and objection is not limited to Jesus of Nazareth, but could be applied to a number of other historical figures whose existence is accepted by scholars. This article has not made that clear enough - obviously. The "key example" of a source that had been used in the early 20th century to dispute the existence of Jesus is of course Embassy to Gaius written around c. 40 AD where, Philo criticized the brutality of Pontius Pilate but did not name Jesus as an example of Pilate's cruelty. That issue is discussed in passing here but at length in the Christ myth theory page, e.g. that Philo may have become familiar with the issues on his 2nd trip to Rome after writing Embassy to Gaius, that the focus on that document was different, etc. So these issues will need clarification for various other users may also think that the lack of contemporary references means that a historical figure did not exist. I will, however,mention in passing that it is not by any measure a Christian only issue given that some of the most respected scholars (e.g. Amy-Jill Levine, Louis Feldman or Paula Fredriksen) who support the existence of Jesus are Jewish. History2007 (talk) 17:34, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Given that Don is not actively participating in the discussion after placing the tag, I suggest that the tag be removed. Once a tag is placed active participation in the discussion is required to resolve the issue, else the tag can be removed. History2007 (talk) 19:53, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it might make sense to give him a few days to respond, because we can't be sure of his schedule and optimum times to edit. But, if we don't get any real indication that there is a POV, other than the statement above that "no one will discuss it," which is a fairly clear violation of WP:OR if it isn't sourced, by next weekend, then I cannot see how the rather questionable basis for the tag being added be given much weight. But, yeah, it is incumbent on Don to establish that there is reasonable basis for the POV tag, otherwise, there are real questions whether perhaps his own POV is driving his comments. If that is the case, it would seem to be him in violation of WP:POV, not the article. John Carter (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, let us wait a few days. But I looked and Don has made like 50 edits total in 7 years so... History2007 (talk) 20:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I came across a statement yesterday that may relate to the general notion that "only Christians study the life of Jesus". A simple survey of the field indicates otherwise of course, but the satement I saw in "Soundings in the Religion of Jesus: Perspectives and Methods in Jewish and Christian Scholarship by Bruce Chilton Anthony Le Donne and Jacob Neusner 2012 ISBN 0800698010 page 132" makes it sourced and reliable. What page 132 states is that while much of the older research in the 1950-1970 time frame may have involved Christian scholars (mostly in Europe) the 1980s saw an international effect and since then Jewish scholars have brought their knowledge of the field and made significant contributions. And one should note that the book is coauthored by the likes of Chilton and Neusner with quite different backgrounds. Similarly (and this is not from the book just mentioned) one of the main books in the field is "The Historical Jesus in Context by Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., John Dominic Crossan 2006 ISBN 0691009929" which is jointly edited by scholars with quite different backgrounds. So in the late 20th and the 21st century Jewish, Christian and secular agnostic scholars have widely cooperated in research. And the one item they agree on is the existence of Jesus. They may debate other issues such as the details of the gospel narratives, but the agreement on historicity is really global now. History2007 (talk) 21:28, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Article needs to be merged with Historical Jesus

No serious historian can claim that there are factual evidence present without any relics, primary sources, secondary sources, dwellings or artifacts. These so-called scholars range from those who accept Jesus existence based on a few "non-christian" sources (which authenticity and references is disputed or unknown, none of which is contemporary) to those who pursuit angels and talking serpents as factual. Historians avoid this subject because there are no credible sources of Jesus existence, none verifies his existence. DonChris (talk) 14:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

You apparently miss an understanding of the debate (going beyond fundamentalist Christianity vs. fundamentalist atheism). No historian says there's much evidence beyond the Gospels, all historians (except the fundamentalists) agree that the Gospels are unreliable historical sources, but those who studied the existence of Jesus do not think that the Gospels are entirely fiction. If there was no real Jesus, then writing the Gospels would have been much easier and a coherent piece of fiction could have eliminated the contradictions existing in the Gospels. Besides, it would have set in stone some basic theological doctrines, whose uncertain character divided Christianity for centuries. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:20, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

They have yet to provide any reliable or credible source to Jesus existence, the Pauline epistles is not a reliable source. Incoherency does not verify anything, again, provide some serious material of his existence other than meager speculations and assumptions. Even Erhman acknowledges that there is no evidence "There is no hard, physical evidence for Jesus ... including no archaeological evidence of any kind", although he still insists that Jesus existed. DonChris (talk) 15:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Tgeorgescu. They are two different subjects and each deserves its own article. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:05, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Besides, we don't need to prove anything about the existence of Jesus. Wikipedia editors are not reliable sources, so they are not part of the scholarly debate. Wikipedia editors render the viewpoints of reliable sources and follow WP:UNDUE in respect to the scholarly consensus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

It is dangerous when we allow scholars who believe in talking serpents and supernatural powers to be presented as serious scholars. The scholars cited often appear in the "Jesus Seminar", a highly criticized seminar for its Christian biases. None can say there is evidence of Jesus, there are none whatsoever, there are speculations and assumptions (which is why I believe this should be merged with Historical Jesus), not historical evidence. DonChris (talk) 16:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of any other discussions, per WP:Length, a merge of this article with Historical Jesus can not take place due to procedural reasons. This article is about 50k (prose size only) and the other is about 40k. WP:length states that at 40k-50k, the size is fine and there is no compelling reason for division. However, at 60k the resulting article would probably have to be divided. And as we go above 60k, the requirement for division goes up. One could argue (rightly so in my mind) that these are distinct topics (that pass WP:Note on their own) as both articles state with sources, but that is not even necessary given guidelines and procedural barriers that rule out a merge. History2007 (talk) 17:19, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

When scholars do believe in talking serpents they do so in private, since anyone is entitled as a person to hold religious beliefs. As Bart Ehrman put it, historians could never attest the occurrence of any miracle, this has to do with historical method (naturalistic methodology). So, historians of all religious faiths have consensually agreed that history cannot ever prove that a miracle has happened, and whatever they think about the possibility of miracles, they think it in private, not as historians. It is therefore a red herring to say that historians believe in talking serpents. In their role as historians, they don't even know if talking serpents could exist or not. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

You are right on that issue, and the historicity of any miracle by Jesus or Moses, or Buddha can is questioned. But this article does not deal with that and does not support even the fact that Jesus had 12 key disciples. Just that he walked the streets at some point. So those issues are beside the point as you indicated. History2007 (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Much of it is already available under Historical Jesus so this page should just be removed all together, so not much would need to be merged. Christ myth theory also covers much of what can be found on this page, and not to mention the main Jesus page itself. I saw Paul Meier, a cited scholar making the case for resurrection , but alright fair enough, not all of the cited scholars seems that out of touch. To History2007, but there are no evidence that Jesus even existed. Apart from a few exceptions, 1th century biographies or events should not be portrayed as being factual especially from source texts. Assuming there wasn't any biases, none of the non-Christian sources actually witnessed Jesus, they are just repeating what Christians themselves at time were claiming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DonChris (talk • contribs) 16:37, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

No, the focus of the Historical Jesus article is distinct from this, and and as stated above both articles clearly meet WP:Note - there is always some overlap in articles, as would be expected. The Christ myth theory is a separate topic also, and again WP:Length will not allow any of the mergers you suggest. The text you want it deleted is well sourced. Regarding your comment that "but there are no evidence that Jesus even existed", again you are arguing the extreme case of Christ myth theory, a view that no single history professor in any university holds. So we are entering a "debate about content" as a justification for an article merge. The fact that an editor does not agree with what scholars state, can not be any justification for text deletion per WP:V, of course. It seems that your basic argument is that "this article needs to disappear because you do not agree with its conclusions". I am sorry, but that is no rationale for the removal or merging of content in Wikipedia, and I think unless you have other reasons, this discussions will vacuously fail. Moreover, you placed a POV tag above based on effectively the same reasoning (i.e. you do not agree with content) and unless you provide further "policy based" rationale, I would move to have the tag removed. History2007 (talk) 21:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Well sourced by Christian theologists who have grown up with an imagine that a historical Jesus always existed. G. A. Wells, Alvar Ellegård, Robert M. Price, David H. Lewis, Thomas Brodie to mention a few share my view or similar. The evidence is bleak, having read some of the work of Ehrman, he has no problem maintaining that Jesus existed while recognizing that there are no contemporary Roman or Greek sources, no "hard physical evidence" and no "archeological" evidence, his own words. The mainstream argument from cited scholars in this article boils down to two arguments for Jesus existence: "independent witnesses", which is not really witnesses and at best only based on oral tradition. The second argument is based on Paul's claim to have met with Peter and James, essentially Jesus' disciple and brother. It argues it is impossible that a physical Jesus didn't exist because people who do not exist do not have brothers and disciples. How do we know that the meeting even occurred? Because Paul claims so. The argument is so historically weak I don't even.. The scholars who argue Jesus existed are shrinking, just like Christianity is in the West. It wasn't long ago that raising any doubt about Christianity could have fatal consequences and the evolutionary theory was labeled insanity, still Christianity has a large influence in Western education, it comes in the form of Christian literalists scholars who realized the magic guy in the sky and water walking no longer was good enough to feed the population, and while there surely was a prominent Galilean preacher (see Q sources), there is nothing suggesting this guy had any disciples, met Pilate or was ever crucified. Was there a Jesus? I don't know, but quite frankly neither does the Biblical Christian cited scholars, their arguments are extremely weak, they are meager speculations at the very best. DonChris (talk) 21:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry but you need to check up on G. A. Wells. He was the standard bearer for the non-existence movement, but has since abandoned that position and now accepts that the Q source refers to "a preacher" on whom the gospels were based. That is reflected in his later book Can we Trust the New Testament, pages 51-53 if I recall right. But again, you are debating from first principles, it seems. I am sorry, but your statement about which side of the debate may have shrinking scholars is an example of WP:OR and WP:CRYSTAL and one can not speculate, except in the case of Ellegård who is already dead. Wells is 86 and he may go for X years, not for us to say, etc. and one could speculate that in 3 years the other deniers or supporters may have joined Ellegård, but that is not for us to speculate for per WP:V and WP:OR Wikipedia needs to be based on sources. What is clear, again, is that the denial of existence is supported by less than a handful of scholars (and not one professor of history) and is WP:Fringe, regardless of any editor's personal beliefs on the subject. And we should really follow WP:Forum and avoid personal speculation and deduction here in any case. History2007 (talk) 22:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

As I said, the Q source refers to Galilean preacher but does not mention this guy had any disciples, met Pilate, were crucified, nor is he referred to as Christ. Meager evidence. As stated on the G. A. Wells wiki article: "However, Wells has clarified that this Q preacher "is certainly not to be identified with the Jesus of the earliest Christian documents". In his view, the figure of Jesus thus becomes a composite of elements from two different sources.". Debating from first principles? Nah. The quest for Jesus existence is comparable to that of Robin Hood. Just like Jesus, Robin was a common name at the time of his purported region, a larger-than-life figure with a likable purpose caring for the less fortunate. It's not unthinkable a guy in medieval England pocketed from the rich and distributed his wealth to the poor, right? Almost certainly. Similarly, supernatural aside, Jesus name, occupation and actions was not particularly unique, not even his purported crucifixion was there anything unique about. It is slightly easier to identify whether a significant person such as a Roman emperor existed or not, yet even that can at times be tricky. DonChris (talk) 22:59, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, you just presented personal analysis there wrt Robin Hood, etc., so per WP:Forum one has to pass on that. History2007 (talk) 23:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Majority of Historians

Unless you have a servey done to see if the majority do believe in the existance of Jesus, you can't claim the majority do, there is no proof to that effect. Just taking the word of four randoms that "The majority believe this" to be true is obserd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.122.179 (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Not as obserd as your argewmunt. Experts are not "randoms". Perhaps you've been eating these. Paul B (talk) 16:07, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

IP, the Wikipedia guideline WP:RS/AC specifically advises to do what this article does: use a scholarly quote as a statement of "Academic consensus". So the formal guideline has been carefully followed here. History2007 (talk) 16:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Not quite, it says that a reliable source must be used, that doesn't mean that all sources are valid.

"Where available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science. You may also use material from reliable non-academic sources, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications."

This article uses only books as sources, but I'll admit I couldn't find a meta-analysis on this matter in any peer-reviewed papers in my university's online library. This probably is the best we have.Feyre (talk) 15:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

You are right, this is the best we have and after many searches and past discussions, it seems that "this is the best there is out there" as far as anyone can see. And the sources were discussed, they are WP:RS given that the publishers are good and authors are too, etc. Moreover, after many searches and looks on opposing web sites, no long list of opposing scholars has shown up. In a week or so I will build a FAQ page for his article that summarizes those, links to past discussions, etc. That is the best way to have information ready for another IP who may come across the page and ask the same question. I am sure the question will be asked again in a month or two. History2007 (talk) 16:26, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably a good idea, there seems to be near daily drama here from; people not accustomed to disagreeing with consensus, or people who don't understand that history isn't as exact as certain other sciences.Feyre (talk) 11:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

But there are those like you are who are logical, and do research, so it balances out. History2007 (talk) 12:28, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is an old faq originally created for the CMT article. It might help you here in this article. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 16:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. But that reads more like a dissertation (I recognize some of the writing... ) and one might need a FAQ for it in any case. I have been thinking of a "to the point" FAQ for this page for a while and already have notes, based on the questions asked in the past 6 months. Fortunately, the questions are pretty repetitive, so it will be easy to do it. I will put it up in less than a week, and it should be easy. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 20:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction in article claims

At the end of second opening paragraph, the article states "the two events whose historicity is subject to "almost universal assent" are that he was baptized by John the Baptist and shortly afterwards was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate." and appears to essentially say that all other events are of dispute in some way. Yet at the end of 1.1.1. Basic Historical Facts, the final paragraph reads "Amy-Jill Levine has summarized the situation by stating that "there is a consensus of sorts on the basic outline of Jesus' life" in that most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, debated Jewish authorities on the subject of God, performed some healings, gathered followers, and was crucified by Roman prefect Pontius Pilate who reigned 26-36 AD." As far as I can make out, the article quotes that only two events, the baptism and crucifixion were the only almost consensually agreed upon events, but later quotes a historian in that there were more events in "a consensus of sorts". Which one is it? --Sgtlion (talk) 21:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

This is in fact a complicated topic, although it may seem simple at first. The story is this:

• Hardly any scholars dispute the crucifixion or baptism.
• A large majority of scholars agree that he debated the authorities and had "followers" - some scholars say there was a hierarchy among the followers, a few think it was a flat organization.
• More scholars think he performed some healings (given that Rabbinic sources criticize him for that etc., among other reasons) than those who say he never did, but less agreement on than the debates with authorities, etc.

So Amy-Jill Levine is correct of course and she chose her words very carefully. If she had said "disciple" instead of followers there would have been screams from other scholars, if she had said "called" instead of gathered, there would have been objections, but not scream etc. But that issue is somewhat peripheral to the "historicity of Jesus" yet needs to be mentioned here as background information. I will try to think of a way to clarify that, but it is not going to be that easy. These scholars have very specific positions regarding the hierarchy among the followers, etc. and that is why the strength of the consensus among them can vary by changing just one word, say follower to disciple or apostle, etc. History2007 (talk) 22:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request

May I add that none of the citations for the phrase "biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted" actually come from classical scholars; may I recommend that 'and classical scholars' is removed from that passage.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.170.249 (talk • contribs)

Michael Grant is one. He's cited earlier in the paragraph.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

What does "Jesus called disciples" mean?

The lede looks pretty good, but I'm confused by the phrase "Jesus called disciples". What does that mean? Jesus called disciples what? I'm having trouble parsing this phrase. Should it be "Jesus had disciples? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think so. You can change it if you want, but it's not just in the lede. Also, believe or not, that phrase is commonly used by professional sources:[1] [2] --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:47, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

The phrase "called" is to be understood in its Christian context, which means to be called by God to follow a path or lead a special life that is the destiny that God wants for the person. Jesus called his disciples to be his disciples. That is what is means. Does this clarify, or confuse? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:37, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a little bit of an older usage of the word. Think about when a minor league baseball player is moved from the minors to the majors. They say he was "called up to the majors." Or when an military officer is deployed they sometimes say "he was called to war." The idea is that he verbally called them to service. ReformedArsenal (talk) 10:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Think of the video game "Call of Duty". That's what it means in this context. His disciples were "called" to perform their duties with Christ. Vyselink (talk) 12:42, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

LOL :D --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:09, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone, that does help. But I'm not sure we should be using topic-specific jargon in the article at least without explaining what it means. I suggest some other phrasing be used or perhaps change the meaning of the sentence slightly to say "Jesus had 12 disciples" or something. I'll leave it to regular editors of this article to make whatever changes they feel appropriate. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"Recruited"

Wdford: I reverted your good faith edit because the proper term is not "recruited", it is "called" as in call to service. "Recruited" implies almost anyone. Called means you have already been chosen, and now it is time to fulfill your task. Christ's disciples were called, not recruited. Also, Biblically, he is said to have "called" them (see Romans 8:28-30, 1 Corinthians 1:26-27)). Vyselink (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I reverted you. "Recruited" is the neutral term, especially in this particular connection that has to do with whether Jesus was actively involved in creating a hierarchy. "Called" with all the implications you mention is a term used by believers and thus not neutral in connection with this. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:13, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Van Voorst

Robert E. Van Voorst states that the idea of the non-historicity of the existence of Jesus has always been controversial (...)

Apparently Van Voorst is not much of a scholar. The idea of a non-historical Jesus is just as legitimate as claims of his historicity.80.141.131.224 (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, Van Voorst is a highly respected scholar, even among those who disagree with him on the issue of existence. Anyway, being legitimate is hardly the same as being uncontroversial. Also, source please? Huon (talk) 19:07, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, he is a priest which on this particular question disqualifies him as an impartial scholar. It would be like quoting Lenin as an impartial authority on the history of the Russian Revolution. 108.7.229.221 (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Nazareth

The article claims:

Nazareth is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian gospels portray it as an insignificant village, John 1:46 asking "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"[55] Craig S. Keener states that it is rarely disputed that Jesus was from Nazareth, an obscure small village not worthy of invention.

This incorrectly states that there would be no motive at all for making up the town of Nazareth. However, it is possible—if not likely—that Nazareth (from נֵצֶר עִיר ne'tser 'iyr, town of the sprout) was deliberately used in reference to נֵצֶר ne'tser (sprout) at Isaiah 11:1. In fact, Matthew 2:23 explicitly states that Jesus' purported birth in Nazareth was a 'fulfilment' of the prophets. There is therefore significant motive to make it up. This should be properly reflected in the article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Hardly. See the article Matthew 2:23. There is no such prophesy, so there is no motivation to make Nazareth up. However, there is a motivation to think of something to justify why he came from such a hicksville place as Nazareth. BTW, Matthew does not say he was born in Nazareth. He goes out of his way to argue that he wasn't. Paul B (talk) 10:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The only reason Nazareth is brought up at all is fairly obviously to 'fulfil' Isaiah 11:1. To say "There is no such prophe[c]y" is to entirely ignore the etymology already indicated, and the fact that the story also indicates a different birthplace only indicates a more complex narrative, not definitive 'proof' that Nazareth wasn't mentioned for a specific alterior motive.--Jeffro77 (talk) 10:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

There are many sources that make the obvious connection between Matthew 2:23 and Isaiah 11:1. A couple of examples (formatting from original):

• Jamieson, Robert; A.R. Fausset; and David Brown. "Commentary on Matthew 2.": that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene--better, perhaps, "Nazarene." The best explanation of the origin of this name appears to be that which traces it to the word netzer in Isa 11:1 --the small twig, sprout, or sucker, which the prophet there says, "shall come forth from the stem (or rather, 'stump') of Jesse, the branch which should fructify from his roots." The little town of Nazareth, mentioned neither in the Old Testament nor in JOSEPHUS, was probably so called from its insignificance: a weak twig in contrast to a stately tree; and a special contempt seemed to rest upon it--"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" ( Jhn 1:46 ) --over and above the general contempt in which all Galilee was held, from the number of Gentiles that settled in the upper territories of it, and, in the estimation of the Jews, debased it. Thus, in the providential arrangement by which our Lord was brought up at the insignificant and opprobrious town called Nazareth, there was involved, first, a local humiliation; next, an allusion to Isaiah's prediction of His lowly, twig-like upspringing from the branchless, dried-up stump of Jesse; and yet further, a standing memorial of that humiliation which "the prophets," in a number of the most striking predictions, had attached to the Messiah.
• Henry, Matthew. "Commentary on Matthew 2.": In this is said to be fulfilled what was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. Which may be looked upon, (1.) As a man of honour and dignity, though primarily it signifies no more than a man of Nazareth; there is an allusion or mystery in speaking it, speaking Christ to be, [1.] The Man, the Branch, spoken of, Isa. 11:1. The word there is Netzar, which signifies either a branch, or the city of Nazareth; in being denominated from that city, he is declared to be that Branch.
• The 'Church Father', Jerome, "Letter 57—To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating": "Once more it is written in the pages of the same evangelist, And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. Let these word fanciers and nice critics of all composition tell us where they have read the words; and if they cannot, let me tell them that they are in Isaiah. For in the place where we read and translate, There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, in the Hebrew idiom it is written thus, There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse and a Nazarene shall grow from his root."
• Catholic Encyclopedia, "Nazareth": "In the time of Eusebius and St. Jerome (Onomasticon), its name was Nazara (in modern Arabic, en Nasirah), which therefore, seems to be the correct name; in the New Testament we find its derivatives written Nazarenos, or Nazoraios, but never Nazaretaios. The etymology of Nazara is neser, which means "a shoot". The Vulgate renders this word by flos, "flower", in the Prophecy of Isaias (11:1), which is applied to the Saviour. St. Jerome (Epist., xlvi, "Ad Marcellam") gives the same interpretation to the name of the town."

