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Semi-protected edit request on 30 April 2021

Jesus's name is originally in Hebrew and to be congruent with other names on Wikipedia that are not native to English, the following edit should be made to align with the rest of Wikipedia.

Change "Jesus[e] (c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ" ->

To "Jesus[e] (Hebrew: ישוע;‎ c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ"

For reference:

"Adi Shamir (Hebrew: עדי שמיר‎; born July 6, 1952)" Aidani123 (talk) 22:09, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Aidani123: Check the superscript note right next to his name. The Hebrew version is right there. I've left your request unanswered in case anyone else thinks this would be a helpful change. I'll happily do it if a rough consensus emerges. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:29, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's common practice to put original language names in the lead, and there's not really a good reason to hide it away in an explanatory footnote here. Perhaps what previous editors were thinking was that beginning the article with three foreign language names (Greek, Hebrew and Arabic) would be a bit long and distracting, but actually the Quranic name ʿĪsā is derivative and is also mentioned later in the lead, so we could leave that one out, and just have something like:

Jesus (Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs; Hebrew: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšūʿa), c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ,

I removed the wiktionary link for the Greek name (Ἰησοῦς) and the link to the article on the Hebrew name (Yēšūʿa) to avoid a sea of blue, but these should then perhaps be inserted in the etymology section. I also specified a label to have it say "Greek" rather than "Ancient Greek", to avoid the overlong "Ancient Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs". Any thoughts? Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 02:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm okay with this suggestion. There's a part of me that doesn't like the translations hiding behind a note like that. If nobody objects I'll make this edit tomorrow. If you don't feel like waiting for more input and go ahead and make it sooner, I'll not object. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:36, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I did a search of the Talk archives as it struck me that this must have come up before. It is common to include original language names in the lead, but far from universal (check out Saint Peter & Christopher Columbus—literally the first two I tried). If I could summarise the gist of past arguments, it's been something like: 'Jesus probably spoke Aramaic in daily life. Jesus probably knew Hebrew. We can surmise that his name was or was equivalent to Hebrew/Aramaic ישוע, but maybe he went by Hebrew יהושע. In any case, the name in the sources that we're drawing from is actually Ἰησοῦς. The Hebrew/Aramaic surmisal is reasonable, but as an assertion it amounts to original research unless we peg it to a secondary source.' It seems like that should be easy to address… it just never happened.

I don't think there's any reason the Arabic needs to be in there. But actually the Syriac from the Peshitta might have as much claim as the Greek… Pathawi (talk) 02:40, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The Hebrew/Aramaic surmisal is reasonable, but as an assertion it amounts to original research unless we peg it to a secondary source. Per WP:LEADCITE, if there's a source anywhere in the body that has the Aramaic name, then it's not OR, it's just not cited. The two examples you gave both used footnotes; so I'm curious if you object to taking the Aramaic and Greek names out of the footnote, here? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't object to elevation from a footnote, no. In both of those cases (Columbus & St Pete) the footnotes are doing something a little different from what's being proposed here: They give the name as a reader may find it in various relevant languages, rather than the "original" name. I wouldn't want those footnotes elevated into the lead because I think that would be a case of excessive foreign language info cluttering the lead (MOS:NAME). That's not what Aidani123 is requesting. Pathawi (talk) 03:13, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The article gives plenty of sources for the Hebrew origin of the name, so that should be OK. I don't know enough about this stuff by far to confirm whether it would be accurate to say that the short form Yeshua (as opposed to the long form Yehoshua) is as much Aramaic as it is Hebrew (in which case we could have something like Hebrew/Aramaic:: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšūʿa)? If so, this should first be added to the article itself (in the etymology section, with a good source of course). If, however, the short form is pure Hebrew, and Aramaic just literally adopted it without influencing its formation, calling the form "Hebrew/Aramaic" in the lead would perhaps be misleading. If no one is knowledgeable enough to make this call, just keeping "Hebrew:" as in my proposal above seems to be the safest option, and perhaps accurate enough. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 03:39, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The Aramaic form of his name is actually ܝܫܘܥ in the estrangelo script used in the peshitta. Tiamut^talk 06:30, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, I do think the Arabic forms should be included. Issa appears 39 times in the Quran and that's relevant to the more than a billion of the Islamic faith in the world. Tiamut^talk 07:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Aramaic has been written in multiple scripts over the millennia, including the script that many people think of today as Hebrew (which is, in fact, Aramaic). It looks like the name יֵשׁוּעַ Yēšûaʕ mostly occurs in the Jewish Bible in Ezra & Nehemiah. There are two further occurrences in 1 & 2 Chronicles. In Ezra 5:2, the term appears in an Aramaic passage with identical reference to the same name in nearby Hebrew passages. In 1 Chronicles, the full Hebrew name יְהוֹשׁוּעַ Yəhōšûaʕ refers to the same individual as Hebrew יֵשׁוּע Yēšûʕ. I'm drawing this all from Brown-Driver-Briggs. It is unclear to me why the name would be described as 'Aramaic', but my guess (ONLY A GUESS; DO NOT CITE) is this: Ezra, Nehemiah, & Chronicles are all post-Exile; at this point, Aramaic was displacing Hebrew as the most common language of the Jewish people. As the abbreviated name begins to appear in this period & as it does appear in Aramaic—& especially as it is believed that the יֵשׁוּעַ we're interested in here spoke Aramaic as his everyday language—it becomes easy to characterise it as an Aramaic name. The name does appear in Marcus Jastrow's Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature, in which he cites many post-Biblical Aramaic sources: Mishnah Yadayim, Mo'ed Katan, Tosefta Hullin, Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, Pesikta Rabbati… Nonetheless, he identifies the name as Biblical Hebrew. It appears that the verbal root that leads to the name י-שׁ-ע does not appear in Aramaic. But then, of course, it would be perverse to say that 'Joshua' is not an English name, despite this language's lack of the same roots. 🤷‍♂️ Pathawi (talk) 07:37, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

With regard to Arabic: I think it would be intellectually irresponsible of us not to mention the Qur'ānic name in this article & to have substantial information on the Islamic view(s) on Jesus. However, the role of the introductory sentence is to give the name as it's most commonly used in English, then potentially the name in the original language. As best I know, at least Sunni mufassirīn have understood the Arabic name to have been derived from or a representation of Syriac. If there's a position that his original name was the Arabic one, that's surely a minority position. We similarly don't have the Arabic names for Moses & Abraham in the introductory sentences of those articles. Pathawi (talk) 07:50, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm aware that Aramaic square script is identical to Hebrew, but the script used in the Peshitta is the estrangelo (biblical script) I used above. Also, Jesus may not be a Hebrew name at all. There is a record of a Hadad Yis'i, a ruler of Guzan from the 9th century, and the name is Aramaic. Yis'i meaning "to save", so 'Hadad is my salvation". So I see the Hebrew alone as a gloss over of the still as yet unknown etymology. Tiamut^talk 09:00, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

That's really interesting. Do you have any source that connects the Yis'i of Hadad-Yis'i's name to Jesus? They seem etymologically related, but historically? Pathawi (talk) 09:21, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Just added a source that does that to Hadad Yis'i. It says: "The second element contains the same base as certain ancient names in Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Old South Arabic. This is y-sh-' in Hebrew, seen in Joshua (=Jesus) meaning to "to save"." Tiamut^talk 09:29, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

But that's still an etymological connection—not a historical one. It doesn't cast any doubt on the claim that Ἰησοῦς is from Hebrew or Aramaic: It just shows that the pattern in Hebrew has older Semitic parallels or precedents. It's really interesting! But there are lots of sources that identify this name as Hebrew/Aramaic יֵשׁוּעַ. I think until we have one suggesting that it's something else, this is (very interesting) original research. Pathawi (talk) 09:53, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The etymological link is elucidated further here, if you are interested in the linguistic aspects. [1] The formulation "x is my salvation" is an ancient Semitic one, predating the monotheistic traditions. Perhaps though all of this is better explored in Jesus (name). Tiamut^talk 10:52, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Another etymological exploration here [2].Tiamut^talk 11:26, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I politely disagree with some users above, as there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to have the Arabic version in the first sentence. Yes, Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, but by that logic we'd need the name in every language in which people venerate him (Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Gaelic, Tagalog, Mandarin etc.). The name of individuals is usually limited to their own language (when different from English), meaning that Hebrew/Aramaic would suffice and possibly Greek as the first language in which Jesus is mentioned and the first attested of the name. No need for any other language (unless we want a very long list). Keep in mind that Coptic, Syriac, Latin and Armenian versions predate Arabic with several hundreds of years and would also need to be included under this logic.Jeppiz (talk) 13:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

... as well as the Geʽez version! Including the Quranic Arabic ʿĪsā may seem like a good idea because Islam is the second major religious tradition after Christianity to feature Jesus as an important figure (from a contemporary perspective, ignoring the now near-extinct Manicheism), but this is indeed not the rationale for inclusion in the first sentence of the lead, which is to give the original name whence the common name "Jesus" as used in the title derives from (and again, both Manicheism and the Islamic Jesus are given some attention further down in the lead). That original name would be the Hebrew (and Aramaic?) Yēšūʿa, though the inclusion of the Greek Iēsoûs is surely warranted given the fact that this is how the name is attested in its earliest and most important source, the New Testament. Perhaps we should switch the order though, since the Greek is obviously derived from the Hebrew:

Jesus (Hebrew: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšūʿa; Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs), c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ,

As for having Hebrew/Aramaic: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšūʿa instead, what we need is not speculation but a good secondary source which clearly explains that and why this is correct (e.g. on the basis of Ezra 5:2). For what it's worth, our Yeshua articles says: This later form developed within Hebrew (not Aramaic). [...] Jews of Jerusalem tended to spell the name as they pronounced it, [jeˈʃuaʕ], contracting the spelling to ישוע without the [o] letter. Later, Aramaic references to the Hebrew Bible adopted the contracted phonetic form of this Hebrew name as an Aramaic name. So even though the name originally developed within Hebrew, it seems that it also became an Aramaic name, and saying that it is Hebrew/Aramaic with regard to Jesus of Nazareth would seem to be correct. Still, the article would first need to be updated by someone who knows what they're doing, and as long as no one has done that, it's better to play it safe and stick to "Hebrew:". Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 18:48, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Definitely not Hebrew, a predominantly liturgical language at the time, when the vernacular was predominantly Aramaic - they are not interchangeable. And since the first mention of him is in the NT Greek translated from Aramaic, that follows.Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

There's not a shadow of a doubt that Yēšūʿa is Hebrew: the article cites plenty of sources for that. The idea that the NT was translated from Aramaic is a fringe view which is of no importance here. As I said, while Yēšūʿa as an Aramaic name seems plausible, we would need a good secondary source for that to be added to the article. Anything else would only be wasting our time. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 22:19, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The idea that the NT was translated from Aramaic is a fringe view which is of no importance here. I think the connection here is that Jesus and his followers spoke Aramaic, not that the gospels were written in it. I think everyone here seems to be fairly mainstream, so it's a safe bet that we're all on the same page about them being written in Greek. P.S. I really like your suggestion, two edits above. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:00, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I was already thinking I might have misunderstood that one (?). But the principle would be the same: we'd be inferring from Jesus' Aramaic background that his name was also Aramaic, without citing a source. Put like that, it really does seem obvious, and I won't protest if the preference is for "Hebrew/Aramaic:"; it's just that I'm always weary about things that seem obvious when it's in a field I'm not at home in. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 00:01, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

A couple quick notes: 1) I'm seeing 'Yēšūʿa' repeatedly here. My Biblical Hebrew is pretty rudimentary, but I think יֵשׁוּעַ is Yēšûaʿ (or Yēšūaʿ). I'm guessing that people are following the general rule that Hebrew vowels follow the consonants that carry the diacritics. However, final חַ עַ are read /aC/, & as such are usually transcribed ‹ah› ‹aʿ›. I'm seeing ‹Yēšûaʿ› in the material that I'm looking at that doesn't consist of mirrors of Wikipedia pages. I will be happy to be corrected by someone whose Hebrew is better than mine.

2) I think it's solidly established from BDB & Jastrow that יֵשׁוּע is an "Aramaic name". I don't think we have a question of fact that's going to be solved by any reliable source. I take the following as well established:

1. ישׁוע is both a Hebrew & an Aramaic name, but
2. that distinction within the context of his time is probably ahistorical.
3. ישׁוע is generally understood by many scholars to have been Jesus' name.
4. Jesus probably taught in Aramaic.
5. Jesus may have been fluent in Hebrew.

The issue we have is a citational issue. Right now, we have published reliable sources that describe Jesus' name ישׁוע as a Hebrew name. We don't have one doing the same for Aramaic. I think we should move forward with the term 'Hebrew', & if anyone finds a good reliable source describing the name in relation to Jesus as 'Aramaic', then it would be fine to modify that 'Hebrew' to 'Hebrew/Aramaic'. I really don't think we have anything to debate without something to cite. Pathawi (talk) 06:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

See Aramaic#Christian Palestinian Aramaic for such a source. Also should note that they include the name Isho, which may be exactly where Arabaic Issa comes from. Tiamut^talk 06:44, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Also see [Saying Jesus' name wrong: A fallacy of Hebrew roots http://lonelypilgrim.com/2014/11/19/saying-jesuss-name-wrong-a-fallacy-of-hebrew-roots/]. This is an ongoing debate in scholarly circles too. Privileging Hebrew alone in the intro would be taking sides. Tiamut^talk 06:50, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

So, the source you cited is page 35 of Emran Iqbal El-Badawi's The Qur’ān and the Aramaic Gospel Traditions. The Wikipedia page that cites El-Badawi uses the phrasing "the name Jesus, although ישוע Yešua’ in Jewish Aramaic…" However, page 35 of El-Badawi doesn't actually say this. It instead says: '…[W]hat truly distinguishes the CPA [Christian Palestinian Aramaic] Gospels from the Syriac ones is the strong influence that Greek Biblical traditions had upon it. This is evident, for example, in the syntax of the Gospel passages and even in the spelling of proper nouns, both of which duplicate the Greek Gospels. Therefore, unlike Syriac where "Jesus" is spelled īšū‘, in CPA it is spelled īsūs.' That doesn't make any kind of case for the name ישׁוע being Aramaic, or Greek Ἰησοῦς coming from something other than ישׁוע. It's about a literary tradition from four to seven centuries later! As for the blog post, I think there are two problems: First, I don't think it counts as a reliable source; second, it's not arguing that the name Ἰησοῦς doesn't come from ישׁוע: It's arguing against the Messianic Jews' insistence on "Yeshua" as the correct name of Jesus now, in favour of an acceptance of local language names. Furthermore, that blog post identifies ישׁוע as "His original Hebrew name". (It does later identify ישׁוע as a Hebrew & Aramaic name.)

I'd really like to split this into two issues:

1. Whether or not we can find a reliable source identifying Jesus' name ישׁוע as an Aramaic name. (I suspect we can. We have not yet.)
2. Whether or not ישׁוע is the source of the name "Jesus". (I don't see any reliable source making this claim yet.)

You posted that info on Hadad-yith'i earlier; are you interested in arguing that ישׁוע is not the origin of the name "Jesus"?

