Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Archive 36

Archive 30

←

Archive 34

Archive 35

Archive 36

Archive 37

Archive 38

→

Archive 40

References - heavily biased

The end of this article suggest a large number of references. Quite inappropirately, a large number of them are fringe writings from conspiracy theorists with no academic background in the subject, in other words references that would never satisfy WP:RS. This includes works of people such as G A Wells, Alvar Ellegård etc. These people were professors of linguistics. Being a professor of one area does not confer competence in unrelated areas. Presenting such a number of books advocating WP:FRINGE theories fails WP:UNDUE, it is comparable to adding a lot of books denying the evolution to the article on evolution.Jeppiz (talk) 15:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Not at all, these are the most prominent ones advocating the CMT, and you cannot have an article on the historicity of Jesus without mentioning the CMT. Richard Carrier has a PhD in ancient history and a few peer-reviewed publications to his name. Wells and Ellegård are / were respected academics, and Wells has been cited sympathetically by R. Joseph Hoffman, who is on a level with many of the biblical scholars we do cite. Dismissing the CMT as a conspiracy theory is an outrageously non-neutral POV for this article. Biblical scholars, a few serious academics from various fields publishing outside their main area of expertise and less than a handful of historians are the only sources we have. Martijn Meijering (talk) 15:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but you quite clearly do not understand the relevant policies at Wikipedia. Yes, we should mention it and we do. But it remains a fringe theory with almost no academic support and it is a quite strong case of WP:UNDUE that more than half of the given references are from the fringe. Wells and Ellegård are / were respected academics in lingustics. What they had to say is relevant in articles on Germanic philology. Being an academic is not a carte blanche to being an authority on any field.Jeppiz (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Rudeness objection, kindly remain WP:CIVIL. I am quite familiar with the policies, thank you very much. I've already said that the size of the criticism section is excessive. I've never said that academics are RS on every subject, in fact I've objected strongly to misrepresenting biblical scholars as historians, even though no doubt some do qualify for that. The reason that Wells and Ellegård are notable is because they are both respected academics and prominent among proponents of the CMT, which has to be mentioned, even if only briefly. If we restrict our sources to just the historians, we're down to Akenson, Grant and Carrier who have published on the matter, and Nobbs and Lane Fox on the statement that the CMT is rejected by nearly all historians. It seems to me that on a historical topic which has seen hardly any activity by actual historians we can't do much better than either summarising all notable opinions, reviewing any debate there may have been and the relative levels of support for the various theories, or deciding not to have a separate article on it. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I have no intention to be uncivil, and my suggestion was made in good faith. I'm sorry that I have to repeat it. Regardless of whether you believe you understand the policies or not, it's clear that you don't. That not uncivil, just an encouragement to read the policies. You continue to insist that "The reason that Wells and Ellegård are notable is because they are both respected academics and prominent among proponents of the CMT". Sorry, but no. That Wells and Ellegård are/were "respected academics" is of no relevance, as they were not academics in any field even remotely connected to this area of research. WP:RS is not, as you appear to believe, something you have or haven't. No academic is an WP:RS on every topic. If an someone is a well "respected academic" on Shakespearean literature, it still does not make them a WP:RS on fusion energy and no matter how great their personal interest in fusion energy as a personal hobby, they become no more of an RS in that field just because of their PhD in English literature. Whether you like this, or agree with it, is irrelevant. It's equally irrelevant how prominent an amateur is among other amateurs, it's not a popularity contest. If you edit Wikipedia you have to comply it. Or if you want to challenge the rule, go ahead and do it, but this is not the place for that.Jeppiz (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

You continue to misrepresent my position, I'm not suggesting that Wells and Ellegård are reliable sources on the historicity of Jesus, or that academics are RS outside their professional field of expertise. In fact, I explicitly denied that was my position in my previous post. Kindly take my word for it when I state what is and isn't my position. My position is that Wells and Ellegård are notable, which is not the same as a reliable source, and therefore can only be used in attributed citations, and not in Wikipedia voice. They are notable because the CMT is on topic for this article and they are prominent proponents of it. Their prominence derives in part from things like book sales, citations and media attention, and in part from the fact that they are respected academics, unlike say Acharya S. or Earl Doherty. They're also not self-published or blog-only nutcases. Other scholars have interacted with Wells and Ellegård in a way that AFAIK they haven't with these other two or the nutcases. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:32, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I misunderstood you. Then back to my original point. WP:UNDUE applies to the entire article the recommended references. Right now, a fringe view is strongly overrepresented in that section.Jeppiz (talk) 17:41, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Once again,the rejection of Jesus as a historical figure is not a fringe theory. Martin has pointed out several secular historians and other academics who have published peer reviewed work (in Carrier's case and others?) on the historicity of Jesus. And in many cases, it appears, as these well reputable sources can attest to, we may have reason to doubt that Jesus existed. Carriers previous work on Josephus demolishes Josephus, and his latest hallmark publication, combined with Price and others, you have some authority there. If anything the article gives way too much weight to a few throwaway statements made by religious apologists, and resists every attempt to engage in a constructive exploration into an interesting historical topic: the historicity of Christianity's Jesus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.160 (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

You are just plain wrong. The rejection of Jesus as a historical figure IS a fringe theory. Your speculation that "reliable source" may have published peer-reviewed work rejecting historicity is not an acceptable source of information for Wikipedia; Bart Ehrman's 2012 assertion that virtually no one with any qualifications in any relevant field accepts this "theory" is. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:02, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

To start with, historicity and "historical figure" mean different things. There are lots of people whose historicity is certain who are not historical figures. And there are historical figures with rather dicey historicity.

Since this article is a WP:Controversy, we need to be more careful with citations. In the 2012 boo, Ehrman said "Of course Jesus existed. Everyone knows that, don't they." (WP:Weasel Words) So he's not to be a good source for this assertion, as it's clearly a throw-away claim, from a popular book. In any case, since he asserted that "Jesus existed", and there are no reliable sources available that equate existence with historicity, the claim is out anyway. (your WP:Burden.) You really should do your homework - You don't seem to understand the basic terms used in this field (which, incidentally, is history, not theology), and you can't seem to be bothered to cite your claims. Maybe you should step back and do some reading?. I recommend The SAGE Handbook of Social Science Methodology. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:54, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

vandalism from /r/atheism

On the 6th of October, 2014, Reddit user SubGeniusIdiot made a thread entitled "Wikipedia editors, please help: Christian editors are trying to kill an article about whether Jesus actually existed in history." on the subreddit /r/atheism on www.reddit.com.

This post made by Reddit user SubGeniusIdiot asked /r/atheism subscribers to come to the talk page and "voice their opinion." The /r/atheism subscribers are ideologically motivated and have no new information to present. I suggest that they should be blocked, along with those who orchestrated this, to prevent further vandalism of the talk page and the main article.

On behalf of Reddit, I apologize for their actions. /r/atheism has a reputation for being extremely single minded and ideological, and this instance of vandalism demonstrates that. If you want to find more reasonable atheists on Reddit come to /r/magicskyfairy.

Everyone here should read this entry:

Help: Dealing with coordinated vandalism.

Samuel Stringman (talk) 20:50, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I've come here from r/atheism, but I was already an editor. I completely agree. We should push for the page to be locked to avoid edit warring. How do we go about that exactly? I've never needed to to it before. O99o99 (talk) 21:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

We generally don't lock talk pages, though articles may be protected in certain circumstances. In this case we'll probably just see reversions and blocks. N^oformation ^Talk 21:05, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Added Request for Temporary Full Protection

I've made a request for temporary full protection until everything settles down at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection. Tryme1029 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 00:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Toward the future

The recent RfC saw a rush of editors who have not previously contributed to this article, pouring in to demand that the article be enlarged to properly discuss issues about the Historicity of Jesus as opposed to the Historical Jesus. In order to go forward constructively, we need to first clarify a few things:

• If we are to continue to have two full articles, what will be the difference between the two articles? There is misperception that Historical Jesus blindly assumes Jesus' existence and then proceeds to use historical sources to outline what he would have looked like, whereas Historicity of Jesus deals with the question of whether or not there ever was a Historical Jesus at all. This is not quite the case. The question of Jesus' actual existence is dealt with also in Historical Jesus - and the consensus of the reliable sources is that Jesus did exist, although not much can be known about him with certainty, because the surviving evidence is so poor. This fact is already included in the shortened Historicity of Jesus article as it stands. What more is there to add?
• The Historical Jesus article already discusses all the "evidence" – such as it is – and that material is an integral part of that discussion. Contrary to some wild statements made above during the RfC, the Historical Jesus article is not just a lot of mindless quoting from the gospels. We cannot remove these discussions of the "evidence" without crippling the Historical Jesus article.
• Therefore, if we keep the Historicity of Jesus article as a full article in its own right, it will once again directly duplicate the Historical Jesus article to a large extent. Is it really appropriate to keep two large articles that duplicate each other so extensively?
• Contrary to some wild statements made above during the RfC, the drastic shortening of this article was not an attempt by Christians to censor out a discussion of historicity, it was simply to eliminate this extensive and unnecessary duplication. All the info that was removed from here already stands in other articles. Also, if one actually reads the lead of this shortened article, it is clear that the article is not endorsing the gospel stories at all.
• A merger has been suggested. This was tried before – suggested by me – and was over-ruled by the then-consensus. I see little point in asking the question again now, while so many people are demanding that the article be retained separately from the Historical Jesus article. However such a step would probably make sense.

In conclusion, if we simply reinstate the full article as it was, it will hugely duplicate the existing Historical Jesus article once again. It seems to me that a better idea will therefore be to start with what we currently have, and add in extra WP:RS info only to the extent that it supports the topic, but without duplicating existing articles. Comments please? Wdford (talk) 21:28, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

From the lead of the HJ aritcle "These reconstructions accept that Jesus existed". Is says in the third line of the lead that the reconstructions about the historical Jesus are based on the acceptance of his existence. This is completely different from the historicity of Jesus which doesn't bother delving into aspects of the life of a possibly fictional character, but deals strictly with the evidence for/against the historical existence of that character. If your concern is a problem with duplication, then it's probably the result of people overloading this article with questionable sources that have an apparent conflict of interest to match other articles. Regardless, the subject "historicity of Jesus" is well sourced and prominent enough to merit its own article.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and if we restore a full article here, it will also say that Jesus existed and give very little space, if any, to saying that he did not. This is not because of some religious bias. Quite the opposite, it's about reporting what the scholarship in the field says. As per WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE we don't provide space in main articles for theories with almost no academic support. So that particular matter would not change regardless of whether we recreate a full article here or not.Jeppiz (talk) 21:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@Scoobydunk: The lead of the HJ article says that the reconstructions about the historical Jesus are based on the acceptance of his existence, because the vast majority of WP:RS scholars confidently assert that Jesus existed.

The HJ article does describe the evidence on which the scholars come to these conclusions, it also discusses the methodologies used and it describes the criticisms of those methodologies. That material is important to the HJ article. If we move that material here while leaving it also at HJ then we will be duplicating, but if we move that material here and delete it from HJ then we will be crippling the HJ article.

On the other hand, if we were to remove from the HJ article the section of “Portraits” (about 13k only) then the remaining 85k that is left could easily be renamed “Historicity of Jesus”, and Historical Jesus could be reduced to a redirect page.

A fourth option is to do a simple merger of the two articles.

A fifth option is to keep this article as a slightly-expanded redirect, which is what it currently tries to be.

Unless you can think of a sixth option, I’m afraid you cannot demand to retain and expand the Historicity of Jesus article without choosing from the above list. Which option do you prefer? Wdford (talk) 22:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem with all this is that Historical Jesus starts with the disclaimer: "This page is about historical study of the life of Jesus. For information about the historical existence of Jesus, see Historicity of Jesus." So either we remove that disclaimer and merge all contentious ideas about Jesus' life into a disputes section (and then simply redict historicity to historical), or we go back to 2 separate articles. I'm fine with either one, and I'm agreeable to keeping CMT labelled fringe (since it is), but the removal of a large amount of cited material seemed counterproductive, and a link to a stub article that then simply links back to the original article is painfully bad. Mwenechanga (talk) 22:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Well spotted - I have removed the obsolete disclaimer. Wdford (talk) 23:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

It is not obsolete because it's a completely different subject matter that well sourced and deserves its own article. Again, it doesn't matter if information is repeated in multiple articles so long as the focus remains consistent with what the article is about. Just because there are numerous articles that discuss global climate change doesn't mean we can turn the global climate change article into a disambiguation page that redirects to multiple off-topic articles. An example of an appropriate page merge would be if there was an article titled "Jesus" and a separate article titled "Jesus Christ" and both were clearly about the same figure. A page about the historical Jesus is not the same as a page about the historicity of Jesus and I already explained how the HJ page automatically assumes the existence of Jesus while the historicity page isn't founded on that assumption but merely addresses the arguments for/against his existence. Just because the page was edited to represent content from other pages doesn't mean it merits deletion/removal and if that was the long term strategy for removing this article it would be a clear violation of WP gaming.Scoobydunk (talk) 01:11, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me the problem, in so far as there is one, lies with the content and purpose of the Historical Jesus article, not with this, the historicity of Jesus. It seems to me that the purpose of the HJ's article is (or should be) how Jesus has been depicted historically, whereas this article the Historicity of Jesus, is supposed to focus on the question of whether or not Jesus existed. These are two separate things. Keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean that this article is supposed to give undue weight to the idea that he didn't; it's not unlike the Socratic Problem in Classics. But, the historical Jesus article shouldn't attempt to provide or depict arguments for or against Jesus existing, simply because that doesn't seem to be the scope of the article; a summary of the historicity of jesus would suffice and indeed must be all it can provide.