It therefore appears that the Wikipedia article about the verse has itself fallen victim to subjective and selective sourcing, possibly for theological motivations.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:10, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, though Isaiah 11:1 is the most obvious connection, Matthew does refer to the prophets, plural, and it's not at all unlikely that the author of Matthew was trying to allude to the 'fulfilment' of various 'sprout'-related scriptures. (Isaiah 14:19; Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Ezekiel 29:21; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12; --Jeffro77 (talk) 11:28, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

If it's so "obvious" then why have so many scholars argued that it refers to a wholly different so-called prophecy? The "theological motivations" are in the sources you quote. They are theologians trying to make sense of the verse which claims there is a prophecy that does not exist. So they have to twist the passage from Isaiah to make it fit. As so often is the case Christ Mythers come across as fundamantalists in denial, who have no conception of biblical analysis except from a fundamantalist POV. You quote belivers who have no choice but to accept a feeble link to a different word in Isaiah, or to belive that the scriptures contain error. Remember that Matthew quotes the words "he shall be called a Nazarene" as the sopposed prophesy, and these bear no relation to the passage in Isaiah at all. Paul B (talk) 11:45, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's not a stretch that 'believers' have tried to make something fit, just as Matthew himself was trying to 'fulfil' a 'prophecy'. But if you're calling 'Saint Jerome' and the Catholic Encyclopedia "fundamentalists in denial", there's probably little point trying to discuss the matter with you.--Jeffro77 (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, the original text of Matthew doesn't have quotation marks. It is only an assumption that "he shall be called a Nazarene" is intended as a quote rather than a reference, such that he shall be called "a Nazarene".--Jeffro77 (talk) 23:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Stephen Law and the contamination principle

I Agree with Martijn Meijering biblical scholars need not be the central authority as there is more than biblical evidence in the case of establishing Jesus' historicity. Rbreen, you say the argument by Law is sensible, and you, Martijn Meijering recognize the principle's importance in establishing a method for confirming historicity. This is a question of the article's philosophy on establishing historicity. It's a question of integrity, because without this principle we can easily introduce evidence from certain sources, evidence that may not have a place. Forged documents, letters and even gospels come to mind. Unfortunately this web of stories, fact and fiction that enshrouds the historicity of Jesus and his life. We rely on the experts to tell us what is forged and what isn't but even the stuff that isn't forged conflict each itself on so many details of Jesus' life. So with a philosophy that acknowledges the principle of contamination, we are required to pay close attention to what is and what isn't a legitimate source of information in a field where there are so many forgeries and contradictions and contaminations.

Given the importance of using the contamination principle, in establishing a method for historicity and the potential contamination of evidence in this case, and that biblical scholarship is not relevant in the case of establishing a method for analyzing the evidence, but only relevant in the case of analyzing the evidence, and that there is no other reason anyone has put forth not to include the details of the contamination principle, I would like to come to a consensus to outline the philosophy in minor detail on this wiki, as it was explained by Stephen Law in Published in Faith and Philosophy, a peer reviewed academic journal, an article posted on his blog, and an article, coincidentally, on the philosophy of establishing a method for the historicity of Jesus.

This article already has it's a focus on detailing the method we are using to establish Jesus' historicity, and it would be an unnecessary absence to ignore such principles as this one, especially in this case.Greengrounds (talk) 09:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not against including a quote from Law, and I agree with Rbreen that it is a sound and reasonable argument, but I'm not sure Law has had much of an impact on scholarship with regard to this subject. Then again, the whole discipline of Historical Jesus research does not have a lot of interaction with the wider community that ought to be studying this question if it were an ordinary garden-variety historical subject. The Historical Jesus article has a section mentioning criticism of the historical soundness of HJ research (I added it) that illustrates this problem.

Let me ask you a direct question though, if you don't mind. Have you read WP:OR? I speculate that most of the resistance you encounter here has more to do with not following accepted WP procedure and principles than with the goals you are trying to achieve. I could be wrong, but that's what I suspect. Martijn Meijering (talk) 09:54, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

How are any of my edits original research? I've only referenced experts and scholars. Well, if you're not against inserting law, what is your idea? Greengrounds (talk) 11:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

WP normally represents the consensus opinion of scholarship. If you mix and match quotes from different branches of scholarship, then you need to make sure you don't end up with an original synthesis. As I said, I think we are in a difficult position and I don't know a good solution. Martijn Meijering (talk) 11:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

biblical scholarship is not relevant in the case of establishing a method for analyzing the evidence, but only relevant in the case of analyzing the evidence Breath-taking. I agree with Martijn, you need to acquaint yourself with WP policies and guidelines.Smeat75 (talk) 12:07, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The scientific and historic methods we use to analyze evidence, is quite breathtaking isn't it. But I think there's something you don't understand about the concept, judging by your unhelpful and un Wikipedia like tone?Greengrounds (talk) 22:02, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

We are not supposed to analyze evidence, we are supposed to summarise what WP:RS say. You are rejecting a couple of centuries of biblical scholarship, textual critical scholarship, when you say it "is not relevant in the case of establishing a method for analyzing the evidence" from the Bible. Smeat75 (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds, I've been trying to work with you, but if you persist in being combative I'll join others in calling for sanctions. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:40, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Smeat75 (talk) I'll try to simplify what I'm saying so we are a little more clear. We (myself and others) are only saying that biblical scholarship is not the only requisite in historicity of Jesus, nor is it a requisite that every scholar or academic source referenced in this article be a biblical scholar. There are non biblical sources here as well, and here's the hard part: biblical scholarship is independent of the methodology of used in establishing historicity. They are two different concepts. Martijn Meijering you and others seem to be overlooking the fact that there are others in these talk pages who have violated community guidelines as well. I don't appreciate being singled out when I reply to her in the same tone she applies to me. Frankly, I'm sick of it. Do what you have to do, but remember it often takes two. Did you notice that I talk nice with people that talk nice with me, and smeat has yet to offer much in that way, in fact smeat has yet to offer much at all to this talk page since i've followed it.Greengrounds (talk) 01:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds, if virtually every editor you interact with says that you are not following wikipedia guidelines, not quoting texts correctly, not comprehending existing text accurately, not engaging respectfully, and drawing on fringe sources, then maybe it's time to accept that is they and not you who may actually be right? If you are sick of being challenged, then alter your approach. I have noted, with relief, that you have recently switched to engaging (if not agreeing) with me in a reasonably respectful manner. Rather than sending boomerangs back at the multiple editors questioning your conduct, I recommend you simply alter you tone with them, and consider their objections more thouroughly. Ozhistory (talk) 02:05, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Robert Eisenman

Recently, sMeat removed an edit citing Eisenman, which she said was fringe. I believe she removed the edit because she thought it was my edit, which it was not. Someone just re-introduced Eisenman, and now is your chance, sMeat to explain why you think it is fringe and remove it. Otherwise, if you do not, the one you moved previously should be put back in. Greengrounds (talk) 21:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Shan't.Smeat75 (talk) 22:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

First, it is not the place of anyone to make presumptions about the motivations of others. And, honestly, restoration of the material without having received any consensus for its inclusion would almost certainly be counted as edit warring, and likely to be treated as such. John Carter (talk) 23:06, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

You guys do see some inconsistency in the way you are applying your principles, don't you? Seems like john you are trying to threaten me into not making any edits. That is against wikipedia policy.

Second, Smeat75 you have already gone on record as saying this source is fringe, and you have previously removed it. I'm only asking you now to explain why you think it is fringe, and if it is a good case, then maybe we should come to a consensus about removing this latest entry? Otherwise, it is safe to assume that you no longer think Eisenman is fringe?Greengrounds (talk) 00:15, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Please note that the article talk page is to be used for improving the article, not for making comments on others. Please read WP:TPG, WP:TE, and our other policies and guidelines, and make a more visible effort to adhere to them. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 00:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I will go ahead and post my answer to Greenground's question which I got an edit conflict for before I saw John Carter's post above - The passage I removed (and I do not know who put it in) said " The reasons for this lack of evidence about the rest of the life of Jesus is rarely considered by scholars, especially in the light of the evidence that the leaders of the Jerusalem community in the period from 35 CE till 135 CE, were all Desposyni members of Jesus family.Einsenman, Robert (2002), "James, the Brother of Jesus" (Watkins)". Yes, I think that is a fringe theory, highly disputed by many, and mixed in with Eisenman's ideas about James which the book cited expounds, and which the WP article on the book James the Brother of Jesus (book) says "were received by most scholars as eccentric." The reference to Eisenman put in today says merely that he "provides numerous early Christian sources that confirm the Josephus testament, that James was the brother of Jesus." It is cited to the same book, it is true, but since it is saying that he provided sources that confirm Josephus, that does seem more neutral to me. And after yesterday when I removed things that you just put back in again I am going to refrain from removing material from these articles at least for 24 hours, I don't want to get into an edit war.Smeat75 (talk) 00:52, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. As per our guidelines regarding sourcing and fringe-not fringe material, the first quote has serious problems, particularly taking into account the apparent violations of SYNTH involved, as it is drawing conclusions about what scholars say without necessarily indicating that the statement added to the text is itself supported by the text. That is over and above the rather "fringey" nature of the book involved. The second statement is less contentious, and does not have the same SYNTH problems, and is a more reasonable addition to the article. John Carter (talk) 01:02, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks to both of you for clarifying and that is good use of the talk page. Now I see why there was some inconsistency in the particular use of the source. Smeat75 (talk) you say you will wait 24 hours before removing material because you don't want to get into an edit war. The best way to avoid edit warring would probably be to continue using the talk page. What material in particular will you be removing in 24 hours, and why? Perhaps we could look at it as a community and rather than simply removing it, we could explore the framing of the material and the context in which it is being used, and if there is a question about the sourcing, perhaps we could look at finding better sourcing. This would be more in line with the philosophy of Wiki editing, no? Please clarify what you plan on removing by using this talk page first. Like I said, just removing or reverting is not necessarily the only option, or the best option. It's best to work on improving material, it's sourcing, it's framing, and it's context than it is to jump on it and remove it because it presents something you don't want to hear or don't agree with, or what ever other reason you have to remove it.Greengrounds (talk) 01:39, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Obnoxiously point of view

This whole article is very much POV peddling. Instead of presenting evidence it points to the conclusions of numerous experts. Then in the next sentence there is another assertion referring to the opinion of numerous experts and then again in the next. The article on Christ Myth Theory has been edited the same way.

This sort of treatment is unnecessary and uninformative. The article should set out the facts that are known, not the interpretations of those facts by a set of subjectively selected experts.

I am going to edit out all the expert opinion parts into a separate section. 108.7.229.221 (talk) 22:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

You mention a couple "next" sentences, but you don't say what the first one is. If you say what sentences you believe are out of place and why, then we can address those.

Are you saying that the presentation of some opinions are not from sources which meet the normal objective selection requirements? Which ones are those? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles should empathically not "set out the facts that are known" without providing interpretation based on experts' opinions. That's the route to original research, especially original synthesis. Huon (talk) 01:08, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The whole thing is nonsense. Typical of all religions to ignore fact and reality and find weak articles and hearsay for "proof". — Preceding unsigned comment added by KenSharp (talk • contribs) 14:21, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not religiously biased. Instead, it is very much biased in favor of the scientific consensus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 16:09, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately this article is anything but religiously unbiased. The scientific consensus in this case is that due to lack of verifiable information from trustworthy sources, no claims can be made about his existence. Yet why does the reader have to reminded practically every sentence that 'virtually all scholars agree Jesus existed', when there is in fact NO evidence of his existence other then (sometimes dubious and fraudulent) religious writings heavily biased towards his existence? This is a desperate and deliberate attempt at obfuscation, and I've seen this many times when creationists argue their position. Christianity started out as a jewish cult, so there must have been a rabbi, but it's unknown if the Jesus figure was a single person, an amalgamation of early christian cult leaders and notable jews or a complete work of fiction. These records either never existed, or were sensored by christian leadership in the first few centuries CE. 81.240.33.70 (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

The article provides reliable sources stating that there is a consensus among scholars that Jesus existed. What reliable sources do you have to state otherwise? -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I've never seen so many fallacies in one article. If you remove all of the appeal to authority, there is nothing left. 108.35.154.130 (talk). —Preceding undated comment added 03:25, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Please be specific about what you think is a fallacy and what reliable sources you have to show that there is a fallacy. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

The appeal to the authority of historians isn't a fallacy, since we discuss after all historical facts and they can be trusted as experts. It would be a fallacy if we would quote historians for establishing facts of neuroscience. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Totally agree. This article is in violation of NPOV. I will put up a tag if there are no objections. Greengrounds (talk) 10:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Have added said tag. Have issue with lead, Ehrman usage (cherry picking) and "Christian" sources. Also see new section I started below regarding these issues. Greengrounds (talk) 22:42, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

" Historians can only establish what probably happened"

Maybe things have settled down enough for the moment to have a rational discussion of the section inserted right after the table of contents. Its value is represented by the statement "historians can only establish what probably happened",who needs to consult a reference work to learn that? Ehrman is a reliable source, yes, that does not mean that every utterance he ever made is of equal value. The quote "if you believe in the resurrection it is as a person of faith, not a historian" is blindingly obvious, it's just a sort of throwaway conversational remark, and we do not need to be told right at the start of the article that miraculous events cannot be established hy history, who said anything else? That section does not belong in this article at all, never mind right at the beginning, having it there degrades the article. Obviously the person who put it there will not agree, what do others think?Smeat75 (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I reverted this almost exact insertion on another page for the same reason (see Talk:Miracles of Jesus#Historicity, so I think you already know my opinion. Ehrman's comment is clearly a throw-away OPINION and should be treated as such. Ckruschke (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

The whole section sticks out like a sore thumb, especially with its inappropriate bolding. We all know that miracles are not generally acknowledged as such by historians. It's an irrelevance. Paul B (talk) 18:09, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I've taken a bold sweep at this. I think the point needs to be made, but not laboured. --Rbreen (talk) 19:01, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Much better, thank you, I am happy with that.Smeat75 (talk) 20:35, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

William Devers in fact shows how that there are various types of histories, giving us access to different types of windows on the past.John D. Croft (talk) 21:14, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Reference by Josephus

The citation that Josephus referred to "Jesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1" is misleading and incorrect. Antiquities 20, 9, 1 refers to this Jesus as "the son of Damneus, high priest", and is not connected to any of the other events or people of the biblical Jesus. Also, in Antiquities 20, 9, 4 Jospehus states that Jesus son of Damneus had a successor, Jesus son of Gamaliel, so apparently the name Jesus was applied to more than one person. Indeed, in Antiquities 20, 10, 1 we read about another Jesus, the son of Josadek. In fact Josephus does not mention Jesus the son of Joseph (or Joshua, or Yosua or other), Jesus of Nazareth, or any other Jesus with biographical similarlities to that the of the Jesus in the christian gospels. The use of Josephus in support of the historicity of Jesus is incorrect and should be removed from this Wikipedia entry.

46.19.139.199 (talk) 11:04, 27 July 2013 (UTC) on behalf of: User:Jamesalbert1234 cf. [3], his edit to the page.

Josephus does talk about the death of James, the brother of Jesus, called by some people, the Christ... The story of James is not in accordance with normal Christianity, as it calls him Jesus blood brother (making Mary not a lifelong virgin). Hesiggipus, and Epiphanus, record that it was James who was the lifelong virgin (a title later attached to Mary when Gentilic Christians sought to edit Jesus' Desposyni family out of the record), and Josephus records it was James death that removed "the bulwark of the people" and led to the Jewish revolt, and the destruction of the temple, not Jesus' death (again this was edited out of the record as a result of the rivalry between Paul and James).John D. Croft (talk) 02:25, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Matthew 13:55 (and other verses) also suggest that the belief that Mary was a 'lifelong virgin' is a later tradition borrowed from pagan beliefs. Though there are 'traditional' attempts to explain away Jesus' siblings (Greek adelphos) as 'cousins' (Greek syggenes) or some other abstract sense (though the contextual comparison of Matthew 12:46-50 contradicts an abstract sense), it is entirely more likely that the historical Mary was not a magical virgin and probably had other children.--Jeffro77 (talk) 03:00, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

How do you know it? Who said it and where? Find a reliable source and only then you may include it into the article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course Jesus (actually Joshua) was a common name, but the argument that reference to Jesus in the Antiquites refers to the son of Damneus requires an incredibly strained reading of the text which is not supported by an serious scholars that I know of. It's common, of course, on chatrooms and unreliable websites. Paul B (talk) 16:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Several scholars view the Josephus reference as a plagiarism. Carrier is one, I believe but there are many others.Greengrounds (talk) 10:26, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

"Plagiarism" is a rather meaningless concept in this context. Paul B (talk) 16:02, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Paul "saw" James

I edited the reference to Jesus's brothers because it suggested merely that Paul claimed there were such brothers, whereas in Galatians he claims that he "saw" James. Myself, given the context of visiting with Peter, I think "saw" carries the connotation of having visited or spoken with James, but even the literal meaning carries more weight than simply a claim that a brother of Jesus existed. --Tbanderson (talk) 18:30, 7 August 2013 (UTC) I don't think it matters one bit in Galatians claims, but what the source being used says what Galatians claims and the validity of what Galatians claims. When you change the wording like that and insert "saw", you mean he didn't really "see" he halucinated? Did you check the original source (not Galatians), but to see if they agree with your change? If you didn't check it, you might want to change it back. In fact, putting it in quotations like that seems like he didn't see James, he "saw" James, and historicity isn't really based on hallucinations AFIK.Greengrounds (talk) 05:11, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

NPOV, Miracles and Christian sources

Myself and others have pointed out the NPOV issues of this article, and I find it is generally okay, but there are some pressing issues. No mention is made of J's miracles, and the mythology that surrounds him. It is one thing to say that J was a man, and this is what Ehrman says. But it is another thing to say J did miracles. The two go hand in hand, since that was what J was known for. So if Erhman said J was a man, and we put that in the article and the lead, and if Erhman also said J never rose up to the sky like a flying spaghetti monster, it is NPOV violation to cherry pick Erhman like that. Why must we omit that the one thing J is famous for is not accepted by historians as historical fact? Why must we omit that?

Secondly, the "Christian sources" We should for a start change the title of that. It's like saying "Christian science". These sources are historical sources, and they are plagued with mythology, and forgeries. The article does a nice job of pointing out (albeit too quitly) that 7 of the epistles are forgeries. What id doesn't point out is that we need to seperate what is myth and what is true about these sources. If the same source says jesus existed historically as a man, but also that jesus walked around town like a zombie with all the townspeople and the sun went down for 3 hours (but no one noticed other than said "author"), then this needs to be mentioned. This is called the contamination principle. These "christian sources" need special context due to the contamination of fact by mythology within them. Greengrounds (talk) 22:29, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Where does the article say Jesus performed miracles? Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:36, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

No mention is made of J's miracles," no, that is right, so there is no reason to say "miracles don't happen".And my user name is not Meat, btw.Smeat75 (talk) 22:38, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds, please calm down. We're listening to what you're saying, but you can't go making controversial edit after controversial edit, especially since you've been reverted several times. We need to calm down and find out what the underlying issue is and see if we can resolve it. An edit-war is not going to solve anything. For now we need to be doing more talking (and listening) on the Talk page and less editing of the article itself. I'd like to work with you, and I share some of your concerns, including about the notice you've just deleted. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:43, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

The concern is what made jesus famous is the miracles. The sources being discussed here to use as historical fact for jesus (the epistles, the gospels) say he did miracles. How can you discuss a man surrounded in so much myth without acknowledging the myth. We should say he was historically said to have done miracles, but historians don't think those claims are historically true. Also sMeat, no mention is made that jesus wasn't a real person. Yet the article emphatically opens with the statement ALL HISTORIANS SAY JESUS WAS REAL... it makes no mention that they also think the stories about him are largely made up. So to say he is real, what does that mean? We need to clarify what that means and what it doesn't mean. Smeat your logic is so flawed that we can only mention things about jesus that are already mentioned in the contrary. EG it doesn't say anywhere that he WASN't baptised, so by your logic it shouldn't have to say he was baptised?