As for taking sides: I think this is an unfair allegation. I don't think you've presented material yet that says that the source of Ἰησοῦς is anything other than Hebrew ישׁוע. If this is an open debate in scholarly circles, I think we need to see where that debate is occurring. You've presented neither any material that argues against a Hebrew ישׁוע origin nor any debate of any kind within scholarly circles. Pathawi (talk) 07:21, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I am sorry if you understood my comment as a personal attack. It certainly was not intended that way. And I have not yet had time to look very thorougjly for sources. Its Orthodox Easter here today and I am busy. Hopefully this edit is not urgent and can wait for more and better sources. Tiamut^talk 10:42, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I'd forgotten! If you're Christian, Happy Easter from a Muslim brother. If not, well, have a nice day anyhow. Pathawi (talk) 10:48, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I spent some time years back noting in a discussion of notable Jews to be included on that page, that Jesus merited inclusion - born and died a Jew. This indisputable fact produced diffuse anxiety. The proposal was knocked back. It was thought deeply offensive. Now in registering his name, Hebrew is prioritized over Aramaic. The POV changes according to context. The connection is disowned on one page, and then asserted on the other. Peter/Pierre/Pedro/Pietro all have a common root, but if you call a Frenchman by that name Pedro, or an Italian Pierre, you are engaged in linguistic one-upmanship. As an Aramaic-speaking Galilean Jew, the name of Jesus would have been articulated as was normative in Palestinian Aramaic - distinct from classical Hebrew - though very similar. To posit Hebrew as the default form is POV pushing, a linguistic prioritizing of Hebrew over Aramaic.Nishidani (talk) 09:47, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I disagree fairly strongly with this characterisation. The only reason that anyone I can see is prioritising Hebrew over Aramaic is the lack of a source to cite. At this point, I favour listing Ἰησοῦς as derived from Hebrew יֵשׁוּע but that is exclusively because I can find several sources that make that claim & none so far that describe the name as Aramaic. I think I've made a good argument above that the name in general (tho not yet in the specific case) can fairly be characterised as Aramaic, & I've said that I think the distinction for Jesus himself is probably ahistorical. I would be very happy to see the description include the word 'Aramaic'. But I don't yet see a source to cite that would support that wording. This is basic Wikipedia editorship: If you want an article to say something, present a reliable source that supports the claim. I think that it is very likely that there is a good reliable source out there that says something like 'The name Ἰησοῦς that appears in the Gospels is derived from the Aramaic name יֵשׁוּע.' I have honestly been actively looking for it, but have yet to find it. I'm frustrated that opponents of the characterisation of this name as Hebrew have resulted to the accusation that this is 'taking sides' or 'POV' when they could instead be hitting the books & trying to find a source that will support the wording they'd like to see. Meanwhile, multiple sources characterise the name as Hebrew. It is not POV to prefer that the article reflect the sources. It is the opposite of that. Pathawi (talk) 10:13, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Far be it from me to accuse you of POV pushing. The evidence of your diligent pertinacity is hunting for strong sources speaks to the contrary. The point is (WP:Systemic bias) that in several area of scholarship we have habits in naming which persist. I once brought to bear over 100 academic sources which referred to Jesus as a Palestinian Jew. The evidence didn't count: editors without any sense of history or historical method just disliked the adjective, perceiving it as a political, rather than a geographic term - it being the default term in historiography for that land. So, yes, sources are very important, but less so if they contradict commonsense: a Jewish carpenter's son in humble Nazareth would not grow up being addressed in Hebrew, a predominantly liturgical idiom, but in terms of the contemporary usage of Galilean Aramaic. The closest sources to his period use the koine Greek form. To establish the Urname in what was his probable environment, we make hypotheses and conjectures, which is what the Hebrew Yeshua is. That name, like the Aramaic one (Yeshu, also in the Talmudic sources that appear to refer to him, which is closer to the Greek), ascribed to him, is not an attested fact, but conjectural, an attempt to descry the shadowy semitic form behind Ἰησοῦς. What is the status of conjectured names on Wikipedia? With regard to the real pronunciation of the name of Jesus, not only Aramaic, but also Hebrew forms are reconstructions based on inferences from prior usage for a name of that form in epigraphic and textual sources like the Tanakh. They are not, bref, transcriptions of a factual datum. This is merely a nice point, and could be taken as philological pettifogging. It isn't.Nishidani (talk) 11:27, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I've dived a bit into the sources, and found the following:

• @Pathawi: yes for Yēšuaʿ rather than Yēšuʿa: Wikipedia has the latter both in this article and in Yeshua, but the sources (Stegemann 2006 and Robinson 2005) actually give the former.
• Both Stegemann 2006 and Robinson 2005 only call the name Hebrew, but Ehrman 2012 (who actually was already cited in the article) calls it Aramaic. Now Ehrman 2012 is just mentioning this in the passing and not citing any sources, but given the obviousness I guess it should still be good enough?

Based on this, I suggest the following:

Lead: Jesus (Hebrew/Aramaic: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšuaʿ; Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs), c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ,

Main body: The English name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs). The Greek form is probably a rendering of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ישוע (Yēšuaʿ), a shorter variant of the earlier Hebrew name יהושע (Yehoshua), or in English, "Joshua", meaning "Yah saves".

Bibliography: Stegemann, Ekkehard (Basle) (2006). "Jesus". In Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.). Brill’s New Pauly. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e522560.

Already present in the article, but included here for reference: Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved October 8, 2020.; * Robinson, Neal (2005). "Jesus". In McAuliffe, Jane Dammen (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Brill. doi:10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_00099.

References

We might also want to trim some of the refs 3–8? Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 19:31, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Here's another source for Yeshua as an Aramaic name [3]. I would focus on the uncontroversial of the Greek form. So:

Lead: Jesus (Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs), c. 4 BC  – AD 30 / 33,from Aramaic/Hebrew: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšuaʿ; also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, Tiamut^talk

Main body: The English name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs). The Greek form is a rendering of the Aramaic and Hebrew name ישוע (Yēšuaʿ), The same Greek rendering is used for the earlier Hebrew name יהושע (Yehoshua), or in English, "Joshua", meaning "Yah saves".

References

Tiamut^talk 20:02, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

P.S. A straightforward reference for the Greek form being used for Jesus/Yeshua & Joshua is here. Tiamut^talk 20:35, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Also, I would remove refs 3,6,7,8 & add the two refs I provided above from Strong's Concordance of Hebrew and Greek. Tiamut^talk 20:40, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@Tiamut: I've removed the repeated citation of Stegemann 2006 from your comment because it causes harvnb errors, and added a {{reflist talk}} template to make sure the refs show up here rather than at the bottom of the page.

• Yes to adding Strong's Hebrew to Ehrman 2012 as a source for the name being Aramaic.
• Yes to replacing refs 3,6,7,8 with Strong's Hebrew and Strong's concordance.
• Strong no to reversing the order to "Aramaic/Hebrew:": the name Yēšuaʿ is originally Hebrew, and so it makes no sense at all to call it Aramaic and Hebrew: it's like calling the name Ahmad "English and Arabic", or the name Mario "English and Italian". Moreover, the sources overwhelmingly just call it "Hebrew", probably not because of any bias, but because it's intuitive: many would just call the name Ahmad "Arabic" and Mario "Italian" if not asked for more context.
• Yes to mentioning that the Greek Iēsoûs is also used to render Yehoshua, and we should add: in the Septuagint (source: Stegemann 2006).
• No to leaving out the mention that Yēšuaʿ is a shortened form of Yehoshua, thus obscuring the Hebrew origin of the name.

Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 21:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I am very, very happy that we've got an Aramaic citation. Just a minor wording thing: יֵשׁוּעַ Yēšûaʿ means 'God saves'; יְהוֹשׁוּעַ Yəhôšûaʿ means 'God is salvation'. We should make sure not to say that the latter means 'God [or Yah, or however we want to characterise that reference to God] saves'. It's not just elision. (BDB if you want a reference.) And the 'u' in both should have a macron! Pathawi (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@Pathawi: care to formulate your own edit proposal (you can start from a copy of one of the proposals above)? You seem to have the best linguistic expertise here, so that would probable be helpful. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 22:14, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I was making a cowardly attempt to avoid expressing a preference for one of the two proposals. Here goes:

Lead: Jesus (Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs; earlier likely יֵשׁוּעַ Yēšûaʿ), c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ…

Main body: The English name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iēsūs, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs. The Greek form is probably a rendering of the name יֵשׁוּעַ Yēšûaʿ meaning "Yah saves," which appears in Hebrew and Aramaic portions of the Ketuvim. This in turn is a post-Exilic variant of the earlier Hebrew: יְהוֹשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yəhôšûaʿ, usually represented in English as "Joshua", which means "Yah is salvation." In the Septuagint, Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs is used to represent both of these names.

Could someone grab a print copy of Strong's to insert the appropriate citation? These Bible study Websites just mash all the reference sources together & it's hard to tell what's what. Pathawi (talk) 02:11, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks great content-wise, but apart from some copy-editing, it needs some changes in order to make it more accessible to lay readers:

• You apparently chose to avoid controversy by neither calling Yēšûaʿ Hebrew nor Aramaic, but that's not really a good option, since lay readers haven't got any idea what language is represented by these strange letters, and need to be informed about that.
• Most readers won't be familiar with the term Ketuvim, but they will understand later books of the Old Testament (some versions of which, incidentally, also contains Greek portions, like Wisdom of Solomon), which fulfills the same purpose here.
• Likewise, the term post-Exilic is jargon and should be avoided where possible. I suggest This in turn is a shorter variant of the earlier.
• Septuagint might perhaps be glossed as (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, c. 300 – 100 BC)?

You may also want to add the source for the last sentence, like so: I agree that it would be better to cite a print copy of both works by Strong, but unfortunately I have got none in my possession. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 05:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

References

I am not going to argue for my wording, but I will explain it here:

• I did choose to avoid the present controversy. This is because… Well, I have this sugar bowl. You can tell it's a sugar bowl because it matches the rest of the tea set it comes from. But I don't keep my sugar in a fricking bowl: I keep it in a jar. I use the "sugar bowl" for soup. So for me it's a soup bowl. In origin & design, it's a sugar bowl. In my use, it's a soup bowl. So in describing it, which is the correct term to use first?
• Many Jewish people quite understandably object to the description of their scripture as the Old Testament. My usual practice is to refer to this collection of books as the Hebrew Bible, but given that Hebrew versus Aramaic is at question here, I opted once again for cowardice. As a Muslim, I don't have a dog in this fight because: 1) the books in question are neither the Tawrāh nor the 'injīl nor the Zabūr; &, 2) because maybe we're not supposed to have dogs in the first place. It seems to me that if people want to know the "original" name of Jesus beyond the identification in the lead ¶, it's actually not asking that much of them to become familiar with the terms Ketuvim & Septuagint & to be familiar with the Babylonian Exile. These are terms which many lay people in the relevant faith traditions know, & this is a section of the article in which we're digging into philological issues a little. Perhaps 'the latest books of the Jewish Bible' for Ketuvim?

I'm not actually sure what the Strong's citation is supposed to support. Tiamut proposed using it, but didn't say specifically for what. Apaugasma understood it as support for the identification of ישׁוע as an Aramaic name. I don't have a print copy of Strong's. The page in question doesn't actually say anything about the name being Aramaic. I was trying to follow the citational conversation, but wasn't sure where to put that citation or what it was meant to support.

Totally fine with the citation for the final sentence.

Now I'm going to go cut my fingernails with a toenail clipper, & not think about what to call it. Pathawi (talk) 06:35, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

This is the cite that say Yeshua is Aramaic [4]. Note too the previous entry in Strong's says it is also Hebrew. Tiamut^talk 07:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Addendum: As much as I don't care whether we say 'Hebrew' or 'Aramaic' first, I care very much that we Romanise יְהוֹשׁוּעַ as either Yəhôšûaʿ or Yəhōšūaʿ & יֵשׁוּעַ as either Yēšûaʿ or Yēšūaʿ. Placing those here so that they can get incorporated into future drafts. The choice of versions with circumflexes or macrons isn't important to me, but we should probably be consistent. The circumflex means that there's a māter lēctiōnis; the theoretical pronunciation of ‹ū› versus ‹û› is not different (both /uː/). Pathawi (talk) 06:44, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I think Pathawi's wording is good too (though I would include Aramaic/Hebrew, and in that order, alphabetically, because the name Yeshua is both). One of the earlier quotations I brought up on this page notes that this is an ancient Semitic formulation, not exclusive to Hebrew, which is why I resisted describing it as a direct derivation from Yehoshua ... I think the scholarship shows it could have another Semitic origin. Nishidani's point above about systemic bias on favor of Hebrew is relevant. Tiamut^talk 07:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I would also suggest adding the example of Hadad Yith'i as an ancient Semitic example, this one rooted in Aramaic, of this 'x is my salvation' formulation. Its not original research, as the source cited in the Hadad Yith'i article makes the connection to Jesus & Joshua itself. Tiamut^talk 08:52, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I too commend Pathawi's lead compromise, though like Tiamat I think Aramaic/Hebrew (in that order) is correct, covers all bases, and that adding the gloss is pertinent.Nishidani (talk) 09:11, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@Pathawi:: I don't think your sugar bowl/soup bowl analogy is entirely applicable, but as far as it goes, I would say this: to those who idiosyncratically use the bowl to eat soup, it would of course make sense to call it a soup bowl, but to any uninvolved outside observer (the great majority), it would clearly and undoubtedly be a sugar bowl. Now if you as an idiosyncratic user would be asked to neutrally present the item to an outside observer (which is what we do here on WP), wouldn't you agree that it would be much less awkward to say that it's a sugar bowl that you happen to use to eat soup in, than to say that it's a soup bowl that is actually a sugar bowl but that you call a soup bowl because you happen to eat soup in it? Something similar seems to be happening here: the great majority of sources call the name Yēšûaʿ "Hebrew" without further ado, but there are some editors here who for some reason attach much importance to Jesus' Aramaic background, and are prepared to idiosyncratically describe his Hebrew name primarily as "Aramaic". To justify this, they invoke Wikipedia:Systemic bias, but that essay is about bias among editors, not about bias among scholars. So even if the majority of scholars would call the name "Hebrew" out of some form of systemic bias in scholarship (which in itself certainly exists!), I would go so far as to say that Wikipedia must reflect that bias. That is because the moment we give up WP:NPOV and start to decide for ourselves which sources are biased and which are not, we will be giving free reign to our own biases, which are much, much worse. And that is in fact what is happening all too often already: only on Wikipedia do you get that completely undue focus on ethnicity, and these strange prioritizations such as the "Aramaic/Hebrew:" proposed here (also leading to such things as the use of Ketuvim where Hebrew Bible is indeed the standard scholarly term). Anyways, it's still better to describe a sugar bowl used to eat soup in as a "soup bowl/sugar bowl" than to entirely leave out the mention that there's any kind of bowl at all, so if you don't agree with my reasoning, let's have "Aramaic/Hebrew:" in the lead. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 20:14, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@Apaugasma: The truth is that I actually don't own any bowls. (This is oddly true at the moment.) Let me break this into a couple of numbers to make the conversation easier:

1. With regard to the names, what I care about is that the claims we make can be substantiated by reliable sources & that the textual representations are linguistically legit. I can't get excited about whether we say 'Aramaic/Hebrew' or 'Hebrew/Aramaic'. To break out of my imperfect bowl analogy: If I get to know an American woman in Chinese class, & at first I only know her by an assumed Chinese name, then later she tells me that her name is 'Mary', it seems to me that both of the following sentences would be true: 'Mary finally told me her English name.' 'Oh, Mary is a Hebrew name.' On the other hand, it seems to me that it would be perverse to say that Mary doesn't have an English name because her name is Hebrew. So with regard to how we choose to identify Mary's name, it seems to me that the core question is: What are we identifying it for? It seems to me obvious that Jesus' name was Hebrew etymologically: The roots involved are not a productive set in the Aramaic of the era. It was also an Aramaic name, insofar as it was a normal name for an Aramaic-speaking person to have (&, in fact, enters documented history at the time when Aramaic was displacing Hebrew). I think it's possible that readers will take 'Aramaic/Hebrew' & 'Hebrew/Aramaic' differently, but I can't predict how. I've been avoiding weighing in on this not because I think that any of the parties who do care are right or wrong, but because I don't have an opinion. If the Romanisation is correct & the claims are substantiated, I'm satisfied. This attitude is not prescriptive: You are welcome to demand more of life.
2. You, Tiamut, Nishidani, & I are not the only people who have participated in this conversation so far, but we're the only ones who have been discussing the order of languages named. There's no need to rush. This is a high-profile article & one that attracts controversy. I think it would be best to allow some time for other editors to weigh in. Moving quickly on controversial issues—& this appears to be one—doesn't tend to lead to satisfactory results.
3. Ketuvim… Yes, you're right. (I still think it's reasonable to expect readers to know the Babylonian Exile & the Septuagint within the context of a philology section.) Pathawi (talk) 21:21, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Pathawi, it's fairly predictable to me that describing Yēšûaʿ as Aramaic/Hebrew will mislead at least some general readers into thinking that it's an originally Aramaic name which is also Hebrew in some unspecified way. There's just no reason at all to turn the logical (in terms of linguistic derivation) and chronological order on its head here, except if the aim is to misinform readers in order to push Jesus' 'Aramaicness', or to downplay his 'Hebrewness'. If your suggestion is that this thread has just started, and that we will just have to wait out the POV-pushers for days if not weeks to see who tires first from this senseless tug of war, I'll tell you upfront that I will not be participating in this. I like contributing to Wikipedia, but I'm not by far tolerant enough of chauvinistically inspired non-arguments to engage with them for much longer. Let's just put in "Aramaic/Hebrew:" and be done with it. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 23:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not saying: 'Let's wait for one side to get tired.' I am saying: 'Let's wait for other interested parties to weigh in.'

