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{{Controversial}}
==Archives==
* See especially: [[Talk:
== Note ==
Notice: This is a daughter article of [[Jesus|Jesus Christ]] - It was taken from the mother page made to alleviate the size of the older article.
[[User:WhisperToMe|WhisperToMe]] 07:18, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
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:::By all means, I agree. We've been working on trying to quantify and identify all the "some"s on both (or better, all) sides of the arguments. I wasn't trying to single you out as the only one who uses so-called "weasel words". I don't agree with the total ban on these terms suggested in [[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]], but we use them way too much, especially in [[Jesus]]. Someone will have to sit down with the sources and document all this... [[User:Mpolo|Mpolo]] 15:28, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)
:::: Ok, I'm happy with the edits you (and some others) have done Mpolo; the page is no longer seriously biased in my opinion. Should I remove the tags? [[User:The Rev of Bru|The Rev of Bru]]
I agree. This article is biased. I'm no great historian or Biblical scholar but I have looked around a bit at other sources. The whole article strikes me as being written by Christians who are trying to appear as if they have no agenda and are purely academics. They admit to disputes but always seem to think that the "Jesus existed" view wins out. It is a subtle form of disinformation. [[Special:Contributions/79.70.211.199|79.70.211.199]] ([[User talk:79.70.211.199|talk]]) 08:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
== Proposed change to section 1 ==
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Mention of [http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/josephus-jesus.html Josephus] being a Jewish Pharisee would be balanced. And that the passage is different in an 10th century Arabic version discovered by professor Shlomo Pines. - [[User:Sparky|Sparky]] 21:14, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
== Suggestion to Combine ==▼
This article and the [[Historicity of Jesus Christ]] article should be combined. There is so much overlap here that I feel there would be an abundance of both redundant material and discussion. Please discuss. [[User:DLR|DavidR]] 18:24, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)▼
== Gospel of John ==
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:By the way, the original page put the end date at 100, it was Rev of Bru's changes that bumped that to 190. I thought 120 was a conservative number, given the dating of the earliest fragments. [[User:Jayjg|Jayjg]] 19:14, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::The real reason is the latest possible plausible date for the Gospel to actually have been written by an eye-witness. P.s. THERE ARE NO "EARLIEST FRAGMENTS" known from before about 300AD, so if these were to affect the dating we should really state "320AD" as the authorship date. [[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 20:28, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
== [[User:The Rev of Bru|The Rev of Bru]] ==
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::::Maybe since Cheese has several of these sources accessible (based on his citing them in other fora), he could identify the groups of "anti-Jesus" scholars in each case with an example. That is, "some critics, including XXX, deny this argument because..." That will help us with maintaining an image of neutrality. Where the "pro-Jesus" article is more than the existence of the text, of course, this should also be cited. My reference material doesn't go much in this direction -- I've read a book or two, but don't have them here. [[User:Mpolo|Mpolo]] 08:04, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
:::::I simply havn't heard of these people beforeand am concerned that some of this may be [[Wikipedia:No original research|original research]]. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Sam_Spade&action=edit§ion=new '''Spade''']] 13:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::::I am concerned that this may be failing to consider ''However, don't be too keen to remove unverified information at the cost of completeness.'' (the 2nd paragraph on the [[WP:V|Wikipedia:Veracity]] policy)[[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 20:44, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
::::::No, these people exist. You can find the same arguments almost verbatim on practically any pagan/atheist/skeptic site. I found one in about 10 seconds with Google containing every argument Cheese and Bru have made (obviously they presented them in their own words). The article would be better, of course, if we could cite specific people, and people with qualifications, but Cheese is going to have to provide that information, I suppose.
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Sam, what exactly is your objection to the NPOV title "alleged textual evidence for Jesus". If you don't want NPOV, I will quite willingly change it to "Lack of textual evidence for Jesus" or "Absolutely no genuine textual evidence for Jesus whatsoever". [[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 20:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:If you do that, I'll be whacking on the NPOV header very fast. Do NOT make a move like that. "Alleged" implies that the data is in fact incorrect. It's a value judgement. - [[User:Ta bu shi da yu|Ta bu shi da yu]] 07:21, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Could we decide where the page is going to be rather than just moving it around constantly?
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:::::I think that the "alleged" in [[Alleged inconsistencies in the Bible]] is subtly different from the "alleged" in [[Alleged textual evidence for Jesus]]. "Inconsistencies in the Bible" is inherently POV, or at least is perceived that way by a good-sized group of readers, so that the "alleged" enables all to approach the article with an open mind. It might be perceived to skew slightly in favor of the dismissal of the "inconsistencies", but the article makes an effort to avoid that bias in the course of the article. In this case, no one is denying the existence of the textual evidence, so that the title with "alleged" seems to skew the direction a bit more strongly towards dismissal of the "textual evidence", even implying that the documents may not exist at all, which is not what you want to say. After considering the issue more, I would vote for the title [[Textual evidence for Jesus]], with a review of the lead to reflect the new title, and to make sure the article remains neutral.