So what is this article saying? That the BIBLICAL jesus was a real person? Or that there was a person once named Jesus christ? If it's the second then we need to clarify. There are plenty of Jesus' out there. Plenty of people who have claimed to be him and who claimed they are him. So which one are we talking about? I think the article is trying to say that the BIBLICAL jesus was a real person. That being the case, the BIBLICAL jesus has allot of mythology surrounding him. When I tried to point that out, it got quickly removed. Why? Greengrounds (talk) 23:40, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

If I could differ on one of Greengrounds' premises - you have said a couple of times now that Jesus was only "known for miracles" and "The concern is what made jesus famous is the miracles" etc. This seems to overlook an awful lot of the politico-religious and philosophical elements of his preaching and activities in the context of occupied Judea and the Roman Empire, for which, obviously, he was also known and which brought him to the attention of the religious and civil authorities - and ultimately to his execution - and which, rightly, should be be an important focus of an article on the historicity of Jesus. General sprays about "flying spaghetti monsters" and "walking zombies" are not particularly helpful in discussing the historicity of this influential 1st Century preacher. To me, by definition, this article is not to focus on miracles, though there is no reason not to include well sourced, well written notes that Jesus was renowned as a "faith healer", "miracle worker" or some such, and make use of wikilinking to direct readers to expanded discussions on this. That he was "known" as a miracle-worker etc seems to me to be part of his historicity, though to say he "was" a miracle-worker steps over the line into faith/belief/NPOV. To comment on the current state of the article: "The Resurrection and other miracle claims" addition does not seem the logical place to start the article, and its expression and sourcing can be improved. Ozhistory (talk) 00:13, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Is wikipedia a playground for people with a tenuous (to be polite) grasp of the subject they are dealing with, or is it a serious resource which summarises scholarly information? What to make of There are plenty of Jesus' out there. Plenty of people who have claimed to be him and who claimed they are him I do not know, I can't cope with it, have fun.Smeat75 (talk) 00:57, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

You misspelled summarizes. But other than that, which part of the concept of clarifying which version of Jesus the article refers to don't you understand? I'm assuming it's the "biblical" J, the one which we are using the gospels, which said he became a space zombie, for historical reference, so I'm trying to clarify that though we can use a very limited part of those stories for a historical reference, there is somewhat of an implication in this article by not acknowledging the surrounding mythology, that we can use those gospels as a historical reference. I think there is at least one other person on this talk page who has expressed that same specific concern, and there are yet others who have further concerns, which you seem to conveniently ignore in your quest to put your head in the sand on these issues.Greengrounds (talk) 01:59, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually, he didn't 'misspell' "summarises". Not everyone in the world uses 'US English'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:47, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Including myself... thanks for pointing that out... however my behaviour would indicate otherwise. All my online dictionaries seem to be Amarican. I guess this is how language slowly changes.--Greengrounds (talk) 05:20, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Language does change over time, but the use of -ise in summarise is not at all recent. For several hundred years, words from Greek roots end in -ize in English, and words from Latin (like summarius) or French roots typically end in -ise in English. However, for the last few hundred years, -ise has been more common for all root forms in the UK, whereas -ize has been common for them in the US. In any case, your pointing out of the spelling error seems more like a 'jab' at an editor who shares a different POV to you, which isn't really recommended.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Ozhistory Yes, Ozhistory there's allot more to J's stories than just the miracles. I'm not interested in those, though personally. Without the miracles, he's essentially just another preacher/touble maker for certain people of his time, etc. Many of his contemporaries were also crucified for similar behaviour. Not saying those other things don't belong here or aren't worth mentioning. I agree with you that the article should not necessarily focus on his miracles, and I agree with you that there is not any reason not to mention them here. They are what in my mind, being the son of god, or some kind of magic man worthy of idolization set him apart from his contemporaries. Yes, he was renowned as a faith healer by some, just like the spaghetti monster is renowned as a pastafarian by some. It is worth mentioning that he was renowned as a faith healer, and that historically he is not believed to have used any kind of magic or spells or godly powers to have healed people. I agree with you that the article logically does not need to start with miracles claims and resurrection. I think it does deserve it's own section, something like "myths surrounding the historical jesus", but it does not need to be the central part of the article. If you have a better way idea of how to move forward, I'd welcome your suggestions. I'll say it again, though. J is popularly known for his miracles and resurrection, two misconceptions about him that are as historically known to be false as any known historical falsehoods could be.Greengrounds (talk) 02:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

There's no reason at all to believe that Jesus actually performed 'miracles', but that doesn't negate the historical notability of the character. Perhaps I'm mistaken about the purpose of this article, but it seems to me that this article should provide views about whether Jesus existed rather than what he did or didn't do. A section discussing myths surrounding the historical Jesus would probably be more suitable at Historical Jesus.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:31, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you are right. However, I still contend that if we are talking about the historicity of Jesus Christ, the son of god from the bible, the one that did the miracles, the article should at least mention that, and it should mention that by establishing the historicity of "Jesus", it is not necessarily establishing the historicity of Christ the redeemer in all of his miracles. They are in my mind, two totally different ideas and this article doesn't really make that clear. If the jesus that Josephus talked about is the same guy as the Jesus Paul talked about, this article should present that, but it also needs to mention that there are significant differences in the evidence that the two sources provide. EG Paul says jesus did miracles and was a real person. Josephus (may have) said there was a guy named Jesus. I think the Christian sources need a disclaimer of sorts, as I had tried to introduce. Other details that you mention need not be in here, but where do you draw the line? The baptism? Apparently not. The crucifixion? Apparently not. The miracle claims? Yes! That's where we draw the line about details of his life in this article? I see your point, and I agree with you, but I don't think we've reached a happy medium yet, and once we do, I'll remove the NPOV tags.Greengrounds (talk) 07:13, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

he was renowned as a faith healer by some, just like the spaghetti monster is renowned as a pastafarian by some. Please see WP:NOTFORUM. if we are talking about the historicity of Jesus Christ, the son of god from the bible, the one that did the miracles, the article should at least mention that Let me get this straight Greengrounds, you want to re-write this article saying "According to the Bible, Jesus performed miracles (aka "became a space zombie") and then say "miracles do not happen, therefore everything the NT says is contaminated"?Smeat75 (talk) 12:01, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The article already states, Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and although there is little agreement on the historicity of gospel narratives and their theological assertions of his divinity, biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted. Alleged 'miracles' fall within the "theological assertions" already included in that statement, wherein is stated that there is little agreement on their historicity. Within the scope of this article, it does not seem necessary to further elaborate about 'miracles'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 14:10, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

So in respect to this, the entirely new section that Greengrounds just added (beating into the ground that secular scholars don't believe in miracles by citing the same book four times) is redundant overkill or perfectly fine? May seem to be a stupid question, but he's putting so much stuff on so many Christian Wiki pages in the past few days, I'm having trouble following all the threads... Ckruschke (talk) 15:41, 29 August 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

I don't think it is OK at all, no, but I reverted some of his edits yesterday and he just reverted them straight back again, so it seems pointless to keep doing that and I do not want to edit war. Maybe we could all take turns.Smeat75 (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

A few points. One, this article is about the historicity of Jesus. The accuracy or inaccuracy of any claims to miracles is a completely separate matter, which, by and large, probably doesn't relate that closely to the issue of the historicity of the person. I have seen several sources which have indicated that many of the miracles he performed "pre-resurrection" could have really happened, given the serious possibility that the individuals who were blind, lame, or whatever were suffering from some form of psychosomatic illness, and that because they apparently believed, rightly or wrongly, that this person could perform miracles like curing such disorders, in the cases where there was no clear medical reason for the disorder, the belief of those psychosomatically ill could be enough to cause the "miraculous" healing. "Faith healing" of that type is fairly well documented in several places. I really can't see adding such material to this article, because, ultimately, it isn't really about the "historicity" of the person, the apparent topic of this article, but the very possible change in hearsay comments about the person, which is an entirely separate topic, and would probably better fit in an article specifically about the miracles attributed to Jesus before his resurrection. John Carter (talk) 16:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, John Carter, Greengrounds has been active at the article Miracles of Jesus also, check the page history and the talk page.Smeat75 (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to echo what Rbreen said earlier on this page. It would be good to make sure that the article doesn't give the impression that belief in the historicity of Jesus implies belief in the historicity of the miracles. Clarity is always good, and what (unintentionally) makes a certain impression on one angry editor, might make the same impression on countless others. Similarly, it is a good thing to make clear that those who are engaged in HJ research do not automatically believe that looking at Jesus through the lens of historical research is the only correct approach. Many HJ researchers happen to also hold personal religious beliefs on the matter, something that has in fact prompted some amount of criticism. Religious readers might be offended by the equally unintentional impression that use of the historical-critical method implies the Jesus of faith did not exist. In any event, it is a good thing to point out that these are different views, and that holding one doesn't automatically imply or rule out the other. If feedback, whether angry or not, suggests there is room for improvement, we would do well to reflect on that. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:02, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

"Many HJ researchers happen to also hold personal religious beliefs on the matter, something that has in fact prompted some amount of criticism." - Many HJ researchers also start from naturalistic presuppositions. Everyone has presuppositions, it is not enough to point out that they exist to discredit someone's research, one must show HOW and PROVE that the presuppositions do in fact discredit the research. ReformedArsenal (talk) 18:13, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I didn't discredit anyone, I merely pointed out that it is important not to mix up the different questions. The whole subject is controversial enough as it is, no need to add to the confusion through inadvertent lack of clarity. Martijn Meijering (talk) 18:33, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Just as a point of clarification, I think we should realize that there are multiple variant meanings the word "miracle" has in modern society. The first, maybe primary, and I think most frequent academic usage, is in terms of events which cannot be accounted for by natural causes which are sometimes credited with having some sort of supernatural cause. That seems to be the definition Ehrman and others are using. However, there are two other usages of the word in general society. One usage is to describe "billion-to-one" chances or similar, such as "It would be a miracle if I [won the lottery which has had that many tickets sold]." This usage is also used sometimes when describing spontaneous remission of disease. Statistically, the chances are neglibible, but still exist. Also, there is the somewhat theoretical usage involved in some claims of "miracles," like some of those of Fatima, where something might be described by individuals involved as a "miracle," but which might be explicable through natural causes. This might include spontaneous end of some pscyhological or psychosomatic disorder. Particularly in earlier times, "miracles" of this sort are today considered to have possibly happened not necessarily infrequently, but do not necessarily indicate some sort of supernatural cause. John Carter (talk) 21:37, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

It's not necessary to attempt to 'justify' so-called 'miraculous' healing as simply 'psychosomatic' or 'unlikely but possible', which comes across as unnecessary apologia. It may be that on the odd occasion, people thought they got better, or got better by coincidence. However, the 'miracles' in the stories about Jesus in the Bible (along with others such as Elija and Elisha) are intended to present supernatural events. There's no good reason to consider Jesus' alleged 'healing' miracles as separate to his other alleged 'miracles' such as turning water into wine, walking on water, providing food or expelling 'demons'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:43, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Ehrman cherry picking in lead, misleading lead

Apart from fundamentalist Christians, all experts agree the Jesus of the Bible is buried in myth and legend. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed,

This is what I had put in, but it got removed by the usual owner of the article. The problem with the lead as it is, is that it refers to Jesus of Nazareth (the son of god, the miracle worker, the jesus of the bible). To use Ehrman to say that all scholars agree that he existed is blatant Christian POV pushing. Unless you include the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is surrounded by mythology. What are your thoughts on not using the exact wording I used, but something along those lines to clarify that we are talking about a historical figure who is surrounded in myth. Not just that all historians of antiquity believe that this jesus existed (the implication being that the son of god existed). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greengrounds (talk • contribs) 05:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Your first sentence is too ambiguous, because it is qualified with "the Jesus of the Bible", which is itself far too subject to interpretation. "buried in myth and legend" also isn't particularly good wording.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:14, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Myth theory

The 'Jesus Myth theory' section very badly implied that all variants are necessarily wrong, based on wide agreement that the 'strong variant' is wrong. I have separated out the 'strong variant' from the development of more broad ideas. Some more detail (perhaps a couple of sentences or a brief paragraph) should be provided about other variants, particularly to indicate that the 'magical' (i.e. 'miraculous' or 'prophetic') elements are more broadly considered mythical, with a brief indication of why they are considered mythical, i.e. borrowed from other stories.

Also, as I've noted in a comment in the article itself, if any of the scholars cited in the section are proponents of the 'strong variant', please move them to the relevant subsection.--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

John Painter

We can't use John Painter as a source here. He is a theologian not a historian. Theologians can ply their wares in literary portraits of Jesus, but not where historicity is concerned. Removed him from Josephus references. JOSEPHUS is not theology anyway, and would require an actual historian to look at that, not a "theologian". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greengrounds (talk • contribs) 05:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Both segments you deleted also cite other sources. Additionally, it is valid to cite a theologian's comparison between Josephus and religious tradition and/or scripture.--Jeffro77 (talk) 06:14, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

The mere fact that someone is a theologian doesn't disqualify him from the discussion. There's a possibility of bias of course, but the same is true of an atheist activist, or even a ñon-activist Christian historian. Martijn Meijering (talk) 09:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Can painter be removed from those segments without affecting the other sources? If not, they all have to be removed. Secondly, if Painter is claiming Josephus makes claims of Jesus divinity, when mainstream scholarly opinion says that those claims in Josephus were inserted by christian scribes, then due weight principle needs to apply here, and in that case Painter needs to be removed. Painter can only make the comparison between Josephus and religious tradition from a theological standpoint, not a historicity standpoint, and I wonder what his place would be in a historicity standpoint. That is getting close to violating original research, and not only that, it should be the main stream historians who set the tone and are the primary sources of information used here, not an expert on christian theology.Greengrounds (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

In both places where Painter is cited, he isn't the only source. Additionally, Josephus (or a later Christian scribe) doesn't claim that Jesus was 'divine', but only that Jesus was called 'Christ'. Various Jewish sects may have considered any number of people to be a 'messiah'. Christ means messiah, which means anointed, not 'divine'.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The christian scribe inserted "if you could call him a man", and he inserted "they considered him the messiah". This is in direct contrast to Painter's assertion that Josephus even said that some considered him the messiah. NO! That is not true, and that's why a theologian like Painter cannot be used here. What is true is that christian scribes inserted the part about the messiah, and that's what needs to be reflected here, not some christian theologians interpretation and wishful thinking.Greengrounds (talk) 00:21, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The article doesn't convey what you're referring to, and even if it were Josephus and not a Christian scribe who said "if you could call him a man", it doesn't actually 'make Jesus magical' anyway. We don't need to present something in the article just for the sake of refuting it. You seem to be stuck on 'dismantling' aspects of 'divinity' but that isn't the purpose of this article.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:42, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

current top tag

What's up with the tag saying that the mere title and topic of this article is non-neutral? That's absurd. People who fervently and deeply believe that Jesus was the Son of God can discuss the historicity of Jesus: they may aver that he was historical, and answer the question of historicity in the affirmative. People who think that Jesus is an utterly fabricated composite of various charismatic leaders and heroic/biblical mythemes can assess the evidence, and assert that he is fictional: but that too is an answer in the negative to the question of the historicity of Jesus. "Historicity" is a completely neutral word that describes a particular mode of inquiry. The tag amounts to censorship, and is pointy. If a neutrality tag is desired, that wording is just unacceptable. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:04, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Haste makes waste. I've corrected two typos and added an omitted un: I meant that the wording in the tag (which I deleted) was not an acceptable way to alert readers to neutrality issues, as it amounted to a declaration that the article shouldn't even exist. That would require an AfD nom. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Chronology

Why is there a chronology section in this article? My understanding is that Historicity of Jesus is about whether Jesus existed or not, and Historical Jesus is about the details of his life, assuming he did. Surely the chronology belongs in the latter article rather than the former? Would anyone object if I removed it? --Rbreen (talk) 19:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

It could definitely be trimmed, if not deleted altogether. If deleted, the Chronology article should be linked from the See also section at the bottom. I pointed out a few days ago that the section currently posits the 'nativity accounts' as though they are historical, though they in fact have very little credibility.--Jeffro77 (talk) 22:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I see the section has already been deleted. It should probably have been discussed further first, but I'm not too concerned. I have linked the chronology article from elsewhere in the article now.--Jeffro77 (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

"Basic historical facts"

What a rediculous header for an NPOV article on the historicity of Jesus. This header needs to be changed or the entire section will be removed. After doing the latter, and having it reverted I will now do the former.Greengrounds (talk) 10:29, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds, you are making very contentious changes, it is unacceptable to say "the Jesus of the Bible is buried in myth and legend", that is totally non neutral POV and is not supported by the sources cited. You ignored the edit notice that comes up whenever anyone tries to alter that section,which is not to say that no one must ever alter it, but it does need to be discussed on this talk page and consensus arrived at first. I have changed it back to a neutral statement (which was arrived at after years of discussion).Smeat75 (talk) 15:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Apart from his parents, Yosef and Mariam, his baptism by Yahanan the Baptiser, his crucifixion under Pontius Pilot after less than 12 months of activity, and his brothers, led first by Yakob took over his movement after his death, what historic "fact" do you know of Yeshua, known as Jesus in Greek?John D. Croft (talk) 02:35, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Also this is wrong and I have removed it :"In the works, Tacitus refers to jesus as "christos" or "annointed one", it's noted that no imperial scholar would refer to a common criminal in such a way. Furthermore, he mentioned the fires in Rome and blames them on the christiani, yet this term was not used to describe followers during that time and zero mention from any other historian of the time. He also gets the rank of Pilate wrong calling him a "procurator" when he was a "prefect". A detail Tacitus would have known." Tacitus probably wrote "Chrestos", which was a common Roman name for a slave, meaning "useful", as discussed in the article [[4]], one of those sources is not WP:RS and the other is out of date.Also see the discussion aobut procuator/prefect on that page, Tacitus does not "get it wrong".Smeat75 (talk) 15:55, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Dear editors, a note on editor Greengrounds. Previously he was the subject of request for comment over abusive comments, POV pushing, poor sourcing, edit warring and a general battleground attitude in relation to editing articles relating to Nazism and Christianity. I hope this pattern of behaviour is not repeated in this article and at Tacitus on Christ, but responses of two editors suggest this might be occurring. Ozhistory (talk) 00:35, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Ozhistory, you have been guilty of edit wars yourself, and have been warned about your own behaviour by mods. Please don't bring your baggage to this talk page. Stay on topic, please. Meat75, you removed the very simple to follow logical argument which is quite easily verifiable, saying it is not true. How do you figure it is not true? Let's be clear here, my goal here is not to push the jesus myth theory. I'll accept that most scholars agree he existed. But since there is no historical evidence what so ever about his miracles, or any of his extraordinary claims, or claims made about him, and most of the evidence comes from Paul's hallucinations, and from the highly inconsistant gospels, and we are trying to look at that evidence and decide what is true and what is false, I think the article needs to reflect that. What made jesus famous as a historical figure are those extrordinary claims. So now that we know they are historically innacurate as evidenced by all historians, we really have nothing left but a man shrouded in myth. In exploring the history of J, we need to look at what is myth and what is historical. So that's what I'm trying to do. Point out some of the misconceptions. Unfortunately for you, scholarly opinion on this issue is on my side, and I have provided just a shred of proof of this for you. Now that you're up in arms about the fact that Jesus is largely myth, please remember that there is a difference between the myth theory (that he never existed) and historical consensus (that a man named Jesus existed, but was an ordinary man, nothing more than an apocalyptic prophet). Big difference. --Greengrounds (talk) 01:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds, please have a look at WP:TRUTH. We are not here on wikipedia to let the world know the truth, but to summarise what reliable sources say. What I said was that you inserted a statement which was not what the sources cited say.Smeat75 (talk) 01:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

There did not need to be a statement in the lead "since miracles are unlikely, nobody can say they happened" or a reference to a highly disputed WP:FRINGE theory of Robert Eisenman, I have taken those out.Smeat75 (talk) 15:06, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

(sigh) or an opening section saying "the resurrection did not happen" (written in very poor English - Ehrman lays out a the framework that historians can only probably happened what? and historians cannot establish that miracles ever probably happened, please. Out it comes.Smeat75 (talk) 15:12, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

This article is the product of many many detailed and sometimes heated discussions over years. It was put into its current, and, I believe, neutral and accurate state by user History2007, a very knowledgeable user who did a lot of work on it from a NPOV but who unfortunately got sick of arguing with POV fringe pushers all the time and vanished from wikipedia. Any significant changes to this article need to be well-considered and well-written, and cited to WP:RS without WP:FRINGE views being given WP:UNDUE weight. For those reasons I have removed the recently added section which began "The Contamination Principle - Were it not for the significant amount of miracle claims woven throughout it's fabric, the new testament, could be considered a reliable source of information on Jesus" etc.Smeat75 (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I didn't put Eisenman in, and just becaus you think he is fringe, you take him out, more because you thought I put him in. 2, you remove any reference to scholarly opinion that jesus miracles did not happen historically. 3, it is scholarly opinion that facts taken from the bible are not to be taken at face value do to the contamination principle. Why did you remove that? As for jesus miracles, yes it needs to be put in the article and the lead that they are not historical facts about jesus. Greengrounds (talk) 21:29, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't heard of the term contamination principle before, but I was familiar with the concept. Price for instance uses this argument. It sounds plausible that historians would use this principle, but we'd need a reliable source that says this. Right now, all we can say is that the author of the piece you quoted put this forward as an opinion. But even then we'd have to know how relevant it was, per WP:DUE. I searched for miracles and history on Google Scholar, and interestingly the list of results consisted mainly of works by scholars of religion and apologists and atheist activists. It's hard to find a good source on general thinking about this issue among historians. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:38, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Does anybody really think that this is a valuable addition to an encyclopedia?

