Talk:Oxyrhynchus Gospels

POV problem in first graf

The statement that "most Christian laymen [ignore them] due to their being extremely fragmentary and puzzling to reconstruct" is untrue. If anything, most Christian laymen have never heard of them or of the Oxyrhynchus papyri in general. Mangoe 17:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The vulgarism "POV" refers to a violation of Wikipedia's policy of balanced neutrality. Inapplicable in this instance. Correct the line yourself, without losing information, and we'll rate your performance. --Wetman 18:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Without losing what information? Their fragmentary nature is established in the first sentence; that laymen ignore them because they are fragementary is false; that tehy are of interest to scholars as a non-canonical text is given. There is not much left to lose, it seems to me. Mangoe 20:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Sellew's Complete Gospels

It makes me nervous to cite a book that does not appear in RLIN, especially by short title, with no indication of year or publisher. RLIN does have a Phillip Hart (Harl?) Sellew, but his only works are

• Pauline conversations in context : essays in honor of Calvin J. Roetzel, edited by Janice Capel Anderson, Philip Sellew & Claudia Setzer. London ; New York : Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. ISBN 1841272647
• Early collections of Jesus' words : the development of dominical discourses, his Harvard doctoral thesis from 1985.

Sellew is clearly a reliable source, although perhaps not a major one, but I would like enough information on the Complete Gospels to find it. Is this an essay within Miller's Complete Gospels, which is easy to find, or what? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• He is.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletions of sourced quotes by well-known scholars

The following text has been suppressed by our censor:

• Oxy. 840: "In his introduction in The Complete Gospels, Philip Sellew notes that this fragment was likely a talisman text, kept as an amulet, perhaps worn around the neck. The text itself has been dated to the first half of the second century. Sellew calls it "similar to the New Testament gospels in its style and tone."
• Oxy. 840: "The fragment contains sections of a narrative unparalleled in any other known gospel tradition, though Jesus's title as "Savior" (Greek: Σωτήρ) which is found in the New Testament too (e.g.: Luke 1:69, 2:11; John 4:42; Acts 5:31, 13:23 etc.), and the author's vague grasp of details of Temple rituals suggest a Johannine circle, perhaps in Syria [1]. In it Jesus and his disciples appear in the Temple without having performed the ritual bath and are accosted by a high priest of the Pharisees, to whom Jesus responds "But I and [my disciples], whom you say have not wa[shed], we [have wa]shed in waters of li[fe] [eternal co]ming from ..."
• Oxy. 1224: "John Dominic Crossan notes the mutilated condition in his introduction to the fragmentary text in The Complete Gospels resulting in highly conjectural reconstructions of the text, which, however, "does not seem to be dependent on the New Testament gospels.... As an independent gospel, it belongs, insofar as its fragmentary state allows us to see, not with discourse gospels involving the risen Jesus (e.g., the Secret Book of James and the Gospel of Mary), but with sayings gospels involving the earthly Jesus (e.g., Q document and the Gospel of Thomas). Crossan suggests that the document might have been written as early as the mid-first century."

This material has simply been deleted, truncating the article. The quotations may not assort with our censor's indoctrination. Personally I find this material accurate and of general interest to the Wikipedia reader. --Wetman 21:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)