===Compromise===
If need be, I would be willing to compromise on "[[Textual evidence of Jesus]]" which would be equally accurate but perhaps slightly less POV. Thoughts? [[User:Sam Spade|[[User:Sam Spade|Sam]] [[User talk:Sam Spade|Spade]] [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004|Arb Com election]]]] 14:17, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:That would be O.K. by me. Then you're not saying that it is "for" Jesus.... [[User:Mpolo|Mpolo]] 14:34, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
::Right. I'm not trying to ram thru some pro-jesus propoganda here, just trying to keep things within reason! I fully understand and respect the intent of NPOV, making an article everyone can at least tolerate, from all extremes of POV. [[User:Sam Spade|[[User:Sam Spade|Sam]] [[User talk:Sam Spade|Spade]] [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004|Arb Com election]]]] 14:54, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think [[Textual evidence of/for Jesus]] is POV. Particularly if you read the article. In the main, of those that are undisputed, there is NONE. Of those bits of evidence which are disputed, all are most likely forged, or irrelevant, some are completely obvious (e.g. Herod + Pilate). Critical study of the alleged evidence generally reveals it to be nothing of the kind, thus calling the title "Textual evidence of/for Jesus" is inherently POV as it implies quite the opposite to the article, i.e. that there is some.
Compromise would be more along the lines of [[Jesus and Textual Evidence]]
[[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 21:38, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In addition, the article [[Alleged relics of Jesus Christ]] has "Alleged" in the title, and its been like that for ages. [[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 00:04, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think that CheeseDreams has the best compromise here. I say we go with [[Jesus and Textual Evidence]], and in fact I'm going to be [[Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages|be bold]] and do this :) - [[User:Ta bu shi da yu|Ta bu shi da yu]] 07:24, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
▲== Suggestion to Combine ==
▲This article and the [[Historicity of Jesus Christ]] article should be combined. There is so much overlap here that I feel there would be an abundance of both redundant material and discussion. Please discuss. [[User:DLR (usurped)|DavidR]] 18:24, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Definitely. The section on Sources in that article is just a pale imitation of this one... [[User:Ben Standeven|Ben Standeven]] 07:58, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:The historicity article is currently in a state of crisis from an edit war. When it is finally in good shape, it will have a "summary section" pointing to this article as the ''Main article:'' . Or at least, that is the plan. [[User:Mpolo|Mpolo]] 10:41, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
::The [[Historicity of Jesus/New Version]] seems in good shape to me; I've already introduced a summary section there. [[User:Ben Standeven|Ben Standeven]] 08:17, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This article was spun off by me (and then tidied and NPOVed and bits by others, predominantly Mpolo) from my own contributions to [[Historicity of Jesus]] which themselves predominantly spun from merging the previous version of this article in and rendering it NPOV. UNFORTUNATELY, that article (historicity) was then locked. After it was unlocked, I summarised the sources section. However, my changes were then blanket reverted by two extremists, resulting in a revert war, and the re-protection of that page. The summary exists, and is viewable in the page history of [[Historicity of Jesus]] (my recent pre-2nd-protection reverts). [[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 20:38, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
:Who, pray tell, are you presenting this curious chain of events to, Cheese? [[User:Sam Spade|[[User:Sam Spade|Sam]] [[User talk:Sam Spade|Spade]] [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004|Arb Com election]]]] 01:47, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
David R. and Ben Standeven. [[User:CheeseDreams|CheeseDreams]] 01:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Have we come to a conclusion about whether or not we are going to merge this page with the "Historicity of Jesus" page or not? [[User:Rclose|Rclose]] 13:57, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
== Head of an ass ==
You know, Tertullian refuted those claims most vigorously in the ''Apologeticum''. I might have to track this down further. - [[User:Ta bu shi da yu|Ta bu shi da yu]] 06:58, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:Ah, found it. See [http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/anf03-05.htm#P321_123623]:
::''For, like some others, you are under the delusion that our god is an ass's head.20 Cornelius Tacitus first put this notion into people's minds. In the fifth book of his histories, beginning the (narrative of the) Jewish war with an account of the origin of the nation; and theorizing at his pleasure about the origin, as well as the name and the religion of the Jews, he states that having been delivered, or rather, in his opinion, expelled from Egypt, in crossing the vast plains of Arabia, where water is so scanty, they were in extremity from thirst; but taking the guidance of the wild asses, which it was thought might be seeking water after feeding, they discovered a fountain, and thereupon in their gratitude they consecrated a head of this species of animal. And as Christianity is nearly allied to Judaism, from this, I suppose, it was taken for granted that we too are devoted to the worship of the same image. But the said Cornelius Tacitus (the very opposite of tacit in telling lies) informs us in the work already mentioned, that when Cneius Pompeius captured Jerusalem, he entered the temple to see the arcana of the Jewish religion, but found no image there.''
:[[User:Ta bu shi da yu|Ta bu shi da yu]] 07:03, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Weasel words ==
My goodness, how many can we include in one body of literature?