I should think the split ought to be obvious--but truthfully, there is no split, It seems fairly clear to me what each article should be discussing, and it's also clear that Historical Jesus' extremely long summary of the question of whether or not he existed is out of place for the same reason posting the whole Socratic Problem in the Socrates article is out of place. As you note, Wdford, removing it would significantly shorten the Historical Jesus article, which seems to me all the more reason to expand the various views and focus on them more tightly.--Xomic_Talk 02:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Mass removal of content

Much more important than the debate above I think is the mass removal of content. I Think this 5 day old diff is ridiculous and such a massive change with no discussion goes way beyond WP:BOLD. I suggest we go back to Sep 29 and start over. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:54, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

There was discussion, but the RFC is very fresh and should not be taken as a consensus yet. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I am utterly shocked by the massive deletion. Agree to go back to Sept 29 and start over. This is ridiculous. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The mass deletion mainly involved material that had recently been copied here from the Historical Jesus article. The intent had been to pare it down, but this good-faith attempt at improving the article turned out to be a failure. The article had been a battleground for years, and there had been major doubts as to what the proper division of all the material in the main three articles involved was. To my surprise, and perhaps to the surprise of others, nearly everybody could agree with the shortened version. And in addition, I'm really quite happy with your recent edits that move the minority position into the lead, properly identified as such. I think the article is quite good now. There are a few things where I think we can make an improvement, but this seems like an excellent start. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

If there was a previous failure, it does not mean we can't try again. This is a fascinating subject and deserves a great article. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:06, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Cwobeel this diff. [1] Sorry, I meant the section on your talk page for here, and just put it into the wrong tab Gaijin42 (talk) 22:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

There shouldn't need to be, per WP:BRD. The edit changing the article to a botched weird disambiguation page should never have been reverted back once contested. It's not up to us to have a RfC to change it back, there should be an RfC to have it even at all. Thankfully, this one does include both options for !voting. Tutelary (talk) 22:59, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I have restored the material. It is painful to see good content deleted. Rather than delete, let's source it well, improve the prose and make this FA material. A worthy effort. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I second this suggestion, and I believe the best way to do this is to go back to the version with your latest version in it. Of course, per WP:BRD we should obtain a consensus first. In the meantime the article should stay as it is. I have a feeling we can quickly establish near unanimity that your latest pre-restoration version would make an excellent start. I'm asking other editors to hold off on other changes until we either establish a consensus, or find out we won't be able to establish a consensus quickly. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Mmeijeri Going back quite a bit in time the article is much more fleshed out, so I think it was more than just reverting a recent addition. Here is the article from over a year ago. [2]Gaijin42 (talk) 23:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

To clarify, I believe you are correct that the bold edit once challenged should not have been restored. I do think it's the way to go, but we should have established a consensus first. I'm hopeful we can establish a new consensus quickly, but we need to return to the latest stable version first. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment I quite surprised at this blatant disregard of an ongoing RfC where the consensus view was to keep the disambiguation page. While the edit was indeed BOLD, it had the support of almost every user on the talk page, at least before the canvassing this morning to fight the RfC. Personally I have no strong view on whether to have the article or the disambiguation page, but this complete disdain for all discussions of all the involved users is misplaced at best, downright disruptive at worst. Personally I don't mind one way or the other, but Cwobeel may want to rethink their strategy of always editing first and discussing later.Jeppiz (talk) 23:14, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

And now we once again have a virtual carbon-copy of the Historical Jesus article, where all this material (and more) is safely stored and coherently reported. How do you propose to resolve this duplication? Have you even read the HJ article? Wdford (talk) 23:30, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Historical Jesus is a completely different area of study. If there are duplications, we need to careful excise. But we have to have an article on the Historicity of Jesus, not a stub or disambig. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:08, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

With some care and using WP:SUMMARY we can have both this article and Historical Jesus in the pedia. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I have read the article in its entirety (highly recommended if you have not done that yet), and my initial impression is that this is an excellent article covering all relevant aspects. The only exception is the section on Research methods, which may be better served by a summary from the Historical Jesus article, as it refers mainly to an analysis of the Gospels, which is studied in the context of the historical Jesus. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@Cwobeel: Are you suggesting basically paring down sections of this article in order to prevent it from being a direct copy from HJ? My issue with it and why I supported the disambiguation was two-fold: 1)It was a constant battleground over lack of clarity regarding what historicity refers to 2)Most of it is verbatim repeated. If this article gets pared down heavily or some separate research is utilized, then I could see supporting it in its full version. Prasangika37 (talk) 02:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Par down whatever is already covered elsewhere using WP:SUMMARY. Full disclosure: I am not religious in the traditional meaning of the term, I know some Hebrew and Aramaic, I have studied Biblical criticism as a hobby, I’m well read on the subject, and find Jesus to be a fascinating subject of study. My interest is to have an excellent article on the subject that we can all be proud of. - Cwobeel (talk) 02:44, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Do the sources actually support these claims?

Scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts,[5] but most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7–4 BC and died 30–36 AD,[6][7][8] that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, that he was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate[9][10][11] and that he lived in Galilee and Judea.[12][13][14]

This would seem to indicate that the subject of this article is that there was a true figure and that there are no doubts...uhm...that is not what the "Historicity of Jesus" is. Those statements seems undue weight and out of blalance and would seem to be stretching things more than a bit. Can we discuss this and what the sources are saying here and how to add balance to that properly?--Mark Miller (talk) 05:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The First sentence: "Scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts" does not seem much of an issue in itself, but then the claim goes on and strys into original research ans synthesis.

• The first source is clearly the opinion of the author and would require in text attribution that would be undue weight in the lead and in all those pages I don't believe he is actually even making the claim " most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born between 7–4 BC and died 30–36 AD". The author only seems to mention "Some author" in regards to dating Herod.
• The second source is discussing specific modern "quester" in regards to "Jesus studies" but also makes no over encompassing statement that "most scholars" agree on anything.
• The third source Also does not claim that most scholars agree that there was a man named Jesus. It says that for those that believe the gospel to be reliable there is a "burden of proof" and what would be "proof" is just not clear. It then goes on to say that there is a "consensus of sorts" on the outline of his life. And that most scholars agree on certain thing but...then adds that that "The devil is in the details".--Mark Miller (talk) 06:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

After that all the content is just narrative that debates the actual subject of the article in the lede inappropriately. All the sources thereafter are not needed and are argumentative and meant to make claims as fact that the actual subject debates.--Mark Miller (talk) 07:54, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You have discussed three sources, and then you go ahead and delete nine sources, and keep deleting them despite being well aware that there is no consensus. What you're doing is not serious, you're just disrupting Wikipedia.Jeppiz (talk) 09:34, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I discussed the fact that the sources after the first three of concern were only there, stitch in as a way to prop up the original research. All you did was return claims that were not supported by the references and the rest were not needed and only argued for a perspective of fact that was not a accurate.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:43, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You claimed that the six sources are not needed, nobody else agreed with you. It's clear from this edit [3] that you see yourself as some kind of super editor above the "boggled down" entitled to edit pages as you see fit without bothering with the little people on the talk pages. Talk about a delusional self-image, but perhaps that explains all your blocks for edit warring. The rules apply to you as much as to anyone else. The fact that you claim that six sources aren't needed is very far from being a valid reason to remove them in the first place, yet alone to edit war to remove them.Jeppiz (talk) 09:53, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

WOW...calling me names because I referred to myself as an experienced editor and quoted the reasoning for BRD only proves you have no clue what you are talking about. Here is what BRD says: "While editing a particular page that many editors are discussing with little to no progress being made, or when an editor's concerns are not addressed on the talk page after a reasonable amount of effort.". You are just complaining now in the worst manner. No one objected and I waited a while to see if this would attract discussion. I don't need to wait days. However, you still are not giving ANY reason but just making personal attacks. My block log? LOL! I have not been blocked in years. I suggest you stop attacking me as it makes you look like you have a personal vendetta and are only making matters worse. The reason I gave was valid. The claims made by the first three sources did not support the statements which the rest of the sources depended on. Now...you really need to begin an actual discussion and stop with all the other crap.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

May I remind you that it was you, not I, who started discussing yourself, justifying your actions by appealing to your own importance. "No one complained"? Seriously? Ok, you don't have to wait for days but you waited less than two hours and then claim "no one complained". Seriously? As for discussion, it's quite hard to discuss as you haven't yet provided any argument against the six sources you delete. You claim they are not necessary, and that's all. In what way not necessary? They provide highly relevant information about Jesus' life in the opinions of scholars, which is precisely the topic. Removing them based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not particularly serious.Jeppiz (talk) 10:12, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I can wait for you to calm down. I did not say no one complained. LOL! You pulled that out of your rear end. I said no one objected. How many hours I should wait is not a precise science but on a controversial article like this one where the last edit was made by an admin...two hours seems pretty reasonable. You however...are not. As I said, those sources lost all relevance and were really just stitched together to support as fact what was not supported by the first three sources of concern. The subject is the historicity of Jesus not the history of Jesus.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:24, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Mark Miller. Looks like reference padding to prop up weak sources. Also...the personal attacks need to stop now. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 10:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Could I ask what you mean by weak sources? Some of the deleted sources are written by some of the leading scholars in the field. In what way are they weak?Jeppiz (talk) 10:22, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Please re-read this thread from the beginning. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 10:40, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I have, and it says next to nothing about six of the nine sources. It disregards them as irrelevant but without providing any convincing explanation for why they are not relevant. Only the first three sources are discussed in any detail.Jeppiz (talk) 10:42, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Extreme WP:OR and WP:POV-pushing

After the call on Reddit yesterday for atheists to come here to "piss off Christians", we've seen far too many policy violations. Several users appear to be unaware that this is not a forum and you're not at liberty to write just whatever you want. At Wikipedia, we go by sources. And not just any sources found, but by reliable sources WP:RS, and we then represent what those sources say as closely as possible. For instance, if we have several sources explicitly saying that virtually all scholars agree on something, then we say that. If you change that statement to say that "a majority thinks this and a minority this", then you're violating WP:OR (as well as WP:UNDUE) by diminishing the statement of the sources. And if the source says scholars, and you decide to change this to "biblical scholars", then you are again guilty of WP:OR. And whenever you feel the need to change what a source says because you don't agree with it, it's WP:POV. Likewise, we've seen some users pick just anything they find, one user even inserted a section on what a retired linguist had written as a hobby. Well, that is nowhere near WP:RS. Once again, try to represent sources as closely as possible according to what the sources say and not according to what you want the source to say. And if you want to challenge what's already in the article, the best step is usually to discuss it at the talk page first and gain a consensus, especially if you aware that it may be controversial.Jeppiz (talk) 09:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Editors need not discuss every edit. Clearly I did before I made mine...but you cannot force your will on others or BRD. But if you bring up BRD and then don't discuss....well that proves something as well. As for the above...are you familiar with the Streisand effect?--Mark Miller (talk) 09:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Editors do not need to discuss every edit, but when it's clear to the editor that their edit is contested and doesn't have consensus, they should discuss it instead of edit warring. And even when they don't discuss their edits, they still need to follow WP:OR and WP:NPOV.Jeppiz (talk) 09:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

When you return content that is not supported by the sources used and then claim no consensus you are both edit warring and filibustering for your preferred version with no explanation as to why it should be returned.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I returned six sources that you had removed just because of dismissing them in one sentence as unnecessary, with nobody else agreeing with you.Jeppiz (talk) 09:55, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You don't understand how Wikipedia works. I am seriously beginning to doubt you competence here or perhaps you just have an extreme bias. Regardless....removing sources that have no relevance does not require agreement first. No edit requires agreement first and you still cannot justify the return beyond an uncivil rant at me.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:09, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Always this claim that the sources "have no relevance". According to whom? It's your personal POV, not supported by anyone else. What about at trying to present an argued case for why the sources aren't relevant, instead of always appealing to your own authority.Jeppiz (talk) 10:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

If you cannot argue the content there is little left to say. And there does seem to be some support. Please try to give some reasoning as to why you feel the content should return.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Can cool it a tad, please? The intent here is to have an excellent article on the subject, and we need yo put aside our deeply held beliefs. All we need is an article that presents the debate around this fascinating subject, not to prove or disprove anything. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:29, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

RFC_ Full Article, or Shortened Article with Links

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the article on Historicity of Jesus be a full article or a shortened disambiguation article?

The most recent full version is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Jesus&oldid=627845714

The shortened disambiguation article is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Historicity_of_Jesus&oldid=627801126

Notice for users coming from /r/atheism - Some may have seen today's popular /r/atheism thread. To those that missed the warning comment further down in the thread: Wikipedia is not a vote. It's the strength of the argument that counts. Quality over quantity. The massive number of low-quality or short votes from "red users" in favor of keeping the non-disambiguation page is getting very large as the thread continues to top the massive 2-million-user subreddit. Please don't spam and troll and create additional work for people who are trying to actually help Wikipedia by preserving the information and ensuring its placement is correct.

Full Article

• Comment Ever since this hit the front page of /r/atheism and attracted thousands of additional people to this page, it's been a huge cluster of trolls and angry arguments from both sides. I feel bad for the admin that has to go through all of these. It seems, at this point, like actual Wikipedians are going to see this mess and not even want to make a decision in fear of it not even being seen when admin's decision is to be made. Wikinium (talk) 19:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support The article was good in its original form.
• Support the Christian movement is all about teaching the controversy when it comes to controversial ideas like creationism and a young earth. Let's teach the controversy on this topic as well. Let both sides post their views (and their evidence, of course), and then let the readers decide which is correct.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.167.155.109 (talk • contribs) — 98.167.155.109 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

See WP:GEVAL and WP:AGF. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:30, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose - This article has been contentious for months, and has resulted in too much quarreling. The shortened version appears to be a real improvement. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It has been contentious for several years even. Martijn Meijering (talk) 06:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support there are extant reference sources including the Anchor Bible Dictionary which has a substantial subarticle on this topic (a transcript of which has been already sent out to several editors here) and the Encyclopedia of Unbelief which has a substantial four-page article under the title "Jesus, Historicity of". Between them and the sources they use I think that there is sufficient content for a standalone article and sufficient evidence that this title is maybe among the better titles as per WP:COMMONNAME for an article on the subject they cover, which in both cases is the question of the historical existence of Jesus. I would however acknowledge that there is good reason to think that the content of the article might be significantly changed from the last full version based on such sources. John Carter (talk) 16:22, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Given the impermanence of Wikipedia, the shortened article could be a solution to keep the article stable while a new version is drafted and consensus gained for it. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, build that stand-alone article in your sandbox, and let's see what it looks like. If it's valuable new material that complements rather than duplicates existing articles, we can upload it into this article and replace the existing material. Will you please post a link here when its ready? Wdford (talk) 20:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support Nick733 (talk) 10:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)" — [[User:Nick733]|Nick733]]] ([[User talk:Nick733]|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/Nick733]|contribs]]) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Wikipedia:DNB I agree with keeping the full article page since I have used it many times in the past, today is my first attempt at editing and have refrained from further discussion until I gain more proficiency Nick733 (talk) 12:50, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I do not bite but WP:SPA applies all the same. And it's rather astonishing how we all at once have an influx of new users who never took an interest in this article before, and on Octobter 6th they all suddenly decided to come here. I smells of either WP:SOCK or WP:CANVASS.Jeppiz (talk) 13:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support I consider an article with verifiable facts about this important subject to be in the best interests of both Wikipedia, and humanity. Spierepf (talk) 11:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC) — Spierepf (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Support The historicity of Jesus has enough scholarly research and reliable sources to merit its own article. Many, if not most, of the disambiguation links go to articles that already assume a historical Jesus existed or link to fringe conspiracy theories like the Chist-myth theory. Neither of those types of articles are representative of the historicity of Jesus and I personally see converting this article into a disambiguation page as an attempt at censorship.Scoobydunk (talk) 13:19, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