Just a little more on the order of elements in the name: When I read 'x/y', I think I tend to ascribe equal importance to the elements on either side of the stroke. I think I would not read 'Aramaic/Hebrew' as 'basically Aramaic but also Hebrew in some vague way'. I think I would read these two languages as having equivalent value… 'in some vague way'. It's not obvious to me what criterion should govern the order: etymology (Hebrew first), alphabetical order (Aramaic), number of sources (Hebrew), contemporary use (Aramaic). I am bothered by the efforts below to de-Hebraise the name, & am pushing back against those insofar as they are not reflective of the scholarship. But it's not clear to me that the ordering achieves that de-Hebraising end. That's why I'm not particularly excited about the matter of order.

In any case, my honest opinion is that with this discussion still very much alive, there's no reason to consider any portion of it settled until more people have weighed in. I don't think we're close to a resolution, & I think too few of us have been heard from. Pathawi (talk) 07:22, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Looking at Pathawi's proposal again, I actually find it problematic. The linguistic consensus today is that the Hebrew y-s-' has its roots in proto-Semitic y-th-', as per my edit to Jesus (name):

"Likely originating in proto-Semitic (yṯ'), it appears in several Semitic personal names outside of Hebrew, like in the Aramaic name Hadad Yith'i, meaning "Hadad is my salvation". Its oldest recorded use is in an Amorite personal name from 2048 B.C.

The problem here in my view, is the privileging of a biblical archaeology approach to etymology over a Semitic linguistics one. The passages being proposed ignore archaological epipgraphs and inscriptions and the scholarship surrounding those, in favour of biblical texts as linguistic historicity. Maybe "Aramaic/Hebrew" should even read simply "Semitic". But definitely the sentence of "Yeshua" being a post-exilic derivation of Joshua reads wrong to me. The sources don't know that in light of the same Semitic formulation, based on the same root, having such antiquity and widespread use. Tiamut^talk 20:57, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I think you've made some leaps of reasoning. What's argued by Aitken & Davies is that the second element in the name ישׁוע goes back to other, pre-Biblical names in other Semitic. This entry actually never addresses the name ישׁוע as such. This doesn't crack the argument that ישׁוע is in its origin (whatever you want to describe it as in the first century CE) a Hebrew name. Pathawi (talk) 21:36, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I have made no leaps. The Aitken & Davies source is not about Hadad Yith'i alone. He is only one example mentioned in their lexical breakdown of the root ישע, which is to root of both Jesus (ישוע) and Joshua. This Semitic root is then traced back by the same authors to the proto-Semitic yt'. "The Proto-Semitic root *yṯ' now seems to lie behind Hebrew [ישָׁע], being attested in proper names in NWSem and most of the ESA languages. The Ug evidence attests to the second consonant being ṯ (Sawyer 1975:78). This new evidence counters some earlier interpretations based on Arb (see B.1). The main arguments outlined by Sawyer (1975) are the evidence of proper names in NW Sem (A.3, A.4, B.3), the collocation of yṯ' terms with deities’ names (as with ישׁע; see A.1, 3, 5, 7-10; also Syntagmatics A.1), chronological evidence (see A.5, 7-10) and phonological equivalence (B.1). Earlier KB (412, along with wasiʿa), Huffmon (1965: 215) and Stolz (1971: 786, citing Sawyer 1965:475-76, 485) had supported this view; and at the conference where Sawyer originally presented his paper T.L. Fenton and H.W.F. Saggs had indicated their strong agreement with it (Sawyer 1975: 83-84). Significantly this view was adopted in the latest Hebrew lexicon to incorporate philological data (Ges18: 510 [1995])." (Aitken & Davies, 2016)" Note that rhis isn't a novel or contested view in Semitic linguistics, as indicated by the last sentence in that quote. Tiamut^talk 05:30, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

But you have indeed made a leap: Aitken & Davies do not make the claim for "Jesus"/"Joshua" that you're putting forward. (They in fact don't specifically mention those names in this article, except the latter as the title of the Biblical book.) You are drawing the conclusion from their work—which makes this at a minimum original research—& I think your logic is missing a step: The name ישוע in all mainstream work is analysed as being comprised of two components: The second is possibly a development of the Proto-Semitic root *yṯʕ that this article addresses.* The first is the name יָהּ Yāh—a shortening of יהוה YHWH. Here is my key point: The fact that one of the two components predates Biblical Hebrew does not mean that the collocation of the two predates Hebrew.‡ This article does not mention that collocation. What you can reasonably infer from it (& this is an inference, tho not a huge leap) is a statement along the lines of: 'The Hebrew name ישוע follows an older Semitic pattern.' But that name itself is not shown by this to be pre-Hebrew, nor do Aitken & Davies claim that it is. If we accept that YHWH was worshipped by other Semitic peoples, it's unlikely that the specific name has a pre-Hebrew origin.

But there's more: In section A.1, Aitken & Davies mention names that have the element שׁוע, of which this is one, & they direct the reader to three different document—not this article. You can find those here:

1. שׁוּע http://www.sahd.div.ed.ac.uk/_media/lexeme:pdf:mnn-sua%CA%BF-aitken_davies-cam-2016.pdf
2. שׁוֹע http://www.sahd.div.ed.ac.uk/_media/lexeme:pdf:mnl-soa%CA%BF-davies-cam-2016.pdf
3. תשׁועה http://www.sahd.div.ed.ac.uk/_media/lexeme:pdf:nyo-tesu%CA%BFah-aitken-cam-2000.pdf

The first of these refers us (A.1) to the second for the etymology of proper names. The second is by Davies alone. Fascinatingly, Davies breaks with tradition, & says that he thinks the שׁוע that appears in theophorous names—including explicitly יהושׁוע—is not derived from the verb ישׁע, & possibly not related! If you want to follow Aitken & Davies' scholarship, the explicit claim that they are making is that the name יהושׁוע is not related in form to the name hdysʕy (Hadad-yith'i), or to the other names mentioned in the article you're drawing from. Pathawi (talk) 06:48, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

*I'm a little surprised by their identifying this root as Proto-Semitic. They identify it for Northwest Semitic & Old South Arabian, but not for other branches.

†"Probably" because we're dealing with a proto-language.

‡In fact, what I'm saying would hold even if both components pre-dated Biblical Hebrew.

Aitkens & Davies do not make the link to Jesus explicit, but Millard & Boudreuil do, as I noted in the article on Hadad Yith'i by excerpting the relevant text: "The second part of the name is a derivation of an ancient Semitic root meaning "to save", so that the translation of the full name into English is "Hadad is my salvation"." So this is not my original research (though I am flattered that you think it could be :). Tiamut^talk 10:17, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't change anything, though: What Millard & Bordreuil are doing is showing that that portion of the name has an early Aramaic cognate. They note that the element י–שׁ–ע appears in יהושׁוע. They are not saying that יהושׁוע is a pre-Hebrew or pre-Biblical name. We should expect that many (most?) elements of most Hebrew or Aramaic names would be eventually traceable to Proto-Semitic elements. We might hope (I do) that these elements would eventually be traceable to Proto-Afro-Asiatic elements. This doesn't make these composite names simply 'Semitic' or 'Afro-Asiatic', & that's not somethign that Millard & Bordreuil or Aitkens & Davies claim. The step from 'Here is a Proto-Semitic root' to 'This name as a whole predates the Hebrew Bible' is what I'm identifying as original research. Pathawi (talk) 10:29, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Pathawi, Jesus isn't derived from Joshua. Linguistically speaking it makes no sense. The "Yah saves" translation is of the name Joshua יהושוע, where there is "yah" spelled out in the first two letters. Jesus' name does not have 'יה' in it. It is a derivation of the root ישע. This same root is probably the basis for Joshua's name but might not be. It is certainly the root for Jesus' name. Tiamut^talk 10:40, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

You could be right. I disagree with you, but I'd want to be a better Semiticist than I am to stake a claim strongly. The problem is that a great wealth of sources identify the name Jesus as a derivative form of the name that equates to Joshua. You haven't yet put forward a source that says something different. What you've shown is that one of the components in the name can reasonably be considered to have Proto-Semitic origins, but that should be expected. For me, the core problem isn't the argument that you're making—tho there are portions of it I have & do disagree with—it's that the argument you're making doesn't appear in the sources, & is thus original research. Millard & Bordreuil & Aitkens & Davies don't in any way claim Jesus ≠ Joshua. They don't say these names aren't Hebrew. Pathawi (talk) 10:49, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not arguing the names are not Hebrew. And sources claiming Jesus is derived from Joshua are not reliable linguistic sources, because that is not how Semitic roots work. The most one can say is that they etymologically related. The Semitic root of Jesus' name is  y-š-ʕ (Hebrew: ישע‎), meaning "to deliver; to rescue." And its an ancient root, probably originally meaning "wide/spacious", a meaning still preserved in the arabic word واسع (was') [5]. We also have sources from above, including fromStrong's Concordance that say Jesus' name is both Aramaic & Hebrew. And I might also mention that the more commonly used form for Jesus' name is Hebrew is ישו and not ישוע, dropping the ayn and changing the meaning. ישוע is used for other Old Testament characters in Hebrew but not as commonly for Jesus. Tiamut^talk 11:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Formatted refs to add for the Greek and Aramaic forms

• "2424. Iéosus, Strong's Concordance: Greek". Bible Hub.
• "3443. Yeshua, Strong's Concordance: Hebrew". Bible Hub.

Tiamut^talk 14:20, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Here is an addition I just made to Jesus (name) with info on the proto-Semitic root, and think some allusion to this here too would be good, as its a very ancient root/formulation echoed in several other Syro-Palestinian religious traditions. Tiamut^talk 14:54, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello. This conversation has gotten very long. I really want to hear from other editors. I think that the length of this conversation may be a barrier to entry. Does anyone object to my posting the following summary, & collapsing the above conversation? (People could still click the 'show' link to be able to read all of the conversation that's gone before.)

On 30 April, Aidani123 proposed including the "original" form of Jesus' name in the first sentence of the lead paragraph. Editors who have contributed to the conversation thus far have generally achieved consensus that this should be done, & that the parenthetical addition should include Greek Ἰησους (as the language from which the name entered English) and the name ישׁוע from which the Greek name is derived. The possibility of including the Qur'ānic Arabic name عيسى was discussed but rejected on the grounds that the purpose of the parenthetical addition is not representation but origin.

There remains some dispute about how to characterise the name ישׁוע. Some editors prefer 'Hebrew/Aramaic' on etymological grounds: The name in this form originates in Hebrew, & was later adopted by Aramaic. Some editors prefer 'Aramaic/Hebrew' on historical grounds: Jesus is presumed to have spoken Aramaic, while Hebrew at the time would have already been principally a liturgical language. One editor proposes 'Semitic' on the grounds of its similarity to other names in other Semitic languages.

The following may be taken as a draft starting point for discussion:

Lead: Jesus (Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs; HOW TO CHARACTERISE? יֵשׁוּעַ Yēšûaʿ), c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ…

Main body: The English name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iēsūs, a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs. The Greek form is probably a rendering of the name יֵשׁוּעַ Yēšûaʿ meaning "Yah saves," which appears in Hebrew and Aramaic portions of the Hebrew Bible. This in turn is a post-Exilic variant of the earlier Hebrew: יְהוֹשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yəhôšûaʿ, usually represented in English as "Joshua", which means "Yah is salvation." In the Septuagint—a Greek Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible—Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs is used to represent both of these names.

The name in this form originates in Hebrew,

The name is semitic. Of course if you add in this form then the premise establishes that its origin is Hebrew/Aramaic, not Hebrew. So again, the dice are cogged to privilege one textual possibility over another.

& was later adopted by Aramaic

Where is the evidence for this adoption into Aramaic of a specific northwestern Semitic name in Hebrew? Were those parts of the Tanakh where the longer form of his name emerges written before the parallel and much wider diffusion of old Aramaic?

appears in Hebrew and Aramaic portions of the Hebrew Bible.

So there is textual evidence for Yehoshua in the specifically Aramaic portions of Daniel and Ezra?

In short, I think we were close to a solution but this tweaking appears to me to raise more problems than it resolves, problems that emerge by insisting on a closeting of Hebrew for priority from a world where there was great fluidity of a kind later orthodox redactions and histories felt uncomfortable with.Nishidani (talk) 09:44, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the summary Nishidani. I would note that this is precisely the problem I have with the proposed texts which assume as fact that Jesus is derived from the earlier Hebrew Joshua, when there is lots of scholarship on the preponderance of names formed from the same root that are much older and span all Semitic languages. That is why is the version I proposed above, I thought it best to stick to a description of the cognates without specifying derivation from where exactly. I have to say it is also very irritating to be talked about (rather than to) by other editors in this discussion, as though my edit suggestions are aimed at erasing Hebrew ( which isn't the case actually, and seems like a prejudiced assumption being made on the basis on my background). Tiamut^talk¥ Tiamut^talk 10:23, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Tiamut, I'm sorry about talking about you rather than to you. It was in the back of my mind, but I didn't see a way to avoid it. Now perhaps I am prejudiced, but I just can't explain the arbitrary reversal of Hebrew and Aramaic, and your lack of a serious reply to my arguments about that, in any other way. Maas 1913, Robinson 2005, Stegemann 2006, Sumner 2019, they're all saying that the Greek Iēsoûs probably renders the Hebrew Yēšûaʿ, which according to them in turn derives from the earlier Hebrew form Yəhôšûaʿ. None of them even mentions the fact that since Aramaic-speaking Jews such as Jesus of Nazareth also carried the name, it was an Aramaic name too, which clearly is incidental. All you're offering in turn is a vague and unfounded application of systemic bias, alphabetical order, and some very interesting but clearly original research. But what we need are good secondary and tertiary sources. Nishidani (EDIT: Pathawi) did a very neat job of summarizing the previous discussion, except for that one crucial thing: I do indeed also prefer Hebrew/Aramaic on etymological grounds, but I prefer it first and foremost because sources widely describe the name merely as "Hebrew". In fact, it's not just I who prefer it, it's Wikipedia and its WP:NPOV policy. We need to follow the POV of the sources, even if we disagree with it, and –crucially– even when we know it is wrong. I know for a fact that on many points in my particular field, Wikipedia is completely and utterly wrong. Yet I leave these things be, because I know I don't have the sources to correct them. To do that, I will first have to get my own relevant research published, so I'm also not going to bother other editors with my theories. Here, we follow sources. I hope you can appreciate the wisdom in that. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 12:33, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you addressing me directly. We have two high quality sources that say Jesus is both an Aramaic and Hebrew name (one provided by Pathawi & the other by me from Strong's Concordance). I reviewed the four sources you cited as examples representing a consensus (that I do not believe exists) that Jesus is etymologically derived from Joshua:

• Paul Sumner has a MA in Old testament studies, is not a professor or serious scholar of linguistics & has some religious axe to grind readily apparent in his writings ... I don't think he qualifies as a wp:rs
• Maas doesn't say anything beyond what i did in my proposed edit in response to your own; which is that the Greek Iesous was used to transcribe both Jesus and Joshua. it does not imply a derivation of one from the other.
• I cannot access what Robinson and Sumner say. Could you provide the relevant text for review? Tiamut^talk 13:50, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I was already suspecting Sumner 2019 would be a bad source (I just found him already cited in the article), but here are the other three:

• Maas 1913: The word Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek Iesous, which in turn is the transliteration of the Hebrew Jeshua, or Joshua, or again Jehoshua, meaning "Jehovah is salvation."