# The [[Gospel of John]] is seen ''by some'' as being written by an apostle, however, ''many others'' dispute the authorship for a series of reasons.
# The Gospel of John is seen ''by some'' as being written by an apostle, however, many others dispute the authorship for a series of reasons.
# ''Some Christians'' proclaim that the lack of references to Yeshu, and the difficulty in associating the name with Jesus, is due to the fact that Christianity was a negligable group when the Talmud was predominantly created
# ''Some scholars'' suggest that the second paragraph is merely describing Christian beliefs that were uncontroversial (i.e. that a cult leader was put to death), so had no reason not to be assumed as fact.
# '' Some scholars'' consider this text to also be a forgery or to be in error, since the author, Agapius of Hierapolis seems to be quoting from memory.
# ''Many scholars'' consider it odd that a man of such significance as Jesus should be missing from historic texts and records, since lesser figures are, unless, that is, Jesus didn't exist, or was insignificant.
# This has led to the conclusion by ''many critics'' that some Christian, possibly Eusebius himself, falsified the text
# However, ''those who oppose this claim'' argue that many of the commentators commented on other Middle Eastern events, and many, especially the geographers, travelled to the region and that reports of miracles might have been expected to arouse more interest.
# ''Many scholars'' consider it odd that a man of such significance as Jesus should be missing from historic texts and records, since lesser figures are, unless, that is, Jesus didn't exist, or was insignificant.
# ''Christians proclaim'' (source?) that this evidence is precisely what became the New Testament, wheras ''others dispute this'', stating that one would expect at least a handful of non-Christian witnesses.
My oh my, but aren't there many unattributed assertions. - [[User:Ta bu shi da yu|Ta bu shi da yu]] 07:50, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
== Tacitus ==
The presentation of Tertullian's view as a counterpoint is a bit misleading, because he's arguing against something that Tacitus did not say—in that part of his work, anyway. The brief passages on Christianity in the ''[[Annals (Tacitus)|Annals]]'' nowhere mention the donkey's head. That claim, which is the target of Tertullian's argument, comes from a section of the ''[[Histories (Tacitus)|Histories]]'' dealing with the ancient Jews and is just a repetition of an old anti-Semitic legend dating back at least to the 2nd century BC. (I suppose it's possible that the ''Annals'' originally did claim Christians worshipped a donkey's head, that Tertullian saw an edition that made this claim, and that the story was later expurgated—but that's just a guess, and it's not likely, either. If a Christian scribe had removed such a claim, he probably would not have left the unflattering remainder of the description in place, and he certainly would not have overwritten one unfavorable description with another.) I removed the quotation (see [[#Head of an ass]] for its substance); the following is the the text used to introduce it:
:One of the early church fathers, [[Tertullian]], in his tract the ''[[Apologeticum]]'', stated that Tacitus was wrong (in fact he wryly states that Tacitus was not being ''tacit'' in his account):
—[[User:Mirv|Charles]][[User talk:Mirv| P.]][[Special:Emailuser/Mirv| <sup><small>(Mirv)</small></sup>]] 17:17, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Isn't Tacitus saying that there were Christians in Rome under Nero, not just when he was writing? [[User:John Kenney|john]] [[User_talk:John Kenney|k]] 03:18, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
==Historicity Merge==
This page should really be merged with the Historicity of Jesus page because External Textual Evidence is a sub catagorey of Historicity. Besides much of what is presented here is also covered on the Historicity page. As to where it should be inserted, the Historicity page could use some more structure. There are three tests of Historicity. Besides, simply discusing the debates of the Historicity of Jesus, it would be more beneficial to go through these three tests to demonstrate the reason some have found Jesus a reliable historical figure or not. The first part of the Jesus page is also a historicity section and should cover the subject in brief as should the Historicity of the New Testament section, both articles refering readers to the combined Historicity of Jesus page through links. [[User:Rclose|Rclose]] 14:40, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
:A bold '''+1''' to this suggestion. As there are no reactions seen, I'll interpret this as ''no opposition''. But I'll wait some days before starting to merge. --[[User:Pjacobi|Pjacobi]] 19:58, August 28, 2005 (UTC)
:I agree. [[User:Jayjg|Jayjg ]][[User_talk:Jayjg|<sup style="color:darkgreen;">(talk)</sup>]] 15:51, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
:'''Support'''. I don't care whether this article is merged into that one or that one is drained into this one, but the severe redundancy is getting on my nerves. I'd be glad to help properly merge the two. However, if you're going to merge two such major articles, shouldn't you put a <nowiki>{{merge}}</nowiki> tag at the top of each page, so more people will see it? Here, I'll do it. -[[User:Silence|Silence]] 10:31, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
== announcing a new policy proposal ==
This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate]] for the detailed proposal. [[User:Slrubenstein|Slrubenstein]] | [[User talk:Slrubenstein|Talk ]] 14:30, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
The result of this proposal was that it failed to be approved. [[User:-Ril-|<nowiki>~~</nowiki><nowiki>~~</nowiki>]] 9 July 2005 10:29 (UTC)
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