Talk:Origin of the Eucharist

Off Topic?

I shan't have time till next week to deal with my concerns in detail, but I want to put them on record now.

I fully agree that many wiki articles tend to drift "off topic" by acquiring extraneous information which is peripheral and best placed elsewhere. There is however a prior problem in this case: "What exactly is the topic?"

1. It could be argued that it should be limited to the "raw materials" which lie behind the earliest descriptions of the Eucharist: this probably locates the cut-off at Justin Martyr.
2. However, it could be held that a discussion of the "Origin of the Eucharist" should carry us down to the point where we are clearly dealing with an immediate ancestor of the Eucharists which are celebrated today and in particular the different anaphorai have emerged. This carries us down to the middle/end of the fourth century with perhaps Ambrose's De Sacramentis being the last source. This was, I think, the underlying rationale of the article before recent edits.

I prefer the second as the better of the two options, what do others think? Jpacobb (talk) 16:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Specific Concerns

If the second option is accepted, the following points will be relevant here rather than elsewhere:

1. It needs to be very clear that when dealing with any early anaphora where we have a long text there are weighty problems of textual criticism to be resolved. There is a debate as to whether the earliest forms of Addai and Mari contained the Words of Institution. (It probably did not.)
2. Opinion is far more divided than the current articles allow as to the provenance and date of the Apostolic Tradition and responsible scholars defend its Roman origin and date it around 215.
3. David N. Power (The Eucharistic Mystery) divides the pre-Nicene Eucharistic prayers into four groups and includes the "Supper Narrative" (i.e. words of institution) as forming part of two of the four.

Full references for the above are available. Jpacobb (talk) 16:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Question: Has not the label "Eucharist" been applied to this practice well after the 4th century? This word is not used by any of the biblical descriptions whatsoever. Indeed, there is an obvious gap between the "Fellowship" / "Communion" terms translated from the Koinonia noun root, should not that be called out? Its OK to call this (or something) the Eucharist, but thats not what it started out as. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.148.188.64 (talk) 16:39, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Answers

I tend to favour the first alternative. I think this article began as an attempt to put forward any and all ideas that attributed to the Eucharist some origin other than that generally accepted in Christian tradition. (It became better balanced later.) The second alternative envisaged by Jpacobb would be not so much about the Origin of the Eucharist as about the Origin of the Eucharists. Even if the problems about the early anaphoras alluded to by Jpacobb did not exist, I see no need to include them, beyond saying something about whatever conclusions regarding the origin of the Eucharist reliable sources may draw from the absence in them (according to several reliable sources) of an Institution Narrative. In my poor opinion, I doubt if any clear conclusion can be drawn, since they could still be associated with the Last Supper, even if the Last Supper is not mentioned in them, especially since the connection is explicitly made in what are called early catechetical texts. Esoglou (talk) 17:04, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem is not the "off topic" but to make some order in the articles of Wiki, in order to avoid double dealing of the same subject. This article already got lot of material about the first century origin of the Eucharist, and now it has a clear "see also" template that explain to the reader that to follow the history of the Eucharist liturgy he can go to the article Anaphora (liturgy), where there is already a section about the "Historical Anaphoras", which should be further expanded.

From tha Anaphora article, the reader can arrive to the single articles about early anaphoras, such as the Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition (where the debate about its dating is detailed), or the Anaphora of Addai and Mari (where the issue of the Works of Institution is deepened). I fully aware of the three points you highlighted (and also of more recent scholarship), and I'm preparing some other articles about early anaphora such as the Anaphora of Barcelona and the Deir Balyzeh Papyrus.

The concerns you arose about the early anaphoras deserve to be extensively managed without simplifications. (Also the lot of articles about the Roman Canon need a re-organization. Perhaps ‎Esoglou could help us)

So I may suggest to proceed to expand the article Anaphora, rather than to duplicate the content here in Origin of the Eucharist, also because to place this material here is like to state that the origin of the Eucharist could be dated in the 4th century, which is a POV. A ntv (talk) 17:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Psychedelic Mushrooms: Beyond the Fringe?

A new subsection has been added. I consider its inclusion unbalances the article and that we should consider deleting it. Two sources are given: John Allegro's 1970 book which was a nine-days talking point when published but as far as I know made no real impact on scholarly debate afterwards and a website which I think fails to qualify as a Reliable Source [1]. In brief: undue prominence given to an incident which failed to find roots in the academic world. Jpacobb (talk) 03:11, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

delete: I agree to delete the Psychedelic Mushroom theory section because it is a fringe theory with no impact on scholarship.A ntv (talk) 06:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Delete: Does not really fit under "contemporary scholarship". Esoglou (talk) 06:34, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Removed according to the above A ntv (talk) 16:02, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Deleted Description of Link as "non-Catholic Protestant website"

The link http://www.leaderu.com/theology/passover.html was previously described as "a Christian website" and "Christian" was changed to "non-Catholic Protestant". This is a redundant expression which could be understood as POV. The site itself does form part of an evangelical conglomerate, but does not major on pushing protestantism and in fact, while a catholic might reasonably want to see more said about certain things, in my opinion at least, there is very little or nothing on the page to which a catholic academic would object as mistaken. I feel no description of the site is better than a potentially conflictive one. (I wondered whether to remove the description of the following one as well, but left it since the site positively implies it belongs to an individual Anglican parishes and they tend to express a theology which is more "restricted" than the range of opinions acceptable within Anglicanism.) Jpacobb (talk) 16:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Remove: I suggest to fully remove such a external link. There are thousands of web pages about this issue, and the simply reason that such link deals with the Origin of the Eucharist is not a reason to include it. As per WP:EXT we shall actually check the need of each single external link, and this link does not contain further research by well-known scholars, does not include material which cannot be insert in the article, is not a reference text source. Also the next link, the "Anglican" one, should be removed for the same reason: in Wiki we have lots of articles about the view of the Eucharist under each single denomination, and this article is not to duplicate such details. Only the first link should be retained, but simply because it meets the criteria of including further research by a well-known scholar (but perhaps it could be under a "Further reading" section).A ntv (talk) 09:26, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Summary

@Remsense: Can you explain https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Origin_of_the_Eucharist&diff=prev&oldid=1243078891 Is no description better than what I left? -- Error (talk) 11:22, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

See WP:SDNONE. Remsense ‥ 论 11:24, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Category

@Remsense: In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Origin_of_the_Eucharist&diff=prev&oldid=1243079735 you state removed Category:Origin myths using HotCat clearly incorrect cat.

Do you think it is clearly incorrect considering that the category shows

 ?

-- Error (talk) 11:45, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The category of for origin myths, i.e. sorties explaining the origin of the world. Remsense ‥ 论 12:21, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

It is not used as that. Creation myths are not the only origin myths. The category says: origin myths, a type of myth that explains the beginnings of a natural or social aspect of the world. One specific kind of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, which narrates the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place after the initial origin. and it includes the Tower of Babel, Category:Resurrection of Jesus, Founding of Rome and Masonic myths. Founding myth says: A founding myth or etiological myth (Greek aition) explains either: * the origins of a ritual or the founding of a city *[...]

--Error (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)