• Robinson 2005: The English form “Jesus” is derived from the Latin Iesus which in turn is based on the Greek Iēsous. It is generally held, however, that because Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, his original name must have been Hebrew and that the Greek Iēsous represents the Hebrew Yēshūaʿ which is an abbreviated form of Yəhōshūaʿ (or Yəhōshuaʿ). The original meaning of Yəhōshūaʿ was “Yahweh helps” but it was popularly understood to mean, “Yahweh saves.” [...] The grounds for thinking that Jesus' original name was Yeshuaʿ are: 1) The Hebrew scriptures mention several people called Yəhōshūaʿ, Yəhōshuaʿ or Yēshūaʿ, including Moses' successor Joshua son of Nūn whose name is spelled in all three ways. In the Septuagint, these names are almost invariably rendered as Iēsous (Brown et al., Hebrew and English lexicon, 221). 2) By the first century, only the short form Yēshūaʿ was in use. 3) The New Testament refers to Moses' successor, Joshua, in Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8, and in both instances it gives his name in Greek as Iēsous. 4) According to Matthew 1:21, an angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary would have a son, and added “Thou shalt call his name Jesus for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.” As there is no play-on-words in the Greek, Matthew's readers were presumably familiar with the original Hebrew name and its etymology. Western scholars, because of their conviction that Jesus' authentic Hebrew name is Yēshūaʿ, have been puzzled by the Qurʾān's reference to him as ʿĪsā. [...]. (there's much more here about the etymological speculations surrounding ʿĪsā that you will find very interesting from a linguistic perspective, but which is too long and not relevant enough to justify copy-pasting here under fair use)

• Stegemann 2006: The Greek name Ἰησοῦς/Iēsoûs is, in the LXX, a rendition of the Hebrew Yəhōšuaʿ (‘JHWH helps’) as well as of the later form Yēšuaʿ and was, until the 2nd cent. AD, common among Jews.; perhaps also relevant: Aramaic was the colloquial language in Galilaea at the time of J.; Hebrew was the holy language or the language of the religious doctrine, hence it can be assumed that J. had knowledge of Hebrew. Knowledge of Greek is improbable. Hebrew and knowledge of the Bible and of religious traditions were probably taught to Jesus by his father, like to so many other children (or maybe in school); [...].

• For contrast, here is Ehrman 2012: It [sc. Jesus] is the Greek name for the Aramaic Yeshua, Hebrew Joshua. It is found in the Greek Old Testament, for example, long before the Gospel writers lived and is a common name in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus.

I think's it quite clear that the first three sources (all top-quality encyclopedias) are not representing their own researched views, but rather a certain scholarly consensus that Yēshūaʿ is originally a Hebrew name (all three), and that it is a shortened and later form of Yəhōshūaʿ (Robinson 2005 saying that it's an abbreviated form and that by the first century, only the short form Yēshūaʿ was in use & Stegemann 2006 calling it the later form). Ehrman 2012 provides evidence that scholars also consider it to be an Aramaic name (though it is very much mentioned in the passing here). I can see how without access to Robinson 2005 and Stegeman 2006 this would have been difficult to determine, but now it should be pretty clear that this is the general view. Unless you can show us how and by whom that view has since been overturned, it is what we should represent in the article. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 18:06, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The name is semitic. Of course if you add in this form then the premise establishes that its origin is Hebrew/Aramaic, not Hebrew. I don't understand this sentence. Can you clarify what you mean? The form יֵשׁוּעַ is presumed to be Hebrew in origin by the mainstream theory that sees the second component as deriving from י–שׁ–ע, as this root is productive in Hebrew & otherwise absent from Aramaic. The research by Aitken & Davies that Tiamut has pointed to rejects the י–שׁ–ע root, & instead connects the similar theophorous names in Hebrew to a nominal שוֹע, which is an independent noun present elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. It is potentially found in two Phoenician names. It does not appear in Aramaic aside from in the names that Aramaic shares with Biblical Hebrew. But the main point for Wikipedia is that we should draw on secondary sources. The very great majority of sources that we've been able to identify thus far identify the name solely as Hebrew. (They don't deny it as Aramaic: They just don't mention Aramaic.) Jastrow's Aramaic dictionary explicitly identifies it as a borrowing from Hebrew. Brown-Driver-Briggs identifies it explicitly as a borrowing from Hebrew. Our job as Wikipedia editors is to go by the sources in good faith. I see no source that proposes an independent development in Aramaic. I see two major mainstream lexical sources that explicitly identify the Aramaic name as a borrowing.

Where is the evidence for this adoption into Aramaic… More importantly for Wikipedia, where are the sources. See the previous ¶.

Were those parts of the Tanakh where the longer form of his name emerges written before the parallel and much wider diffusion of old Aramaic? Oh, I'm not a Biblical historian. Joshua first appears in Exodus, right? If we take the source listed for the Exodus Wikipedia article (Mark McEntire, Struggling with God) as authoritative, the date of composition was between 600 & 400 BCE. It was, then, likely drafted during the Exile, which means that it was written in a context in which the imperial language was Aramaic. But there's no evidence of Aramaic within Exodus. But again, more importantly for our purposes: Is there any source that posits that the name יהושׁוע had anything other than a Hebrew origin? I have seen nothing.

So there is textual evidence for Yehoshua in the specifically Aramaic portions of Daniel and Ezra? No. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you or failing to follow your implication, but I think you misread what I wrote.

In short, I think we were close to a solution but this tweaking appears to me to raise more problems than it resolves, problems that emerge by insisting on a closeting of Hebrew for priority from a world where there was great fluidity of a kind later orthodox redactions and histories felt uncomfortable with. I'm trying to summarise two positions succinctly to make it easier for other editors to enter this conversation without reading, at this point, over 9,000 words of conversation. There's a distinction between disagreeing with the arguments & disagreeing with the characterisations of the arguments. Could you propose another characterisation? Pathawi (talk) 10:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Pathawi: yes, summarizing and collapsing the previous discussion is a great idea. You might want to add that most sources we've seen so far talk about the name Yēšûaʿ (better use the transliteration, since not everyone reads Hebrew letters) as Hebrew only, though we've found some sources for its adoption in Aramaic. I would also like to make sure that Tiamut has seen my reply above before we collapse. Thank you for the great work you're doing here, Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 13:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

In fact, I think the best thing to do would be to start the summary in a new section, because this one is so long that the spell checker is refusing to process it. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 18:10, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

No need to collapse anything here yet. As the only pagan here, just let me clarify. I approach these things in terms of anthropological history or historical anthropology, and the difficulties of reconstructing historical matters in antiquity when (a) we are given a mastertext whose voluminousness trumps the scanty remains of cultures that coexisted in parallel, and (b) esp. when the mastertext has exercised an extraordinary powerful, one might say, 'hegemonic' influence over scholarship and our civilization(s) down to recent times, and (c) is known to have undergone successive recensions to elide the cultic and cultural diversity of Palestine (just as we find in Greek foundational texts). The premise is to tow so much that defies our immediate understanding by towing matters invariably to whatever evidence in the master text which might appear to throw suggestive light on the crux we have, i.e. always to refer back to Hebrew usage in the Tanakh, (but I could adduce examples from Homer in Greek or early Chinese classics), a text that represents the doctrinal priorities of a small class (not particularly powerful in the period we are speaking of), with its selective bias, Hebrew (as opposed to the vernaculars, Aramaic and later koiné Greek, which were dominant by Jesus's time). If, as Pathawi argues, there is one source for the contention that his name was borrowed into Aramaic from Hebrew, and is not attested in the former (not surprising, given the scarcity of Aramaic texts for this specific area at that period), it does not in my view warrant asserting this in the lead, but can be noted in the name section. My reserve is one grounded in minimalist methodological skepticism - you all know of the so-called Copenhagen school - but this can be challenged on the grounds of RS as just a principle of historical scruple rather than an argument drawn from pertinent sources. That is why I share, coming from a different perspective, Tiamut's formulation and, if I recall, Pathawi's attempt at compromise. It is easy for us all to second-guess POVs here, but I think the safe way to compromise is by adopting a minimalist formulation, where, I believe, agreement is solid, rather than complicate matters.Nishidani (talk) 12:54, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

As I already asked Tiamut elsewhere, please put off your scholarly hat and put on your Wikipedian hat. It does not matter here that you are pagan, that you take an anthropological approach, or that you proscribe to the Copenhagen school. What matters here is reliable secondary sources. These sources are saying that Iēsous is derived from the Biblical Hebrew name Yēšūaʿ, in itself an abbreviated form of Yəhōšūaʿ, consisting of the short form of the tetragrammaton Yah + the Hebrew biform of the root y-š-ʿ, šūaʿ. It's Hebrew. Some sources also call it Aramaic, quite obviously because it was in use by Aramaean Jews. Again, it does not matter at all here that you or Tiamut don't like this Biblical derivation. Unless you come up with sources at the same level as those already provided, there should not even be any discussion. What you and Tiamut have been doing to this thread is bludgeoning, which is disruptive. It eats away at one of other editors' most valuable resources, time. It is disrespectful. Please stop doing this now. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 18:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

To clarify: I see that in the last bit of your comment you concede that there are no reliable sources for your view, and call for a compromise minimalist formulation instead. But WP:NPOV clearly says that the relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered. If it has no basis in a reliable source, your view is strictly personal and should carry no weight at all: it would be violating core content policy to compromise between the view of reliable sources and the purely personal views held by editors. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 19:28, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I am very disappointed in you characterizing my contributions here as "bludgeoning" and "disruptive". I provided sources from Strong's Concordance about Jesus being an Aramaic name, and axknowledged it is Hebrew too. It seems that if you don't get exactly what you propose accepted immediately you become uncollegiate. Or perhaps your apparent prejudice against me from the beginning is at work. Whatever the case, I am done with this discussion. Go ahead and do whatever you like. Tiamut^talk 06:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

As noted below by Gråbergs Gråa Sång, anxieties about the length of this discussion reflect unfamiliarity with seriously complex discussions in several areas of Wikipedia. I don't know what people's reading habits are, but one can read a 10,000 word thread closely in a half hour. None of this tedious niggling over the lead name is reflected in other wikipedias: German , French and Spanish make no mention of the Hebrew/Aramaic dispute, while the Italian page's lead just states that he had an Aramaic name; The Russian wiki just glosses the Greek with the name in Old Church Slavonic. Numerous non-Anglophone wiki editors from Christian countries don't see that necessity. Pressing to hat or close the discussion reads as if you, Apaugasma, want to ram home the conclusion you desire. It is obvious that the name of Jesus reflects Hebrew usage. It is also obvious that in Aramaic, the language he spoke in daily life, it had a cognate form, that differs slightly. The only reason to elide the Aramaic or give preference in the order to Hebrew is to assert the cultural priority of the Tanakh version of that cultural world.

Sorry to have to state the obvious, but of all contributors your tone has been consistently hostile. On Wikipedia, consensus forming has its rules, systemic bias is part of WP:NPOV. Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is the only one that has, at its doctrinal heart, an acceptance of the two earlier confessions -for so long absurdly bitter enemies -, and it does not surprise me that Pathawi is the one here who has striven for a reasonable compromise between the parties, though I still do not understand, given his importance in the Qur'an, why the Syriac and Arabic versions of his name should be excluded. A large community of Syriac and Arabic-speaking and praying Christians has existed from very early times. As to the philology, Tiamut has made arguments you ignore. I entered to mediate and, compared to others have kept my remarks general and short (comparatively). In linguistic terms, my own curiosity has been about why (a) several Talmudic sources hostile to, apparently, Jesus speak of Yeshu – the Aramaic form - and (b) why does the Greek name attested end with sigma (ς Ἰησοῦς), when Greek would have had no problems transliterating 'ûa,'(cp. Heb:Pû’āh/Φουὰ) were that how he was called. The closest extra-testamental (not epigraphic) contemporary witness to usage in Palestine is Josephus. This is the crux his works evince:

I.e. the Jewish contemporary of the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, some of them relatives of Jesus (his brother James) used Ἰησοῦς to refer to three distinct Hebrew names, none of them Yēshūa, Yehōshūa or Yehōshua :-

• Yišwî at I Samuel 14:49 (Septuagint = Ἰεσσιοὺλ) Josephus = Ἰησοῦς
• Ăḇîšūa‘ at I Chronicles 6:4 (Septuagint = Ἀβεισού) Josephus = Ἰησοῦς
• Yišwāh at Genesis 46:17 (Septuagint =Ἰεσσαὶ) Josephus = Ἰησοῦς (Neal Robinson, ‘Jesus,’ Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, vol.3 (J-O) Brill 2003 pp.7-20 p.9)

This is what has perplexed me, since, in my nescience, I have never come across an explanation for the dissonance, and that only makes me wonder why, in a somewhat insouciant approach, texts written 5/4 centuries before Jesus's lifetime must elucidate the area-specific cultural norms in his Aramaic vernacular world by positing the priority of the liturgical Hebrew he no doubt was acquainted with as a Jewish student. The above is a clarification of my views, and can be disregarded. As long as Tiamut's points are addressed in the solution Pathawi has suggested, I have no personal objections.Nishidani (talk) 12:32, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I didn’t want to descend into these details: Pathawi has suffered enough, and he may ignore them. My point was simply that when you have issues of this complexity, you strive to simplify so that NPOV is observed.Nishidani (talk) 12:32, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: this is, for the most part, more of the same original researched, unverifiable, personal POV. However, that last bit where you pointed to al-Assiouty 1987's arguments as presented by Robinson 2005, was helpful (note, however, that according to Robinson, none of al-Assiouty's arguments is decisive and some of them are unsound). I've incorporated it, though of course only with the weight that it's due (in the context of this article, it is definitely footnote material), in my edit proposal below. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 00:27, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• @Aidani123: How ya doing, friend? What do you think of our discussion about the relatively minor change you requested? Just for the record, this is a relatively mild discussion. I've seen some that would make this look like two editors just stopping by the talk page to say "hi" to each other. Welcome to Wikipedia! ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Meh, you should see us when we get into serious stuff. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:22, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Don't you threaten me with a good time... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

"The absence of a colon introduces an ambiguity." That's just poetic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:41, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm getting it tattood across my shoulder blades next week. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:44, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm in the Sudan, which has a large number of IP addressed rangeblocked from Wikipedia editing. I've been watching this conversation play out for two days in much the way that it did for the four days before that. It is now one week since Aidani123 made a fairly simple request. This subsequent debate has extended to over 10,000 words & has been dominated by Apaugasma, Nishidani, Tiamut, & myself. I am skeptical that this group of four editors can achieve a resolution. I'm actually not entirely sure what we're arguing about, anymore.