You can transfer to any of the listed articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 13:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

...if you wanted to read about supposed fringe theories or articles that already assume Jesus existed. Again, this article has a substantial amount of reliable sources and notability to merit its own inclusion on Wikipedia.Scoobydunk (talk) 13:34, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

As per WP:FRINGE, we should not write about fringe theories in other articles than the articles about said fringe theories.Jeppiz (talk) 13:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support A single article on this topic is certainly warranted, and if the Disambiguation proposal is accepted the information within will only be available from multiple other places. DaveChild (talk) 13:54, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support Having both perspectives on the page give more credibility to the page. It forces interested parties to verify claims and provided solid sources. This is a subject about the Historicity of Jesus which required facts which can be verified. Having "opposing sides" helps ensure that NPOV stays out of the articles. JChurchtown (talk) 13:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC) :— JChurchtown (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Support It's a WP:BROADCONCEPT article.GliderMaven (talk) 14:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support The single article is factual and has proper references. stymiee (talk) 14:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Probably most of the 6 October comments come from the "vote rigging" of /r/atheism and shouldn't be considered valid just because it got the attention of those who are atheist and ideologically anti-Christian, as most discussions on /r/atheism show. This is not a historical or fact-based debate. Aoszkar (talk) 14:49, 6 October 2014 (UTC) — Aoszkar (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Even if this were true, it is important to note that you're conflating atheism and antitheism (which is to say, atheist aren't anti-Christian, or, at least, any more so than, say, anti-Cookie Monster .... antitheists would fit that bill, however). Conflating those ideas won't be constructive here. Tigerhawkvok (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support Most other articles focus on Jesus Christ as a historical or literary figure, and rarely venture into the territories associated with his historicity (e.g., the factual basis for his existence/feats/etc). Having it in a single location is certainly noteworthy and relevant. A disambig page would not do this justice by any stretch. Tigerhawkvok (talk) 16:09, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Another Reddit - atheism recruit who hasn't been here for years.Jeppiz (talk) 16:35, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support Why is this even a thing? The original article was perfectly fine and actually addressed the title rather than sidestepping it, and it's a perfectly legitimate historical subject of study. Cjh1k2004 (talk) 16:13, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Another Reddit - atheism recruit who hasn't been here for years.Jeppiz (talk) 16:35, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support The actual article should tackle the question posed by the title, not circumvent it. Hia10 (talk) 16:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support We have two options here: we either make the linked pages into a category, or we reinstate the full page. This page, as it stands, seems out of place in Wikipedia. There are few other pages like it. The full article will provide better information for those seeking it out. O99o99 (talk) 21:46, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/2ifn42/wikipedia_editors_please_help_christian_editors/ Very disturbing, as has been pointed out by Jeppiz. Manipulation of the editing and nothing other. The link was posted October 6th, 2014 7 hours ago, and then all these edits have appeared. Is this allowed?Prasangika37 (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

No. It's probably not allowed. You get to give less weight to the IP editors and SPA accounts, but *not* the experienced WP editors. As it says at the top of the article: Be polite, and welcoming to new users. Assume good faith. Avoid personal attacks. For disputes, seek dispute resolution. (Please don't take your cue from Jeppiz. He's just been reported on WP:ANI for incivility)

Consensus in WP should ideally not be based upon number of votes, but upon policy-related points made by editors. (It says that in the Meatpuppet article, and, in different words, at the top of this article.) Hia10, Cjh1k2004, and Tigerhawkvok are all experienced editors who just made points directly in line with WP policy. Their comments count towards consensus. Aoszkar is an experienced user who made a point in opposition to WP policy (apparently thinking this is a democracy) His/her comments do not count towards consensus. Fearofreprisal (talk) 18:15, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The relevant policy here is WP:CANVAS. The difference is not between IP editors and established users, but about how the editor was recruited here. An IP editor can be just as valid a contributor, while an editor with a long editing history but not active for a while who came here after being summoned from another side is still considered canvassed. This is not my opinion, it's Wikipedia's policies.Jeppiz (talk) 18:25, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support As an unbiased source of factual knowledge, it is important to maintain valid sources which refrain from subjective hearsay. This article is not intended to discuss the theological implication of Jesus, but rather the historical assumption of his existence. It would not be unwelcome to include a section discussing the Christ-myth theory and other extraneous, though related, subjects, however the disambiguation page currently in place is clearly biased towards the views of Christian editors and serves no true purpose given the scope of the original article. ThsTorturedSoul (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support The full article contains content which makes it easier for readers to find the information they are looking for on Jesus of Nazareth's historicity. I completely support a full article on this subject. Bobthegreat157 (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Strong Support I commented some about the comments thrown at fearofreprisal's account and spoke out against them, but never really argued for or against a certain viewpoint on this topic. But when I see the article...now some weird disambiguation page, and violation of WP:BRD (which I know is an essay, but I've seen the person who deleted most of the content cite before) being edit warred back in after that bold edit which was obviously reverted, they should have gotten consensus for their edits rather than having a makeshift tag team of editors restore it back and back again regardless. That's not how editing is supposed to work. You don't get to blow up everything and reduce the page to a disambiguation page because of previous disputes. Obviously a notable topic and should be elaborated on and not simply reduced to a disambiguation page as some sort of 'compromise'. Tutelary (talk) 21:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• I'd throw my support behind keeping the full article, although I'll admit openly I only learned of this via the /r/atheist subreddit. But, regardless of why I'm here, I'm not really sure I quite understand what the argument or utility is for turning this article into a disambiguation page. More importantly, though, I'm not really sure what the value is in turning the page into this style of disambiguation page, which manages to state a position (Most biblical scholars agree that he existed) without examining or expanding on why there might be the case for Jesus not existing, what the arguments might be, or why some scholars doubt he existed in the first place. If the argument is that these discussions are better represented in these other articles like Christ Myth Theory or Historical Jesus and needlessly duplicated here then it seems that we've be better served with a redirect to one of those two articles. If the argument is that this article's content is represented in a number of different articles, then it seems more of an argument for a singular, unified article, like we already had, than a 'disambiguation' page. But, in truth, this doesn't read like a disambiguation page, rather, it reads more like an extremely short article with a 'see also' list at the end of it.

I do not believe that the contents of this article are non-unique enough to warrant a redirect, nor do I believe what has been written truly qualifies for a disambiguation page. A discussion/analysis about the evidence for a historical Jesus, the Historicity of Jesus, is unique enough--this is to say, different to qualify as a separate article on Wikipedia. Whether or not that article was contentious doesn't seem like a valid argument for changing the article in this manner. It is, in many ways, an irrelevant point to make. There are a number of controversial articles on Wikipedia, it goes, in some sense, hand-in-hand with what this project attempts.--Xomic_Talk 21:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for making a balanced and good contribution. I was not involved in the change to the current page, but the reason is that all content is duplicated in other pages. I see the logic of a redirect, presumably to Historical Jesus. Part of the article is shared with Christ Myth Theory, but as there is wide consensus that that is a fringe theory (no condescending intended, just the fact that virtually no scholar hold that view), it may be less suited for a redirect. I would not oppose a redirect to HJ, but I think the current disambig page is not bad although not exactly like other disambig pages. I don't see what there is in the full article that is not already covered or, if needs be, could be covered in other articles. Some users from Reddit seems to think that the full article would defend the CMT which of course it would not (unless the academic consensus changes markedly). It would still make the argument that the person Jesus existed as that is what the academic sources say. I fear there is an unfortunate mix-up between keeping the article and thinking the article would take a different perspective than HJ on Jesus' existence.Jeppiz (talk) 21:10, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the fact that it's discussed--although presumably not at length or in as great of detail--in multiple articles suggests to me that it is all the more reason to have an article called Historicity of Jesus that fully covers it in detail. It's not a matter of this article's contents being wholly reproduced (I would assume) within a single article, and thus, would be worthy of a redirect to said article's section. Similarly, there's nothing really disambig page, where we're creating an article which is meant to direct a user to the appropriate article because the term he or she is using is inherently ambiguous. If you search wikipedia for 'Cell', you get a disambiguation page for cell, because the word cell can refer to biological cells, or cells in a battery or cells on an spreadsheet, whereas the term 'historicity of jesus' is in no way ambiguous in the same way--unless one meant to search for history of jesus and spelled the word wrong. As I noted, my objection to this shortened page is that while it calls itself a disambiguation page, it's really nothing of the sort. Secondly, while Wikipedia has policies regarding Fringe theories and not giving Undue weight a theory on the fringe does not necessarily mean that it is unworthy of a wikipedia article about it. Just recently, an author/historian Michael Paulkovich generated some 1000 news articles (according to a google news search) where he argues that Jesus never existed, the very thing this article is meant to discuss. The reason I bring this up is because it's clear that, while the position that Jesus never existed might be fringe, it's one that's talked about and has a certain weightiness about it that would warrant an article on Wikipedia. Imagine if we were talking about something like Cold Fusion, and someone suggested we replace the article with a shortened 'disambiguation' article with links to Nuclear fusion and Muon-catalyzed fusion and whatever else. Cold fusion, like Jesus-never-existed, is a theory on the fringe of their respective fields, yet it would be fundamentally flawed to suggest that because it's on the fringe it there shouldn't be an article about it. Cold fusion, like Jesus-never-existed, are things that generate a lot of talk and discussion, which, to me, suggests that they probably are worthy of their own article.

Ultimately, this is the question and solutions we have to be asking and reaching for. IF this article falls afoul of Wikipedia's policies on due weight and fringe, then it should be redirected to the appropriate article. IF there's no article section that covers the topic appropriately or it can't be covered concisely, then this article should exist and it certainly shouldn't be a 'disambiguation' page.--Xomic_Talk 01:24, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

This is incorrect. The HJ article already assumes that Jesus exists and thus examines information from the gospels and other works already based on this assumption. The historicity of Jesus is strictly about the arguments and evidence that prove/disprove the historical existence of Jesus. It's not about Jesus's life, but about the strict topic of his actual existence. It doesn't matter if parts of this are covered in other articles, it still has enough reliable sources to merit an article for itself. There are many articles that discuss aspects of climate change, that doesn't mean we should turn the "climate change" article into a disambiguation page.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:26, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Shortened Disambiguation Article

• Support - If there really are any details that need to be added, they can be added here or in one of the referenced articles. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support - A good full article would likely result in material that would be branched off into the other articles if they did not exist. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support per Robert McClenon. As I mentioned at ANI, that was an excellent job creating the disambiguation article in short order, and it diffused the dispute. Well done. Ignocrates (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Strongest support imaginable This article had so many problems before, and the changes resolved almost all of them. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:56, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support An excellent resolution of the problem. Perhaps the list of articles could be in alphabetical order though, rather than implying some as more important than others? Theroadislong (talk) 12:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support We can easily put the useful Historicity info into the HJ article - there is no need to keep two separate and duplicating articles for this purpose. Wdford (talk) 12:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support per all of the above editors. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:27, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support both as an excellent first step and as a good long term solution. Further discussion about the possibility of deletion or a rewrite could always follow, but I'd be perfectly happy if it didn't. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:38, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support Prasangika37 (talk) 15:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support SW3 5DL (talk) 00:24, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose The subject of this article has to do with the historical actuality of a man who may have lived long ago. It has nothing to do with whether anyone believed he was Christ. The topic of the article is historical, not theological.

To delete a purely historical article, and in its place, refer readers to a list of Christian articles is an indefensible imposition of ideology on the readers of WP.

Further, the blanking of the article was an overt end-run on the WP article deletion policies. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The first position lead into is the Christ Myth theory. Yes, there's Tom Harpur, but if you're going to acknowledge that that makes it a Christian position, you have to acknowledge that Christianity does allow one to hold a variety of views on the position, which would contradict your prior (and otherwise dumb) arguments about "Christian sources" such as Bart Ehrman.

The next article (Historical background of the New Testament) and another article (Historical reliability of the Gospels) are about historians placing the Gospels into history to see what it fits (and throwing out what doesn't), rather than reshaping history according to the Christian orthodoxy. While I and some other Christians prefer this approach to studying the Bible, you have to admit that that approach completely rejects Biblical inerrancy and any authority of Christian tradition.

Also included is Jesus Christ in comparative mythology, which documents attempts to connect the myths of Christianity to non-Abrahamic religions. While I and some other like minded Christians are actually theologically pleased by these comparisons, you must admit that that hardly qualifies that article as "Christian," especially since the article depicts the views as "Christians rejecting similarities pointed out by non-Christians."

Just because a Christian agrees with an idea does not mean that that idea is automatically Christian. Most of them are fond of breathing, are you going to reject that? Maybe you just need to quit thinking of sources in terms of "Christian" and "non-Christian" (the same problematic mindset of fundamentalist evangelicals) and start thinking of sources in terms of "school" and "meeting WP:RS as Wikipedia defines it."