"There can be no evidence for the resurrection due to the nature of historical evidence. According to Ehrman, on the resurrection,

What about the resurrection? I'm not claiming it didn't happen...I'm not saying it didn't happen. Some people believe it did, some believe it didn't. But if you do believe it, it is not as a historian...

In regards to miracle claims in general about Jesus, Ehrman lays out a the framework that historians can only establish what probably, and that miracles by their very nature are the least likely explanation for what happened. This being the case, historians cannot establish that miracles ever happened."

Ehrman lays out a the framework that historians can only establish what probably, and that miracles by their very nature are the least likely explanation for what happened

whaaaat? No.That is no good. Are you going to take in what Martijn has said? Martijn, can you remove the contamination principle section, I really don't want to get into an edit war. Greengrounds, you have only been active on these articles a few days but it will not be long before some sort of action such as taking your activities to AN/I or the kind if you go on like this.Smeat75 (talk) 21:57, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't feel like taking out the section right now, I would prefer it if Greengrounds self-reverted. The policy is Bold - Revert - Discuss. Greengrounds made a bold edit, it was reverted and now it needs to be discussed first before it is added back. I think we need to make a good faith effort to find reliable sources that shed light on the matter. It would be great to find historians who opine on this, but as I said they appear to be hard to find. But I've seen scholars of religion refer to the principle that only things for which there is historical precedent can be used in historical reconstructions. That doesn't mean that miracles can be ruled out by historians - as these scholars are quick to point out - just that as a matter of principle they cannot be accepted as facts in historical reconstructions. At least, that's my understanding. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:09, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

You Meat75 you are right, any claim anybody makes cannot be disproven. What we are doing here is looking at what is accepted by historians as historical fact. I could say jesus had a pet snake and no one could disprove it. Martijn Meijering you asked for a good source on scholarly opinion on miracles. I provided book and pages by ehrman. Let's look at the double standard going on here. Ehrman is being allowed to be used in the lead as an authority that says "All scholars agree that jesus existed". But the same historian also said "No historian accepts jesus resurrection as historical fact", it is all of a sudden bloody murder. The article should basically say yes, jesus existed, as a person but he is not accepted historically as a magic man. Greengrounds (talk) 22:19, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think people are objecting to your last point. And for what it's worth, I have grave reservations about using Ehrman as the voice of historians or scholars of antiquity. In my opinion the whole discipline of Historical Jesus research is far less academically respected than this article suggests. You and I might not disagree all that much on the facts, but we do have to follow proper WP procedures. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:35, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds is tilting at windmills that do not even exist. This article does not say "Jesus was a magic man who rose from the dead", therefore there is no reason to try to refute that. And apart from anything else, does anybody really, seriously think it is OK to put sentences into an encyclopedia such as "Ehrman lays out a the framework that historians can only establish what probably, and that miracles by their very nature are the least likely explanation for what happened." That does not make any sense, it is not coherent English, it is gibberish.Smeat75 (talk) 22:42, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

A couple of points. The section Greengrounds has added, quoting Stephen Law, is a perfectly sensible argument - he says that the Christian New Testament sources have so much miraculous elements running through them that it would be unwise to rely upon them as sources; he's not a Christ-myther, he's agnostic on the issue. It's a fair point. But he's not a New Testament scholar, he's a philosopher. His view does not represent any sort of consensus among scholars who specialise in this area. To include it here would be to give undue weight (see WP:WEIGHT) to a non-specialist view. A great deal of work has been done for over a century on evaluating the sources using historical methods; they come to the conclusion that there are enough things that can be said with certainty to make it a worthwhile exercise. That is the scholarly consensus, it is well-founded on detailed argument by major scholars over decades, and that is what we must represent in the article (irrespective of whether we think it true or not), because that is how Wikipedia works.

Secondly, Greengrounds wants to include a point that usually isn't included here - and here he has a good point, though he has not put it well. Many of the atheists writers who want to contribute to this article appear to have very little knowledge of the depth and complexity of New Testament scholarship, and tend to assume that if you accept a Historical Jesus you have to accept everything else that Christianity says about Jesus. Because so much effort goes into ensuring this article shows that the vast majority of scholars accept that Jesus existed, we tend to lose sight of this point. We could do with including the point that Ehrman makes - to accept a historical Jesus is not necessarily to accept anything miraculous - of course many do, but most religious scholars take care to distinguish between those things they believe through faith (eg miracles) and those they hold on the basis of evidence (eg existence of Jesus). Although the existing text says that many claims about Jesus have much less consensus than the few points widely accepted, it doesn't make that point and if we did make it more clearly, we might have a little less of the squabbling that is a regular phenomenon here. We can but hope. --Rbreen (talk) 22:39, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for those points. I agree with much of what you say here, though I am uncomfortable with making biblical scholars the voice of scholarship in general. I'm not exactly enthusiastic about philosophers either. Unfortunately, I don't have a good solution. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

I've started looking at this article, but didn't get very far before finding problems. The lead of this article states:

Beyond baptism and crucifixion, scholars attribute varying levels of certainty to the historicity of other events and a list of eight facts that may be historically certain about Jesus and his followers has been widely discussed. However, scholarly agreement on this extended list is not universal, e.g. while some scholars accept that Jesus recruited disciples, others maintain that Jesus imposed no hierarchy and preached to all in equal terms.

If scholarly agreement is not universal, then those aspects should not be presented as "facts". It is misleading at best to suggest that they 'may be' 'historically certain'. (Also Beyond ... other is redundant.) I suggest changing the paragraph to:

Beyond baptism and crucifixion, scholars attribute varying levels of certainty to the historicity of events of Jesus' life. Eight aspects about Jesus and his followers have been widely discussed, with some ['some' could be replaced with something like 'considerable' if that can be reliably established] agreement among scholars that they may be historically accurate. However, scholarly agreement is not universal, e.g. while some scholars accept that Jesus recruited disciples, others maintain that Jesus imposed no hierarchy and preached to all in equal terms.

--Jeffro77 (talk) 01:31, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Jefro, you are right. Why are we discussing those points in the lead at all if there is so much controversy about them, it gives them too much weight to even be mentioned in the lead. If we want to speculate in the lead, we could speculate on the plethora of things that may or may not be true about jesus. Your edit is an improvement, though and I encourage you to make that contribution.Greengrounds (talk) 02:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

(I should probably also add that I'm not aware that there is universal agreement among scholars about Jesus' baptism or crucifixion either.)--Jeffro77 (talk) 02:15, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is worth mentioning. There most certainly is not universal agreement. There is not even universal agreement that a historical Jesua (especially a "biblical" Jesus) even existed at all. Well, certainly once you take away his miracles, there is not much left. There is new research being done by Richard Carrier that under Beysian principles of logic, concludes that the whole thing is a myth. In my opinion without the miracles the whole story and idea of a biblical jesus is essentially a myth. What we have left is a guy who (may have) been baptised and crucified for making people angry with his nonsensical apocalyptic ramblings. If people want to hold on to that, and say that particular guy existed, fine. But that's certainly not the same guy that was in the bible cursing fig trees for not producing fruit out of season. It all depends on how you "define" jesus. Defined as a miracle worker, that jesus historically did not exist. Defined as a Jewish guy who was baptised and crucified, that jesus probably did exist. Along with 10,000 other ones.Greengrounds (talk) 02:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Someone said that "Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. That's the charitable phrase, common among scholars for a hundred years." He prefers the phrase, "doomsday cult leader." Glad we can agree that Jesus existed, and of course if he was or not the Son of God is a matter of theology, not of historical scholarship. History cannot prove or disprove that Jesus was God's Only Begotten Son since that isn't falsifiable (it is a theological statement). Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:57, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

The Bible makes reference to numerous "Sons of God" (eg. Samson, Samuel etc). That Jesus may or may not have been called a Son of God by adherents, even in his lifetime is perfectly possible. What is unlikely is the reference to being the "only Begotten" (which language was put in the Nicean Creed against the Arians, and in contradiction to Jewish belief. John D. Croft (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Rbreen Thank you for recognizing the importance of including that distinction that Ehrman mankes. I have provided the page numbers and the book, and those pages are available on google books in a preview. I agree that it needs work, but the concept is valid, and I would appreciate any more input you have on improving it, or any goodfaith edits you might be willing to do on it. Below, other users Ozhistory being one agrees that the concept of mentioning his miracles might be worth mentioning, and I agree. However, it must also be mentioned that those miracles are considered historically inaccurate. That they are so central to J's notoriety is one main factor I put forth in making this assertion.Greengrounds (talk) 02:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Ehrman on Christian sources

Bart Ehrman assesses the problems involved in conducting historical Jesus research, saying the Gospels are full of discrepancies, were written decades after Jesus' death, by authors who had not witnessed any events in Jesus' life. Going on to say they are not written by eyewitnesses who were contemporary with the events that they narrate. They were written by people who did not know him or see anything he did or hear anything he taught, people who spoke a different language than Jesus. The accounts they produced are not disinterested; they are narratives produced by Christians who actually believed in Jesus, and were not immune from slanting the stories in light of their biases. Of the texts themselves, Ehrman points out that that they are widely inconsistent, full of discrepancies, and contradictions in both details and larger portraits of who Jesus was.[190]

Now that we have established in the article that historians don't believe the miracles of J actually happened in real life we can look at the "disclaimer" on the christian sources. Once we have this paragraph or some toned down rewrite so we don't hurt anyone's feelings (you know who you are), then we can get to removing those POV violation tags.Greengrounds (talk) 04:28, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I thought you'd already said you were going to remove the POV tag in a previous Talk thread. Would it be possible to list these SPECIFIC sentences/paragraphs that you feel need to be "rewritten or toned down" in order to remove the POV tag - that we haven't already addressed and gotten agreement from the majority? Since I think you were the one who put the tag up, this seems like an important point for us to bring this to a conclusion sometime in the future... Ckruschke (talk) 17:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

Actually, I did remove it.Greengrounds (talk) 20:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course, Greengrounds has added to the section "Christian sources" that poorly-written paragraph "Bart Ehrman assesses....who Jesus was" that makes it sound as if no one but Ehrman ever proposed such things, is a generalised list of various questions of NT scholarship, and is unnecessary anyway as the discussion of the Gospels says quite clearly that the baptism and the crucifixion are" the only two events whose historicity is the subject of almost universal agreement among scholars". Unless that paragraph comes out, the POV tag should stay.Smeat75 (talk) 18:19, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

My mistake - seems to be multiple conflicting issues. Eitherway, they revolve around Greengrounds and a concensus needs to be made to get beyond the POV tag since it calls into question the entire page. Ckruschke (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

Just to be clear- I did not put the POV tags on the article or restore them. Greengrounds put them on, then he removed them [5] but John Carter put them back on [6]. What I am saying is that I thought the article was neutral before, but now with that paragraph Greengrounds put into the "Christian sources" section, I do not believe it is any more.Smeat75 (talk) 20:20, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with you,Ckruschke, that we should be working on achieving consensus so that we can get those tags removed, by the way. So much has happened over a whole range of articles recently that I feel I have to choose just a few of the ones that are most important to me to make a stand over, so I am grateful to you for raising this.Smeat75 (talk) 20:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, I thought I had inserted a comment on the talk page as to why I reversed the post referring to Ehrman. I added to this post also information from Robert Eisenman, author of "James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls". I reversed the post because even though Greenleaf was objectionable, the position correctly summarised Ehrman (and other important scholars) position on the historicity of the Bible account. It is an important group of academically respected scholars and should be reflected in a discussion of the Christian sources to the historicity of Jesus. I hope this explains my motives. Warm regards John D. Croft (talk) 16:00, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

John, you added a comment explaining your reversion, but you added the section at the top of the talk page: [7]. Conventionally, new sections go at the bottom of the talk page, so I moved your comment there and added my own comment: [8]. I hope you will respond there. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Tag on the "Christian sources" section and added paragraph

I don't really understand why there is a neutrality disputed tag on the "Christian sources" section, as far as I can make out Greengrounds put it there because he doesn't like them being called Christian. He also added what I believe to be a poorly written and superfluous paragraph which I have discussed with user Ckruschke above in the "Ehrman on Christian sources" section of this talk page. How do others feel about removing that paragraph ""Bart Ehrman assesses....who Jesus was" and taking the tag off? Tags should not just sit on articles, they are supposed to be indications that work is needed to resolve a problem, and if that paragraph is removed there will not be a problem any more, in my opinion.Smeat75 (talk) 00:47, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Now that things will be a little calmer, at least for a while, does anyone have any objection to removing that paragraph and the neutrality tag?Smeat75 (talk) 12:10, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Now that Greengrounds has been banned, I think we should remove all tags inserted by him. If someone else wants to reinsert them afterwards, that's fine. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:36, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

The editing out of Ehrman's views

Bart Ehrman is representative of an important school of historical thought about Christian sources on the life of Jesus within academia. I have added the views of Robert Eisenman, Professor of Middle Eastern Religions and Archaeology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Judeo-Christian Origins at California State University, whose views parallel those of Ehrman. Deleting the material because you personally disagreed with the author is shooting the message having removed the messenger. The unreliability of the historicity of Christian views for the reasons stated is the view of these important writers. They are certainly more reputable than the "Jesus myth" view that receives so much treatment in the article. Regards, John D. Croft (talk) 05:48, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Ehrman is a well-known scholar and potentially worth using here, but Eisenman isn't nearly as prominent, and in general his views aren't mainstream--when he is saying something that's mainstream, it's usually on a point where a better source can be found.

But that said, I don't even understand why you want to put this paragraph back in. This article is supposed to be about the historicity of Jesus--the narrow question of whether he existed or not. The paragraph you've added is not about the reliability/unreliability of early Christian sources for establishing whether Jesus existed, it's about their unreliability for establishing various events in Jesus' life--a question that really belongs in historical Jesus.

This is, I think, a problem that happens often with this article--material that really belongs in historical Jesus gets put here. In fact, if this article is supposed to be about the question of Jesus' existence, most of the material here doesn't belong. For instance, many of the sources cited on Jesus' crucifixion in the "background information" section are not writing about the question of Jesus' existence. Those scholars are writing about what events in Jesus' life can be securely established from the textual sources--and most agree that the crucifixion is historical. But that's quite different than saying "the crucifixion is historical, therefore Jesus existed", and to the extent that our article makes that argument, it's committing a WP:SYNTH violation.

So I think there is a persistent scope problem with this article, because editors do not seem to realize just how narrow the scope of this article is supposed to be, especially new, ideologically-motivated editors. The way I'd solve this problem is simply to get rid of this article. The existence of a "historicity of Jesus" article makes it seem as if this is an important issue in the historical study of Jesus, and it simply isn't--scholars are deeply concerned about the historicity of individual bits of Jesus' career (which should be covered in historical Jesus), but the historicity of the person is taken as a given by almost every scholar who writes on the topic. For the handful who dispute his existence, there's Christ myth theory, and the capsule summaries in Jesus, historical Jesus, and probably other places I've forgotten. --Akhilleus (talk) 08:18, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you Akhilleus, but good luck on deleting this article on a permanent basis. Especially, as you mentioned, for ideologically-motivated editors. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem I have with that paragraph is not that it quotes Ehrman, but, as I said above on this page, it "makes it sound as if no one but Ehrman ever proposed such things, is a generalised list of various questions of NT scholarship, and is unnecessary anyway as the discussion of the Gospels says quite clearly that the baptism and the crucifixion are" the only two events whose historicity is the subject of almost universal agreement among scholars". It has been amended to "Bart Ehrman, Robert Eisenman and others critical of traditional Christian views, in assessing the problems involved in conducting historical Jesus research, say the Gospels are full of discrepancies" etc and now that makes it sound like only Ehrman, Eisenman and "those critical of traditional Christian views" have ever written such things, which is not true. That paragraph is also poorly written, "Going on to say they are not written by eyewitnesses who were contemporary with the events that they narrate" is not a full sentence.Smeat75 (talk) 21:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Greengrounds blocked

Just to note, Greengrounds (also editing as 96.52.180.114) is indefinitely blocked for edit warring and personal attacks. Dougweller (talk) 08:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

POV tag on Christian sources section

John Croft, could you state your reasons for reinserting the POV tag? Thanks! Martijn Meijering (talk) 11:03, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

See Talk:Historicity_of_Jesus#The_editing_out_of_Ehrman's_views, two sections above. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:08, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

And Talk:Historicity_of_Jesus#Ehrman on Christian sources. Editors inserted tag, or wanted to hold to it, because of edits Greengrounds made. Until these edits are undone, tag remains. Ckruschke (talk) 19:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

Fine with me, but those who want the tag to stay should put their reasons for it in a place that is easy to find so we can work towards removing it by finding out what would be necessary for that. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I did not insert the POV tag. I justified my reinsertion of the text, as it expresses a finding of an important group of researchers, from an important field of study in Historicism in Biblical Text Criticism. Unless we can get an explanation of why the POV tag has been added, we cannot proceed to resolve the dispute. Regards John D. Croft (talk) 21:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

What happened is that I deleted the paragraph which Greengrounds inserted, along with the POV tag, and John reverted my edit, thus restoring both the paragraph and the tag.Smeat75 (talk) 21:31, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Smeat. sorry about that. Thanks also Martijn. Regards John D. Croft (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The POV tag has been taken out and in my opinion should remain out, but at this point I feel compelled to state once more what I said two sections above: Ehrman is a reputable scholar, but Eisenman's work has not been received well, and shouldn't be used as a source here.

More importantly, the Ehrman/Eisenman material doesn't even belong in this article. This article is supposed to be about a narrow question: whether Jesus was historical. The Ehrman/Eisenman material deals with the reliability of the NT for establishing various events in Jesus' life--a topic that belongs in historical Jesus, not here.