I made a proposal above for how to reset the conversation & make it accessible to other editors. Nishidani opposed this. I haven't seen any other proposal for how to move forward. I would like to make two independent proposals:

First: That the four of us back off. If you're too attached to one representation to allow resolution on a simple issue, then you're probably too committed to a particular point of view to be editing a related Wikipedia article. There are thousands of editors. I think it's time for us to tap out. We've all given quite enough support to our perspectives: Others can read these & evaluate.

Second: My understanding is that there are two basic questions:

1. How to characterise the etymology of Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs in the lead sentence;
2. What account to give for the origin of the name in the body of the article.

Lead ¶s should generally follow the content of the article. I propose that editors addressing this issue set question one aside for the moment (even tho that's where Aidani123's request lies), & focus on question two. Obviously, if the four of us step aside, other editors will handle this as they see best, but one way to work on this might be progressively from: 1) the older scholarly consensus (Iēsoûs = Yēšûaʿ = Yəhôšûaʿ; Yēšûaʿ & Yəhôšûaʿ = Yāh + y-š-ʿ); to, 2) more recent published work (Iēsoûs = Yēšûaʿ = Yəhôšûaʿ; Yēšûaʿ & Yəhôšûaʿ = Yāh + šôaʿ); to, 3) any published material on etymological links beyond these names & any published material that is skeptical of these etymologies.

That's all I got. I very strongly encourage other editors to recognise how long it has taken us to make no progress in doing something relatively small (if potentially significant), & direct their efforts for the moment away from arguing for a particular position on the results & instead toward how we might achieve a resolution. If you disagree with this course of action, please don't argue with me. Instead: Pitch another way to move forward. Pathawi (talk) 02:41, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Section break: edit proposal

I'm very sorry, but the editors above have been making this unnecessarily and weirdly complex. In truth, there is not much left to argue nor to discuss. The relevant sources are quoted above, and I've already adequately paraphrased them in an earlier edit proposal. No valid reason has been given, neither source- nor policy based, not to just implement that proposal. I'm pretty sure most editors broadly agree with it, and it's really only the bludgeoning which obscures that. I'm going to copy it once more below, updated with a few elements from Pathawi's proposal. Editors who support it, please just make a short statement that you do. Editors who would oppose it, please only comment if you have a good source to back up your objections. Advice on cosmetic modifications is of course always welcome.

Lead: Jesus (Greek: Ἰησοῦς, romanized: Iēsoûs, likely from Hebrew/Aramaic: יֵשׁוּעַ, romanized: Yēšûaʿ), c. 4 BC – AD 30 / 33, also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ,

Main body: The English name Jesus is derived from the Latin Iesus, itself a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs). The Greek form is probably a rendering of the Hebrew and Aramaic name ישוע (Yēšûaʿ), a shorter variant of the earlier Hebrew name יהושע (Yəhôšûaʿ, English: "Joshua"). The name Yəhôšûaʿ likely means "Yah saves". This was also the name of Moses' successor and of a Jewish high priest in the Hebrew Bible, both of whom are represented in the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) as Iēsoûs.

References

Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 05:04, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support and…: I would support this as is, but I do have one small correction & one suggestion: First, this version identifies the name principally as Hebrew, but uses the arc language code, which is for Imperial Aramaic. Probably should use he instead. Second: I would split the derivation from the meaning to produce two sentences: '…of the earlier Hebrew name יהושע (Yəhôšûaʿ, English: "Joshua"). The name Yəhôšûaʿ likely means "Yah saves."' (I've omitted the refs for ease of reading.) My thinking is that there actually is scholarly discussion on both of these points, & that splitting makes expansion easier. I would like to see this grow to include the (published) scholarly debate on י–שׁ–ע versus שׁוֹעַ, & the various interpretations of the former. But after we get a basic version of this completed. Pathawi (talk) 06:48, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 08:09, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, this is a wonderful proposal that satisfies the edit request without making the lead too difficult to read. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:00, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support The linguistic evidence provided by the Septuagint's translation of the Hebrew name(s) is incontrovertible, in my view. The Greek name existed at least 3 centuries before the messiah appeared, and the Greek Gospels then used that name exclusively for him. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 16:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
  • @Warshy: Not exclusively: in Acts 7:45 and in Hebrews 4:8, the Greek Iēsoûs is also used to refer to Moses' successor (Yəhôšûaʿ/Joshua). It's the combination of this NT use with the use in the Septuagint, as well as the statement in Matthew 1:21 that Jesus was called that way because "it is he who shall save", which makes the evidence particularly strong. This is important, because the Greek Iēsoûs was also used by contemporary authors like Josephus to translate a number of other names, such as Yishwī, Abīshūaʿ, and Yishwah (all of the preceding in Robinson 2005). Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 00:49, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Apaugasma Thank you for adding this very important note to my short summary of reasons. warshy ^(¥¥) 14:37, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• Small update: I've moved footnote no. 2 to the end of the sentence, and added to that note some info on the minority view held by Al-Assiouty, Sarwat Anis (1987). Jésus le non-Juif. Paris: Letouzey & Ané. ISBN 9782706301704. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 00:29, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Oof: Allow me to acknowledge my bias right up front: As a Muslim, I'd really like to see our best foot forward. This is not that. Al-Assiouty's is a fringe account; I worry that in this location, where we're not otherwise giving the Qur'ānic name, it gives the impression of representing Islam. Robinson adduces al-Assiouty with the sole purpose of refuting him, which makes sense in the context of that portion of his article. But my impression is that Robinson chose al-Assiouty solely because of his relative modernity & because he presents a large number of arguments against Yēšûaʿ as ʿīsā's original name—not because of his scholarly significance. As the broader context of Robinson's article shows, this is neither the only nor the most prominent tendency in Islamic scholarship on the origin of the name ʿīsā. Another account in English is Arthur Jeffery's The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'ān, which I think is more representative of the broader tradition. Az-Zamaḵšarī & later al-Bayḍāwī rejected the Arabising account: While many Sunnis are distrustful of az-Zamaḵšarī's Muʿtazilism, his tafsīr is widely recognised as a pinnacle of linguistic analysis; al-Bayḍāwī's is a standard. Sībawayh—the beacon of Arabic grammar—recognised the name as a borrowing from Syriac. These are really central representatives from within the Islamic scholarly tradition, much much more influential than al-Assiouty. In fact, it looks to me like the English-language scholarship has (I think honestly inadvertently) blown up the ʿīsā-as-Arabic-original account. I can get into the details of that if necessary, but maybe I've already gone on too long: I propose dropping this half of the footnote. If the material is considered interesting, let's move it down to the section on Jesus' name & put it in some broader context. Pathawi (talk) 02:20, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
    • Removed it again: I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention a minority view on Jesus' original name (note: not on the origin of ʿĪsā, which is indeed Robinson's focus, but really is a different question altogether) in the footnote, especially if immediately contextualized with a quote from a mainstream scholar who thinks it is based on indecisive and at times unsound arguments. However, it is always difficult to differentiate between what is merely a minority view and what is truly fringe, so I will trust your judgement that in this case, it is the latter. (on a side-note, al-Baydawi's Quran commentary is for the most part an epitome of al-Zamakhshari's, so it's not surprising that they say the same things) Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 03:12, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

There is a minority view that ʿīsā is an original, meaningful Arabic name rather than a borrowing from Hebrew or Syriac. But al-Assiouty is fringe, & represents a very idiosyncratic viewpoint that has been adopted by some Kemetists, but that does not seem to have made any waves in the Muslim world. My best read of what's going on with Robinson's article is that he chooses al-Assiouty because the latter has a more developed argument against the Hebrew/Syriac derivation than can be found elsewhere. A decent citation might be Arthur Jeffery's The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'ān (Leiden: Brill, 2007), p219:

Many Muslim authorities take the word as Arabic and derive it from عيسٌ to be a dingy white, whence عَيَسٌ a reddish whiteness (Lane, sub voc.), or from عَيْسٌ meaning a stallion's urine; so Rāghib, Mufradāt, 359 (cf. LA, viii, 31). Zam. on iii, 45, however, dismisses these suggestions with some scorn, and there were many who recognized it as a foreign word.

or Elsaid M. Badawi and Muhammad Abdel Haleem's Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur'anic Usage (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p656:

Philologists almost unanimously attribute the proper name عِيسَى ʿīsā, to a borrowing from either Hebrew or Syriac. A few, however, regard it as a derivation from forms associated with the concepts of camels of good stock and guidance.

I prefer the characterisation of the balance of viewpoints in Badawi-Abdel Haleem, as I think it's more representative; however, there's more info on the minority viewpoint in Jeffery. (Tho, also, I don't like Jeffery's translation… «بيض يعترِى بياضها ظلمة» as 'dingy white'? It's not wrong per se, but 'dingy' to me has an aura of dirtiness that I don't think is present in the Arabic. & it's not the colour in general, but the colour in application to a camel's fur. But then again, I suspect Badawi & Abdel Haleem omit the information on horse urine because it's embarrassing in a modern context. & it's not really 'almost unanimous…' It's just majority…) I feel that Robinson's article is (almost certainly inadvertently) misleading: We only get two sentences acknowledging that some Muslim scholars see the name as borrowed from Hebrew or Aramaic (pp 9 & 10), & this in minimising terms that I think obscure that this is really the prevalent view ('several classical philologists…', 'many Muslim scholars entertain the possibility…').

Anyhow! I'm not dead-set against a footnote mentioning the minority perspective that sees ʿīsā as a native Arabic word, but I'd rather it not come from al-Assiouty, & that it be clear that this is a minority perspective. I'm not trying to drag us into another long conversation. But I guess I am long-winded. Pathawi (talk) 11:33, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

We have a (rather poor) article on the name ʿĪsā, you know... Again, my interest was not the notoriously obscure question of the origin of the Quranic ʿĪsā, but just to note the existence of scholars who argue that the Greek Iēsoûs has a different origin than the Hebrew Yēšûaʿ/Yəhôšûaʿ (al-Assiouty was actually suggested to me by Nishidani above). However, I readily accept your judgement that al-Assiouty is fringe (only the title of his book, Jésus le non-Juif, should tell us as much), and though it would be nice to have a non-fringe source making such arguments, we don't need to cite such a minority view. It's perfectly fine as is. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 12:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support the proposal at the top of this section, and oppose including an extreme fringe view such as al-Assiouty. The idea that Jesus wasn't Jewish even goes beyond fringe and into whacky conspiracy territory.Jeppiz (talk) 13:26, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Yēšūʿa or Yēšūaʿ?

@Zhomron: both Robinson 2005 and Stegemann 2006 have Yēšūaʿ. Before I consulted those sources, Pathawi independently expressed the opinion that it should be Yēšūaʿ rather than Yēšūʿa. Any reason why it should be Yēšūʿa according to you? Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 16:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Hm. I didn't think patach genuva applied here. Hey, if the sources disagree, I won't argue. Zhomron (talk) 16:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't know any Hebrew, but this seems to be how most sources transliterate it. Google scholar yields:

• Yēšûʿa: 0 result
• Yēšūʿa: 1 result
• Yēšūaʿ: 5 results
• Yēšûaʿ: 13 results

I'll change it back to Yēšûaʿ for now. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 16:58, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, our Yeshua article cites this rather sub-optimal source, which expressly gives ye-shu-aʿ as an example of a furtive patach. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 17:09, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I did not know that this was called ' furtive pataḥ' (I forgot? I never knew?), & that makes my morning. Is it flirting with us? Is it scheming at something? I checked a couple of standard dictionaries before proposing the Yēšûʿa → Yēšûaʿ correction, but they were old ones. If we had etymological *Yēšûʿ, you'd expect the pataḥ to arise after the unchangeable long vowel, & to be written in this manner. Pathawi (talk) 01:48, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Hm, I think I know the issue now. See, pronunciation wise, the patach genuva is said before the letter value and not after like usual, hence Noah's Hebrew name נֹחַ‎‎ is Noach and not Nocha. I think, because of this, there is confusion as to how to transliterate it in terms of the name Yeshua: the patach is pronounced before the ayin, but its still written after the ayin. So some people would transliterate it as aʿ, as it is pronounced, and some would transliterate it as ʿa, as it is written. As for which to use here, I say just go with the sources. If the majority use aʿ, we should use aʿ. Zhomron (talk) 14:50, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Age of Jesus

If Jesus was born in 4 BC to 6 BC and died either 30 or 33 AD wouldn’t that mean that he was 34-39 when he died instead of 33-36? Jdietr601 (talk) 22:01, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Jdietr601, There was no year zero, and I'm absolutely tickled to death that that link isn't red. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:15, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, nothing can be an interesting topic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:15, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

As a developer, I frequently encounter one particular aspect of that concept. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:38, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Ok so that means it would be 33-38 years old. Jdietr601 (talk) 22:27, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but the infobox goes with 4 BC (apparently following the scholarly consensus) so 33-36 is correct. StAnselm (talk) 23:01, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

And what do you mean about a red link? Jdietr601 (talk) 22:27, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

He means that there's an article entitled year zero which is rather surprising. Jtrevor99 (talk) 03:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Y'shua bar Yosef was born on Saturday (Sabbath) April 17, 6 BC / 17.4.748 AUC / 29 Nisan 3755 HC - God-incarnate was an Aries the Ram/Lamb

MODERATOR: According to astronomer Michael Molnar in his book The Star of Bethlehem - The Legacy of the Magi, "Jesus was born on April 17, 6 BC coinciding with a triple conjunction of planets". 4/17/6 BC was discovered by the Knights Templar c. 1128 who passed it onto the Freemasons who have encoded it in many famous places, e.g. July 4, 1776 which was the 17th of Tammuz - 4th month of the Hebrew Calendar. If any Bible scholar disagrees with that date, seemingly all scholars agree that Jesus was born between 7-4 BC with most scholars agreeing that Herod I died in 4 BC. 2601:589:4801:5660:74B5:1B8B:E827:32EC (talk) 18:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

You should probably read the first line of our article on Astrology. Britmax (talk) 18:57, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Molnar may not be WP:DUE for this article, but is mentioned here: Star_of_Bethlehem#Double_occultation_on_Saturday_(Sabbath)_April_17,_6_BC. It doesn't mention Templars or Masons, though. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:05, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Britmax: YOU need to read Molnar's book, study the Knights Templar and Freemasons for a year, and read Seal #2: GOD=7_4 or FOD=6_4 Theory at http://7seals.blogspot.com . That'll at least get you near my level. 2601:589:4801:5660:74B5:1B8B:E827:32EC (talk) 19:19, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Such humility. Jtrevor99 (talk) 20:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

"Born" in infobox

Why is Bethlehem not included in the infobox entry for Jesus' birthplace? Nikolaih^☎️📖 08:39, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Because most scholars doubt he was born in Bethlehem. Jeppiz (talk) 08:42, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

The two bible books that report Jesus' birth, the gospels of Matthew and Luke, credit Bethlehem as the birth site. Those accounts were written as close to the time of the event that scholars have. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, and many scholars who evaluate them tend to doubt their accuracy. That's just a simple fact, period. There are indeed scholars who believe Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and scholars who believe he was born in Nazareth. That is why the infobox opts for a compromise. If we had to pick a city, we'd go for Nazareth as there is stronger academic support for that. Jeppiz (talk) 10:44, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia has already picked a city, see {{Nativity of Jesus}}. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:48, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

You confuse a template about a religious belief (reporting the content of that belief) with this article about a historical person. The article does make it clear that Christian belief is that he was born in Bethlehem. Jeppiz (talk) 10:55, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Hmm interesting because I've always heard, and every source I look at, claims that Jesus was born in Bethleham. Nevertheless, since this is such crucial information (and I really had to search through the article to find anything about Jesus' birthplace), perhaps it should be mentioned in the lede? Nikolaih^☎️📖 19:31, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I would remind you that it can't be mentioned in the lead if it isn't mentioned, and sourced, in the body text of the article. Britmax (talk) 20:21, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• I'm unaware of any serious non-fundamentalist scholars who believe the story about the census and the nativity to be true. See here for an explanation from Bart Ehrman about why the story is suspect. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:24, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah well many atheist scholars consider the entire matter to be false. But I believe the accepted stance in Christianity is that he was born in Bethlehem. The first (probably hundreds of) results of a Google query will assert this stance. So it seems to me there is no issue of sources (and many of them are more than considered reliable by Wiki's standards). Nikolaih^☎️📖 03:55, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

We don't put forward religious beliefs as historical facts. This policy has been discussed at great length at Muhammad where some users insisted we change the article to fit Muslim beliefs, a demand that was refused. Same thing applies here; we go by academic scholarship, not religious belief. There are scholars who believe he was born in Bethlehem. There are also lots of scholars who find it more likely he was born in Nazareth (see the link provided above) and that is why the infobox doesn't report either of the two. Jeppiz (talk) 08:52, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Bethlehem is well-covered in the Life and teachings in the New Testament section, that seems well enough. There's also a separate Birth of Jesus article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:05, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Nikolaih, Yeah well many atheist scholars consider the entire matter to be false It is not limited to atheist scholars. Find any non-fundamentalist scholar and I will bet you real money that they agree that Jesus was most likely born in Nazareth, and the story of the census and the nativity invented to conform what Jesus' followers knew about his real life (he was from Nazareth) to the prophecies he was supposed to fulfill (that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem).