Also, the article was not blanked. Disambiguation pages are not blank. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• Support, seems a good way to avoid the duplication and to help with navigation. Huon (talk) 00:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support to avoid redundant duplication, all the content is already covered in the the articles to which the disambig page links.Jeppiz (talk) 11:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
  • If all the content is covered in a long list of other articles, then that is a clear justification for a full article on the broad topic. GoForMoe (talk) 12:37, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support - Pure disambiguation will work.(e.g. [4]) Bladesmulti (talk) 12:29, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose There appears to be no other page which takes a purely historical approach to this topic, only those with a Biblical POV. Removing this page does nothing but remove access to information that some people may find useful. DaveChild (talk) 13:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

That is not correct, Historical Jesus takes a purely historical approach to this topic.Jeppiz (talk) 14:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The Historical Jesus article lead includes this: "These reconstructions accept that Jesus existed", whereas this article examines historical support for that position. The names might be confusing, but there is a significant difference. DaveChild (talk) 15:46, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Completely Opposed - It's not a disambiguation page if they all use the title in the same way. You have to use the terms in different, non overlapping ways. This would be completely at odds with Wikipedia's rules. You have to merge it, or delete it.GliderMaven (talk) 14:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure we could merge with Historical Jesus.Jeppiz (talk) 14:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose statements such as “…critical methods including critical analyses of gospel texts as the primary source…” and “…mainly Christian sources….” are heavily POV and come from sources which would be considered hearsay in the current legal system. I appreciate the burden of proof being high so that I can rely on the information contained within a Wikipedia article. Removing the full article would be a disservice to all sides of the argument since the common article location forces sides to research and cite perspectives related to the Historicity of Jesus. JChurchtown (talk) 14:18, 6 October 2014 (UTC) — JChurchtown (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Support This has gone too far in being an ideological battle and even getting the aggressive and nowhere civil /r/atheism crowd to push the decision in that direction. It has gone too far away from an open discussion. This would be a great improvement. Aoszkar (talk) 14:42, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Look at articles like Historicity of Muhammad, Historicity of the Iliad, Historicity of the Book of Mormon, and Historicity of the Acts of the Apostles. They are not in disambiguation form. Why does Jesus need to be presented like so, when other historicity articles do not? Big Wang (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

We have the article Historical Jesus which does the same things.Jeppiz (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

No. That article starts from the presumption that Jesus existed, unlike the other page I pointed to, which is a discussion on the historical existence of said subject. Big Wang (talk) 22:46, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm not convinced that this newly-shortened article is any more useful than the previous one, which was much more informative and actually addressed the matter at hand. Why does something like this have to be summarily shortened and cut? Cjh1k2004 (talk) 16:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Yet another canvassed voice from Reddit.Jeppiz (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Not useful, not pertinent, and not neutral.Awolnetdiva (talk) 18:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose There are two distinct articles, on two distinct topics: Historical Jesus, which assumes Jesus' existence, and then proceeds to use historical sources to outline what that would have looked like. Then there is Historicity of Jesus, which deals with the question of whether or not there ever was a Historical Jesus at all. If we go this route of deleting all content from the Historicity of Jesus, then we must merge that content back into Historical Jesus, which will make that page much longer and messier. The existence of a Historical Jesus is not a settled question among historians and from what I understand of history and human nature, it may never be such. Mwenechanga (talk) 17:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support This shortened version achieves disambiguity, and an article on Historical Jesus already exists. This article serves as a POV fork, which is according to Wiki recommendations. HOWEVER, additional citations would be very useful on the con side. It is not neutral to argue against scholarly citations for the sake of not agreeing with them, or finding fault with the citation source. Opposing arguments are welcome, but Editors must present opposing arguments with their own scholarly citations, as well as support any scholarly citations for arguments they may not personally agree with. Awolnetdiva (talk) 18:05, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Some weird disambiguation page created out a bold edit which was reverted per WP:BRD yet edit warred back in. This is not a suitable replacement. Tutelary (talk) 21:08, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
• oppose the articles are related but not identical in purpose. WP:SUMMARY/WP:OVERVIEW A massive change like this should not be made so suddenly, especially not when there is such a big canvass disrupting the process. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC has become pointless due to heave off-Wiki canvassing

In the last hours, we have seen a surge of WP:SPAs trying to influence the RfC, as a large number of new accounts, or long dormant accounts, have descended on the page to push for the option "full article", an option that had next to no support from established users before the canvassing. The chances that a number of people woke up today and all thought "Today I'll register on Wikipedia and head straight for an RfC at Historicity of Jesus" begs belief.Jeppiz (talk) 15:03, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

My account isn't single purpose. It is at least 5 years old IIRC. I just want to support the use of factual references on wikipedia, instead of deleting knowledge. How many SPAs are here to oppose the full article? 77.101.129.132 (talk) 16:51, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

An article discussing this entire situation landed on the front page of reddit.com. URL here; http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/2ifn42/wikipedia_editors_please_help_christian_editors/ Lots42 (talk) 15:18, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's currently one of the top links on Reddit, with over 3,700 upvotes. The user that posted it is specifically asking the /r/atheism community to "Please help, by visiting the article "talk page", and voicing your opinion." Trinitresque (talk) 15:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Man, this is spectacularly unhelpful. I've long been concerned about bias in articles relating to this subject, and having a bunch of new POV warriors isn't going to help. Is there a procedure for dealing with this sort of thing? I imagine the RfC will at least have to be extended in duration.

To those who've just joined Wikipedia and want to contribute: it's great to have you here, but please be sure you're not just here to agitate on a single topic. Also be sure you understand the rules and policies that are necessary for running an all-volunteer encyclopedia edited by mostly non-expert editors. These policies can be subtle and aren't always obvious to newcomers. If you just barge in without bothering to understand the policies and trying to follow them you're more likely to do harm than to help. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia usually does the opposite. When a losing side is canvassing to get meatpuppet-support, we close the RfC. In this case, the opinions were along the lines of 10-12 in favour of the disambig page and only 2-3 in favour of the previous article, which probably is why the latter took to off-wiki canvassing. Rather than extending it, it should be closed as the prospect of any fruitful discussion is nil. Fortuately, the RfC went on long enough for a very clear pre-canvassing consensus to emerge.Jeppiz (talk) 16:27, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, I wish I'd seen this RfC before reddit decided to weigh in, but even so, Wikipedians are supposed to judge comments on their value, rather than their quantity. The argument in favor of deletion is that the information has no value representing only "fringe theories," while the argument to keep is that the information is notable and sourced and has notability. It is only the merits of those claims that should be considered, no matter how many people show up with strong feelings one way or the other. Mwenechanga (talk) 20:40, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't help that the prevailing side was clearly brigading, sometimes with shady accounts (e.g. "most of my accounts have been blocked", "let me know if you need help with a controversial article") or flat-out biased ("Christ myth theory is like young earth creationism". I mean, suggesting that the vote total as of (arbitrary point in time X) is basically saying "if you're going to meatpuppet, do it early." - Keith D. Tyler ¶ 17:00, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

"Flat-out biased"? Really? Have you taken a look at this?

We do not WP:VOTE. And nobody has talked about an "arbitrary point in time X", but about the consensus before the heavy canvassing took place, a definite point in time. Saying that the Christ myth theory is WP:FRINGE is not biased, it's in line with a broad academic consensus, cited in the introduction to this article.Jeppiz (talk) 19:56, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I closed the RfC; the discussion needs to be constructive, not a flat-out vote. Shii (tock) 23:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@User:KeithTyler: Take that personal attack about "most of Hijiri88's sockpuppets" back. I do not have sockpuppets. I used several temporary accounts to avoid off-wiki harassment. A couple of these were legit WP:CLEANSTART attempts that I accidentally outed. Eventually I realized that unretiring my original account was the best solution. I asked an ArbCom member to indefinitely block all the other accounts I had used. Your above implication that I have other socks is ridiculous and offensive. ArbCom determined over a year ago that my use of more than one account on multiple different occasions and different articles (i.e., never once did I !vote more than once or try to abuse these accounts to gain an advantage) had not been disruptive, and that I had indeed been the victim of abuse, but that for the sake of transparency I needed to stop. So I did. I even went far out of my way to list all the other accounts, and explained the activities of several of them on their respective user pages, just for the sake of transparency. I was going to cover all of them in this way, but then people start attacking me like you just did, and so I decided not drawing attention to it was best. Do you think it would be a good idea for me to remove the statement from my user page and get the subpage speedied? Do you think this would make you and other users less suspicious of me? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Existence

Given that there is near universal academic consensus on the fact that Jesus existed, and we have several WP:RS sources that say that there is an academic consensus that he existed, it is relevant to include it. WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE require us to present the most accurate description of academic consensus, and WP:RS/AC is very clear on how to report it. When there is a majority and a minority, it should be said. When there is a near universal consensus, that should be said and not presented as a majority versus a minority. To adhere to WP:NPOV I didn't write anything myself but copied the consensus version from Jesus where it has been discussed in great detail and agreed upon by a large number of users. The current wording is the one that most closely correspond to what the cited sources say.Jeppiz (talk) 10:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

So an WP:NPOV statement, written as a consensus among several users and sourced by a large number of scholars in the field was immediately deleted by a user who did not even bother to provide any explanation here, but instead headed straight for page protection after reverting to use that his version becomes protected and nobody can edit it. If that is not disruptive, I don't know what is.Jeppiz (talk) 11:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No. There is opinion. There is no consensus. Try to understand that this article is an actual subject that weighs both sides...not just yours.--Mark Miller (talk) 11:52, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You're not discussing, just ranting. What is your reason for removing the content backed up by sources from Ehrman, Dunn, Van der Voorst and others?Jeppiz (talk) 11:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Does Pele exist? Does Odin, Zeus, Aphrodite or Allah? Please. Jesus may mean your very existence and for that I truly am sorry it clouds your view....but this is an encyclopedia not your personal theological discussion board. There is no actual consensus among academics that any particular deity exists. All of the above scholars have an opinion. They do not have facts. That is what this encyclopedia summarizes.--Mark Miller (talk) 11:59, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Mark, Jeppiz is right. This is just ranting. Your comment that "Jesus may mean your very existence" betrays the fact that you see your self in some struggle about religious faith. This is not about faith. We don;t find anti-Muslims trying to prove that Muhammad did not exist. Only the truly fringe-of-fringe try that tactic. Jesus existing has nothing to do with Christian faith, so drop that stick. The citations are perfectly adequate for the statement that the overwhelming consensus of scholars is that he existed. You are the one who seems not to understand "how Wikipedia works" and how we use source to make statements about scholarly consensus. Paul B (talk) 12:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi mark, have you had a chance to look at these citations?