I see, however, that John has now greatly expanded the lede, and now expanded the scope of the article. With this expansion I don't see how this article's scope differs from that of historical Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Your earlier suggestion to eliminate this article and to move its contents to Historical Jesus and Christ Myth Theory may well be what we end up doing. I'm not sure that means we shouldn't try to clean up this article first. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:05, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Cleaning up the Talk page

Greenground's flameout has left us with an enormous Talk page. I'd like to suggest wiping it clean and starting afresh. Right now, I have a hard time finding the next thing to do or even where to reply. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:07, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Extensive rewrite of the lede

I am not happy about the way in which the lede section has been extensively rewritten without agreement. I also think we need to be a bit more clear about the purpose of the article before we start making such drastic changes. We cannot have as a basis the theme that "All scholars accept that Jesus existed, so his historicity is effectively proven", because in fact the man whose existence is generally accepted is not the man of the gospels. The article is thus about "what elements of the Jesus story are accepted as historical fact", and the answer seems to be "very little is accepted as historical fact". When I first started editing on these articles it was explained to me that this Historicity article discusses "is the Jesus story actually factual", whereas the Historical Jesus article discusses "assuming the Jesus story is factual, what does it tell us about Jesus". There is a huge overlap of content between the profusion of Jesus-related articles, which needs to be sorted out eventually. I am inclined to merge these two articles, but before we do that we need to be clear on what will be the focus of the new combined article? Wdford (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

We cannot have as a basis the theme that "All scholars accept that Jesus existed, so his historicity is effectively proven", because in fact the man whose existence is generally accepted is not the man of the gospels. I don't agree with that because then you would have to have a debate about who "the man of the gospels" is, a question that we cannot settle as editors here on WP. The fact that there was such a person as Jesus who was executed by the Roman authorities is the one element that there is virtual unanimous agreement on.Smeat75 (talk) 22:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If you want to know who the "man of the gospels" was, then all you need to do is read the gospels. The execution is one of the very few elements in the gospels which are generally believed to be factual. If we take the attitude that "the historicity is proven" then many would assume that we are actually saying "the gospels are historical", which would be false. We therefore need to express more carefully that the historicity of the existence of a man whose name is commonly pronounced "Jesus" in English does not mean that all the stories about such a man in the gospels are to be believed. This does seem to be the thrust of the Historical Jesus article, hence the overlap and my suggestion that we merge the two articles as the first step. We can then sort out the duplication. Wdford (talk) 22:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If you want to know who the "man of the gospels" was, then all you need to do is read the gospels. Not really, because as the disputed paragraph Greengrounds added which is currently under discussion says, the Gospels are full of discrepancies. For instance, in the synoptics Jesus tells many parables, in the Gospel of John he tells no parables but makes "I am" statements such as "I am the way the truth and the life", not present in the others.Which is the Jesus of the Gospels, the one who tells parables or the one who makes "I am" statements? If you combine both of them to say "Jesus told parables and made "I am" statements" then you are essentially creating a composite Gospel which does not exist in the originals. This article already states that the only two elements that are more or less universally accepted as historical are the execution of Jesus by Roman authorities and the baptism, that is the most important thing to get across in my opinion.Smeat75 (talk) 22:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Smeat75, I agree with you exactly. However the latest rewrites of the lede have moved away from this point, and it is now much more vague and wooly on that point than before. Part of the problem is that the lede is too big, and is becoming incoherent, but part of the problem is that there is a near-total subject-matter overlap between the two articles. Would you support a merger? Wdford (talk) 10:03, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Shifting texts over time

I've just done a quick edit of the lede paragraphs, to remove the line that said "there is little agreement on the historicity of gospel narratives and their theological assertions of his divinity." Although this was supported by four citations, I don't think it was very helpful, and the citations were not very accurate (perhaps they were at once, but this page is such a digital palimpsest that what may once have made sense no longer does). The statement suggests two things - that there is little agreement on how historically accurate the gospel narratives are (for which probably hundreds of citations could be provided), and they differ on 'theological assertions of his divinity' which is so vague and ambiguous as to be meaningless. As a matter of interest, I looked at the citations. The Craig Evans article (available online here [9] if anyone's interested) is about changes in research into the life of Jesus from a number of angles - one of which is that there is 'a remarkable amount of consensus in recent scholarship' - but especially how the quest has moved on from a simplistic obsession with mythical elements. The Tarbert book - available on Google Books - is about how Christians used mythological elements. The Sanders book - which I have here in front of me - refers to how we actually have a fairly good idea of what Jesus said. The Mark Allen Powell book (not on Google Books, but you can see large chunks on Amazon) is clearly the most relevant here - the cited chapter is a summary of recent views of the historical Jesus, and it's actually very useful since it reviews the works of major scholars such as Meier, Wright, Crosson and Mack. He specifically considers the question of the self-consciousness and identity of Jesus, and states much what I have summarised in the new reference I put. Main point - citations get moved around a lot, cited points get changed, and sources end up saying nothing like what they've bee used to support (and may not have in the first place). It's always worth checking, especially in articles such as these where the 'smother your opponents with citations' and 'pile up the citations in the hope that some of it sticks' approach have been used ad nauseam. --Rbreen (talk) 22:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to Merge

We have two overlapping articles – Historicity of Jesus, which supposedly discusses the existence of Jesus of Nazareth as a historical person, and Historical Jesus, which is apparently about the historical reconstructions of Jesus’ life. The overlaps are substantial, and neither topic can be properly discussed without bringing in material already covered in the other article. At the same time there are vast numbers of other articles which discuss the events of the gospels in minute detail – often overlapping with each other. I propose that we merge these two articles into a single article that specifically focuses on “how much of what we read about Jesus is regarded as actual historical fact”, and that all the rest be left to the dedicated articles on the various points, with appropriate summaries and links only. Wdford (talk) 10:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion section is at the other article Talk:Historical_Jesus#Proposal to Merge - no more comments here please. Wdford, please learn how to set these up correctly - one merge to and one merge from template. Johnbod (talk) 13:03, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Focus of the article

I am not in agreement with your decision to juxtapose historicity with the Christ myth theory. This makes it seems like its black or white, where black has been fully discredited already. The existing article on the Christ myth theory covers all this already, so why have another article? Instead, the reality seemingly is dark grey, with some fragments of the gospels considered to be historical fact and the rest of it fiction. I believe the purpose of this article is to discuss why we assume a Jesus-model did actually exist, and to discuss which fragments of the gospel stories can be considered as factual history. That is not quite the same as your lede reads now. My wording covered the theory that Jesus may be pure fiction, within the broader scope, but the juxtaposition with the Christ myth theory is bathwater. Wdford (talk) 16:05, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

What do others think? In fact Christ myth theory only covers those who believed it and their arguments, stating that few now believe it, but entirely failing to explain why this is so, which is the stuff covered here. You complete removal of a link in the lead was unhelpful. Johnbod (talk) 16:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Well that looks like another opportunity to improve an article. If there is material here which belongs over there, then lets move it over there - we will be improving two articles at once. I removed the link in the lede because I believe you are over-specific the topic of the article, and that you do so incorrectly. I don't recall you getting consensus for that refocusing first? Wdford (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd say there is longstanding agreement that historicity of Jesus is about Jesus' existence, and Wdford's recent changes to the lede altering that focus are a big change for which he didn't get consensus. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense, I did no such thing. Any discussion on "did Jesus really exist" has to address the question of "which Jesus are you referring to?" If you are referring to the Jewish teacher and cult leader who upset the Romans and was crucified for it, then yes there probably was such a person. If you are referring to the deity in the gospels who was born of a virgin, worked miracles and then rose from the dead, then no that "person" was not so real. To merely quote a range of people who profess that Jesus was a real person and to leave it at that, would create the perception that the miracles and the virgin birth and the resurrection are all generally accepted by scholarship, which would be misleading. Since there is so much scholarship that highlights the unreliability of so many of the gospel stories, any article on the Historicity of Jesus would have to mention it honestly and with due weight. And that honesty would need to extend to the lede also. That honesty was present in the lede for quite a while, until the latest effort to refocus the article on "non-existence is effectively refuted". Wdford (talk) 23:24, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

If I understand the scope of each of these articles correctly (and I probably don't):

• Historical Jesus deals with those elements of the narratives of Jesus that are amenable to historical inquiry ("was he a carpenter?" "is it likely that he could read?"), and not those elements that are matters of faith or belief ("did he walk on water?"); hence the article is or should be structured as a hypothetical biography, with its scholarly bones rather more exposed than is usual for biographies.
• Jesus Christ in comparative mythology is about those elements of the narratives of Jesus that are amenable to analysis via theories of comparative mythology (virgin birth, harrowing of hell, and so on).
• Christ myth theory is an article in which all three words of the title are incorrect, if it's about the view that a person we call Jesus never existed in the normal historical sense. "Christ" is therefore incorrect, since this is the view that Jesus never existed, and "Christ" is a title attached to elements of faith. "Myth" is incorrect, because it isn't an analysis of the life of Jesus in terms of myth. "Theory" is incorrect, because it isn't a theory: it's a hypothesis, at best.
• Historicity of Jesus would therefore be about … I have no idea, to tell the truth. Maybe the assembly of evidence, and historiographical methodologies brought to bear on the evidence? Isn't there a proposal that it be focused on the sources themselves? I'd love to see all the ridiculous articles on classical sources (Josephus on Jesus, in which we have the absurdly non-encyclopedic subhead Reconstruction of an authentic kernel; Tacitus on Christ; Suetonius on Christians; Pliny the Younger on Christians; and even Lucian on Jesus, on which see this comment) merged into one sensible whole that provides an overview of the shared scholarly questions (Christus/Chrestus orthography, what superstitio means, stuff that's repeated article to article), without devolving into exegesis. Of these, Josephus is of course exceptional in the complexity of context. These are not encyclopedia topics; they can only result in collections of notes, as I've complained before ([10] [11]). It's more coherent and useful for readers to look at all the pieces of evidence together in one place, as Robert E. Van Voorst does in Jesus Outside the New Testament. Excepting Josephus, none of these passages needs more than three paragraphs in an encyclopedia aimed at general readers. Beyond that, it's editors engaging in POV proxy battles by piling up scholarly soundbites into unreadable mounds—to go along with what Rbreen said above. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:48, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

A few comments on some of what has been said above.

• First, Wdford, "non-existence is effectively refuted" is a direct quote from the source and is cited as such. Sources rule on WP. If you want the article to present your ideas that to say "Virtually all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed" (another more or less direct quote) is unsatisfactory because it does not make clear "which" Jesus is being discussed, you need to find a source to support that. The lead does say " the two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that he was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate." It does not say anything about miraculous or supernatural events, it seems clear to me.
• There does need to be a clearer distinction between this article and Historical Jesus if they are both to be kept, I do not have strong feelings one way or the other about merging them.
• I agree with you, Cynwolfe, "Christ myth theory" is not an accurate title, however "mythicists" is what the people who present the thesis that Jesus never existed call themselves.
• It would be a good idea to have one main article on the early Roman allusions to Jesus / Christians, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, presenting an overview of the material, but I think separate articles would still be needed as "mythicists" pore over these passages in minute detail and there are many contentious issues surrounding each of them which need to be discussed, probably in greater detail than interests the general reader, yes, that is true. Smeat75 (talk) 23:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I should've made it clearer that I don't object to the title Christ myth theory if that's what it's called (as Akhilleus has persuaded me), but I feel it reflects poorly on the scholars themselves. (As in the Suetonius article, when the one scholar was basing an interpretation on a demonstrably incorrect reading of the Latin.) I s'pose what I'm trying to say is that we need to make the scope, particularly of this Historicity of Jesus, much clearer to readers who may come to the articles cold, with no prior knowledge of either the topic nor editing history. Johnbod and Akhilleus have made some suggestions in that direction above. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

First, the lead does not consist of a series of quotes, it consists of a summary of the article material. Paraphrasing the many different sources is thus expected of us.

Second, there are a number of contentious statements in the lead that are not "sourced" - why the double standard?

Third, the "idea" that much of the gospel portrait of Jesus is fiction is not my idea - there are many scholars who have rejected many of the gospel elements, as we all know. I have repeatedly suggested that being a bit more open about all those rejections will make these articles less misleading, although there are obviously editors who strive to conceal that reality.

Fourth, the "Existence and Chronology" section is a direct duplication of the material in the Historical Jesus article, hence my proposal for a merger.

Fifth, if we don't merge, then we need to have consensus on the topics of each article, and I think we need to refocus them and remove duplication. In that case, I will create an article called Gospel events which are generally considered to be fictitious, so as to balance this series of articles. I welcome all suggestions for improving the title, which is very descriptive but perhaps a bit long.

Wdford (talk) 13:54, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

So your proposed article would analyze narrative elements of the gospels in terms of fiction-writing as a literary technique? I don't understand its conceptual underpinning. Christ myth theory, though a misnomer, already deals with why some scholars think there's no historical basis for thinking Jesus existed, doesn't it? My main concern is with determining the scope of Historicity of Jesus. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:27, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Wdford you will definitely need sources to back up the use of the words "fictitious" and "fiction". "No evidence that this or that incident is historical" or "no possible way to verify that this incident took place" or even "clear evidence that this incident could not have happened" is not necessarily the same as "fiction". And I do not agree with this sentence in your post - "I have repeatedly suggested that being a bit more open about all those rejections will make these articles less misleading, although there are obviously editors who strive to conceal that reality." Yes you have repeatedly made such statements and now I have pointed out several times that this article says quite clearly that the only two events in the Gospel accounts that are universally accepted are the crucifixion and the baptism. I don't believe there is any effort at concealment here.Smeat75 (talk) 14:42, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

"Sources for the historical Jesus" article?

There is considerable disagreement on this page, which is inevitable considering the subject, but everyone seems to feel that this article "Historicity of Jesus" is either unnecessary or inadequate as it stands and there have been suggestions from Cynwolfe and others that this article be changed to focus on the sources for Jesus' existence and the methodology used to assess them. Akhilleus suggested two articles, one on "sources for the historical Jesus" and re-developing Quest for the historical Jesus. Personally I do not feel that what scholars thought about the question decades or centuries ago is as valuable as what the scholarly consensus is now. So how about moving this article to "Sources for the Historical Jesus" and re-writing it as Cynwolfe, Fearofreprisal, Akhilleus and I, from varying perspectives, have suggested? (I don't have lots of free time right now, so maybe I shouldn't be suggesting this as I cannot promise to devote a lot of effort to it).Smeat75 (talk) 23:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

If we are going to leave the full "for and against the existence" discussion at CMT, then the material on sources currently within this article may as well be a section within Historical Jesus, and this article be deleted. If we want to have a separate article just on the sources, then it will again duplicate with CMT, although perhaps to a lesser extent. It will then also duplicate with the Tacitus on Christ article, with the Josephus on Jesus article etc etc, but it seems some people are happy to duplicate all this material. I would rather include a section on sources within Historical Jesus, which briefly summarizes the Tacitus on Christ article and the Josephus on Jesus article etc, with links to the main articles. Much of this material is already present at Historical Jesus, although its scattered throughout the article. Wdford (talk) 08:35, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

OK fine - I boldly created the new article Sources for the Historicity of Jesus. Please help to clean it up and improve it. Once that is done, we can remove a lot of the now-duplicated material from this article, which will help us to make a decision about this article's future. Wdford (talk) 11:47, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion was to create a page called sources for the historical Jesus, not sources for the Historicity of Jesus. Aside from the problematic capitalization of "Historicity" in the latter title, the problem is that these sources are not used only to establish the historicity (understood as meaning "existence") of Jesus, they are used to reconstruct his life and teachings. The focus of scholarship, as I have been saying many times here, is on the reconstruction, not on the establishment of historicity. It would therefore be truer to scholarship to call the article sources for the historical Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:56, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The Historical Jesus article already discusses its sources - paragraph by paragraph. Unpacking it would be too destructive to the flow of the article. I created Sources for the Historicity of Jesus so that the valuable material in the Historicity of Jesus article could be retained, while the rest of it - now largely just pure duplication with other and better articles - can be merged out or simply deleted. Wdford (talk) 21:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality Needed

Both in this article and in the Christ Myth Theory, multiple authors are quoted to give the opinion that virtually all scholars believe that the Jesus of the New Testament did in fact exist, at least as a man. The quotes normally give no reasons, just that everyone agrees that he did. However, in this article, George Blainey is semi-quoted with regard to the notion that a few people support the Christ Myth Theory. He is shown to have said that his life is "astonishingly documented" with with numerous books, stories and memoirs written about him. However, per the information in this very article, there are no secular books, stories or memoirs written about Jesus. Only secular sentences and paragraphs are listed here. So Blainey has to be referring only to Christian stories. He is using an "astonishing" amount of Christian documents, to show what he feels is the unquestioned historicity of someone the Christians believe to be a God whom they worship. When I noted that he could only be referring to Christian documents, it was reverted.

The article also states that: . E.P. Sanders and Craig A. Evans independently state that there are two other incidents in the life of Jesus that can be considered historical: that Jesus called disciples, and that he caused a controversy at the Temple. This view has to come from the New Testament, the religious work of Christians. Christians believe that Jesus is a God. This needs to be noted when the article makes a claim (via "experts") about the life of Jesus.

Wickorama (talk) 08:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand why this section is up at the top of the page instead of underneath the sections that were created before it. Anyway, you say When I noted that he could only be referring to Christian documents, it was reverted. We, as WP editors, are not allowed to point out that notable scholars are talking rubbish. You are drawing conclusions on your own and trying to put them into the article which is not allowed on WP. You would need to back that "note" up with a source, ie find another notable scholar who says Blainey, Sanders and Evans are talking rubbish, then you can put it in the article.Smeat75 (talk) 21:17, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I used references - I pointed to Wikipedia articles that disagreed with, cast doubt on, or showed the bias, in his claims. Is information in Wikipedia in other articles not valid information to use dispute a quote from a alleged expert? Wickorama (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

It's very funny that you claim "neutrality is needed" when you yourself are not acting neutral and are only basing your claims on your own point of views.50.157.103.28 (talk) 17:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

That the New Testament gospels cannot be taken at face value is the beginning of HJ scholarship, not the end of it. So, HJ scholars overwhelmingly recognize that the gospels have been embellished and do not corroborate the details of their testimony when compared in a synopsis, but this is not the same as saying that they are completely worthless as historical sources. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The New Testament gospels do more than disagree with each other. They talk about a god/man. They revolve around a god/man. No modern god/man exists. No god/man has ever been outside of religious documents like the New Testament. I don't see how they can be viewed as historical unless you believe that there was a god/man named Jesus. In other words, they are history - for the religion of Christianity - not for non-Christians.

But that is not even the point. I was explicitly stating that the "expert" being quoted was referring to Christian documents. Otherwise the reader would easily get the false impression that the Romans and other non-Christians provided a massive amount of documents that the "expert" and others had to sift through.

Wickorama (talk) 00:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I used references - I pointed to Wikipedia articles - Please see WP:CIRCULAR. "Do not use articles from Wikipedia as sources." You can see what a statement in a WP article has been sourced to, check the source and then use the source as a reference but just linking to another WP article is not a reference in WP terms, and especially not in this case "only two brief key secular sources used for evidence of a historical Jesus, one of which is generally believed to have been tampered with by Christians" ,with links to this article itself and Josephus on Jesus, which does not say what you say it does.Smeat75 (talk) 01:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

"Which does not say what you say what you say it does" It says: "The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety". Are you suggesting that that is different than "generally believed to have been tampered with by Christians". If so, how? Wickorama (talk) 01:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity Josephus on Jesus.Smeat75 (talk) 01:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The secular source is Josephus in something called the Antiquities of the Jews. It is generally agreed that source was tampered with. For scholars to say in effect "changed by Christians here, but not changed by Christians there" does not mean that the source of Josephus was not tampered with by Christians. Wickorama (talk) 02:05, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be a bit of confusion here. There are two passages from Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews that (perhaps) mention Jesus: book 20, chapter 9, which refers to James, Jesus' brother (we can abbreviate this as AJ 20.9), and book 18, chapter 3, section 3 (this passage is known as the Testimonium Flavianum, or TF). Antiquities 20.9 is commonly regarded as authentic, though there are some scholars who have argued that it's not. The Testimonium Flavianum is generally thought to have been altered at some point by a Christian copyist or editor, but many scholars think that the original passage of Josephus referred to the crucifixion of Jesus. (Of course, you're going to find some people arguing the entire passage was interpolated.)