  Your comment about google hits is meaningless: google will tell you that grey aliens regularly abduct humans, that our politicians are lizardmen, that the last election was stolen, that pouring coffee in your butt will improve your health and even that "Hitler did nothing wrong."

  Google is a search engine. It's not an encyclopedia or a library, it's not based on accepted knowledge or academic consensus. It's just an unfiltered directory of all the good, bad and ugly on the web. You would do much better to engage with the sources used on this article (I have access to some of the books, if you'd like me to reproduce you a chapter or two) than to base your objections on what you find by doing a google search. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:25, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  Sure whatever, I don't know where Jesus was born. My initial point being that when I wanted to find information regarding his birthplace, I didn't expect to have to scroll so far down the page for such essential information. I've never seen any other bio like this, esp. considering this is a FA. Nikolaih^☎️📖 18:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  For such high-profile individuals, it's often best to search for the exact info you're looking for, rather than going to a bio and hoping to find a quick answer. High profile individuals tend to get a lot written about them. In this case, this exact subject is discussed at Nativity of Jesus#Historical analysis. I know it's a little counter-intuitive, but our articles would be ridiculously large if we didn't break off notable aspects into their own articles.

  For another example of this, see Donald Trump, who is also covered in Presidency of Donald Trump, Racial views of Donald Trump, Steele dossier, Trumpism and a couple other articles. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:59, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  And of course Donald Trump in popular culture. Beware the fan fiction section, though. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  Beware? I was told it was quite gripping. Specifically, that it grabs you by the... Well, you know. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:33, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for the literal lol. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:42, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 June 2021

it says that Mary Magdalene is the only visitor to Jesus Crist when he was put in the grave, but in <ref> Matthew 28 verse 1 says that there was another mary as well, please tell me if im wrong. AOD1357 (talk) 17:19, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

To quote Bart Ehrman: it depends which gospel you read. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:28, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:31, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

The Three Marys may have something of interest. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:30, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

New edit

AceUofT, you inserted a ref here [6] (and here [7] and here [8] and here [9]...). You give the pages 99-139, is it possible to be more specific? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:14, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, Sure, thanks for pointing this out. The reference is on page 128. I will adjust these accordingly. AceUofT (talk) 20:32, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:34, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@AceUofT: you were right at first to fill in the page= parameter with the page numbers of the paper as a whole (99–139). The specific page number for the included info should follow at the end (p. 128). I corrected this for you ([10], [11], [12], [13]). Please also do not forget to fill in the year= parameter. I will reiterate that the way this reference is included in Muhammad in Islam and Muhammad in the Quran is borderline citation spamming, so please watch out for that. Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:44, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Section Titles and other names for Jesus

I'm not sure this section is warranted. Most of these are not presented as formal titles. Some of them seem pretty good (Alpha and Omega, for example), but many are obvious to the point of insensibility (head of the church) or just simple descriptives (judge, mediator, prophet, etc). Pinging Greggens who added it for discussion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:50, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

In my original edit, I forgot to add a hatnote linking readers to Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament for further information. It's there now. That should make the section more complete. As far as the names "not presented as formal titles" are concerned, those would fall under "other names for Jesus." Greggens (talk) 20:07, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Okay, that's a good addition which clarifies it a fair bit. But since we already have an article on the subject, don't you think we should, at this article, limit the list to those which get their own subsection at that article? If we did that, that would ease all of my concerns about this material. Personally, I'd like to see it limited only to those which are unique to the gospel tradition, but I could live with Lord, Master and Raboni/Rabbi being included. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:24, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

- I think all the Old Testament references should be removed as they are sketchy at best - there may have been prophecies of a coming messiah, but not identified as Jesus as a person - this article is about Jesus, not Old Testament prophesies, so we should stick to terms actually applied particularly to Jesus and not generally to a coming messiah - Epinoia (talk) 20:40, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

My two cents: a superior approach is to list what references/titles a consensus of scholars agree should apply. Whether that's Christian, secular or an amalgamation of both, remains to be determined. Jtrevor99 (talk) 20:58, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "a consensus of scholars agree should apply". I mean, everything in the list was applied to Jesus in some way, and no scholars would dispute that. Do you mean titles that a consensus of scholars agree he would have claimed for himself, or which they'd agree were used for him during his lifetime, or which are attested only in the gospels? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:05, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I mean those titles that secular and/or religious scholars state that each religious tradition, or no tradition at all, would ascribe to him. I am not aware of consensus on which titles Jesus likely gave himself; and as the three major Abrahamic faiths would of course list different sets of titles, it may be helpful to list which faith would assign which title. For example, only the Christian tradition would assign “Messiah”, while Christian and Muslim would assign “prophet”, and all three (plus secular tradition) likely would assign “rabbi” or “teacher”. Then again, perhaps this is overcomplicating things. Jtrevor99 (talk) 00:26, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Blocked socks' edits

@Jeppiz: what do you mean with no consensus? I talked this over with the reverting editor and part of the content was discussed in a section above. Is there anything in the content of the edits which you think inappropriate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Apaugasma (talk • contribs) 18:54, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jeppiz: I spoiled the ping in my previous edit, trying again. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:26, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

There has been some confusion over this elsewhere, so I'll try to be clearer: on 21 November 2020, AreebaQ added a passage about the Ismaili view on Jesus. As far as I can see, that edit has not been contested since. More recently, AceUofT added a short paragraph on Muhammad having been predicted by Jesus according to the Quran. Apart from lacking page numbers (see above), this edit was also not contested. Both editors have recently been blocked for promotional editing (see here), and Notfrompedro has since been reverting these blocked users' edits. However, since they also added a lot of good content, I've been going through Notfrompedro's edit history and (after consulting Notfrompedro) re-reverting what I believe to be relatively good edits. I kind of goofed up on the edit summary though, which is less than clear. Anyways, I believe we should preserve good content even if it was originally added by blocked editors, so the question to all editors here is: should the two edits linked above (or seen together here) be included or excluded from the article based on content policy? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 03:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Apaugasma:, thank you for starting this discussion and for your well-reasoned argument. I have no problem with the actual information, it seems entirely relevant. I am less convinced about the sources (sources the author picked for self-promotion). Both are by respected publishers but even the best academic publishers have stronger and weaker publications. The first source is a proper academic journal, although with a very modest impact factor. In my academic field, a journal with such a low impact factor would not really be considered proper to cite. The other source is a festschrift, meaning that the peer review and academic requirements would normlly have been quite a bit lower than for a normal academic publication. Looking at the content of the edit, it would it shouldn't be top hard to find better sources? Jeppiz (talk) 13:47, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

My impression of the blocked editor(s) is that they were only ever reading publications by Shafique Virani from his academia.edu website, probably because for some reason they put a great deal of trust in him (e.g., a believing Ismaili only trusting an Ismaili author for scholarship) and/or because they did not have access to other sources. However, Virani himself, though by no means a top scholar, generally is a reliable source (see also my comments about this at my talk). As for the publishers, it is indeed important to know that the field of Islamic studies is so small that even the very top journals have a much below-average impact factor (some of the best journals are not ranked at all; I believe the only one with a decent ranking is International Journal of Middle East Studies, because it is read and cited a lot by scholars from other fields such as politologists). Basically, impact factors are meaningless in this field, and one should look at the names of the authors, the editors, and the publishing house. In this case, we have Brill for the festschrift, which is the no. 1 top quality publisher with regard to anything related to Islamic studies, and Cambridge University Press for The Journal of Asian Studies (a mid-level quality journal as I see it), which in my experience tags just behind Brill along with publishers like Oxford University Press, De Gruyter, Mohr Siebeck, and perhaps some others which I forget. With all this said, I have no doubt that better sources exist, but these would be known off-hand only by experts on Jesus in Islam (which I by no means am myself), and since I know the info to be factually correct, I'm content with Virani as a source. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:38, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the field myself; as I said, those publications looked rather mediocre to me but impact factors do vary a lot between fields, and I take your word for the reliability of this. I've undone my own edit and restored the content. Jeppiz (talk) 18:55, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

“Christ” honorary prefix

We should add this prefix to the info box as it is the most commonly used title for Jesus. BakedGoods357 (talk) 17:31, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

See Q1 and Q6 in the FAQ. VQuakr (talk) 17:40, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Let's try to be a bit more transparent: the FAQ can be found here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 17:43, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

It says “there are no discussions on this page” BakedGoods357 (talk) 17:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Nvm I just needed to click the “read as an article” button. BakedGoods357 (talk) 17:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Historicity and sources

The article displays that existence/historicity of Jesus is a commonly accepted fact, however, when you actually go into the reference section, pretty much every source supporting it is a theologist, priest or clergy. Meaning, they're very likely to be biased due to belonging to the corresponding faith. It would be nice to either clarify this as being commonly accepted by christian scholars, or provide more non-christian references in the footnote...— Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.164.233.95 (talk) 10:03, June 9, 2021 (UTC)

You may find Christ myth theory interesting. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

• As an atheist, I would like to point out that religious convictions are not an impediment to scholarly work. People (especially highly educated people) are perfectly capable of separating their spirituality from their professional output.

I'd also echo and add to Graberg's advice, and direct you to Historicity of Jesus, which is about the exact subject of this thread, and which relies on the work of numerous atheist and agnostic scholars.

Finally, I'd like to direct you back to this article, which mentions noted agnostic expert on Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman by name 4 times in the body, 4 more times in the footnotes and is named in 26 citations. E. P. Sanders might not be agnostic, but is nonetheless noted for his dispassion, opposition to fundamentalist views and agreement with more secular views. James Tabor is also references, and though I believe he plays his religious views close to the chest, he's mentioned several times that he grew up in a secular home. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:47, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

While I agree that faith does not really bar someone from doing research properly, I'm not so sure about that when it involves their religion. Because for a believer existence of god (and jesus) should pretty much be an axiom. To me, that seems like a source of very significant bias. I may be mistaken on that matter, of course. Anyway, I appreciate the advice/links you guys gave and will check them out. 46.164.233.95 (talk) 01:30, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Please don't insert your comments inside another editor's comments like that. It makes it difficult to follow the flow of the discussion.

I'll note that atheist and agnostic scholars of biblical history have frequently (and strongly) disagreed with your assertion about the biases of their religious colleagues, and they are in the best position to voice such disagreement from a position of authority. And for the record, liberal christianity generally has no preconceptions which might bias such a scholar. Jesus' divinity is not a historical question, but a religious one. History will never tell us whether Jesus was truly a divine being or not, and will not even speculate on the question. Even if it were a historical question, there are even Christian scholars who question the genealogical divinity (though not the inspirational divinity, which has no bearing on history) of Jesus, viewing him more like a prophet than an avatar. History does not distinguish between an itinerant, apocalyptic rabbi and an itinerant, apocalyptic prophet. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:55, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

"History will never tell us whether Jesus was truly a divine being or not" But History claims Jesus was a divine being.

"Jesus' divinity is not a historical question, but a religious one" It is a historical question, because the person named Jesus is claimed to be divine, if Jesus was not divine then it's not Jesus.86.16.64.23 (talk) 07:33, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Unneutral page

Quran says Jesus was not die but this page claims he died, so denies this teaching. This isn't neutral. To be neutral, you can't write that he was died. Neutral POV requires to being in an equal distant from all kinds of beliefs and thoughts, just like the opposite of this page does. Boi Keepin Kalm (talk) 14:47, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

- an Islamic perspective is presented in the section Jesus#Islamic where there is a hatnote link to the main article Jesus in Islam - as alternative viewpoints are presented, this satisfies WP:NPOV, "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." - the article does not decide whether or not Jesus died, but reports what reliable sources say on the topic - cheers - Epinoia (talk) 15:11, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

The reliablity of those sources are disputed then, since not any muslim would accept that Jesus died, although that sources says he died. Boi Keepin Kalm (talk) 16:47, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

However, WP:s position is that all people born 2000 years ago have died. That is WP:NPOV, which is not the same as all meanings of "neutral". In this context, per WP:RNPOV, WP:s position is also that "In the Quran (Q4:157–159) it is said that Jesus was not killed but was merely made to appear that way to unbelievers" Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:09, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

What's youe proof to everyone born 2000 years ago are dead? Because we haven't see someone didn't die in general? What makes you believe that all people born 200 years ago are died? And yes, it is a belief, not neutral. You just claim that Quran lies and God have no power to keep a person alive for thousand years? Just don't force people to believe he died, say he believed to be died by Christians and to be not died by Muslims, instead of saying he necessarily died. Boi Keepin Kalm (talk) 17:47, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

WP says something =/= people forced to believe this. And the world has people apart from Christians and Muslims. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:02, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You cannot make a page neutral by making it favor Islamic perspective above the perspective of every non-Muslim. The fact reliable sources disagree with your viewpoint does not mean that those reliable sources are in dispute. Instead, this article presents the perspective of reliable sources and that of all religions, as it should. Read WP:RS and WP:NPOV. Jtrevor99 (talk) 17:12, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Claiming the page is non-neutral because it doesn't exclusively present one religion's perspective on the subject is like arguing that fire is cold because it burns things.

To be neutral, we present all major perspectives and most importantly, we do this in proportion to their prominence. In addition, Islam is not united in claiming that Jesus never died; there are Islamic scholars who claim that he did. We have agreement between all Jewish scholars, most Christian scholars, some Islamic scholars and all secular scholars that Jesus did, in fact, die. This makes it the dominant view, by quite a large degree.

Furthermore, as an encyclopedic endeavor, in order to remain neutral towards all religions, the secular perspective is preferred as a basis for our writings. Where it does not contradict religious perspectives, it is the view we write from. Where it does contradict religious perspectives, those perspectives are documented and attributed to the traditions from which they come. As I just pointed out, the view that Jesus died is the secular view, and since it it only contradicted by a minority of religious views, those views are given even less weight than they would, were we to not prefer the secular perspective. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:14, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

The lead already includes: "Most Muslims do not believe that he was killed or crucified, but that God raised him into Heaven while he was still alive" which covers the point of view expressed in this section. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:46, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Jesus birth year

Why does this article assert that Jesus was born in the year 4 BC? How would Christ be born 4 years before Christ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mralekob (talk • contribs)

Well, because the monk who established the Christian calendar never had precise data about the date of birth of Jesus. So he established an arbitrary (approximate) 1 AD at the year he thought Jesus should have been born. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Jesus born in 4 BC comes from Herod died in 4 BC (one of the gospels links Jesus's birth to Herod's death). To further complicate the matter, there are minority views that Herod died in either 1 BC or 1 AD. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

In the end, 4 BC is an estimate, not a hard historical fact, and mainstream Bible scholars usually place Jesus's birth from 7 BC to 2 BC. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:11, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Another method is counting back 33 years from Jesus's crucifixion, but this assumes we would know the year Jesus got crucified. Usually, that year is supposed to be either 30 AD or 33 AD, but again this isn't a hard fact. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:15, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Drawing the line: that monk did not have precise data, and we don't have either. As many stuff from Ancient history, we can only know such facts to some degree of probability and we will probably never know with certainty. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:40, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2021

41.36.5.83 (talk) 23:32, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I only want to change the photo of Jesus And Put another one please.