Citations

[T]he view that there was no historical Jesus, that his earthly existence is a fiction of earliest Christianity—a fiction only later made concrete by setting his life in the first century—is today almost totally rejected. G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1988) p. 218 It is customary today to dismiss with amused contempt the suggestion that Jesus never existed. G. A. Wells, "The Historicity of Jesus," in Jesus and History and Myth, ed. R. Joseph Hoffman (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1986) p. 27 "New Testament criticism treated the Christ Myth Theory with universal disdain" Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-Four Formative Texts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2006) p. 1179 "Van Voorst is quite right in saying that 'mainstream scholarship today finds it unimportant' [to engage the Christ myth theory seriously]. Most of their comment (such as those quoted by Michael Grant) are limited to expressions of contempt." Earl Doherty, "Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism, Part Three", The Jesus Puzzle: Was There No Historical Jesus? Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically. There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher. Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus (2nd ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. xxiii In the last analysis, the whole Christ-myth theorizing is a glaring example of obscurantism, if the sin of obscurantism consists in the acceptance of bare possibilities in place of actual probabilities, and of pure surmise in defiance of existing evidence. Those who have not entered far into the laborious inquiry may pretend that the historicity of Jesus is an open question. For me to adopt such a pretence would be sheer intellectual dishonesty. I know I must, as an honest man, reckon with Jesus as a factor in history... This dialectic process whereby the Christ-myth theory discredits itself rests on the simple fact that you cannot attempt to prove the theory without mishandling the evidence. Herbert George Wood, Christianity and the Nature of History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1934) pp. xxxiii & 54 The defectiveness of [the Christ myth theory's] treatment of the traditional evidence is perhaps not so patent in the case of the gospels as it is in the case of the Pauline epistles. Yet fundamentally it is the same. There is the same easy dismissal of all external testimony, the same disdain for the saner conclusions of modern criticism, the same inclination to attach most value to extremes of criticism, the same neglect of all the personal and natural features of the narrative, the same disposition to put skepticism forward in the garb of valid demonstration, and the same ever present predisposition against recognizing any evidence for Jesus' actual existence... The New Testament data are perfectly clear in their testimony to the reality of Jesus' earthly career and they come from a time when the possibility that the early framers of tradition should have been deceived upon this point is out of the question. Shirley Jackson Case, The Historicity Of Jesus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912) pp. 76-77 & 269 If one were able to survey the members of the major learned societies dealing with antiquity, it would be difficult to find more than a handful who believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not walk the dusty roads of Palestine in the first three decades of the Common Era. Evidence for Jesus as a historical personage is incontrovertible. W. Ward Gasque, "The Leading Religion Writer in Canada... Does He Know What He's Talking About?", George Mason University's History News Network, 2004 [The non-Christian references to Jesus from the first two centuries] render highly implausible any farfetched theories that even Jesus' very existence was a Christian invention. The fact that Jesus existed, that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate (for whatever reason) and that he had a band of followers who continued to support his cause, seems to be the part of the bedrock of historical tradition. If nothing else, the non-Christian evidence can provide us with certainty on that score. Christopher M. Tuckett, "Sources and Methods" in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (London: Cambridge University Press, 2001) p. 124 [A]n attempt to show that Jesus never existed has been made in recent years by G. A. Wells, a Professor of German who has ventured into New Testament study and presents a case that the origins of Christianity can be explained without assuming that Jesus really lived. Earlier presentations of similar views at the turn of the century failed to make any impression on scholarly opinion, and it is certain that this latest presentation of the case will not fare any better. For of course the evidence is not confined to Tacitus; there are the New Testament documents themselves, nearly all of which must be dated in the first century, and behind which there lies a period of transmission of the story of Jesus which can be traced backwards to a date not far from that when Jesus is supposed to have lived. To explain the rise of this tradition without the hypothesis of Jesus is impossible. I. Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus (rev. ed.) (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2004) pp. 15–16 A phone call from the BBC’s flagship Today programme: would I go on air on Good Friday morning to debate with the aurthors of a new book, The Jesus Mysteries? The book claims (or so they told me) that everything in the Gospels reflects, because it was in fact borrowed from, much older pagan myths; that Jesus never existed; that the early church knew it was propagating a new version of an old myth, and that the developed church covered this up in the interests of its own power and control. The producer was friendly, and took my point when I said that this was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese. N. T. Wright, "Jesus' Self Understanding", in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 48 A school of thought popular with cranks on the Internet holds that Jesus didn’t actually exist. Tom Breen, The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus: Dispatches from the Intersection of Christianity and Pop Culture (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008) p. 138 I feel that I ought almost to apologize to my readers for investigating at such length the hypothesis of a pre-Christian Jesus, son of a mythical Mary, and for exhibiting over so many pages its fantastic, baseless, and absurd character... We must [, according to Christ myth advocates,] perforce suppose that the Gospels were a covert tribute to the worth and value of Pagan mythology and religious dramas, to pagan art and statuary. If we adopt the mythico-symbolical method, they can have been nothing else. Its sponsors might surely condescend to explain the alchemy by which the ascertained rites and beliefs of early Christians were distilled from these antecedents. The effect and the cause are so entirely disparate, so devoid of any organic connection, that we would fain see the evolution worked out a little more clearly. At one end of it we have a hurly-burly of pagan myths, at the other an army of Christian apologists inveighing against everything pagan and martyred for doing so, all within a space of sixty or seventy years. I only hope the orthodox will be gratified to learn that their Scriptures are a thousandfold more wonderful and unique than they appeared to be when they were merely inspired by the Holy Spirit. For verbal inspiration is not, as regards its miraculous quality, in the same field with mythico-symbolism. Verily we have discovered a new literary genus, unexampled in the history of mankind, you rake together a thousand irrelevant thrums of mythology, picked up at random from every age, race, and clime; you get a "Christist" to throw them into a sack and shake them up; you open it, and out come the Gospels. In all the annals of the Bacon-Shakespeareans we have seen nothing like it. Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare,The Historical Christ, or an Investigation of the Views of J. M. Robertson, A. Drews and W. B. Smith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 2009/1914) pp. 42 & 95 Today only an eccentric would claim that Jesus never existed. Leander Keck, Who Is Jesus?: History in Perfect Tense (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000) p. 13 While The Christ Myth alarmed many who were innocent of learning, it evoked only Olympian scorn from the historical establishment, who were confident that Jesus had existed... The Christ-myth theory, then, won little support from the historical specialists. In their judgement, it sought to demonstrate a perverse thesis, and it preceded by drawing the most far-fetched, even bizarre connection between mythologies of very diverse origin. The importance of the theory lay, not in its persuasiveness to the historians (since it had none), but in the fact that it invited theologians to renewed reflection on the questions of faith and history. Brian A. Gerrish, The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004) pp. 231 & 233 It is certain, however, that Jesus was arrested while in Jerusalem for the Passover, probably in the year 30, and that he was executed...it cannot be doubted that Peter was a personal disciple of Jesus... Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 2 (2nd ed.) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000) pp. 80 & 166 We do not need to take seriously those writers who occasionally claim that Jesus never existed at all, for we have clear evidence to the contrary from a number of Jewish, Latin, and Islamic sources. John Drane, "Introduction", in John Drane, The Great Sayings of Jesus: Proverbs, Parables and Prayers (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 1999) p. 23 By no means are we at the mercy of those who doubt or deny that Jesus ever lived. Rudolf Bultmann, "The Study of the Synoptic Gospels", Form Criticism: Two Essays on New Testament Research, Rudolf Bultmann & Karl Kundsin; translated by Frederick C. Grant (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962) p. 62 Of course the doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the oldest Palestinian community. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (New York: Scribner, 1958) p. introduction It is the nature of historical work that we are always involved in probability judgments. Granted, some judgments are so probable as to be certain; for example, Jesus really existed and really was crucified, just as Julius Caeser really existed and was assassinated. Marcus Borg, "A Vision of the Christian Life", The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, Marcus Borg & N. T. Wright (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007) p. 236 To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus'—or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary. Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (New York: Scribner, 1995) p. 200 I think that there are hardly any historians today, in fact I don't know of any historians today, who doubt the existence of Jesus... So I think that question can be put to rest. N. T. Wright, "The Self-Revelation of God in Human History: A Dialogue on Jesus with N. T. Wright", in Antony Flew & Roy Abraham Vargese, There is a God (New York: HarperOne, 2007) p. 188 Even the most critical historian can confidently assert that a Jew named Jesus worked as a teacher and wonder-worker in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius, was executed by crucifixion under the prefect Pontius Pilate, and continued to have followers after his death. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1996) p. 121 The historical reality both of Buddha and of Christ has sometimes been doubted or denied. It would be just as reasonable to question the historical existence of Alexander the Great and Charlemagne on account of the legends which have gathered round them... The attempt to explain history without the influence of great men may flatter the vanity of the vulgar, but it will find no favour with the philosophic historian. James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 7 (3rd ed.) (London: Macmillan, 1919) p. 311 We can be certain that Jesus really existed (despite a few highly motivated skeptics who refuse to be convinced), that he was a Jewish teacher in Galilee, and that he was crucified by the Roman government around 30 CE. Robert J. Miller, The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 1999) p. 38 [T]here is substantial evidence that a person by the name of Jesus once existed. Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millenium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) p. 33 Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed—the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel. Will Durant, Christ and Caesar, The Story of Civilization, 3 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972) p. 557 There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life: when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity. E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Allen Lane, 1993) p. 10 There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more. Richard A. Burridge, Jesus Now and Then (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) p. 34 Although Wells has been probably the most able advocate of the nonhistoricity theory, he has not been persuasive and is now almost a lone voice for it. The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question... The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted. Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) pp. 14 & 16 No reputable scholar today questions that a Jew named Jesus son of Joseph lived; most readily admit that we now know a considerable amount about his actions and his basic teachings. James H. Charlesworth, "Preface", in James H. Charlesworth, Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) pp. xxi–xxv [Robert] Price thinks the evidence is so weak for the historical Jesus that we cannot know anything certain or meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility that there never was a historical Jesus. Is the evidence of Jesus really that thin? Virtually no scholar trained in history will agree with Price's negative conclusions... In my view Price's work in the gospels is overpowered by a philosophical mindset that is at odds with historical research—of any kind... What we see in Price is what we have seen before: a flight from fundamentalism. Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008) p. 25 The scholarly mainstream, in contrast to Bauer and company, never doubted the existence of Jesus or his relevance for the founding of the Church. Craig A. Evans, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology", Theological Studies 54, 1993, p. 8 There's no serious question for historians that Jesus actually lived. There’s real issues about whether he is really the way the Bible described him. There’s real issues about particular incidents in his life. But no serious ancient historian doubts that Jesus was a real person, really living in Galilee in the first century. Chris Forbes, interview with John Dickson, "Zeitgeist: Time to Discard the Christian Story?", Center for Public Christianity, 2009 I don't think there's any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus. There are a lot of people who want to write sensational books and make a lot of money who say Jesus didn't exist. But I don't know any serious scholar who doubts the existence of Jesus. Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 What about those writers like Acharya S (The Christ Conspiracy) and Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries), who say that Jesus never existed, and that Christianity was an invented religion, the Jewish equivalent of the Greek mystery religions? This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this. Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007 Richard [Carrier] takes the extremist position that Jesus of Nazareth never even existed, that there was no such person in history. This is a position that is so extreme that to call it marginal would be an understatement; it doesn’t even appear on the map of contemporary New Testament scholarship. William Lane Craig, "Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?", debate with Richard Carrier, 2009 The alternative thesis... that within thirty years there had evolved such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels attribute to him. James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985) p. 29 This is always the fatal flaw of the 'Jesus myth' thesis: the improbability of the total invention of a figure who had purportedly lived within the generation of the inventors, or the imposition of such an elaborate myth on some minor figure from Galilee. [Robert] Price is content with the explanation that it all began 'with a more or less vague savior myth.' Sad, really. James D. G. Dunn, "Response to Robert M. Price", in James K. Beilby & Paul Rhodes Eddy, The Historical Jesus: Five Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009) p. 98 Since the Enlightenment, the Gospel stories about the life of Jesus have been in doubt. Intellectuals then as now asked: 'What makes the stories of the New Testament any more historically probable than Aesop's fables or Grimm's fairy tales?' The critics can be answered satisfactorily...For all the rigor of the standard it sets, the criterion [of embarrassment] demonstrates that Jesus existed. Alan F. Segal, "Believe Only the Embarrassing", Slate, 2005 Some writers may toy with the fancy of a 'Christ-myth,' but they do not do so on the ground of historical evidence. The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar. It is not historians who propagate the 'Christ-myth' theories. F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (6th ed.) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) p. 123 Jesus is in no danger of suffering Catherine [of Alexandria]'s fate as an unhistorical myth... Dale Allison, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009) p. 37 An examination of the claims for and against the historicity of Jesus thus reveals that the difficulties faced by those undertaking to prove that he is not historical, in the fields both of the history of religion and the history of doctrine, and not least in the interpretation of the earliest tradition are far more numerous and profound than those which face their opponents. Seen in their totality, they must be considered as having no possible solution. Added to this, all hypotheses which have so far been put forward to the effect that Jesus never lived are in the strangest opposition to each other, both in their method of working and their interpretation of the Gospel reports, and thus merely cancel each other out. Hence we must conclude that the supposition that Jesus did exist is exceedingly likely, whereas its converse is exceedingly unlikely. This does not mean that the latter will not be proposed again from time to time, just as the romantic view of the life of Jesus is also destined for immortality. It is even able to dress itself up with certain scholarly technique, and with a little skillful manipulation can have much influence on the mass of people. But as soon as it does more than engage in noisy polemics with 'theology' and hazards an attempt to produce real evidence, it immediately reveals itself to be an implausible hypothesis. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, translated by John Bowden et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) pp. 435–436 In fact, there is more evidence that Jesus of Nazareth certainly lived than for most famous figures of the ancient past. This evidence is of two kinds: internal and external, or, if you will, sacred and secular. In both cases, the total evidence is so overpowering, so absolute that only the shallowest of intellects would dare to deny Jesus' existence. And yet this pathetic denial is still parroted by 'the village atheist,' bloggers on the internet, or such organizations as the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Paul L. Maier, "Did Jesus Really Exist?", 4Truth.net, 2007 The very logic that tells us there was no Jesus is the same logic that pleads that there was no Holocaust. On such logic, history is no longer possible. It is no surprise then that there is no New Testament scholar drawing pay from a post who doubts the existence of Jesus. I know not one. His birth, life, and death in first-century Palestine have never been subject to serious question and, in all likelihood, never will be among those who are experts in the field. The existence of Jesus is a given. Nicholas Perrin, Lost in Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007) p. 32 While we do not have the fullness of biographical detail and the wealth of firsthand accounts that are available for recent public figures, such as Winston Churchill or Mother Teresa, we nonetheless have much more data on Jesus than we do for such ancient figures as Alexander the Great... Along with the scholarly and popular works, there is a good deal of pseudoscholarship on Jesus that finds its way into print. During the last two centuries more than a hundred books and articles have denied the historical existence of Jesus. Today innumerable websites carry the same message... Most scholars regard the arguments for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response—on a par with claims that the Jewish Holocaust never occurred or that the Apollo moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio. Michael James McClymond, Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) pp. 8 & 23–24 You know that you can try to minimize your biases, but you can't eliminate them. That's why you have to put certain checks and balances in place… Under this approach, we only consider facts that meet two criteria. First, there must be very strong historical evidence supporting them. And secondly, the evidence must be so strong that the vast majority of today's scholars on the subject—including skeptical ones—accept these as historical facts. You're never going to get everyone to agree. There are always people who deny the Holocaust or question whether Jesus ever existed, but they're on the fringe. Michael R. Licona, in Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007) p. 112 If I understand what Earl Doherty is arguing, Neil, it is that Jesus of Nazareth never existed as an historical person, or, at least that historians, like myself, presume that he did and act on that fatally flawed presumption. I am not sure, as I said earlier, that one can persuade people that Jesus did exist as long as they are ready to explain the entire phenomenon of historical Jesus and earliest Christianity either as an evil trick or a holy parable. I had a friend in Ireland who did not believe that Americans had landed on the moon but that they had created the entire thing to bolster their cold-war image against the communists. I got nowhere with him. So I am not at all certain that I can prove that the historical Jesus existed against such an hypothesis and probably, to be honest, I am not even interested in trying. John Dominic Crossan, "Historical Jesus: Materials and Methodology", XTalk, 2000 A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today—in the academic world at least—gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat. Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998) p. 168 When they say that Christian beliefs about Jesus are derived from pagan mythology, I think you should laugh. Then look at them wide-eyed and with a big grin, and exclaim, 'Do you really believe that?' Act as though you've just met a flat earther or Roswell conspirator. William Lane Craig, "Question 90: Jesus and Pagan Mythology", Reasonable Faith, 2009 Finley: There are some people in the chat room disagreeing, of course, but they’re saying that there really isn’t any hardcore evidence, though, that… I mean… but there isn’t any… any evidence, really, that Jesus did exist except what people were saying about him. But… Ehrman: I think… I disagree with that. Finley: Really? Ehrman: I mean, what hardcore evidence is there that Julius Caesar existed? Finley: Well, this is… this is the same kind of argument that apologists use, by the way, for the existence of Jesus, by the way. They like to say the same thing you said just then about, well, what kind of evidence do you have for Jul… Ehrman: Well, I mean, it’s… but it’s just a typical… it’s just… It’s a historical point; I mean, how do you establish the historical existence of an individual from the past? Finley: I guess… I guess it depends on the claims… Right, it depends on the claims that people have made during that particular time about a particular person and their influence on society... Ehrman: It’s not just the claims. There are… One has to look at historical evidence. And if you… If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust? Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 The denial that Christ was crucified is like the denial of the Holocaust. For some it's simply too horrific to affirm. For others it's an elaborate conspiracy to coerce religious sympathy. But the deniers live in a historical dreamworld. John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006) pp. 14-15 I just finished reading, The Historical Jesus: Five Views. The first view was given by Robert Price, a leading Jesus myth proponent… The title of Price’s chapter is 'Jesus at the Vanishing Point.' I am convinced that if Price's total skepticism were applied fairly and consistently to other figures in ancient history (Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Cleopatra, Nero, etc.), they would all be reduced to 'the vanishing point.' Price's chapter is a perfect example of how someone can always, always find excuses to not believe something they don't want to believe, whether that be the existence of Jesus or the existence of the holocaust. Dennis Ingolfsland, "Five views of the historical Jesus", The Recliner Commentaries, 2009 The Jesus mythers will continue to advance their thesis and complain of being kept outside of the arena of serious academic discussion. They carry their signs, 'Jesus Never Existed!' 'They won’t listen to me!' and label those inside the arena as 'Anti-Intellectuals,' 'Fundamentalists,' 'Misguided Liberals,' and 'Flat-Earthers.' Doherty & Associates are baffled that all but a few naïve onlookers pass them by quickly, wagging their heads and rolling their eyes. They never see that they have a fellow picketer less than a hundred yards away, a distinguished looking man from Iran. He too is frustrated and carries a sign that says 'The Holocaust Never Happened!' Michael R. Licona, "Licona Replies to Doherty's Rebuttal", Answering Infidels, 2005 Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ - the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming. Graeme Clarke, quoted by John Dickson in "Facts and friction of Easter", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 21, 2008 An extreme instance of pseudo-history of this kind is the “explanation” of the whole story of Jesus as a myth. Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002) p. 164 An extreme view along these lines is one which denies even the historical existence of Jesus Christ—a view which, one must admit, has not managed to establish itself among the educated, outside a little circle of amateurs and cranks, or to rise above the dignity of the Baconian theory of Shakespeare. Edwyn Robert Bevan, Hellenism And Christianity (2nd ed.) (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1930) p. 256 When all the evidence brought against Jesus' historicity is surveyed it is not found to contain any elements of strength. Shirley Jackson Case, "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, 1911, 15 (1) It would be easy to show how much there enters of the conjectural, of superficial resemblances, of debatable interpretation into the systems of the Drews, the Robertsons, the W. B. Smiths, the Couchouds, or the Stahls... The historical reality of the personality of Jesus alone enables us to understand the birth and development of Christianity, which otherwise would remain an enigma, and in the proper sense of the word, a miracle. Maurice Goguel, Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History? (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1926) pp. 30 & 244 Anyone who talks about "reasonable faith" must say what he thinks about Jesus. And that would still be so even if, with one or two cranks, he believed that He never existed. John W. C. Wand, The Old Faith and the New Age‎ (London: Skeffington & Son, 1933) p. 31 That both in the case of the Christians, and in the case of those who worshipped Zagreus or Osiris or Attis, the Divine Being was believed to have died and returned to life, would be a depreciation of Christianity only if it could be shown that the Christian belief was derived from the pagan one. But that can be supposed only by cranks for whom historical evidence is nothing. Edwyn R. Bevan, in Thomas Samuel Kepler, Contemporary Thinking about Paul: An Anthology (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1950) p. 44 The pseudoscholarship of the early twentieth century calling in question the historical reality of Jesus was an ingenuous attempt to argue a preconceived position. Gerard Stephen Sloyan, The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) p. 9 Whatever else Jesus may or may not have done, he unquestionably* started the process that became Christianity… UNQUESTIONABLY: The proposition has been questioned, but the alternative explanations proposed—the theories of the “Christ myth school,” etc.—have been thoroughly discredited. Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) pp. 5 & 166 One category of mythicists, like young-earth creationists, have no hesitation about offering their own explanation of who made up Christianity... Other mythicists, perhaps because they are aware that such a scenario makes little historical sense and yet have nothing better to offer in its place, resemble proponents of Intelligent Design who will say "the evidence points to this organism having been designed by an intelligence" and then insist that it would be inappropriate to discuss further who the designer might be or anything else other than the mere "fact" of design itself. They claim that the story of Jesus was invented, but do not ask the obvious historical questions of "when, where, and by whom" even though the stories are set in the authors' recent past and not in time immemorial, in which cases such questions obviously become meaningless... Thus far, I've only encountered two sorts of mythicism." James F. McGrath, "Intelligently-Designed Narratives: Mythicism as History-Stopper", Exploring Our Matrix, 2010 In the academic mind, there can be no more doubt whatsoever that Jesus existed than did Augustus and Tiberius, the emperors of his lifetime. Even if we assume for a moment that the accounts of non-biblical authors who mention him - Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger and others - had not survived, the outstanding quality of the Gospels, Paul's letters and other New Testament writings is more than good enough for the historian. Carsten Peter Thiede, Jesus, Man or Myth? (Oxford: Lion, 2005) p. 23 To describe Jesus' non-existence as "not widely supported" is an understatement. It would be akin to me saying, "It is possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, scientific case that the 1969 lunar landing never happened." There are fringe conspiracy theorists who believe such things - but no expert does. Likewise with the Jesus question: his non-existence is not regarded even as a possibility in historical scholarship. Dismissing him from the ancient record would amount to a wholesale abandonment of the historical method. John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life (Oxford: Lion, 2008) 22-23. When Professor Wells advances such an explanation of the gospel stories [i.e. the Christ myth theory] he presents us with a piece of private mythology that I find incredible beyond anything in the gospels. Morton Smith, in R. Joseph Hoffman, Jesus in History and Myth (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1986) p. 48 Of course, there can be no toleration whatever of the idea that Jesus never existed and is only a concoction from these pagan stories about a god who was slain and rose again. Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul (New York: Menorah, 1943) p. 107 Virtually all biblical scholars acknowledge that there is enough information from ancient non-Christian sources to give the lie to the myth (still, however, widely believed in popular circles and by some scholars in other fields--see esp. G. A. Wells) which claims that Jesus never existed. Craig L. Blomberg, "Gospels (Historical Reliability)", in Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight & I. Howard Marshall, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992) p. 292 In the 1910's a few scholars did argue that Jesus never existed and was simply the figment of speculative imagination. This denial of the historicity of Jesus does not commend itself to scholars, moderates or extremists, any more. ... The "Christ-myth" theories are not accepted or even discussed by scholars today. Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of the New Testament‎ (New York: Ktav, 1974) p. 196 Dr. Wells was there [I.e. a symposium at the University of Michigan] and he presened his radical thesis that maybe Jesus never existed. Virtually nobody holds this position today. It was reported that Dr. Morton Smith of Columbia University, even though he is a skeptic himself, responded that Dr. Wells's view was "absurd". Gary Habermas, in Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989) p. 45 I.e. if we leave out of account the Christ-myth theories, which are hardly to be reckoned as within the range of serious criticism. Alexander Roper Vidler, The Modernist Movement in the Roman Church (London: Cambridge University Press, 1934) p. 253 Such Christ-myth theories are not now advanced by serious opponents of Christianity—they have long been exploded ..." Gilbert Cope, Symbolism in the Bible and the Church (London: SCM, 1959) p. 14 In the early years of this century, various theses were propounded which all assert that Jesus never lived, and that the story of Jesus is a myth or legend. These claims have long since been exposed as historical nonsense. There can be no reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth lived in Palestine in the first three decades of our era, probably from 6-7 BC to 30 AD. That is a fact. Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1976) p. 65 There is, lastly, a group of writers who endeavor to prove that Jesus never lived--that the story of his life is made up by mingling myths of heathen gods, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etc. No real scholar regards the work of these men seriously. They lack the most elementary knowledge of historical research. Some of them are eminent scholars in other subjects, such as Assyriology and mathematics, but their writings about the life of Jesus have no more claim to be regarded as historical than Alice in Wonderland or the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. George Aaron Barton, Jesus of Nazareth: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1922) p. x The data we have are certainly adequate to confute the view that Jesus never lived, a view that no one holds in any case Charles E. Carlston, in Bruce Chilton & Craig A. Evans (eds.) Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden: Brill, 1998) p. 3 Although it is held by Marxist propaganda writers that Jesus never lived and that the Gospels are pure creations of the imagination, this is not the view of even the most radical Gospel critics. Bernard L. Ramm, An Evangelical Christology: Ecumenic and Historic (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1999) p. 159 Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:06, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:26, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, some of them.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