It's important, then, to be precise in referring to Josephus--it seems like the discussion above is confusing these two passages. And it is important to recognize that in the opinion of most scholars, AJ 20.9 has not been "tampered with", as Wickorama puts it. The fact that one part of a text has been altered obviously doesn't mean the whole thing has been altered; many scholars who see interpolation in AJ 18.3.3 think that AJ 20.9 is what Josephus wrote. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

There was no confusion as I did mention "changed here but not there". Which is quite disturbing I would think for scholars. Some zealot changed the writing of Jewish Josephus, to make it sound like he was a Christian. But then you have to wonder - was he the only Christian scribe to modify historic sources, or was he just the one who was not very bright? Wickorama (talk) 07:10, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

About the god-man argument: the only gospel talking about a god-man is the Gospel of John. The other three NT gospels don't consider that Jesus was God. They do have a very good opinion about him, they embellish the events and make claims of supernatural events. But from claims about the miracles made by Roman emperors we don't infer that they did not exist. The embellishment and the disagreements among the gospels are due to recording oral traditions about Jesus: an apostle told stories in order to convert somebody, who told stories to a merchant, the merchant was converted, traveled to another place, told stories which made others convert, they told stories to their neighbors, the neighbors converted and after some decades their stories reached the writers of the gospels. This does not imply that all the stories about Jesus are fictional, it just implies that they have to be critically examined in order to recover historical facts about Jesus. And that's what scholars do. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:10, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Even the apostle Paul (in his authentic writings) does not state that Jesus was God. So, it's not like there is much evidence that the first generation Christians considered that Jesus was God. If they did, you'd think that Paul should know it and mention it. Or if someone was really smart at doctoring manuscripts, he would have doctored all the NT gospels to make Jesus appear as God. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:20, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

How do you feel Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament if not as a god? You say "even Paul", but doesn't Paul say very little about a Jesus on earth? One might say, alarmingly little? Wickorama (talk) 07:10, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It is true that Paul was much more concerned with the death of Jesus than with the life of Jesus. However, the argument with the god-man holds only for the Gospel of John (and perhaps a few forged letters). In those days miracle workers were like we regard today war heroes or persons having extraordinary achievements. So, doing miracles was not something unexpected in the biography of an ancient extraordinary person, they were part of the package. Therefore they cannot be used to discount the existence of that person, the same way that miracles allegedly done by Roman emperors do not imply that such emperors were fictional. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Having been raised a Christian, attending Church and Sunday School throughout my childhood, I find the statement that only John calls him a God unbelievable, given how many many times I heard the pastor say "God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit" and given that he walks on water, etc. But searching "Does the bible say Jesus is God" I ended up on a page (http://carm.org/questions/about-jesus/where-bible-does-it-say-jesus-god) that lists only John of the four Gospels. And it even says that "There is no place in the Bible that says the three words 'Jesus is God'". But the author does inexplicably conclude "So, it should be quite clear that the writers of the New Testament considered Jesus to be divine." Wickorama (talk) 12:19, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Why did you find the conclusion of the link inexplicable? Just curious. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:46, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

It isn't something that is mentioned throughout the New Testament, per his quotes. So why make a statement about what the New Testament, as a whole, claims? The New Testament isn't a single work by one person, so if anything that can be construed as "Jesus is God" is left out of the majority of the New Testament, I don't think that you can say that the New Testament refers to him as God. You can only end with "So, it should be quite clear that a few of the writers of the New Testament considered Jesus to be divine." Wickorama (talk) 05:26, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

The claim that only NT gospel which considers that Jesus is God is the Gospel of John is vanilla in Bible scholarship. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:12, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid your claim that

Hearsay isn't proof

I think the only relevant question is: is there any documentary evidence or are there any first hand contemporary accounts of Jesus' existence? From what I have gleaned the answer is no (please correct me if I am wrong). All of the discussion seems to be based on the writings of people who were born decades after Jesus supposedly lived. In other words, hearsay. Isn't the burden of proof squarely on those who argue that he actually existed? And doesn't this burden rest entirely on providing actual proof, not hearsay? Lfleischer1 (talk) 12:12, 2 November 2013 (UTC)lfleischer1

Sorry, but the argument that "Jesus existed as a hallucinogenic mushroom" is very weak and only your opinion.50.157.103.28 (talk) 17:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, most of ancient history relies on hearsay. Besides, if it would be that obvious, why isn't it the view of mainstream scholars? Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:36, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

The letters of Paul were written in the 50s CE (within 2-3 decades of Jesus' death). Paul was alive when Jesus was, but didn't know him. However, Paul writes that in Jerusalem he met with people who knew Jesus, including Jesus' brother. These letters, and the rest of the New Testament, are documentary evidence; parts of the Gospels are considered to stem from eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life. And though some of the contributors to this page seem to have trouble realizing it, the evidence for Jesus' life is much better than the evidence we have for some major events and figures. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:23, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Akhilleus, Paul persecuted the followers of Jesus for a time, and was very disparaging of Jesus family and his Jewish disciples, claiming he knew Jesus better than they did on the basis of his vision outside the walls of Damascus. He claimed that Jesus brother, James, the leader of the Jesus movement and the first "archbishop" in Jerusalem misunderstood Jesus message, particularly about gentiles, tax collectors and prostitutes. We need to understand this is the context of first century Palestine. Gentiles were the Herodians - Edomites who ruled Palestine. They collected the taxes for the Romans and oppressed the poorest of the poor (Jesus followers were called Ebionim which means the poor - it is in the beatitudes, Paul's followers reinterpreted "Blessed be the poor" to mean "Blessed be the poor in spirit". The "prostitutes" were the fornicators of Herod's family Salome, Miriamne and all, who married their brothers, uncles and cousins against Jewish law. This was the reason why Salome had John the Baptist's head. Paul himself was probably a Herodian, (Herodians claimed to be Benjaminites), and dedicated some of his letters to Herodians, who saw Jesus and the Jesus movement as a messianic threat. All of the Gospels are psuedonymous - written, as the Gospel of John states, after those who were eyewitnesses were dying. There is almost no eyewitness material in the Gospels as their mutual contradictions show. Nothing of Jesus for the 1st 30 years of his life is there or reliable, which shows that the source was almost entirely Pauline, who distorted Jesus message and never knew him.John D. Croft (talk) 18:01, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Um, all well and good but still not proof. The burden of proof is on your position and you haven't provided proof. Hearsay, whether 50 years later or 40 years later is not proof. Nor is someone who says hew knew someone who knew Jesus.Lfleischer1 (talk) 21:10, 2 November 2013 (UTC)lfleischer1

Please don't argue that "the burden of proof is on your position and you haven't provided proof" when you yourself are unable to show any reliable proof what-so-ever to back what is only your opinion.50.157.103.28 (talk) 17:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOTAFORUM. This page is for discussion of the article, not a forum for discussing the topic. The question as to whether there is any proof is not at all a relevant question for this page unless it is part of some non-contrived discussion concerning interpretation of the reliable sources for the topic. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:34, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

lfleischer1, if someone says that he met my brother, it is good evidence that I also exist or existed. Especially if more than 100 years later someone was to assert that my mother remained a virgin for all of her life and it was originally my brother for whom this claim was made!!! The fact that Paul claimed he met Jesus brother is more than heresay evidence that Jesus existed. The article makes this point.John D. Croft (talk) 23:14, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

John D. Croft, let me get this straight, your proof that a person for whom there is no proof that he existed is the claim of another person for whom there is no proof that he existed?24.186.46.219 (talk) 21:25, 3 November 2013 (UTC)lfleischer1 November 3, 2013 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.186.46.219 (talk) 21:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

You can type what you what lfleischer1, but facts are still facts. The fact is there is solid evidence of a historical Jesus and that any claim "proving otherwise" is just baseless and/or contains nonsense propaganda used to convert people to atheism.50.157.103.28 (talk) 18:56, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course, if a mental patient claimed to have met Neptune's brother while stumbling home from the tavern at 3am, it doesn't necessarily prove that Neptune exists, does it?

Just out of curiosity, what is the objective evidence (other than the "church fathers") for the existence of Paul himself? What are the chances that Paul was no more real than the Gay Girl in Damascus? Wdford (talk) 09:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

There are some people who have asserted that Paul didn't exist, usually as a component of an argument that Jesus didn't exist. But the deniers of Paul's historicity are even rarer and less respected than the deniers of Jesus' historicity. --Akhilleus (talk) 12:41, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Robert Price argues that Paul is a largely legendary figure with a historical core, and that that historical core is Simon Magus. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Price is actually reviving the ideas of the Dutch radical school of the 19th century, all theologians, who said all of Paul's epistles are forgeries and "Paul" is a literary concoction derived from the historical Simon Magus. The Dutch radicals, Price and Herman Detering, who says the same things, were / are all teachers at theological colleges, pastors, or theologians. There is no mention of Paul in Tacitus or Josephus,or other works of Roman historians, unlike Christ.Smeat75 (talk) 14:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Bear in mind that Wikipedia doesn't do original research. We should only report the opinions of reliable sources, properly identified, and do so from a neutral point of view. My problem with this and related articles isn't so much that I disagree with the opinions of some of the sources, but with the lack of neutrality when reporting those opinions. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:08, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Simon Magus is an interesting figure, who was a Samaritan convert to Judaism, an apologist for Roman rule, and was confronted by Simon Cephas, later called (in Greek) Petros (Peter). According to Josephus he was involved with the procurator Felix (whose cruelty and licentiousness, coupled with his accessibility to bribes almost singlehandedly caused the Jewsih revolt), King Agrippa II (Paul's friend) and his sister Drusilla, where Felix has Simon convince Drusilla to marry him instead of the man she was engaged to. He finished up in Rome. Justin Martyr records what happened to him in his Apologies. John D. Croft (talk) 23:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

It isn't up to WP editors to prove anything, but neutrally to summarise what reliable sources say. Please list the historians or other reliable sources who disagree with John Dominic Crossan when he says "That (Jesus) was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." I have asked in similar discussions for the historians who dispute that, nobody has ever told me who they are.Smeat75 (talk) 13:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Secular Scholars have Defended His Historical Existence

Reliable documentation from Roman sources who did not follow Abrahamic beliefs have backed this claim. Even when you don't consider the fact that many secular, non-Biblical historians have accepted this as fact, you also need to consider the fact that a sizable share of Biblical scholars are secular at times too. Even some Biblical scholars loyal to Christianity have sided with skeptic's arguments and have occasionally questioned the accuracy of what was said to happened in the New Testament. The fact is whether or not you chose to belief in the divinity of Jesus, or even theism for that matter, the facts are still the facts. Any claim "proving otherwise" is just baseless propaganda and a violation of the Wikipedia:NPOV policy.50.157.103.28 (talk) 17:21, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not true that "many secular non-Biblical historians" have backed this claim. What is true however, is that very few if any have denied it. The difference is meaningful and it's replacing the latter statement with the other that is a violation of WP:NPOV. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:38, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

No, it is true that many secular, non-Biblical scholars have backed this claim. Maurice Casey's 2010 book Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian's Account of His Life and Teaching detailed the fact that yes, most historians have accept the historicity of Jesus as fact and that the denial of his existence is "the view of extremists." Even skeptic Bart Ehrman has acknowledged that such propaganda is "extreme." Please quit distorting the real facts and act neutral.50.157.103.28 (talk) 21:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Kindly adopt a more friendly tone for this discussion. Does Casey name any of these historians? The only ones I've seen are Grant and Akenson, and the latter is scathing about the lack of impartiality of biblical scholars. And Ehrman isn't a skeptic, he is a former fundamentalist apologist who lost his faith. Casey and Ehrman's statements are propaganda. We should certainly mention their opinions, but as attributed opinions, not as fact. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

"Ehrman isn't a skeptic, he is a former fundamentalist apologist who lost his faith." Why does this disqualify him from being a skeptic now? (Not that it's clear to me what terms like "skeptic" and "secular" mean in this discussion, but whatever.) --Akhilleus (talk) 21:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Weasely

The article is rife with statements that "most scholars" believe this or that. There are also no lack of statements dismissing legitimate minority views as if they are fringe theories.

Further, it broadly refers to "scholars", not distinguishing between theologians and historians. While I don't argue for a fixed demarcation between the two, I think it's important to distinguish for context.

In the end, the article looks a lot more weasely than it should.

I would like to see this article focus more on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, and less on appeals to majority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fearofreprisal (talk • contribs) 04:25, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Even the assumption he was "of Nazareth" is problematic. There is no independent existence of Nazareth until the 4th century CE, and the appelation may have been originally "the Nazirite". John D. Croft (talk) 23:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

6-10 times a year, I look at this article, and twice it has been awesome - informative, accurate and well argued - and the rest of the time it has been rife with over justification from questionable sources. This seems to be one of those weirdly hot topic pages that gets worse over time. It seems like older versions are better - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Jesus&oldid=511179350 is a better edit that solves most of the issues, and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Jesus&oldid=505875233 as well. It seems that the sort of statements that are removed, are statements like "The evidence for the existence of Jesus all comes from after his lifetime", and many times these are factual and, I'd argue, useful. Perhaps the best action is to rollback to a previous, better version?

Can you please explain the "failed verification" tag, added in this edit? --Akhilleus (talk) 08:48, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• • I went to the cited book, and read the cited page. It doesn't say what the article says it does. That's the essence of failing verification. Fearofreprisal (talk) 06:46, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

If the CMT is not fringe, then the word "fringe" has no meaning. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Nice to know your biases. By the way, where is all that contemporaneous historical evidence? I couldn't seem to find any in this article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 06:50, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

It's the informed statements of scholars. Sorry if you don't like that, but that's just the way it is. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 14:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

We should build a robot that responds to these things... the reason we use "most scholars" is because that is what the sources say. That is not the voice of Wikipedia, it is the voice of the sources that are being quoted. ReformedArsenal (talk) 13:32, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

See WP:ABIAS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Ha! A "disinterested community of scholars" is precisely what HJ scholarship isn't and we have many sources to back that up. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:41, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, many HJ scholars may have some bias, but they do not have the same biases. It's not like they have got the lion's share by marginalizing agnostics and atheists, but it seems that most agnostics and atheists are not interested in studying the historical Jesus. And there is Bart Ehrman who is now an agnostic and still believes that it is settled that Jesus has really existed. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:59, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

In at least some of the cases, the "most scholars" thing appears to be WP:Synthesis.Fearofreprisal (talk) 04:44, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you provide an example for us to discuss? ReformedArsenal (talk) 13:33, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Here is one example: "Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7 and 2 BC and died 30–36 AD,[12][13][14] that he lived in Galilee and Judea, did not preach or study elsewhere,[15][16][17] and that he spoke Aramaic and perhaps also Hebrew and Greek.[18][19][20]"

There are three claims in this statement:

• First claim: that most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7 and 2 BC and died 30–36 AD. The three relevant citations (12, 13, and 14) don't support the "most scholars" part of this claim.
• Second claim: that most scholars scholars agree that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea, and did not preach or study elsewhere. I wasn't able to find an online source to read citation 15, but citations 16 and 17 do not support the "most scholars" part of this claim.
• Third claim: that most scholars agree that Jesus spoke Aramaic and perhaps also Hebrew and Greek. The three relevant citations (18, 19, and 20) do support the notion that most scholars agree that Jesus spoke Aramaic, but they don't support notion that most scholars agree that he "perhaps" also spoke Hebrew and Greek.

Bottom line is that this example is a WP:SYNTHESIS that is pushing a WP:POV. And there are at least 20 similar claims in this article, that "most" or "virtually all" scholars are in consensus on one viewpoint or another.

If these statements were summaries of a majority viewpoint, supported by a contextual discussion of their rationale, they would have a place in the article. But most of them are divorced from their underlying rationale, and some are actually contradicted by other statements in the article. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:54, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I do agree that the "most scholars agree" or "modern scholarship almost universally..." followed by a large number of references from authors is a worrying and indeed telling aspect of this article. The article would be more balanced without them. State the arguments before and against and leave it at that I would suggest. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 13:47, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

One way or another, we have a majority view and a minority/fringe view. This has to be spelled out very clearly. E.g. Bart Ehrman confessed that during a long career as a historian of Christianity he did not come across a single peer-reviewed article denying the existence of Jesus, he only learned from e-mails that there is a Christ myth theory; afterwards, he actively sought for scholarship denying Christ's existence. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:29, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree we need to mention there is a majority view, just that it doesn't need to be said twenty or so times around. That makes it look overzealous, defensive and frankly a bit insecure. Also the fact that we have a majority view doesn't make the minority view a fringe theory. Both can be explained with arguments pro and con and without constant appeals to authority. The fact that there is a majority view is after all not an argument in itself. Neither is the fact that no peer reviewed articles exist tackling the subject. Also phrases like "almost universal assent" and "effectively refuted" put in the mouths of a sweeping category of people on the basis of a few quotes from authors is a bit strong I think. After all, we are not dealing with the laws of physics here but with history. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Well said. Martijn Meijering (talk) 22:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. How should we implement this? Wdford (talk) 08:52, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

It is not a question of "appeals to authority" but, as User PiCo says, rejecting the exact same argument on another page [12] "this is being presented as an "appeal to authority" because that's how Wiki works - we use reliable sources" where he and I and others are arguing against a view that the Book of Daniel was written by Daniel. What PiCo says there applies in this context too - "we're observing WP:WEIGHT by giving the consensual view of scholarship - and we have John Collins, a leading scholar, saying that this is so. "A broad consensus" exists on key issues: Daniel "is pseudographic"; the stories in the first half "are legendary"; the visions were composed "in the Maccabean era"; and the book was put together "shortly after the Maccabean crisis." If you feel Collins is wrong, you'll need equally reliable sources to put against him." The WP:WEIGHT argument in this context means that the overwhelming consensus of reliable sources that there was such a person as Jesus, who was executed under the orders of the Roman authorities must be reflected in the article. Contrary views only come from a tiny minority and cannot be given equal weight with the mainstream view, see WP:WEIGHT. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views." That is why the leading contemporary scholars, reliable sources and authorities, who disagree on everything except the bare fact that there was such a person as Jesus who was executed by Pontius Pilate are quoted over and over saying so. To paraphrase PiCo above,if you feel John Dominic Crossan is wrong when he says " the crucifixion of Jesus is as certain as any historical fact can be' you'll need equally reliable sources to put against him.Smeat75 (talk) 12:23, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

No one is arguing for equal weight. Also, there is much material that questions the reliability and impartiality of the sources for the majority view. Not enough to discard it, but certainly enough to invalidate comparisons with evolution vs intelligent design as some have made. The article needs to present the majority view as the majority view and the minority view as the minority view, with more weight being given to the majority view. It needs to avoid taking sides, impugning the credentials of proponents of the minority view and puffing up the credentials of proponents of the majority view. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:34, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Another consideration is that the historicity of Jesus as a concept only makes sense if there is a debate on that historicity. It would be strange to write an article on the historicity of Jesus if no one prominent doubted it or had doubted it in the past. It is very different from say evolution in that respect. In addition, the article cannot fail to mention the minority view, precisely because that would make the article stop making sense. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:39, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

There is indeed a debate about absolutely everything to do with the historicity of Jesus except for the bare fact that he was executed under the orders of the Roman authorities, there is no debate about that except by one or two scholars in combination with a lot of self-published authors, bloggers and fringe theorists. Yes the idea should be mentioned, but only briefly, and it must be made clear that it is overwhelmingly rejected by mainstream scholarship.Smeat75 (talk) 13:08, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, if there were no debate, then there would be no need for a separate page on the historicity of Jesus, all relevant content could be merged with the HJ article instead. In essence, this page should describe a debate, and it cannot merely present one side or give the other side very little attention. That doesn't mean it should give both equal weight. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:32, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Martijn. That is exactly why there is no article on the historicity of George Washington or Oliver Cromwell. The very fact that there is one about the historicity of Jesus implies that it's an issue. If the concept that among relevant scholars there is "almost universal assent" to the historicity of Jesus and that ideas to the contrary are "effectively refuted" indeed carry the weight that these statements seem to imply, we can put up this whole article for "speedy deletion". That however is obviously not the case. This is for instance illustrated by the following: Tgeorgescu told us that Ehrman found no peer reviewed article that denies the historicity of Jesus. So far so good, but there don't seem to be peer reviewed articles to the contrary either. A set of circumstances that should be taken into account when weighing the "weight" where this particular issue is concerned. I would suggest that this "weight" has a different impact here than the weight of relevant scholars arguing for evolution or indeed the epigraphical merits of the Book of Daniel. The question which field of scholarship is relevant to this issue is another matter about which questions can arise. That, among the other reasons I just mentioned, makes me doubt whether the statement that there is no debate about "the bare fact that he was executed under the orders of the Roman authorities" should be stated so decisively. A statement like that would carry more weight if it was based on peer reviewed research by historians rather then notions about consensus among them. Peer reviewed publications however are nowhere to be found one way or the other. Which by the way is another thing the article should at least mention. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for constantly editing my above message. I'm done with it now. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 14:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Meaning of "historicity"

There is much more to the historicity of Jesus than "Was there ever such a person?", ie, where did he come from, what did he do, what did he teach, why was he executed, why was he remembered, about all those historical issues there are huge debates and no agreement, unlike the bare fact of his existence and execution, which is, as Crossan says,"as certain as any historical fact can be." There is a lack of peer-reviewed sources on the subject because serious scholars do not bother with it.Smeat75 (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Historicity, in my understanding of the word, deals with the question whether a person or an event (in this case a person) is historical or not. If the lack of peer reviewed research comes about because serious scholars just don't bother, that begs the question why that is. I for one think that disinterest in the matter by said scholars is the least of the problems with that. If unambiguous verifiable information, suitable for use in such an endeavor would be available there would undoubtedly also be peer reviewed research. As there isn't at this point, statements like Crossans "as certain as any historical fact can be", should be weighed with that in mind. On another note.... Why do he and so many others even need to state things like that so emphatically if it's so obvious? All these statements (I quoted a few in this section) to me almost seem like incantations to make it so. As I said earlier, it strikes me as insecure. And I personally feel that insecurity stems from the given circumstance that indeed very few things are as secure in this matter as both sides would like them to be. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 14:43, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

We could write in the article about the electron how it was discovered and how to check that it really exist, without implying that there is a debate upon the existence of the electron. All the historians who do research on the historical Jesus seem to think that a few events of his life can be researched. There are peer-reviewed articles about the historical Jesus. If it were doubtful that Jesus existed, there could be no research on the historical Jesus. There are indeed experts on the historicity of Jesus and experts on the historical Jesus, they are not necessarily the same persons, e.g. a scholar has criticized Ehrman for being no expert in the historicity of Jesus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:28, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but we would not have an article named Existence of the Electron. And there is in fact a bit of a debate. Not much, but more than nothing. Ehrman recently wrote a book against the CMT, Brodie came out in support (albeit in an idiosyncratic way) and Richard Dawkins, who is a far greater scholar than anyone who has studied the historicity of Jesus, considers the CMT quite plausible, though in the end less likely than historicity. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:01, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

According to Ehrman, the "new atheists" know surprisingly little about religion. So, Dawkins may be a great scholar, but he is not a great scholar of religion. He might be a champion of atheism, but that does not count as historical scholarship or religion studies. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:40, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure, but it does speak to the degree of academic credibility of the CMT. My main objection in all these debates is not so much against saying that the CMT is held only by a tiny group of scholars. This after all is the truth and can (and should) be stated in neutral terms. What I do object to is triumphalist dismissal of the CMT, disparaging remarks about its proponents, overstating the breadth of academic support for theories of the HJ (insisting on using words like "nearly all scholars of antiquity", "historians" instead of the more modest and more accurate "nearly all biblical scholars") or presenting HJ research and scholars like Ehrman as the voice of science when the academic respectability of their discipline leaves much to be desired. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:00, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think Dawkins' work says anything about the *academic* credibility of the CMT, any more than an English professor's musings about non-standard cosmologies would say anything about the academic credibility of steady state theory. Each might say something about the credibility of the idea in a wider intellectual sphere, though, to the extent that there is an intellectual sphere in modern society.