The infobox photo has been the subject of discussions in the past, so a new consensus should be determined before using the edit request template for the change. What image did you have in mind? VQuakr (talk) 00:23, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 July 2021

Reference; English translated bibles. Jesus is more than a first-century preacher. Emmanuel is the first name called meaning "God is with us." then later in the gospel of Matthew 1:25 "and he called his name Jesus." Also, in the gospel of Mark chapter 1, verse 1; the writer references Jesus as "the Son of God." Also, in the gospel of Luke, versus 31 & 32 Jesus is referenced as "the Son of the highest." Recommend you change the verbiage from "Jesus was a first century preacher." to "Jesus is the Son of God." 72.42.136.31 (talk) 00:10, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:17, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Altruism

Jesus's message in the Great Commandment has two laws: the first law deals with matters of faith and the second law good works (love, altruism?). The second law stuff can be detailed by this fairly short list:

• "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Matthew 7:12
• "Love one another as I have loved you" John 13:34
• "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" John 8:7.
• "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's..." Matthew 22:22
• The widow's mite, Mark 12:38-44
• The rich man and Lazarus Luke 16:19-31

and some others. This second law stuff also falls under something along the lines of the general welfare clause and Richard Dawkins' "nice guys finish first" and stuff. Can we somehow highlight the second law in the text as usable by some atheists? Maybe it is just altruism or the Golden Rule.--Lindamcca (talk) 22:26, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 August 2021

I suggest changing the image to the real brown middle eastern Jesus instead of the whitewashed Jesus image. Thank you. Jordandriscoll12345 (talk) 20:19, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ––Sirdog9002 (talk) 20:24, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

There is nothing racist about Historical depictions of Jesus from Europe. Every single culture depicted Jesus in their own image…2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:78CC:8021:2E9C:6736 (talk) 00:54, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Royalty

@HerbiePocket: https://www.theguardian.com/science/commentisfree/2015/may/24/business-genetic-ancestry-charlemagne-adam-rutherford says that I am a descendant of Charlemagne. May I have my own Wikipedia article, and should it say that I'm royalty? tgeorgescu (talk) 21:32, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Son, that is perhaps the very definition of specious reasoning. It appears that you want to make a trite argue that I'm not going to engage in.

However, as a matter of education I will provide an operational definition for you. Jewish royals are: 1) patrilineal descendants of David or Saul, such as the Exilarchate, Nesi'm, or the various Messianic claimants who lay this claim either de facto or de jure, 2) Jews who marry into a royal families, and thus become royals 3) a sovereign who converts to Judaism, such with the Himyar kingdom or the Khazars — Preceding unsigned comment added by HerbiePocket (talk • contribs)

This is a religiously neutral, i.e. secular encyclopedia. I see no reason to apply a wholly different definition for Category:Jewish royalty than for Category:Danish royalty and Category:Swedish royalty. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:20, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, HerbiePocket, you're going to need to find some sources that back up your definitions; otherwise this is simply WP:OR. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it does mean it's a claim we can't make on Wikipedia. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Or Category:French royalty and Category:Russian royalty, to use more appropriate examples. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:47, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

This reminds me of how I have applied Category:Jewish communists to the Twelve Apostles at Romanian Wikipedia. Noob mistake. A good case can be made that Jesus's Apostles were Jewish and that they were Communists. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I would also say that if this is a useful category, it is a supercategory so includes other categories rather than articles for most part. For instance Category:Jewish messiah claimants, Category:Exilarchs (btw is there any evidence that the exilarchs considered themselves royalty beyond the first legendary ones?), Category:Omrides, Category:Davidic line,... --Erp (talk) 02:04, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• Jesus, King of the Jews is apparently a thing. Aren't kings considered royalty? Or what's the story there? 78.28.44.31 (talk) 12:21, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

To point out the very obvious: Jesus was never king of the Jews. Someone writing a book calling someone king many decades after said person is dead is rather different from actually being king. If a sports journalist called Bobby Moore "King of England" in an article, that does not mean he actually were king, or that we should call him "English royalty". (Can't believe I had to write that. Jeppiz (talk) 12:46, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

...are you saying that Elvis wasn't The King??? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:50, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, so the story from the Bible was a fabrication and the INRI label wasn't actually placed on Jesus's cross by the state prior to (or was it after? the article doesn't say) his execution? Sorry, but these things aren't obvious to those of us who aren't religious scholars. 78.28.44.31 (talk) 13:26, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

INRI was some sort of taunt and insult, wasn't it? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:31, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

If the above claim is correct, Jesus, King of the Jews#INRI and ΙΝΒΙ should be edited to reflect that fact IMO. It does appear that at least some of the Jews didn't recognize Jesus's kingship but that's according to the Bible which we apparently don't consider a reliable source. 78.28.44.31 (talk) 13:45, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Just to point out the classic Catch-22 here, Jews don't generally recognize any sort of kingship of Jesus (with some exceptions), and if the above definition is true (patrilineal descendants of David or Saul), then Christians might point out that this is a bit of an issue for the Son of God.... Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 13:58, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

It can be interpreted in different ways. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:14, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Actual date of Jesus's birth: astronomical readings have proven that Jesus's birth was precisely June 17th, 2 BC. The star in the east was actually a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter that be Wise Men followed for 7 months from the time of his birth until Christmas of that year. The astrological conjunction of Venus and Jupiter signifies the birth of a prominent Monarch or religious leader. Furthermore, the Magi were actually Zoroastrian priests from Persian. Zoroastrianism was a prominent religion in Persia at the time, that also foretold the coming of a powerful Messiah.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Bladeofodin435 (talk • contribs)

- citations (WP:CITE) to reliable sources (WP:RS) required to support content per WP:ATT, WP:VERIFY - Epinoia (talk) 23:06, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Image of Christ

What about this one?

Revelation 1:13-14, Daniel 10:5-6, Daniel 7:9. That imposter you have up there on that painting is not how Christ looked. 173.217.185.170 (talk) 16:24, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't know which painting in the article you mean, but "Noone says it is" applies to all of them. I'm not counting SoT as a painting. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:02, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I suspect none of them would satisfy the IP. Going by the biblical references quoted they’re expecting to see a white head, white hair, yellow arms and feet, eyes on fire … with burning wheels attached to him too. Hmm. Quite distinctive. DeCausa (talk) 12:01, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps James Tissot did a painting like that, he was productive. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:53, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

This is what you're after:

StAnselm (talk) 13:17, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Wheels on fire, rolling down the roaaad... Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Joseph

I read an interesting article a couple years ago which, in essence, stated that while Christians and Muslims hold that Jesus was divinely conceived by command of the Holy Spirit/God, it’s nevertheless plausible that Joseph’s DNA was utilized such that biologically, he was the father. Jesus, by all accounts, physically appeared to be a typical Middle Eastern man, and such a view does not conflict with the divine conception belief. I mention it here as I found it interesting but not sure it has a place in the article, especially since it’s speculation, probably unnecessary/distracting detail, and I can’t seem to locate the source. Jtrevor99 (talk) 01:46, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

To my great surprise speculation on the DNA of Jesus seems to have a significant internet footprint. The issue is grazed in Jesus bloodline and Shroud of Turin. However, my brief search has not led to any reliable sources daydreaming on such things. Thank you for the interesting diversion though. Dushan Jugum (talk) 02:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

New image

Shouldn't the lead image of Jesus be someone who's tan instead of a pale guy? File:Christ the Pantocrator by Jovan Zograf (1384).jpg is an iconic image and has a darker complexion. I suggest that it should be the lead. LittleJerry (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Per MOS:LEADIMAGE, the image should be “representative” and “should not only illustrate the topic specifically, but also be the type of image used for similar purposes in high-quality reference works, and therefore what our readers will expect to see.” So is that “tan” or “pale”? DeCausa (talk) 19:10, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

The proposed image fits all of that and additionally has more accurate skin color. LittleJerry (talk) 00:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

High quality reference works for people for whom no contemporary picture exists are likely to use a good quality picture that is significant in its own right. The 6th century picture from St Catherine's Monastery seems to fit that better (it has its own article) than an apparently obscure 14th century picture by Jovan Zograf. In addition the image quality (less pixelated) is better with the St. Catherine's picture. I note the 14th picture also has little in the way of source info. Where is it located, a short bio about the painter, a short history of the painting, secondary sources discussing it... The Depiction of Jesus article discusses some of the issues with depiction and might be a better place for the Zograf picture assuming proper documentation. Or the Christ Pantocrator article. --Erp (talk) 03:52, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Byzantine Jesus is tanned. Also, there is nothing “racist” or “problematic” about such historical depictions - they pre-date US-centric Protestant white-washing.2A00:23C4:3E08:4000:80CD:60FF:3380:3C2E (talk) 12:28, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Erp. Also, skin colour is an irrelevant consideration. One can make assumptions about his skin colour but, as for much else about his physical appearance, no one knows what it was in reality. He could have been a bald albino for all we know. DeCausa (talk) 13:30, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Probably not bald due to Revelation 1:14, but you’re still right! This is far from authoritative but I’ve thought the lack of physical description was because (1) he looked like most other younger Galilean Jewish men, (2) his followers didn’t think it mattered much, and (3) that makes it easier to find him more relatable across all cultures and peoples. Jtrevor99 (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

What Erp sais. The image suggested at the top is probably only "darker" because it is a very lo-res image, & maybe the original is dirtier. Nor is it very "iconic" in the sense of famous; the current image is far more so. It is unlikely a Slav painter intended a darker skin colour than a Greek one, nearly 1,000 years earlier. Both images belong to the general Byzanhtine tradition. This issue, of the lead image generally, comes up at regular intervals - two sections up here, then perhaps last here, from the archives. This doesn't give a very compelling case for a change. Johnbod (talk) 19:58, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 September 2021

168.99.199.36 (talk) 01:17, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

They forgot to add all his decendants died

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.Dushan Jugum (talk) 01:27, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

"Etymology"?

I wanted to see what this article said about him being a "carpenter" ("stone-worker"?), and the first reference is Jesus' neighbors in Nazareth refer to him as "the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon",[54][55] "the carpenter's son",[56][57] or "Joseph's son".[58][59]. This sentence is problematic on its face (it synthesizes a primary source, Mark, with other sources that used Mark and changed what Mark said to call him a son of a carpenter -- see Ehrman's "Great Courses" series The New Testament, lecture 11), but the bigger problem here seems to be that it has nothing to do with "etymology" -- is this a mistake from the section having been renamed at some point? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:42, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

How can Jesus be born in 4 BC?

The article says Jesus was born in 4 BC but BC stand for "before christ" and Jesus is christ so this means that Jesus was born 4 years before himself — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aalaa324 (talk • contribs) 19:56, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

To my surprise we don't seem to have an FAQ for this common question. For me the answer is two fold, firstly Wikipedia does not define these things it just reports them. Secondly if we shifted our year numbering system every time we got more information about the life of Jesus it would make for a confusing system. So the etymology of AD/BC has changed over time just like ~every other word. Dushan Jugum (talk) 22:28, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, essentially what Dushan said. When Dionysius Exiguus came up with Anno Domini dating, it shouldn't be too surprising that he did not do so with mechanical precision. Since adjusting the calendar would require redating literally everything, including the current year, the 1 BC/1 AD transition is now simply an accepted point that is no longer really tethered to the birth of Jesus, since that event can't be pinpointed today any more than when Mr. Exiguus tried. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:49, 29 October 2021 (UTC) ETA -- this is one of the reasons I prefer BCE/CE dating, as it sort of admits this bit of imprecision, but one's own mileage may vary, as they say.

Dionysius Exiguus placed the Nativity of Jesus a few years after the currently accepted date for the death of Herod the Great. Since the Gospel of Matthew's narrative connects the nativity of Jesus to Herod's reign, either the Gospel or Dionysius were in error. Dimadick (talk) 05:38, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Citation 19

Currently, citation 19 mentions Powell, 1998 (168-73). I went to the cited book and read those pages, but failed to find any assertion that "the only records of Jesus' life are contained in the Gospels." Could somebody double check that this is the correct citation for this statement? Is there another reference that would be more suitable?

Choinierenate (talk) 20:22, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Proposed swapping of two phrases

Within the first paragraph, it states: "Jesus Christ was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion". I propose we swap it to be: "Jesus Christ is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. He was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader". The reason I suggest this is because this, and being the son of God, is what he is most known for and it makes more sense that it would be mentioned first (in my opinion at least). Please let me know what you think. Thanks. - Therealscorp1an (talk) 10:11, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I would support this swap, for slightly different reasons: we obviously know he is the central figure in Christianity, but all knowledge of his first century existence is considerably more murky. I like to go with the definites first, therefore, you have my support. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:55, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I see no reason to oppose. Jtrevor99 (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions. It has been a few days, so I will make the change now. - Therealscorp1an (talk) 22:40, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 November 2021

X (pronounced [இயேசு]) Captain9845 (talk) 15:21, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

I would like to convey the word 'Jesus Christ' in English as pronounced 'இயேசு' in Tamil Captain9845 (talk) 15:30, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:34, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Jesus (name) agrees with you. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:27, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

If I may, the question is not whether that is the accurate name in Tamil but rather why it would be relevant to include Tamil. I can see no reason at all to include it. Jeppiz (talk) 23:50, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I meant that Jesus is a big subject, and this was fittingly mentioned in a related article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:42, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Either find a Muslim historian accepting that Jesus was crucified, or stop claiming his alleged crucifixion is a historical fact

Of course you can't find any, because there aren't any. If a historian claims to be a Muslim but also claims that Jesus is crucified, there are almost nobody to do though, they are simply not muslim, if any exists. Therefore, it's impossible to have a consensus on Jesus' death. So why we should've say this alleged event was occurred? Religion is not a name tag or a joke, people are REALLY believing their religions are facts and truthful, historians or other scholars does so. A Muslim couldn't read this and agree that this is happened, but will have doubt on Wikipedia's reliablity. Even if the entire world except one person believes that a relative event hapened, narratting it as a neutral fact is incorrect and indecent. Penjogjoposioćio (talk) 19:27, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

We certainly mention the Muslim take on Jesus' ascension, but we also obviously have to discuss belief in his crucifixion. I don't see it presented as "neutral" historical fact in this article. If you'd like to suggest specific changes to the language, that might be helpful. Cheers, and Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 19:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