So would you then agree that there is near universal academic consensus on the fact that jesus existed? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 12:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No I wouldn't. I have actually already posted that there is only opinion and that even the first source used on this article makes that clear. There is no actual academic consensus. Now, understand that this article is not where we debate the existence of our favored gods (not that you are). Whether that be Jesus or any other. Most, if not all of those sources are opinion. Where they attempt to claim fact, there is little to no sources to back them up...however, we are only here on this talk page to try and improve the article not debate the existence of myths, deities and gods. If the point was to prove there is a man named Jesus that existed, all of those sources fail to do so.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The entire subject/article itself is a debate/question, not a conclusion.--Mark Miller (talk) 12:53, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Understand that this article is not the place where "we debate the existence of our favored gods", which is exactly what you are doing. No one else. The article is about the existence of a preacher, not a god. Nothing remarkable about thjat, and all the sources agree that his existence is overwhelmingly accepted by relevant experts. Of course it is "opinion". It's "opinion" that Shakespeare existed too. Paul B (talk) 12:55, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

So, is there reason to doubt the historical existence of Augustus Caesar because people worshiped him? Given the comparisons to Odin, that's the exact reason given for doubting the existence of a Judean (that existed) preacher (there were plenty there) named after Joshua (dead common name then) who either claimed or was claimed to be some sort of messiah (oh gee, that wasn't uncommon for that period), who was probably crucified (something the Romans were pretty fond of doing). For the record, I do think that some material about the CMT should be included as a minority position (if we're going to have a full article), but it is clear (even by the admission of some of its own advocates) that the Historical Jesus is almost universal. Ian.thomson (talk) 13:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Existence of the person of Jesus is not the issue. The debate and question is. I am not drawing any conclusion except that some editors are trying to use the article as a factual rendition of their own interpretation of what they see as facts. The sources for this are not fact they are opinion, for the most part. But the article and subject is not to draw conclusions that the man did not exist or that he did. The subject is bout the entire question...and not any sides conclusion.--Mark Miller (talk) 13:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not familiar with this particular interpretation of the subject - do you have a citation for this please? Wdford (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I can't even make sense of this statement. ("a factual rendition of their own interpretation of what they see as facts" wow.) All articles are supposed to say what the academic consensus on a topic is. It's "opinion" that evolution happens, but it's the opinion of the overwhelming majority of qualified scientists. So we say that. That's also essentially what the wording of this article said. It did not say "Jesus existed. Period. Get over it". It said that his existence is accepted by the overwhelming majority of relevant scholars. That's just what articles are supposed to say - if the sources support that claim, as they do here. Paul B (talk) 13:59, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The subject of the historicity of Jesus is a widely studied subject, and regardless of the consensus about his existence as an historical figure, what this article needs to illustrate is the debate, studies, opinions and writings about the subject, not just the conclusion of the majority of scholars. There are 175,000 sources in Google Books alone about the subject. - Cwobeel (talk) 14:20, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

How many books are there about the global warming debate on Google Books? Shii (tock) 14:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

probably thousands as well, and we have an excellent group of articles on the subject in Wikipedia, not just a stub that says "the scientific consensus is that the earth is warming". - Cwobeel (talk) 14:31, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

This is not a stub either. However if you check the debate above you will see that some editors wanted to make it into a disambiguation page [5] because of overlap with the Christ myth theory and Historical Jesus articles. It's not as if the subject isn't covered. Paul B (talk) 14:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I was ok with it being disambiguation page, but really would have preferred just to delete it because it's a magnet for OR and POV Fork by emotionally driven radicals.

The Historical Jesus and Christ myth theory are distinct from the subject of Historicity of Jesus. There is some overlap, but not all scholars studyng the historicity are mythicists, and the Historical Jesus is specific about the analysis of the Gospels as narratives (historical or otherwise). This means that a disambig page is not the way to address it. We need a good article on the subject instead. - Cwobeel (talk) 15:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No, there is nothing in-between HJ and CMT. He either existed or he didn't. This article is simply an attempt to legitimize the CMT. If you want to discuss historical methodology, there is a page for that. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Excuse me? Are you really arguing that "Historicity of Jesus" is not an area of research and study? What are the basis for that arguments besides your personal opinion? - Cwobeel (talk) 16:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Of course it is an area of research and study. Bill is simply saying that CMT and the mainstream/traditional responses to it are the topic of the Historicity of Jesus. CMT is just the non-historicity viewpoint and the CMT article should therefore be about historicity. In my view, though Bill is strictly correct, there is still more than enough room for both articles, and the CMT one should concentrate on the history and development of CMT theories, just as the Flat Earth article concentrates on the reason why FE proponents believed what they did, rather than going into great detail on the science of the earth's shape. Paul B (talk) 16:09, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that this subject is not just CMT vs mainstream, as there are many nuances and gradations of the debate which this article needs to cover. A polarized view of this subject is not conducive to a producing a good article. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:22, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

You are not responding to the central point. Of course there are gradations from the Fundamentalist "It's all literally true" to "it's all totally made up" and Jesus was a mushroom. No one disputes that, but that would apply to the CMT article too. The question is whether there is a good reason why this article should exist as a full article independently from it. Paul B (talk) 16:25, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I hear you. Here is my rationale. CMT discusses the mythicism theory and Historical Jesus discusses the life of Jesus as described in the Gospel from an historical perspective and analysis. This article discusses the Historicity of Jesus, as a presentation of related viewpoints and context. Think of the reader. There is sufficient material to have a dedicated article on the subject to provide readers with a good summary and with links to other in-depth articles. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

This article does not provide anything that the HJ and CMT articles do not provide. If you think otherwise, can you please state it clearly? Thanks. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 16:54, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. I don't think there's any major problem with this article but I'm unsure about what it adds that's not already on Wikipedia in those two existing articles. Willing to change my mind, of course, if something unique to this article is identified.Jeppiz (talk) 16:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Unexplained deletion of content

This morning I inserted a carefully and well-sourced sentence, that has since been removed by [[User:Cwobeel}} [6]. I'm not quite sure I understand the reasoning behind the revert, as the sentence is well sourced and confirms perfectly with WP:RS/AC. I'd like to point out that WP:NPOV requires us to represent the opinion of the academic community correctly. In this case we have an academic consensus and, more importantly, we have several WP:RS sources that explicitly say that there is an academic consensus. That being the case, I'm surprised at the deletion.Jeppiz (talk) 16:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at the lede now. It includes detailed information and presentation about the prevailing view as consensus. You are welcome to improve upon it. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

If you want to use "virtually all" instead of "near unanimity", please make that edit. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:50, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

No problem, I don't see any serious issue with the current lead.Jeppiz (talk) 16:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I think "unanimity in favor of historicity" is a bit confusing, could we make that clearer? "Near unanimous view that Jesus was an actual historical figure" or something that the layperson can maybe parse easier? I'm not bound to my proposed wording there, its just an example of somethin gI think readers may be able to understand more easily. I realize we defined histriocity earlier in the lede, but still... Gaijin42 (talk) 16:55, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I have made an edit to address this. Please feel free to improve upon it. - Cwobeel (talk) 16:56, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Please could somebody clarify the sentence "This article discusses the Historicity of Jesus, as a presentation of related viewpoints and context." Whose viewpoints, which context, and how is this different from the "viewpoints" already being presented in HJ and CMT? Wdford (talk) 17:25, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Good luck with that request. I made the same request several times and all I got, if I indeed got anything, is gibberish. Still holding out hope though. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I m sorry to hear that my argument is in your view "gibberish". I will prepare a better explanation of my point later on. - Cwobeel (talk) 18:22, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think Bill is referring any "argument", but to Wdford's understandable confusion about the meaning of the gnomic sentence ""This article discusses the Historicity of Jesus, as a presentation of related viewpoints and context." Paul B (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• Historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the life and teachings of Jesus based primarily on critical analysis of the gospel texts.
• Christ myth theory is the proposition that Jesus never existed, or if he did, he had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity or the accounts described in the Gospels.
• Historicity of Jesus is the study of Jesus as an historical figure as it relates to Jesus as a person. Questions regarding historicity concern not just the issue of "what really happened," but also the issue of how modern observers can come to know "what really happened, and use specific methodology and scholarship.

These are three distinct areas of research and opinion. Granted, there are overlaps but still they are distinct. Of course, for theologians that believe in Jesus as Christ, these distinctions are non-sensical and even sacrilegious, but nonetheless these are distinct areas of study.