I also think remarks about the academic respectability of one discipline versus another are extraordinarily unhelpful here. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:09, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I believe you are correct that Dawkins doesn't explicitly address academic credibility, but it is a consequence of his own judgement that the CMT is defensible. Dawkins is after all an eminent scientist. As for mentioning relative academic credibility being unhelpful, that is precisely what disparaging CMT does.

That said, there is in fact a hierarchy of scientific credibility, whether you like it or not. Mathematics and theoretical physics are at the top and rank above chemistry which ranks above biology, which ranks above psychology etc. There was a trend in the seventies for scholars in the humanities (including biblical scholarship) to try and emulate the rigour of the exact sciences, but in recent years this has been seen as a mistake. The humanities rightly use different standards of rigour, because their disciplines do not yet lend themselves to it and may never do so.

That said, biblical scholarship is not in a position to brag about its credibility. More importantly, Wikipedia is not the place to promote its academic credibility. Nevertheless editors regularly claim the consensus among biblical scholars should be treated as the equivalent of the scholarly consensus on evolution. It should be remembered that biblical scholarship is a discipline which arose from theology and whose emancipation from its religious roots has been questioned both inside its own community of practitioners and outside it in the wider academic world. I say this not as an attack on HJ scholarship (though the criticism is and should be mentioned), but as an argument against suppression of views that are not popular in the narrow circles of HJ scholarship.

To that I may add the observation that this and related articles suffer from WP:BIAS. The scholarship represented here is mostly North American. This is not surprising for an English language article and we cannot avoid this completely, but it is something we should be aware of and try to counter. Martijn Meijering (talk) 21:37, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

You're misconstruing my comment, I think. What I meant is that I do not think it is helpful to say that biblical scholarship is less credible than other disciplines. I'm sure that's the opinion of some people, but that opinion is subjective--I don't think there's any commonly agreed upon hierarchy of social sciences or humanistic disciplines--and it's unhelpful on this talkpage and in this article. To me, disparagement of NT scholarship sounds like a call to disregard expert opinion on this subject and instead rely upon amateurs (which of course is the opposite of what Wikipedia policy demands).

However, I do think it is helpful to point out that the CMT comes from outside the field of NT scholarship, is advocated by non-experts, and is soundly rejected by experts in the field. (And this, too, is something that Wikipedia policy asks for--an indication of how widely accepted ideas are.) Readers can take this information and evaluate it as they wish. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:01, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

So you are saying Robert M. Price and Richard Carrier are "non-experts" because they advocate the Christ Myth theory?!? This sounds too much like a No true Scotsman argument.--67.42.65.209 (talk) 07:19, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

That is true, but it is far from self-evident that NT scholarship should be regarded as the voice of science. Also, Price has a background as a NT scholar, and Carrier is a historian (and atheist activist too of course). Let's report the various views and who holds them, in accordance with [[WP::NPOV]]. Martijn Meijering (talk) 08:57, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

article topic, Herodotus

Up above, Martijn Meijering says "if there were no debate, then there would be no need for a separate page on the historicity of Jesus, all relevant content could be merged with the HJ article instead." I couldn't agree more. And there is no debate, at least among academics, about Jesus' existence. Those who assert that Jesus didn't exist and those who assert that there's doubt that Jesus existed are outsiders (e.g. Robert M. Price teaches at an unaccredited seminary, and Richard Carrier doesn't hold a teaching or research post). I'm all for having an article about the idea that Jesus didn't exist--that's what Christ myth theory is for--but I still have trouble understanding the rationale for this article, especially because there is still no clarity about whether this article is about Jesus' existence (in which case, what does this article do that [[Christ myth theory doesn't?) or about the historicity of events in his life (in which case it's redundant with historical Jesus). --Akhilleus (talk) 22:39, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

I want to step back, and clarify what it is that we're talking about. This article concerns "the analysis of historical evidence to determine if Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure..." As such, majority and minority viewpoints relate to that analysis of historical evidence--not the question of Jesus' existence. If you look at the article as it is, there is a tremendous amount of space spent on quotations from sources supporting the notion that Jesus existed, and precious little spent on discussing the analysis of historical evidence.

So, let's talk about the majority and minority viewpoints on the analysis of the historical evidence... There seems to be plenty of debate there. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:33, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that's a good point Fearofreprisal and would provide a rationale for this article, supplying an answer to Akihilleus' question "What does this article do that Christ Myth Theory and/or Historical Jesus do not?"Smeat75 (talk) 01:16, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict w/Wdford's comment below) But there isn't plenty of debate about "the analysis of historical evidence to determine if Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure." You'll find lots of scholarly arguments about how to analyze historical evidence in order to reconstruct Jesus' life, but what little there is about determining his existence comes in response to Christ myth theorists--and when academics talk about the Christ myth theory, they do so with puzzlement and/or scorn, because by the standards of ancient history, Jesus is richly documented. If one sticks to the methods that are standard in ancient history, the existence of Jesus isn't even a question--the question scholars start with is how much of his life can be reconstructed based on our sources. You have to be thinking outside the box (to put it mildly) to get to the point where you ask if Jesus was made up. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:34, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Akhilleus:

> But there isn't plenty of debate about "the analysis of historical evidence to determine if Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure. - There certainly is debate. 10 minutes on Google Scholar will confirm it. As will reading the article.

> by the standards of ancient history, Jesus is richly documented. - Did you bother to check the article? It doesn't show this.

> If one sticks to the methods that are standard in ancient history, the existence of Jesus isn't even a question - Have you even read the article recently? Maybe you should start with the section on "Methods of research."

> the question scholars start with is how much of his life can be reconstructed based on our sources. - OK... It's pretty clear that you haven't read the article. But, to answer you: No, that's the question Christian scholars start with. That question is for the Historical Jesus article, not the Historicity of Jesus article.

> You have to be thinking outside the box (to put it mildly) to get to the point where you ask if Jesus was made up. - Finally, we agree. Since you're posting on this talk page, you yourself must have asked that question at some point (even if you never did get around to actually reading the article.) So, welcome outside the box. In any event, it's primarily Christians (and possibly Muslims) who are inside the box. That leaves 3 billion people on this planet who have probably never even gotten to the point of asking the question. This article is for them. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be missing my point (although you concede it, sort of, at the end of your response): there is no dispute among scholars who study the historical Jesus that he existed. I spent 10 minutes on Google Scholar looking for someone who holds an academic post and who specializes in the study of early Christianity who argues that Jesus didn't exist: I didn't find anyone. I spent a bit more time doing a search on Google Scholar for the string "+historicity +Jesus" and in the first few pages of results I only found one work that was about Jesus' existence: S.J. Case's The historicity of Jesus, written in 1912 by a theologian at the University of Chicago, discussing the Christ Myth theories that were somewhat popular at the time (those of Arthur Drews, William Benjamin Smith, et al). Like now, the arguments against Jesus' historicity were made by people who didn't specialize in the field--they were either outside academia entirely, or specialists in different fields (philosophy, mathematics). So again, there really is no scholarly debate about Jesus' existence--the arguments that he didn't exist are coming from outsiders (as you yourself acknowledge, though you could really go without the facile assumption that all academics who study early Christianity are Christians).

By the standards of ancient history, Jesus is richly documented. Look at the historical evidence for figures like Solon, Cylon of Athens, Empedocles, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Catullus, or Apollonius of Tyana. We've got better and more sources for Jesus' life and views than for any of those guys, some of whom are moderately famous. Our "historicity of Jesus" article demonstrates that there's plenty of dispute about how reliable our sources about Jesus are, but that's partially because of their richness, and because they're saying different things about him. If one approaches the sources about Jesus in the same way that a historian of antiquity deals with sources like Herodotus, Thucydides, or Tacitus, there really is no question that Jesus existed. And in fact the starting point for the Quest of the historical Jesus was precisely the application of the same historical methods used to study ancient history to the New Testament sources.

And yes, I have read this article, as well as historical Jesus and Christ myth theory, and have been editing all of them for awhile now. Because I've read this article, I can see that the bulk of it is 'not about a dispute whether Jesus existed. The article as it exists now is in a very confused state. Some of it is about Jesus' existence; some of it is about what parts of his life can be considered historical (most of the "existence and location" and "background information" parts, for instance), some of it is a history of the Quest for the historical Jesus ("Methods of Research"), and a bunch of it covers the sources used in reconstructing Jesus' life and views ("Non-Christian sources" onward). Most of this duplicates other articles, and I still don't understand why this article exists. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

>there is no dispute among scholars who study the historical Jesus that he existed. -- Possibly true, but irrelevant. I was talking about debate concerning "the analysis of [the] historical evidence..."

>By the standards of ancient history, Jesus is richly documented. -- Please clarify: Do you mean Jesus of Nazareth (a flesh-and-blood person), or Jesus of Bethlehem (the Christ of Christianity)? Assuming the former (since that is who this article concerns), the documentation is poor: No primary sources, no archeological evidence, and all secondary sources compromised by Christian interpolation.

>The article as it exists now is in a very confused state. -- I agree. I think it would be much clearer, as a start, if the "existence and location" and "background information" sections went away, as they're inapposite. Then, get rid of all the opinions on the existence of Jesus, and focus on the evidence, and its analysis. Fearofreprisal (talk) 22:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I mean Jesus of Nazareth, the flesh-and-blood non-divine person. And it is the case that by the standards of ancient history that he is well documented. Scholars regard the letters of Paul and the Gospels as primary sources (and not just one source either, but several, coming from different viewpoints and different early Christian communities). There are other non-canonical Christian sources, and some non-Christian sources which some scholars regard as useful. You wouldn't expect archaeological evidence for Jesus, since he wasn't a member of the upper classes; there is really very little archaeological evidence specific to many of the individuals that we know about from antiquity (I know of none for Solon or Socrates, for example, nor for famous poets like Catullus or Pindar). It really seems that very few people who edit these articles are familiar with the methods and sources of ancient Greek and Roman history, because it is not rare that for major historical events there is only one literary source, written decades or centuries after the event. For Jesus, you've got multiple sources (remember, the New Testament is not a single source), some of which were written within 2-3 decades of Jesus' death. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:56, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

"By the standards of ancient history, Jesus is richly documented." They weren't documenting a man were they. They were documenting a supernatural being, a god/man hybrid. It makes sense to "richly document" a god/man hybrid - if one were to exist. But if there is no such thing as a god/man hybrid, as most of the world believes, then we are left with believing only the man part of the story and ignoring the god part. Is it legitimate to say that a story is real, just ignore all the made-up supernatural stuff as that was just to make it interesting? It is documentation for Christians who believe a god/man once lived on earth. Wickorama (talk) 00:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Akhilleus and I are coming at this from different angles but arriving at more or less the same result. I 100% agree with the quote from John Dominic Crossan used as a source in the article -""That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus...agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." Can anyone point me to a historian, not a blogger or self-published author, but a professional historian who doubts the Tacitus passage? Serious question, maybe there are some and I don't know about them. If so I would like to. A lot of this arises from the fact that many more people are interested in Jesus than any other figure from antiquity and do not realise that there is nothing strange at all about there being no archeological evidence for "ordinary people" or anyone but the super-elite, that all but a tiny, tiny sliver of the documents of the period have been lost and what survives has often done so by the merest chance, and that if you are not going to believe Tacitus or the pitifully small remnant of the Roman histories that survive even on the bare fact of the existence of the people the surviving texts talk about, you are going to have to throw out the vast majority of what is known about classical civilisation.Smeat75 (talk) 02:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

And btw when I say "are there any historians who doubt the Tacitus passage", I don't mean "doubt its authenticity" but doubt that it confirms the crucifixion of Jesus by the authority of Pontius Pilate as a historical event, as certain as any historical event can be. Tell me the historians who doubt that,give me their names, I really want to know.Smeat75 (talk) 02:24, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

For some reason my last two posts immediately above were moved down the thread from the post I was responding to, which was Wickorama above at 00:53, 22 October 2013.

I moved them down because you a) didn't indent them to reflect a follow-up to my post, and b) you didn't appear to be making a response to my post. My post talked about the statement that the New Testament "richly documents" Jesus. You talked about a paragraph from Tacitus. Wickorama (talk) 04:26, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone find where the following quote supposedly from Carrier come from? "...we are enormously lucky to have Tacitus--only two unrelated Christian monasteries had any interest in preserving his Annals, for example, and neither of them preserved the whole thing, but each less than half of it, and by shear luck alone, they each preserved a different half. And yet we still have large gaps in it. One of those gaps is the removal of the years 29, 30, and 31 (precisely, the latter part of 29, all of 30, and the earlier part of 31), which is probably the deliberate excision of Christian scribes who were embarrassed by the lack of any mention of Jesus or Gospel events in those years (the years Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection were widely believed at the time to have occurred). There is otherwise no known explanation for why those three years were removed. The other large gap is the material between the two halves that neither institution preserved. And yet another is the end of the second half, which scribes also chose not to preserve (or lost through negligent care of the manuscript, etc.)." Because if it is really by him it shows that Tacitus has issues.--216.31.124.13 (talk) 05:30, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

The quote appears to come from [13] but I don't follow how that shows that "Tacitus has issues" at all.Smeat75 (talk) 01:53, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

The Bible contains descriptions of supernatural acts. Stories with supernatural acts are in the library in the fiction section, not the non-fiction section. I don't think it is valid for someone to suggest that documents with supernatural acts were historical non-fiction because a lot of people believe them to be non-fiction or because they have some actual historical references. Spiderman is not more believable than Superman because the main character comes from Forest Hills, New York, and not the planet Krypton. Wickorama (talk) 23:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

"Scholars regard the letters of Paul and the Gospels as primary sources" - and which of those authors do the scholars claim was a witness to any earthly events they describe (if Paul did describe any earthly events)? And the scholars disagree with Wikipedia, so you should update Wikipedia to reflect what those scholars think - that the authors of Paul and the Gospels were written by witnesses. Wickorama (talk) 23:50, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Herodotus and Livy contain descriptions of supernatural acts. Herodotus (6.105, for instance, reports that Philippides encountered the god Pan as he was going to seek aid from the Spartans). Scholars of ancient history are pretty confident that they can get useful historical information out of these texts, and librarians and booksellers shelve these books in the history section (or sometimes "classics"). And many scholars are confident that they can get useful historical information out of the New Testament sources; you're certainly free to disagree, but the article should be based on the opinion of expert sources. --Akhilleus (talk) 06:49, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Some of what Herodotus wrote was based on his personal observations, some of it was based on tales he was told, and some of it he just made up because it sounded interesting. Much of what he wrote about Egypt, for instance, is considered to be fiction - his own or that of his sources. The "validity" of the works of Herodotus is based today on what can be substantiated and what not - although often that substantiation is a question of personal bias and POV. For example Herodotus wrote quite a bit about the pyramids of Giza. Where he says the pyramids were built by kings as tombs, the modern "experts" agree that he was correct - although they have no evidence for this at all. Where Herodotus says the kings were not actually buried in those tombs, the "experts" say he was wrong. Where Herodotus says the structures were built by the manual labour of Egyptians, the "experts" agree with gusto. Where Herodotus says the Egyptian workers were slaves, the "experts" again conclude he was wrong. Of the fact that Herodotus makes no mention whatsoever of the Sphinx, which is unique and impressive even today, the "experts" make no mention at all. Mmmmm. Those "experts" who consider the authenticity of the New Testament likewise use their own paradigms as a lens - the see what they want to see. However, bearing in mind that the New testament was a work of propaganda, used to define a cult that was shaped for purposes of political power and later the accumulation of wealth and influence, very little of it can be trusted. The very name "Jesus" is a Latin translation, not the pronunciation his mother ever used. Its not the name that Tacitus used either. Wdford (talk) 08:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I consider the New Testament more than just a story that has some supernatural acts. The crux of the New Testament, the whole reason for it's existence, is to describe a supernatural phenomenon. God, caused a virgin birth of a man which "wise men" knew about by following a star. This child was also the Son of God. Both a man and a god. The Son of God performed miracles, let people know that believing in him would send them to heaven, as opposed to hell, was killed, but rose from the dead and after a few days went to heaven. If you take all that is supernatural out of the New Testament, believing it to be fiction, what is the story that remains? Wickorama (talk) 09:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Boy, this discussion is bizarre. In the normal world, the one where most historians of antiquity live and work, Herodotus is an essential source, without whom we would know far less about the Greco-Persian wars (he is the sole narrative source for much of it). His account of that war is considered fairly reliable! What he writes about Egypt has often been doubted, yes, but even here, many scholars have found that much of what he reports is based on accurate observation. By the way, experts (don't really understand Wdford's use of quote marks for this word) do have things to say about why Herodotus didn't mention the sphinx--see [14], which gives four possible reasons. I'm sure that scholars are more impressed by Herodotus' account of the pyramids than Wdford is--see, e.g. [15]. Of course, the pyramids were built millennia before Herodotus' time, and it's not as if he was conducting an archaeological dig at the site, so why would we expect him to get everything right? It's impressive that he got as much right as he did.

I don't really understand Wdford's point about Jesus' name. So it got brought into Latin and then into a bunch of different languages. So did most names from the Old and New Testaments, not to mention most of Greek literature. What difference does that make?

As for what's left if the supernatural is removed from the New Testament, there's actually quite a bit. Perhaps you should read historical Jesus, or even better, read one of the books cited there. As a hint, getting crucified and dying is pretty unsupernatural. It happened quite a bit back then... --Akhilleus (talk) 12:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there is the unsupernatural material in the New Testament of death by crucifixion. But that in itself is not a story of merit since you just said that it happened quite a bit. The historical Jesus article lists baptism as the other event people are certain about. So the certain story is a man was baptized and then crucified. But the definition here for Baptism says it is a rite of admission into the Christian Church. So it is an event that appears to be significant because people believe the supernatural part of the story. If the story was "A man at one point in his life went into a river with another man and they performed a purification or religious ritual, and he later was crucified by the Romans because he or others said he was King of the Jews" I don't think we would be having a discussion. Wickorama (talk) 15:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

subtracting the supernatural

Obviously the NT is an important text because of its religious significance. Why you think that means the NT contains no useful historical information, I have no clue. Once you disregard the miracles, divine nature, etc. you still get a bit more than "A man at one point in his life went into a river with another man and they performed a purification or religious ritual, and he later was crucified by the Romans because he or others said he was King of the Jews"--he also said some things, got some people to become his followers, who continued being his followers even after he was crucified. Figuring out which sayings in the NT are authentically those of Jesus, what the nature of his preaching was, why that would cause people to follow him, why they continued to do so after his death, and how that movement developed into a long-lasting church are the focus of considerable scholarly activity... --Akhilleus (talk) 16:17, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

It would actually be a lot more accurate to state that: “Based on unreliable texts from a long-lasting church with a serious POV, some scholars believe that Jesus may have said some things, that some people may have become his followers and may have continued preaching after he was crucified. Alternately, evidence also supports the theory that the development of a long-lasting church may have just been a political maneuver by a dying empire, doing a cut-&-paste job from various existing religions and randomly using an obscure Jewish cult-leader as its basis.” However that’s not how Wikipedia works, is it? Wdford (talk) 07:43, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

No, indeed we don't allow the lazy conflation of different minority views about periods over 2 centuries apart to suit people's POV! Johnbod (talk) 09:43, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

But we should consider that the powerful POV in place during those 2 centuries (and thereafter as well) is known to have cherry-picked a canon from a mass of conflicting works, and then to have burned all the conflicting documents that didn't fit the POV, and sometimes they burned alive the supporters of those alternative POV's as well. Since we are relying on those surviving documents to form a view of "history", its very relevant that the surviving documents are far from original, and that they were copied, translated and interpolated by people for whom history and the truth were secondary considerations at best. Its good that we clearly state that only two facts from all that gospel material are held to be actually historic, but I think perhaps we are overdoing it when we quote somebody saying “it is as sure as anything historical can ever be”. Wdford (talk) 17:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

"He also said some things, got some people to become his followers, who continued being his followers even after he was crucified." What you have just stated regarding saying some things and getting people to become his followers is uncertain, per the historical Jesus article. And I don't see how it can be separated from the god/man supernatural part. He wasn't just alleged to be walking around saying things to pick up followers. Wickorama (talk) 06:29, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you've missed the comments below where Tgeorgescu points out that the synoptic Gospels and the letters of Paul do not present Jesus as God. That's a widely held scholarly opinion, which is of course resisted by Christians of a fundamentalist stripe. This is one of the ironies of the Christ Myth theory, actually--that its advocates insist that all the Gospels depict Jesus as god, and so they read the bible like fundamentalists...