My suggestion is extremely simple my friend. I suggest we shal write his fate is a subject of discussion, shall say he is crucified according to Christianity and ascended to sky according to Islam. Fair and simple, isn't it? Then, following this sentence, we can add the statement of "His believed crucifixion or ascension dates both intersects to be 30/33 AD" to fix it all. My way of communicating in English may not be the best, but my suggestion is to do something in this way. Penjogjoposioćio (talk) 21:46, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Your English is fine, but I am not sure this would be an improvement (this is only my opinion, of course). To my mind, we already basically do this, but in longer form. The last paragraph of the lead, for instance, highlights the differences between Jesus as in the Muslim tradition as against the Christian. Feel free to propose exactly where you would like your sentence to go, or how you would rewrite the article, and if you gain consensus, obviously make your change! Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) Dumuzid (talk) 21:54, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Absolutely not. It’s not subject of “discussion” by historians at all. It’s purely a religious belief he “ascended to heaven”. It’s biological fact that if Jesus existed, he died around 2,000 years ago. There is some non-Christian historical evidence (Jewish, Roman) that Jesus may have existed and, if he did, was executed. DeCausa (talk) 21:56, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Agreed with the above. A Muslim historian would be biased on this topic if they let their religious views color their opinion. Wikipedia uses neutral sources. A very large percentage of neutral, scholarly sources - the kind WP requires and far from exclusively Christian or Jewish - agree that Jesus was crucified, and call it historical fact, as is already indicated in the citations used in this article. There is no reason to continue this discussion, since (1) the Muslim viewpoint is already stated and cited and (2) WP does not allow biased sources to override unbiased ones. Jtrevor99 (talk) 21:57, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Just like I said. Give me name of a single Muslim historian believing that he was executed. Since science doesn't work with democracy, so if the majority accepts something as a fact, that does not make it a "fact". So you gotta be neutral, you can't know if they are in delusion. Even if you accept that science actually works with democracy and thus your method is right; then tell my why all the names that this page presented are names like Michael or James, when it says this is the opinion of all historians? Why I don't see an Ahmad among these names, or Zakir, Mahmoud, Abdullah or Muhammad? Because all those peoples that are cited by this page are Christian-born and still-Christian. You can't find any Muslim scholar to accept he was crucified. I mean, why they would be neutral, why they would try to understand Quran, why they would think if there is a possibility that the path shown by their findings may be shows them the wrong? Including you people, most non-Muslims have to realise that we Muslims believe in such a God, He have no difficulty in the works that seem impossible to have been done. In this case, how could you prove that Quran is lying, Jesus was not ascended and God didn't likened his apostle who betrayed? God forbid, you couldn't. So be neutral and stop claiming his crucifixion is not a discussion topic. Penjogjoposioćio (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Science may not be a democracy (though peer review is a thing), but here we operate on WP:CONSENSUS, so the onus is on you to convince other people that your proposed changes would improve the article, and I don't see it here. I think we fairly and accurately present the Muslim view, but reasonable minds may differ, of course. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:34, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

This is not about “presenting the Muslim view” and it’s not about a Christian v Muslim view. Historical fact: Jesus did not ascend into heaven avoiding physical death. There is no historical debate about that whatsoever. Just as there is no historical debate about whether he died and rose again on the third day. These are religious beliefs that can be reported as such but we can never present them as historical possibilities wich are subjects of “discussion”. They are not. DeCausa (talk) 22:40, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Further discussion here will not be fruitful. WP's policy on this is clear and OP is repeating themselves despite the reasons they are giving already being refuted. It does not matter what a specifically Muslim historian thinks, if their opinion is colored in any way by their religion. It matters what the neutral, unbiased, reliably sourced scholarly viewpoint is, and that's what's in the article. Meanwhile, the Islamic viewpoint is already clearly cited and stated. Continued debate is a waste of time and if OP persists, I will request that an uninvolved editor close this discussion per WP:DISCARD, which makes clear that a "neutral point of view is not negotiable". Jtrevor99 (talk) 23:50, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

You people saying that it's a fact that Jesus is crucified and died, but let me tell you. You do this only because you are non-Muslims. It would be ridicilous if a Muslim have told another Muslim that Jesus haven't ascended to sky. So, what have you done is obviously denying what Islam said to be truth. Either admit Wikipedia rejects religion and write this down to very entrance of the website, or accept you should not be biased in something that has remained in the past, which is invisible to the naked eye, as experienced only on the basis of documents that have not been changed or not. This is exactly what neutrality is for, I mean, who is the exact authority to tell that we have to comply your belief? Who said we have to follow irreligious scholars and put what they said as a non-negotiatable facts? That's where neutrality joins the game to be fair and represent your opinion as much as mine. Penjogjoposioćio (talk) 04:45, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Years Active

I was browsing the InfoBox:Person template and noticed it has a years_active parameter. Based on the citations available in Chronology of Jesus, I think we could reasonably list AD 28 (or 29) through death as active dates. I wondered if there'd be any support for doing so. Jtrevor99 (talk) 19:40, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with your logic and I find the information interesting. My only concern is that info-boxs can be magnets for near pointless controversy and therefore I like to keep them short. Dushan Jugum (talk) 05:08, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I can appreciate that point. Anyone else want to weigh in? Jtrevor99 (talk) 23:21, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

How is He a Jewish preacher and religious leader

If Jesus is a religious leader how come several times in the Bible he calls the religious leaders brood vipers and says “But do not copy what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” In Matthew 23. Also how is he a Jewish preacher I get He is most likely Jewish, but he did not teach Judaism. Kaleeb18 (talk) 01:33, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

The Jewish Christians seem to have had a different opinion. Christianity was yet another one of the competing Jewish religious movements, and the Jewish Christians remained faithful to the Halakha.

• "The Book of Acts reports that the early followers continued daily Temple attendance and traditional Jewish home prayer. Other passages in the New Testament gospels reflect a similar observance of traditional Jewish piety such as fasting, reverence for the Torah and observance of Jewish holy days." Dimadick (talk) 02:20, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

To call Jesus Jewish is misleading. What Jewish today means is entirely different from what it meant in Jesus' time. For example, Rabbinic Judaism (the mainstream form of Judaism today) came hundreds of years after Jesus and has nothing to do with him. There is virtually no connection between Jesus and Jewishness as we know it. DayTime99 (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• It's rather pointless arguing about whether you think Jesus was Jewish or not. Wikipedia builds on sources, not opinions. There is completely consensus among academics in the field that Jesus was a Jewish preacher, and the article build on such sources. Whether any Wiki-user disagrees with that is rather irrelevant. Another Wiki-policy everyone is encouraged to respect is WP:NOTAFORUM. Wikipedia is not the place to discuss your own thoughts about Jesus or about Judaism. We describe Jesus as a Jewish preacher because that is the academic consensus reflected in the sources. Jeppiz (talk) 17:34, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Where has it been established that such an academic consensus exists, Jeppiz? Also, the sources I've read certainly agree that Rabbinical Judaism is different from what Jesus was born into. DayTime99 (talk) 18:25, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Yes religions are different in different places and 2000 years can change them too, yet we still use the same words as shorthand (we can develop the concept in the main text). What religion/ethnicity do you think the academic consensus says he was if not Jewish? Sorry to answer a question with a question but it is quicker than me running off to read more books on the topic in the desperate hope of finding one that contradicts all I have previously read. Dushan Jugum (talk) 19:42, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
      • From the sources I've seen, in terms of ethnicity he was a Hebrew. In terms of religion, he would be a branch of Judaism that is all but extinct today. That is the main problem with calling him a "Jewish preacher", its misleading nature. Jesus had nothing to do with the Talmud, which came later and is indispensable to Judaism as people know it today. DayTime99 (talk) 20:37, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
        • Can you provide WP:DUE sourcing which supports “Jewish” only meaning Rabbinic Judaism and judaism pror to that not being described as “jewish”? DeCausa (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
          • No, he can't! Generally the switch in modern scholarship between referring to people as Hebrew/Israelite and as Jews happens, at the latest around 200 BCE. Johnbod (talk) 15:06, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
            • The concern here is the misleading nature of the word in this context. You will have people reading this article who think that Jesus practiced what modern day Jews practice, which is a disservice of information to everyone involved. DayTime99 (talk) 03:29, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
    • By that thinking we’d have to rename Jewish–Roman wars (to what though?) and rename and re-write a host of other Judaism articles the pre-date Rabbinic Judaism. I don’t think so. DeCausa (talk) 19:49, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

I’m still wondering why are we calling him a religious leader he had nothing to do with the religious leader? Kaleeb18 (talk) 14:49, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

While I take your point, at the very least, the historical and/or literary figure of Jesus both led the apostles and taught them about religion. While it is certainly possible to argue semantic points (e.g., whether religion is "true" or not), in the common use of these terms, it seems the description is inarguably true. If you could provide reliable sources which support your position here, it would be helpful. Cheers, and happy Monday. Dumuzid (talk) 14:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I think we might need to reword it better or something because other readers like me might think that they mean Jesus taught Judaism but you guys really mean he was Jewish and a preacher and when y’all say religious leader it sound like Jesus had something to do with the religious leaders like the Pharisees and the Sadducees but y’all really mean he was a religious leader because he has followers and disciples. There must be a better way to say that so other including myself don’t get confused. Kaleeb18 (talk) 13:41, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

As another Wikipedian pointed some years ago, the uncharitable description of Jesus is apocalyptic cult leader. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:52, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Messianic ideas were far from uncommon in the Second Temple period. Apocalypticism seems to have already emerged by the 2nd century BCE, when the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch were written. If Jesus believed in an imminent apocalypse, he was not alone in his beliefs. Dimadick (talk) 07:33, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

"I get He is most likely Jewish, but he did not teach Judaism." (Kaleeb18). I'm glad you think he was "most likely" Jewish, since Paul had no doubts at all on that score (he says Jesus was "born under the Law", the law being the Torah), but what makes you think he didn't teach Judaism? Everything he taught was Jewish, and he specifically said that he had not come to destroy the Law. Achar Sva (talk) 20:55, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Jesus did teach some parts of Judaism, but in Judaism the people dont believe Jesus died and rose from the dead. So if Judaism believes that how can he teach that. Kaleeb18 (talk) 21:07, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

That’s flawed logic. “Jesus didn’t teach Judaism because Jews don’t believe he died and rose from the dead”? There is no logical connection between what Jesus taught and whether Jews believe in the resurrection. Jesus was, at the time, considered and called a rabbi (teacher of what version of Judaism existed at his time). That is recorded and clear both in the Bible and multiple secular sources. Of course his life, teachings, death and (according to believers) resurrection did not fully adhere to the Judaism that existed in first century AD. But claiming that he did not teach Judaism in the 1st century because the Judaism of the 1st century does not match the Judaism of the 21st century seems like a colossal waste of time for all involved, especially when RSs are nearly unanimous in agreeing that he either taught an entirely new religion, or a radical form of 1st century Judaism. The discussion should be on whether he taught out of the 1st century form of Judaism, and the article already discusses that point pretty well. Jtrevor99 (talk) 23:32, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

It has been suggested by at least one experienced editor that this discussion is straying into WP:NOTFORUM territory. Any further discussion likely should be shifted to user talk pages. Jtrevor99 (talk) 01:37, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

@Jtrevor99: sorry I think i worded the thing I was trying to say I was really trying to say exactly what you said “he either taught an entirely new religion, or a radical form of 1st century Judaism.” I do think we are straying off topic I originally was just trying to say that the one section in the lead was misleading to me. Kaleeb18 (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

As DayTime99 didn't quite say, to call Jesus Christian is misleading. What Christian today means is entirely different from what it meant in Jesus' time. For example, evangelical Christianity (the mainstream form of Christianity in America today) came hundreds of years after Jesus and has nothing to do with him. There is virtually no connection between Jesus and evangelical Christianity as we know it. (As he didn't say, the basic rule is that we anchor every major statement to a reliable source, and if we have a reliable source saying JC was a Jewish preacher and religious leader,we can't arbitrarily change it). Achar Sva (talk) 21:51, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

That is an entirely different discussion. This discussion is about whether Jesus taught the 1st century form of Judaism and, if so, if calling him a teacher of Judaism is confusing since that form does not match the 21st century version. If you want to discuss whether he taught Christianity in its 21st century form, that needs to be a different thread. Jtrevor99 (talk) 03:39, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Jtrevor99: no, this discussion is not about whether Jesus taught 1st century Judaism (though he did), it's about reminding people of the basic rule that everything we say has to follow reliable sources. The statement in the lead follows such a source, and therefore stays.Achar Sva (talk) 08:46, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

While you are correct regarding reliable sources, that was the response, not the original post. The original post, and the title of this thread, was as I stated. Any discussion which deviates from the original topic needs to go elsewhere, if it's even topical. Jtrevor99 (talk) 10:11, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Name Change

I would like to request the editors of Wikipedia to change the Name of article from "Jesus," to "Jesus Christ."--Splashen (talk) 21:55, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

"Christ" is not a name it is a title synonymous with "Messiah". --Thebighomie123 (talk) 22:33, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

See Q1 under "Frequently asked questions (FAQ)" above on this talkpage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

"God the Son" in intro paragraph

This term should be switched to "Son of God", which is universally accepted by all Christians, as opposed to "God the Son" which is rejected by non-trinitarians and some trinitarians sects who oppose the term due to the fact that it is not found in the Bible. BakedGoods357 (talk) 00:59, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

I would support this change. I think the only reason it is written as "God the Son" is because that is what its corresponding page is titled as. - Therealscorp1an (talk) 03:17, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

See Son of God (Christianity) which is maybe a better link. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:53, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Looks like those 2 articles should be merged. DeCausa (talk) 08:12, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Non-trinitarians aren't really Christians.Achar Sva (talk) 08:47, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Unitarians would beg to differ with this assessment. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Just because one person agrees with your idea does not mean you have reached a consensus. The fact is, all of mainstream Christianity accept and use the term 'God the Son' and the 'incarnation' is an integral part of Christianity. Therefore there is absolutely no need to change the original intro to 'Son of God' as it is talked about below anyway. Strongly disagree with this change.--Thebighomie123 (talk) 20:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Futhermore, with over 45000 Christian denominations there is no term that is 'universally accepted' by all Christians so your argument for changing it is redundant. Thanks and have a good day Thebighomie123 (talk) 20:58, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

This article is not about “mainstream Christianity”. As previously discussed, “Son of God” is used by all Christian groups, while “God the Son” is not, so reverting this change doesn’t make sense. In addition, the article that the term “Son of God” redirects to explains the beliefs of different sects of Christianity, which is more appropriate for the article.BakedGoods357 (talk) 22:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Groups like Unitarians (though some British/American Unitarians might not consider themselves Christian those that do aren't Trinitarian and then there is the Unitarian Church of Transylvania which definitely considers itself Christian) and Christadelphians. Then there are groups like Jehovah's Witnesses (not a small group). Historically there have been other Unitarian Christian groups such as Polish Brethren. --Erp (talk) 04:35, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion on which of the two links should be used. The word "Most" should not be removed, though, as proposed by @BakedGoods357:. VQuakr (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

My reason behind the removal of this word is that I have not been able to find any Christian denunciations that do not use this term. If someone could show an example of one I would agree that it should not be changed.BakedGoods357 (talk) 23:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH. The lead summarizes the body, and the cited statement in the body says "most". Also, the burden is on you to establish consensus for the change you are proposing, not an anyone else to provide you with citations. VQuakr (talk) 01:20, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, which is why I’ve reverted BakedGoods357 edit (as well as it being premature claiming this edit has consensus support from this thread. DeCausa (talk) 20:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• Keep as "God the Son", but specify Trinitarian Christians, the vast majority. Johnbod (talk) 21:07, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

25 December

@Aeden Noel: If the NT gospels are to be trusted, it wasn't in the winter. Otherwise, all bets are off. But Lupi has shown (Zaccaria, Dissertazioni ecc. del p. A.M. Lupi, Faenza, 1785, p. 219) that there is no month in the year to which respectable authorities have not assigned Christ's birth. [14]. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:28, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. December 25 was arbitrarily set because, amongst other reasons, (1) that was the date pagans celebrated the "birthday" of the sun (in association with winter solstice), and (2) that set Jesus' naming and circumcision, i.e. the date he was officially recognized as part of his family and the Jewish population, to January 1, 1 AD. If Luke's account is to believed, it's likely Jesus actually was born sometime between late spring and early fall, because shepherds could not be out in the open at night in Judean wintertimes - it would be too cold. Of course, ultimately the exact day doesn't matter that much. Jtrevor99 (talk) 19:15, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

It definitely wasn't December 25 (Christmas). It had to have been a warmer month. Papal Rome (previously Pagan Rome) just was confused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:6011:9600:52C0:6594:3843:DA62:C33E (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2021 (UTC)