The polarized view that you are presenting, precludes the presentation of useful information to our readers about this area of scholarship and research which is supported by thousands of sources. - Cwobeel (talk) 18:42, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

What "useful information" would be in this article that would not be in the HJ article? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Bill the Cat 7 that that is the key question. I should point I'm not making an argument either side, I could well expect there to be information here not found in other articles. So the question is not rhetorical, I'm genuinely interested in an answer as I think it's key to moving on with this article.Jeppiz (talk) 20:26, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I am willing to debate this but not willing to answer question after question. Make your case and explain why do you believe that Historical Jesus is the same domain of discourse than Historicity of Jesus, and what arguments you can provide to support your assertion. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's question after question, it's rather several users asking the same question. Looking at Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus, there is a very strong overlap and the differences that exist appear to be more coincidental (different users doing different edits) that due to any difference in topic. Paul B, User:Wdford, Bill the Cat 7 and myself have all asked several times what information there would be here that could not be there, or vice versa.Jeppiz (talk) 20:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I've long had my doubts about the need for a separate historicity page. I get the impression it was originally a POV-fork created to get unwanted discussion of doubts about historicity off the HJ page. On the other hand, that page is quite long already, and there a proposal on its Talk page to split off the portraits sections. But for now, we can continue to fix the current page, because if necessary we can always copy the material over to Historical Jesus. Martijn Meijering (talk) 20:42, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The portraits section belongs here, not there. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:44, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

I would agree with some of that. Some material currently posted at Historical_Jesus does not belong in that article (it may belong here), as some of the debates and research reported there are unrelated to that article, which is supposedly related to scholarly reconstructions of the life and teachings of Jesus based primarily on critical analysis of the gospel texts. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:36, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

@Cwobeel: Sir, you are the one making the case that this article differs from HJ. So once again, what "useful information" would be in this article that would not be in the HJ article? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Anything and everything about Jesus the person, that is unrelated to scholarly reconstructions of his life and teachings based on critical analysis of the Gospels. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what that means. Can you please provide a couple of examples of something tha "unrelated to scholarly reconstructions of his life and teachings based on critical analysis of the Gospels?" Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:49, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Per Cwobeel, Historical Jesus refers to reconstructions of the life and teachings of Jesus, while Historicity of Jesus is the study of Jesus as an historical person. What’s the actual difference between these two statements please? What else could the historical Jesus be, other than his life and teachings? If you could explain the difference, we could all get on board.

Per Cwobeel, the Historicity article should also look at the issue of how modern observers can come to know "what really happened”, and use specific methodology and scholarship. The HJ article already covers all of this, because that is what a scholarly reconstruction is.

Again I perceive the assumption that HJ looks only at the gospels as though they are historical truth, but as anybody would see if they ever get around to reading the HJ article, this is not in fact the case. Historical Jesus critically examines these gospels and other documentary sources BECAUSE THAT’S ALL THE EVIDENCE THERE IS. Historicity of Jesus is not going to consider “all the other evidence”, because THERE ISN’T ANYTHING ELSE.

So we ask the same question again please – what will Historicity of Jesus cover that Historical Jesus does not already cover? Wdford (talk) 20:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

If there is no appetite in keeping two separate articles addressing the two subjects I referred above ( one addressing the Jesus of prevailing Christian thinking who was both God and man, who performed miracles, died on the cross, and was resurrected - the appeal to tradition approach), and the other about everything else), then redirect this article there, or viceversa, merge the content, and rename the article accordingly. I would caution that this approach would result in a very long article and after that happens, we will end up splitting the article for another round of debate. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:07, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

AHA! I thought as much. Cwobeel, the HJ article IS NOT ABOUT "prevailing Christian thinking" or the "tradition approach" - that's what we have been trying to tell you all along. It's about attempting to discern the "real Jesus" out from under all the tradition and pious forgeries. HJ was born of the Enlightenment, where scholars specifically assumed that the gospels were hooey. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE will you read the HJ article carefully, and then help us to make it a Featured Article? Wdford (talk) 21:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

:) I read it and found it to be too long and mixing two different scholarly approaches. Again, I don't mind a redirect and merge if there is agreement to such an approach. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Richard Carrier quote for article

With all of the discussion about what is, and isn't historicity, and the arguments coming from Christians that theologians are historians, and their bias is a non-issue, I was shocked to see above one user comment something along the lines of Richard Carrier cannot be included, because he is bias and anti-Christian. He has just published a new book, and it is peer reviewed and published by an academic press, so that should be the end of that. He is a PhD in ancient history, and he is not a Christian. This is the perfect source for unbiased historical analysis, because he doesn't fear that his soul will be burned for eternity if he uncovers the facts.

Could one of the more experienced editors do something with this paragraph from his new book, and add it to the article?:

“In my estimation the odds Jesus existed are less than 1 in 12,000. Which to a historian is for all practical purposes a probability of zero For comparison, your lifetime probability of being struck by lighting is around 1 in 10,000. That Jesus existed is even less likely than that. Consequently, I am reasonably certain there was no historical Jesus… When I entertain the most generous estimates possible, I find I cannot by any stretch of the imagination the probability Jesus existed is better than 1 in 3.” p. 600

Carrier, R. (2014). On the historicity of Jesus: Why we might have reason for doubt. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press.

I've got the book, so if anyone wants me expand on it, just ask your questions and I'll find quotes from the book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.195 (talk) 04:11, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Richard Carrier is certainly an interesting source, but he holds a minority position, maybe even a minority of one, and that needs to be stated. While it is true he doesn't need to fear for his eternal soul if it's true there was no historical Jesus, he is also a well-known self-employed new atheist activist and speaker, which might also be a source of bias. I think that like all other people we cite, we should add a brief description of his credentials and any potential sources of bias. Martijn Meijering (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Martijn here, provided we can source their credentials objectively (probably not hard) and provided we can identify their probable biases objectively (basically impossible?) Wdford (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Funny, I'd say that being an atheist means Carrier has one less source of bias than Christian sources have. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Martin, the book is published by an academic press and is peer reviewed, bud. I don't get what your point is, are you saying it can't be included because it's not the position held by most theologians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 23:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Certainly not, I'm merely pointing out we cannot cite his opinions in Wikipedia voice. By all mean do quote him, but as an attributed quote and with proper explanation of his credentials and potential biases. Simply saying he has a PhD in ancient history (I think) and is a self-employed atheist activist and speaker would be enough as far as I'm concerned. Martijn Meijering (talk) 23:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

So when it's an atheist we point it out, but when it's a Christian: irrelevant? Do all the other authors who are confirmed Christians, say so? How is atheism a "bias"? You'd want people who are detached from the faith. Are Buddhists "bias" as well? Someone can add the information if they want, I don't have much faith in this article due to reverts by all of the apologists, and all these double standards for Christians vs. non Christians. I don't get why non-Christians are "biased". Almost all of the people saying Jesus is a real person are Christians. Atheism means you don't believe in magic, it doesn't mean you can't understand how history works. Christianity means you believe in magic, supernatural stuff, and by default that Jesus existed in real life. Wow, real objective. I'm done. I've done all I can, and I'll leave it to you editors to do the right thing. Good luck. This article is garbage and so are all the articles about Jesus and anything to do with Christianity on Wikipedia. That's because people don't understand that Christians aren't able to write about this stuff without letting their "faith" get in the way, and people like you don't understand what bias is, and the difference between a scientific approach and a faith based approach. You'll NEVER see a Christian "historian" saying Jesus didn't exist. But you may see a buddhist or atheist, or Hindu or other saying that. Why is that, bud? Doesn't that make you question your views on "bias"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.107.165 (talk) 00:20, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No, we should do the same thing for Christians and everyone else, which is why I said "all people we cite" above. Also: kindly consider WP:CIVIL, I don't appreciate your calling me 'bud'. It looks as if you came here to pick a fight, which isn't very constructive. Martijn Meijering (talk) 00:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Redirect

Nothing will be lost by a redirect; we can easily scrub good material from this article and add to the other. It is all kept in the article's history.- Cwobeel (talk) 21:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

We actually had recently agreed to make this article a big redirect article - with 11 editors supporting it and only 2 opposed - before a now-banned editor found he was losing the RfC and started a riot. It has been suggested on the HJ talk page that we should spin off a daughter article - please work with us there to make a good decision. That process might help to clarify the debate on this side also. Wdford (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

OK. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem is I'm not truly certain that a redirect--or what Wdford calls a redirect--is really the best thing to do. It seems to me that Historical Jesus, and the Historicity of Jesus are two separate things, or at least they could be, if they didn't copy from one another so heavily. The first question we need to ask is, What roles do these articles take on? I mentioned before that I thought that the Historical Jesus' article might better function as an examination of how Jesus was depicted throughout history. I say this because the only other alternative is that Historical Jesus is attempting to be a biography of Jesus, which it isn't. On the other hand, the scope of this article seems to be fairly clear, as it's about the debate and question as to whether or not he ever existed. This is not unlike the article and problem we see with Socrates and the Socratic problem. Indeed, the Historicity of Socrates redirects to the Socratic problem.

When I first commented during the RfC, I argued against the disambiguation page and stated directly that if it's the case that this article shouldn't exist, it ought to be just redirected to the appropriate article and so forth. However, having read Historical Jesus, and Historicity of Jesus and looked deeper into it, I'm fairly convinced that the current articles we have (That is, an article on the Historicity of Jesus, an article on Jesus, an article on Historical Jesus) is the proper set up. The problem is, both Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus copy wholesale from one another on the topic of evidence, but I'm not sure it's something historical Jesus ought to be addressing in the length it does. I suspect the only way to resolve this problem is going to be a lot of work, and more importantly providing a clear, concise, and limited scope for each article.--Xomic_Talk 22:23, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Per the corrected article lead section, now based on proper objective sources:

"Historical Jesus refers to attempts to “reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth by critical historical methods,” in “contrast to Christological definitions (‘the dogmatic Christ’) and other Christian accounts of Jesus (‘the Christ of faith’).[3]" It also considers the historical and cultural context in which Jesus lived.[4][5][6] "

This process is not limited to the gospels – that idea was taken from a comment from Dunn alone. The process therefore considers the Josephus and Tacitus stuff as well. Beyond that – there is really nothing else to consider.

The “history of the quest to find the historical Jesus” is already covered in the Quest article, although that could certainly use some expanding.

As many editors have mentioned here recently, there is an extra article on this topic which is looking for a purpose, and people are striving to create a purpose for it just to keep it alive. Meanwhile it continues to attract incredible amounts of conflict - as soon as a disruptive editor is banned an identical twin pops up and carries right on - its like deja vu all over again. Therefore 11 editors agreed to turn this article into a "disambiguation article / populated redirect article". If that solution is technically offensive to a substantial number of editors, then perhaps a straight-forward redirect is best. Wdford (talk) 23:18, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Should we redirect to HJ? Should we revert to the ""disambiguation article / populated redirect article" that we had just before the mass restoration? [7]. Or should we attempt to do the hard work suggested by Xomic? I would prefer the latter. - Cwobeel (talk) 00:28, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I do hope you're not implying I'm some sort of twin of User:Fearofreprisal, Wdford, as I hope you remember that Wikipedia is not a democracy and the RfC is not a vote. Most of the arguments for supporting the 'disambiguation page' is appear to be drawing on the fact that this article has been historically controversial, but as I've tried to point out, there's nothing ambiguous about the historicity of Jesus. The title and search terms that would generate it are clear, although one might argue that that a title like 'Evidence for the existence of Jesus' might be even more clear, if somewhat inaccurate. Further more, the fact that the disambiguation page directs users to a number of articles suggests that those articles, in so far as they have information pertaining to the topic, ought to have those sections reduced and refined via summaries and direct to an article called 'Historicity of Jesus', if the topic should interest them and they want a more indepth discussion of the topic.

Further more, your rewrite of Historical Jesus's opening sentence postulates the existence of two other articles: Dogmatic Christ and Christ of Faith, neither of which actually exist on this project, and I'm not even sure what they're supposed to be. One would assume that the former refers to Christ as an authority like the Catholic Church would see him, whereas the latter is describing Jesus-as-myth or story, or the idea that he may or may not have existed irrelevant. Yet, if we work from those two positions to discern the purpose of Historical Jesus, it seems Historical Jesus, in your view, is attempting to construct a biography of Jesus's life, based on what actually happened. How then will the article differ from a biography of Jesus? And more importantly, how would it differ from an article about the historicity of Jesus?

I think you are correct to say that there is an article looking for a purpose, yet I have serious doubts that this is the article you are looking for, or should be looking at, for purpose. It is worth noting, however, as I've suggested in other comments, that the historical Jesus article's purpose would seem to be talking about the portraits of Jesus, who the man was. Indeed, to quote the opening sentence of Quest for the historical Jesus: "The quest for the historical Jesus refers to academic efforts to provide a historical portrait of Jesus." And the very disclaimer at the top of said article: "This article is about the history of academic Jesus research. See Historicity of Jesus regarding his existence and Historical Jesus about portraits of his life. For the book by Albert Schweitzer see The Quest of the Historical Jesus."

The solution is simple, therefore; Historical Jesus's portrait section should be expanded and the focus of the article, whereas the section on evidence should be reduced to a summary and any valuable content shifted over to this article, (and possibly other articles) if it's on topic. --Xomic_Talk 02:32, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Responses to Xomic:

No, I was not referring to you as behaving like User:Fearofreprisal.

The support for the 'disambiguation page' was NOT because this article has been historically controversial, but rather because there is a lot of duplication with other over-lapping articles, that separating an individual “purpose” for this article has been difficult and that it has resulted in a ridiculous amount of conflict.

The topic of “historicity of Jesus” is not ambiguous, it’s just that the Historical Jesus article must of necessity deal with the same info, so we have two articles doing the same thing.

I don’t think it’s valid to suggest that those over-lapping main articles be reduced so as to provide this article with lebensraum – rather this article should just summarize those articles – which is basically where it stands now, although it contains much bigger summaries than I had in the disambiguation version.

The issues of Dogmatic Christ / Christ of Faith are not Wikipedia articles, they are scholarly terms which I drew from the citation to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church – see here [8] It can be wikilinked to Roman Catholic dogma, and it refers to the “traditional church views” of the subject.

I agree that Historical Jesus would be a biography of Jesus, but it’s a biography that tries to be “historical” rather than merely accepting the gospel stories at face value.

It thus would NOT differ from an article about the Historicity of Jesus – that is the whole point of this debate.

The portraits are indeed part of this – however the portraits were developed by the Quests, and that has its own article already, so quite where to put the portraits is an issue. Furthermore a lot of the portrait material is not necessarily historical as such, but is actually quite speculative. We are in the process of creating a daughter article for that material, just to warehouse it separately, as it is quite a lot of material in itself.

I don’t think that Historical Jesus should focus only on portraits – a scholarly reconstruction needs to be based on evidence, and so the article needs to consider the evidence, the methodologies and the criticisms of the methodologies, as well as the eventual conclusions – if any.

The “evidence” section is also too small to be an article on its own – the Historicity article would need to include more than just that.

We are in the process of splitting off the portrait material into a daughter article. After that we will clean up the Historical Jesus article, and see how it looks. Perhaps a new way forward might suggest itself then. Wdford (talk) 09:52, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for not replying earlier. You mention that Historical Jesus' content must 'of necessity' deal with the same information, but I'm not sure this is the case. It seems to me that the topic of 'Historicity' of Jesus (or any ancient figure) is going to necessarily be dealing with the question--and evidence--that he or she existed. It's not that it shouldn't be discussed in an biography article of Jesus, but it shouldn't be as much of as focus as it is now, and, rightly, the article should direct the reader to the article that deal with evidence for Jesus directly.