In any case, the opinions of individual Wikipedia editors are not important here; what's important is the opinions of expert sources. And they're usually confident that some historical information can be gleaned from the NT. --Akhilleus (talk) 07:03, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

more Herodotus

Thank you, you made my point for me! Your British Museum source seems to be very pro-Herodotus, but makes the following interesting admissions:

• “He seems to have collected his information through conversations, though he probably spoke only Greek.” It admits he didn't necessarily see what he was writing about for himself. He obviously also didn’t speak with average Egyptians, and who knows how much of the "conversations" were embellished, or innocently misunderstood, to begin with?
• He is described by some as the 'Father of Lies'.” Speaks for itself, doesn't it?
• “The accuracy of some of these stories has been demonstrated by archaeology” – only some of his stories, but not others, and not even most of them.
• “Among his accurate observations is the identification of the pyramids as containing royal burials”, - well, doh!

Your Bryn Marw source is even more revealing. He admits that the failure of Herodotus to mention the Great Sphinx is quite astonishing! He then thumb-sucks four possible reasons for this, the first (and only plausible) reason being that Herodotus didn’t actually visit Giza personally. That the Sphinx was not impressive enough to mention is patent BS – even today in an age of skyscrapers and hydro-dams it’s still impressive. That he didn’t mention it because it was taboo is also patent BS – and the excuse that it was “largely buried in sand” is also nonsense – the head would always be above the sand, you can’t look at the pyramids without seeing it, and the head alone is the size of a two-story house. Add to this his assertions that the kings who built the Giza pyramids were buried elsewhere, and that the pyramids were built by slaves – both of which are vehemently denied by Egyptologists – and you reach the unavoidable conclusion that Herodotus is an unreliable source on Giza, and who knows about what else. Nonetheless, he is apparently considered to be a reliable source by some. If he is the sole narrative for much of the Greco-Persian War, then we probably don’t know as much about the Greco-Persian War as we thought we did. Perhaps large swathes of our “knowledge” are actually just a drunken old soldier’s personal fantasy.

At least Herodotus was objective – can’t say the same for the New Testament authors, whoever they were. Half of the “Letters of the Apostles” are agreed to be fakes, and those that are accredited to Paul are the product of a zealous convert with an obsessive personality and a very particular POV who had never met Jesus, who was known to be in conflict with the teachings of those who had met Jesus, who was writing to audiences who had never been to Jerusalem and who had no way of double-checking him, and whose work had suffered interpolations along the centuries by “Christian authorities” with scant regard for any truth that they didn’t like. If any other apostle had written letters contradicting Paul, they were probably burned as heresy once the canon had been “decided”.

All in all, we can conclude from Tacitus that the Christians were named after somebody called Chrestus, who was executed, and that is about all. But that doesn't stop the "historians". Wdford (talk) 13:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, it's pretty clear you have little respect for the work not just of scholars who study the New Testament but also those who study ancient Greek history. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised--this is Wikipedia, after all, where everyone and their dog thinks he's smarter than people who actually publish and teach. If scholars were to treat the ancient sources the way you apparently wish to do, there would be very little to say about antiquity. Fortunately, that's not the case!

I don't reach the conclusion that Herodotus is unreliable on Giza at all. Nor does the author (Joshua Katz) of the Bryn Mawr review I linked to. Katz is surely better acquainted with Herodotus and Egypt than we are, and his proposals are far from ridiculous. For instance, your insistence that the Sphinx *must* have been impressive assumes that Herodotus was impressed by the same things that we are. But one of the things that impresses Herodotus is scale, and isn't it the case that the pyramids are much larger than the Sphinx? Also, there are plenty of occasions when ancient sources fail to mention monuments that moderns find impressive. For instance, the Sphinx isn't mentioned on inscriptions in tombs at Giza: "There are hundreds of tombs at Giza with hieroglyphic inscriptions dating back some 4,500 years, but not one mentions the statue." And I think you've misunderstood what Katz meant by "largely buried in sand"--I'm pretty sure he means that it was buried up to the shoulders, as it was when Napoleon invaded Egypt. (This has been suggested by several scholars, not just Katz, so it's clearly not an outlandish idea.) So let's say that Herodotus did see the head of the Sphinx, and the rest was buried--this would certainly make the monument less impressive than the massive pyramids, right?

I'm afraid I'm not following you regarding the points about slave labor and where the kings are buried. I don't know this part of Herodotus well, but it appears that in addition to saying that Kheops enslaved the entire population (which sounds like a standard story about the actions of a tyrant), he also says that he was shown inscriptions recording the cost of the food given to the workmen building the Great Pyramid (2.125), so he doesn't seem to be saying that the pyramids were entirely built by slave labor. And I don't see where he says the kings were buried elsewhere.

But this is kind of a distraction--well, everything about Herodotus is a distraction from the subject of Jesus, but I mean that the Egypt material is a distraction from my point, which was that scholars think they can get good historical material out of texts that describe supernatural occurrences (as Herodotus does). There's an obvious difference--at least, there should be--between writing about pyramids that were built almost 2000 years before the time of writing, using information gleaned from informants who are either relying on oral transmission of historical info (if you're charitable) or making stuff up (if you're cynical), who come from a linguistic and cultural background that is not Herodotus' own, and writing about events that occurred in Greece, within the living memory of some of Herodotus' informants. Even scholars who think that the Egyptian material is worthless will still find value in Herodotus' narrative of the Persian Wars. This is actually a problem in the treatment of sources here--the idea that a source is either completely reliable or completely unreliable is at odds with what scholars do. --Akhilleus (talk) 15:53, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it’s fairly obvious that we don’t know as much about ancient history as scholars think they do – largely because of lack of reliable evidence. Scholars are forced to sift through mounds of rubbish looking for diamonds, and usually they don’t have any way of telling the difference. They assume that Herodotus was correct about the Greco-Persian War, purely because there is no conflicting evidence currently available, but that is not a very high standard. We currently have many histories of Winston Churchill, some of which blatantly claim he was a genius and a hero, others showing him to be a bumbling egotistical drunk who made a long series of disastrous decisions that destroyed his empire and almost got his country invaded, and that Britain survived the war only through sheer luck and the help of larger countries with more competent leaders, to the point where his own voters (who never elected him PM in the first place) threw him out at the first opportunity. If due to 2000 years of mischance one or other version was lost, the remaining version would rule by default. I suspect if we found the Persian records of the Greco-Persian War they would read rather differently. Egyptologists uphold the sections of Herodotus that are supported by modern research (some pyramids were tombs) and they ignore the sections they don’t like – that the pyramids were built by slaves, and Khufu wasn’t actually buried in the pyramid. Your defence of Herodotus is a little bit embarrassing – what kind of historian rambles on for entire volumes about inconsequentials but can’t be bothered to even mention the largest statue on earth? (PS – slaves, like livestock, also have to be fed. And the fact that the Sphinx wasn’t ever mentioned in tomb inscriptions is evidence that it wasn’t built by that dynasty, not that every single nobleman thought the king’s favourite statue was utterly insignificant.) The historicity of Herodotus is clearly determined retroactively based on the paradigm of the scholar in question, and likewise the historicity of the New Testament. My point out of all of this – when scholars use phrases like “it is as sure as anything historical can ever be”, it really means very little, and that ought to be mentioned in an encyclopaedia. However that’s not how Wikipedia works, is it? Wdford (talk) 07:43, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

No, for sure WP editors are not allowed to add personal commentary rubbishing scholarly views. Also Talk pages are not a forum for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue. They are a forum to discuss how the points of view of reliable sources should be included in the article WP:TPG. I know you didn't raise the subject of Herodotus, but I would recommend your dropping your attacks on ancient historians and scholars of ancient history here, you are only losing credibility for any legitimate points you might have.Smeat75 (talk) 14:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Smeat, but its not actually "personal commentary", I am referring to the opinions of scholars going all the way back to Herodotus' own contemporaries. My point in all of this, which I trust has been made, is that we can be more sure about some aspects of history than we can about other aspects, and that the evidence about Jesus is much less reliable than the evidence for the reign of King Herod, for instance, or the evidence of the destruction of Jerusalem. To say therefore that “it is as sure as anything historical can ever be”, is clearly incorrect, and I don't think we should give that statement so much weight. Wdford (talk) 17:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

---

Perhaps part of the solution lies in reworking the CMT article as well? We could limit that article to a discussion of the Theory itself, its history, its proponents etc, and merely represent the counterpoint with one line "Many scholars believe Jesus did actually exist in some form, although they also believe that a lot of the gospel stories are not accurate his~tory (insert 10 references) - See Historicity of Jesus for all the details." Would that perhaps make more sense? Wdford (talk) 07:22, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

We could limit that article to a discussion of the Theory itself etc. No you cannot do that Wdford, that would be against WP:NPOV and all sorts of WP policies. Akhilleus says by the standards of ancient history, Jesus is richly documented. Yes, that's exactly what I thought the article could concentrate on explaining if the article were re-organised along the lines of "analysing historical evidence" as Fearofreprisal suggests. The only "debate" comes from people who don't understand that.Smeat75 (talk) 12:30, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

As Cynwolfe says on this page this article might be organised to concentrate on "Maybe the assembly of evidence, and historiographical methodologies brought to bear on the evidence? Isn't there a proposal that it be focused on the sources themselves?"Smeat75 (talk) 13:12, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

An article about sources and methods would be fine, but it wouldn't be called "historicity of Jesus". It would probably be better to have two articles: one would be "sources for the historical Jesus" or something like that. The other could be part of a better developed Quest of the historical Jesus (because methods have changed over time, it's better to have a historical approach). --Akhilleus (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

To Akhilleus: I question your comment that Jesus is "richly documented". All we have is:

• one passing comment in Tacitus, that doesn't mention Jesus by name and actually says nothing about him;
• two comments by Josephus - one of which is generally acknowledged to be fake, and the other is disputed;
• four cherry-picked stories written long after the supposed time of Jesus, heavily edited by persons with a strong POV, and which contradict each other on virtually everything of importance;
• A number of "letters of apostles", cherry-picked from a mass of conflicting stories to support a specific POV, some of which are deemed to be fake as well;
• A number of commentaries written long after by persons with a massive POV, based largely on the four contradictory gospels and various cherry-picked "letters of apostles".

If this constitutes "richly documented", I despair. However I would strongly support deleting this article and creating a proper article that discusses these few sources instead.

To Smeat: There seems to be a concern that the CMT article is duplicating this article, and is perhaps eroding this article's reason for existence. I therefore proposed that the duplication be resolved by limiting the CMT article to a discussion of the CMT itself, and that we put the handful of sparse arguments in favor of the existence of Jesus in this article (or its successor), and merely cross-link the two articles. I see no cause for your waving of WP:NPOV - duplication is not a good thing, and serves no useful purpose where we could simply cross-link existing fully-developed articles?

Wdford (talk) 21:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's "richly documented." I think you're overemphasizing the fact that the NT material is only a slice of a greater mass of material that once existed, especially with pejorative terms like "cherry-picked". You could, I suppose, say the same thing about the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus, Caesar--they all emphasize some things, suppress others, and have their own points of view, sometimes overt, sometimes not, but they're still extraordinarily valuable historical sources. Same deal with the NT (I don't think Josephus and Tacitus help us much with Jesus at all). You're also leaving out non-canonical stuff like the Gospel of Thomas, which is very important if you're interested in reconstructing Q, trying to determine authentic sayings, stuff like that.

The major point is that this is far more evidence than exists for many figures in antiquity, even some who were of major historical or literary importance. --Akhilleus (talk) 21:45, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The Bible can't prove what's in the bible, and hypothetical documents can't prove what's in the Bible, even hypothetically. Religious documents only "richly document" a religious figure for the believers of that religion - the believers of those religious documents. Wickorama (talk) 00:07, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

In a sense you are right that the Bible cannot prove the Bible, but the second phrase makes me wonder how much historical scholarship about Jesus have you ever read. Of course Bible scholars do not take the Bible at face value, instead they critically sift through it. If we could take the Bible at face value in order to establish historical facts, there were no need for historical scholarship. For some Wikipedia articles about the books of the Bible the POV-pushers are generally Christian fundamentalists. But for this article the troublemakers seem to be the atheistic fundamentalists. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:49, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of the New Testament is to tell the story with regard to a few years in the life of a god/man who the mostly anonymous authors worship as a god. And with a focus on one supernatural act - dying, then rising from the dead, walking around for a few days and then disappearing to heaven. I don't see that you can just remove the god part and the supernatural acts - which is the crux of the story, the whole purpose of the story, the only reason we have the story - by "sifting" and get a historical story about a man. Wickorama (talk) 04:45, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, it is up to historians to make that call. Your argument is original research and cannot trump lots of reliable sources. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:44, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Wdford, please read WP:POVSPLIT - The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. You suggest "We could limit (the CMT} article to a discussion of the Theory itself...and merely represent the counterpoint with one line" but that is against the stated guidelines - all major points of view must be treated in one article. You could not patrol the CMT and instruct all editors - "No criticism of the CMT here except for one line! References to the handful of sparse arguments in favor of Jesus' existence go into this other article over here!" And what you say about Josephus on Jesus and Tacitus on Christ is incorrect, you might want to read those WP articles. Akhilleus says those passages don't tell us much about Jesus, maybe not, but they are much stronger confirmations of his existence than there are of many many figures from ancient history whose existence is never doubted. I would like to see a list of historians who, when Tacitus says "So and so did this or that or held such and such a position" respond with "I don't believe there ever was such a person".Smeat75 (talk) 22:17, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I find this article to be unacceptably long, convoluted and hard to follow for a yes or no question, however "complicated". The weaselness has to go and there have to be clear "Evidence for" and "Evidence against" headings. Standards of evidence, popularity of stances among various demographics and the like can be written about in different sections if need be. Bahati (talk) 03:08, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Jesus and the Greek Language

A good discussion and much cited reference discussing whether or not Jesus spoke Greek or not is in "The Words of Jesus Considered in the Light of Post-Biblical Jewish Writings and the Aramaic Language: Introduction and Fundamental Ideas" by GH Dalman, DM Kay. Although dated 1902 it argues that Jesus was more in home in Aramaic than Greek thought. Those who stress Jesus' mastery of Greek, tend to be overwhelmed by the fact that the Gospels were composed in koine. Jesus coming from a landless background, stressing the importance of the Ebionim (the poor), possibly spoke no Greek. That is why I added the maybe, and why I will reverse the edit.John D. Croft (talk) 21:35, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Surely No One Can Be A Christian Atheist (Notes)

Naturally you can be an atheist from a Western gentile background, but hardly a Christian atheist. This is surely not the article for fuzzy definitions of people's positions!

Rogersansom (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; regarding spirituality, a "Christian" means one who agrees with who Jesus is and what he did and said--and believes and acts accordingly. Logically, someone is not "Christian" if they reject such a significant portion of what he claimed. However, there is a WP article about the oxymoronic phrase, which notes that it is used in relation to some members of several denominations. The term obviously refers to a societal definition of Christian, which coincides with the definition in that article. That use of the term smudges the boundaries and allows its users to conveniently pick and choose what they want to follow--a practice rejected by Jesus. Desertroad (talk) 12:43, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Reminds me of a joke about the IRA, with the punchline “But are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?”. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 14:47, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Robin Lionheart, thanks. That's a good one! Desertroad (talk) 16:00, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

The case of Nazareth

Jesus is called Jesus of Nazareth in the late Gospel of Luke, which is believed to reflect the view of the Pauline gentile Christians, rather than that of the Jewish Christians which more accurately reflect the background and teachings of Jesus. There is no mention of the existence of Nazareth as a location in any contemporary source (for eg Josephus, who really understood Galilee). In fact the first ancient reference is in the 3rd Century, describing a visit of Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. Archaeology shows that there was a substantial Bronze Age settlement 3 miles from Nazareth of unknown name but there was no Nazareth from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times, at least in the major excavations between 1955 and 1990, shows that the settlement apparently came to an abrupt end about 720 BC, when the Assyrians destroyed many towns in the area. Luke's georgraphy is also wrong. He states Nazareth was built on the brow of a hill, whereas in fact Nazareth is in a valley. Even in the third century, according to the American archaeologist Strange, Nazareth had a population of under 480 people. It seems that it only developed after the Jewish Bar Kochba revolt, when Jews were forbidden to live close to Jerusalem.

So if Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus what does this mean? It is very probable that the original meaning was Nazirite, a righteous or pious man, a person who separated himself, taking an oath to adhere to the law, not have sexual relations not cut his hair or beard, and abstain from flesh and wine. James the Just, the brother of Jesus was a Nazirite and it is possible Jesus was to. Jesus took the nazirite vow when Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God." The ritual with which Jesus commenced his ministry (recorded via Greek as "Baptism") and his vow in Mark 14:25 and Luke 22:15–18 at the end of his ministry shows he was a Nazirite, not from Nazareth which did not exist.

Luke was aware that wine was forbidden early Christianity, for the angel (Luke 1:13–15) that announces the birth of John the Baptist foretells that "he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb", in other words, John was a Nazirite from birth, the implication being that John had taken a lifelong Nazirite vow. Jesus Nazirite vow was from his Baptism by John.

Jesus is therefore not called Jesus of Nazareth, but Jesus the Nazorean, a different meaning all together. Nazorean was the name given to the followers of Jesus until the movement spread to Antioch which is the city where the word Christian (a Greek and not a Hebrew or Aramaic word) was used to describe his gentilic followers. It is still the name for "Christians" in Hebrew and Arabic. For these reasons I deleted calling him Jesus of Nazareth. It was reinstalled because it was said to be "popularly known" as this. But Wikipedia is not a popularity contest but an encyclopedia, the article is on Historicity and therefore I will replace the term with the more accurate translation, Jesus the Nazorean. John D. Croft (talk) 04:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Nazorean? I could perhaps accept "the Nazarene", but Nazorean seems a fringe transliteration, even if it is more accurate. And even though "of Nazareth" is different to "the Nazarene", they are connected in Matt. 2:23, "and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene." But thwn all is said and done, that's not a question that should be discussed in the lead of this article. I support retaining "of Nazareth". StAnselm (talk) 05:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks St Anslem for your post. I could accept the Nazarene, although it too is a Greek rendering of the Aramaic. I have made this as a compromise for the moment. I would appreciate others views on the matter. Otherwise we need to add the rider that Jesus of Nazareth is a contested term. John D. Croft (talk) 05:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The idea that Nazareth didn't exist in Jesus' day is not supported by the excavators of the site. In fact, there is physical evidence that the site was inhabited in the early 1st century CE. The idea that Nazareth didn't exist, as so much else that attracts attention on these talk pages, is a fringe theory. --Akhilleus (talk) 08:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Akhilleus, what evidence do you have that Nazareth existed in the 1st century? The earliest evidence I have found is one second century house after the Bar Kochba revolt 135 CE. John D. Croft (talk) 14:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Jesus of Nazareth is a redirect anyway. It would be a lot simpler to just have Jesus. StAnselm (talk) 19:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, let it stand like that. Thanks, John D. Croft (talk) 22:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)