I can't help but notice that this spin off article appears to be another unnecessary duplication of materials, which seems to me that this is the very thing we're supposed to be avoiding. --Xomic_Talk 23:24, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

New Approach

The historicity of Jesus has numerous reliable sources and is notable enough to merit its own article on Wikipedia. I feel this subject is best approached by outlining what "historicity" is with it's own section. This would be followed with another section describing the "historical method" used by historians to evaluate the historicity of ancient figures. This section would inform readers of the approach historians use to evaluate evidence and define the strength of that evidence. This would be followed by a separate section for the "evidence" for/against the historical existence of Jesus. This would appropriately set up the context for evaluating the historicity of ancient figures and then place the "historicity of Jesus" within that context. This suggestion doesn't mention all possible sections, but is made merely to help set up much needed context. For evaluating sources, I feel only the strongest sources should be used. These would be sources written by historians with degrees in related fields from accredited universities and would have to have been published by a relevant scholarly historical journal or an academic press.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:23, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

What is notable about this article that would not be in the HJ article? A couple of examples would be good. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:35, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

First, notability is not determined by what's covered and not covered in other Wikipedia articles. There are multiple reliable sources that evaluate and discuss the historicity of Jesus and that makes the article topic notable. The same way Global Climate Change is a notable subject regardless of how many different WP articles it is discussed in. Second, the HJ article already assumes the existence of a historical Jesus and then presents sources that discuss events/deeds that Jesus did/didn't do. The historicity of Jesus specifically deals with the topic of whether Jesus existed or not. If the HJ article goes into so much depth that you and other editors feel that a separate historicity of Jesus article is unnecessary, then the truth is that the HJ article needs to be reduced to present a summary of the historicity of Jesus, and then this article would expand upon that subject in depth. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what's covered in the HJ article, it has no bearing on the abundant sources that cover specifically this topic making it worthy of its own WP article.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I take your point, which is well made above, and I agree that even fringe theories with no academic support could have their own articles (Creationism, Intelligent design, Obama is born in Kenya and so on. The fact that there is little or no WP:RS is not a reason to delete an article, even though we have to be careful to make sure even in those articles that readers who read them see that these theories are rejected by most scholarship. However, having agreed with you this far, we already have the Christ myth theory which outlines this theory in great detail. I can see the point in Jesus, in Historical Jesus and in Christ myth theory and I'm entirely open for the possibility that there is space for another article in between these. Be aware we also have Historical reliability of the Gospels (hint, their historical reliability is very low). With all those articles, I'm not just quite sure what it would deal with, but I'm more than willing to take good time and see what arguments there are.Jeppiz (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The historicity of Jesus is not a theory, it's simply the academic evaluation of a given subject. The title/article in and of itself makes no assertion about the existence of Jesus. The CMT is the actual "fringe" theory that asserts Jesus was a fictitious character created by the Church...blah, blah, blah or whatever. So it's erroneous to call the evaluation of the existence of a historical figure a "theory" because it is no such thing. The Historicity of Jesus article is the larger umbrella that the CMT theory, evaluation of Tacitcus, evaluation of gospels, and anything else related to the evaluation of the historicity of Jesus would cover. If the smaller aspects have enough reliable sources to merit their own articles, then so be it, but that doesn't mean that the parent article/issue should get deleted because multiple smaller aspects discuss it in part. We wouldn't get rid of the "Climate Change" article because the articles of "Ken Ham", "Climate change and agriculture", "Climate change denial", etc. cover it in part or full.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, very good explanation and I see your idea now. There are certainly merits to it. It would then be an article going quite deep into the scholarship of the issue, to look at all the different documents used in the field and perhaps the research methods used to analyze them, if I understand you right. What about the part of scholarship that does not directly influence historicity. To take an example, I think most scholars in the field would agree that both the final part of Mark's Gospel and several of the books in the New Testament were 'falsified', meaning they weren't part of the original document (Mark's Gospel) or they were written by forgers who claimed they were written by a known figure (often Paul). I'd say that that is relevant, but is it something we should cover under the historicity of Jesus?Jeppiz (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Good question. So there would be nothing wrong with having a sub-section titled "Gospels" within another main section of "Evidence". In that sub-section it would briefly mention/summarize the merits/criticisms of the Gospels and how they apply to the historicity of Jesus but it wouldn't divulge into a thorough evaluation of all of the scholarly material available surrounding the Gospels. That thorough evaluation would be saved for more in depth articles about that specific issue. Examples of this would be a WP article specifically about "The Gospels", "New Testament", or "Historicity of the Gospels". In those articles you could include multiple specific quotes from varying scholars that discuss the falsification of the Gospels because the article would demand that level of information. However, in this article, it would be inappropriate to include all of those various quotes because this article focuses on the larger context of the historicity of Jesus, not specifically the Gospels. So there is nothing wrong with mentioning how the gospels do/don't relate to the historicity of Jesus and providing a few sources for that information, however, it should not go into the same depth that a Gospel specific article would go into. So if an editor wants to list the Gospels as evidence of the historicity of Jesus, then that's fine, but it's also okay to include sources that refute the Gospels actually counting as evidence. We just wouldn't hash out/outline/cover that entire debate on this article.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:48, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the statement by Scoobydunk that the HJ article "already assumes the existence of a historical Jesus" – in fact the HJ article discusses the evidence for existence first, concludes that the existence of Jesus is overwhelmingly supported by what little evidence there is, and then proceeds from that base. Once again, I invite Scoobydunk to actually read the HJ article. Perhaps that is what Scoobydunk would like the HJ article to be, so as to create artificial lebensraum for this article, but that is not what the HJ article actually is.

However I do agree with the statements by Scoobydunk that the Historicity article can serve as the "larger umbrella" article, and "the parent article/issue". That is basically what I was hoping to achieve by making it a disambiguation article in the first place. However I disagree with how this idea is being implemented at present – there is far too much duplication of material vis a vis the main articles on the various issues. I think this article would serve more capably if the various sections were summarized a lot further – maybe that is something we can agree upon to work toward? Wdford (talk) 11:22, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with Wdford. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 11:35, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

The first thing the HJ article explicitly says is "Historical Jesus refers to attempts to "reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth by critical historical methods," this assumes that Jesus existed and tries to identify his teachings and attempts to reconstruct his life. Furthermore, it's a completely different subject than the historicity of Jesus, which strictly focuses on the evidence/arguments for the existence of the ancient figure. So if anything, the HJ article needs to be trimmed down when regarding the historicity of Jesus because that's not the focus of the article. The focus of the HJ article is to reconstruct his life and teachings, not examine Jesus's historicity. The historicity of Jesus is a subject worthy of it's own article. Also, a disambiguation page is a redirect page, not an actual article. Attempts to take this valid article and turn it into a disambiguation page is a disservice to editors and visitors who want to learn about this strict topic. Instead, a disambiguation article would force readers to have to visit multiple articles, piecing together bits and pieces of information surrounding the historicity of Jesus.Scoobydunk (talk) 02:20, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

FWIW I'm still gathering sources for use in getting together material to build the article. The article should reasonably discuss how Bruno Bauer and others first starting questioning the idea in the 1800s, the history of the idea and its relationship to the quest for the historical Jesus, and the various historical questions being raised and how they relate to the question of his existence. One 2-year old book of conference papers on this subject is available, and I hope to look over it over the weekend. John Carter (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

The 1800s views I think should be covered here only in a highly summarized way. The details are already covered in detail in Quest_for_the_historical_Jesus Gaijin42 (talk) 21:30, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

@Scoobydunk: The HJ article needs to discuss the sources for Jesus’ existence – because that is how history is determined. This discussion is currently done in just 4 small paragraphs, summarizing the main article Sources for the historicity of Jesus. I can of course merge those 4 paragraphs into two paragraphs, but either way it really is not an excessively detailed summary. If you are determined to retain this battleground of an article, why don’t you rather consider merging it into Sources for the historicity of Jesus? I would however wait until they have finished fighting to the death over “virtually all scholars vs most scholars”, and “scholars vs biblical scholars”, and all the other minutiae that make this article such an energy-sink. Wdford (talk) 11:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

@John Carter: The Bauer stuff belongs in the Quest for the historical Jesus article, or perhaps in the Portraits of the historical Jesus article, but not here. Wdford (talk) 11:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

@Wdford: There are enough reliable sources to merit an article on the historicity of Jesus and nothing you've said refutes this fact. An article doesn't get deleted or turned into an disambiguation page simply because other articles discuss some of the same content. We don't merge the "Climate Change" article into "Climate Change Denialism" because the "Denialism" article talks about "Climate Change". They are each their own unique articles with different focuses and purposes the same way the "Historicity of Jesus" is distinct from "Historical Jesus". I doubt many people would support your argument for merging if the discussion was about merging the "Jesus Christ" article into the "Christianity" or "Historical Jesus" articles because they cover the same information. Even your labeling of this article as a "battleground" article shows a blatant bias and conflict of interest in considering the merits surrounding the existence of the article. The HJ article can briefly discuss the sources for Jesus's existence, but this article would take a much more indepth approach. That is how WP articles are constructed. We certainly don't get rid of the "Slavery" article, because parts of slavery are discussed in the "Slavery in the colonies" article. Scoobydunk (talk) 15:04, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

"Scholars" or "Biblical scholars"

In the past days, we have seen users (particularly Kww) repeatedly changing the sentence that "There is near unanimity among scholars that Jesus existed" to "There is near unanimity among biblical scholars that Jesus existed". This is WP:OR. The sources do not say "biblical scholars", they say either just "scholars" or "scholars of antiquity". I'm quite surprised at this repeated WP:OR violation. As editors, and certainly as admins as Kww, we should represent the sources, not alter what they say or make our own interpretations.Jeppiz (talk) 10:58, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

These are the sources we use for the sentence with direct quotes

• "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees (Bart Ehrman)
• "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few" (Michael Grant)
• "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." (Richard A. Burridge)

None of these sources say "biblical scholar" or even hint at that, so to change the sentence to insert biblical is rather obvious WP:OR.Jeppiz (talk) 11:05, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I had a feeling we would be coming back to this issue, since we've discussed it many times and have never found a satisfactory solution. It is certainly true that virtually all scholars of antiquity support historicity or at least do not deny it, but it is equally true that virtually all the scholars who have published on the matter are in fact biblical scholars. So the statement is technically true, but misleading, since it gives the false impression that many other scholars besides biblical scholars have published about this. It's a bit like saying "scholars from all scholarly disciplines agree protons are made up of quarks and gluons". I'm sure they do, but it's really only the particle scientists who understand the issues and publish about them. The previous formulation with 'who have published on the subject' danced around it, but wasn't really satisfactory. It is also true that most of these biblical scholars are in fact Christians or former Christians.

I'm not sure that it's possible to come up with a single sentence that will satisfy everybody. If we tone down Ehrman, people will complain. If we use in-text attribution, it will make it sound like a personal opinion, when it is in fact a widely held and expressed opinion among biblical scholars. I think the solution is to add more material that clarifies the issue and doesn't mislead the reader.

I suspect that the reason Ehrman likes to call himself a historian is because he suspects (probably correctly) that readers will take him less seriously if he calls himself a New Testament scholar. For us this is only a concern to the degree it would otherwise mislead our readers. It is not our job to give biblical scholars a credibility boost, but we must make sure that whatever wording we use doesn't lead the reader to think that only theologians think this.

One solution to this would be to add a paragraph that explains the difference between theology and religious studies, and between historical research into the historicity and life of Jesus on the one hand and historically informed theology on the other. The fact that they are distinct but sometimes overlap and that one sometimes masquerades as the other is already mentioned in Meier's criticism which we quote. And BTW, I believe Meier is hardly critical of historically informed theology per se, he's just against mislabeling it as history. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:04, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Martijn Meijering, the problem is that you're know discussing what is the WP:TRUTH. I'm not saying you're wrong, that would require expert knowledge I do not have. It may be that most of these scholars refereed to in the sources are in some way biblical scholars, it may also be that many of them are not. I cannot know for sure, and I assume nobody else here knows for sure either, we speculate. However, even if someone did know the WP:TRUTH, it really wouldn't matter. While almost everything Martijn Meijering writes seems reasonable to me, it's also the very essence of WP:OR. OR is precisely when we think we know enough to alter what the sources say, it's a slippery slope, and that why we have a policy against it. Remember that sources trump truth, every time. So as long as the sources say what they do, any change to that (no matter how accurate) would still violate WP:OR

I agree there's a risk of original research, and we must be careful to use proper sources. I don't think it would be difficult to find quotations to substantiate the claim that most HJ scholars are in fact biblical scholars. We already have some citations that hint at this (Meier, Perrin, Akenson) and I know of some more musing on the question why historians by and large have not studied this topic, though I know you don't like the source. But in any event we can add neutral explanatory material on theologians vs scholars of religion.

Another consideration is that we must balance the various policies. It would not do us much good to have an article that was free of bias but full of original research or the other way round. Martijn Meijering (talk) 12:45, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but there's no bias that I can see in the sources used here. We have Bart Ehrman, who definitely is a biblical scholar but not a Christian. Then there is Micheal Grant, whose beliefs I have no idea about but who was a historian of antiquity, not a biblical scholar. Last there is Richard Burridge who is both a Christan (I assume, as he's a reverend) and a biblical scholar. There's quite a mix there. One unsubstantiated argument that creeps up far too often in these discussions is "Christian bias". Of course it can exist, but if made as a accusation meant to state that any scholar who happens to be Christian is less reliable, it's not serious. Just as it would not be serious to talk about "atheist bias" just because a scholar is atheist. So to Martijn Meijering and other users who unfortunately is far too liberal with lose talk about bias, please substantiate next time. Saying that a fellow user is less reliable because of being this or that violates WP:NPA. Discrediting a scholar for their religion/atheism is slanderous.Jeppiz (talk) 12:55, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Respectfully, I must suggest that you ease off on the wikilawyering and suspicions of policy violations. The issue of potential bias is widely recognised and not at all controversial among scholars of religion.

Also note that there is more than one issue at play here: historians vs biblical scholars, biblical scholars vs theologians, scholars vs Christians. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:01, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Granted, I'm a stickler for the rules. I think the rules are there for a reason and WP:OR is a very important rules. Once we start changing what sources say because we think we're qualified to evaluate and formulate them better than the people who wrote them, we enter a grey zone. It applies to all of Wikipedia, it has nothing to do with this article. This is WP:NOTAFORUM where we exchange our ideas as we see fit. That can be very nice, but there are forums for that. If someone wants to challenge WP:OR as policy, then this talk page is not the appropriate place for that discussion.Jeppiz (talk) 13:08, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not arguing against WP:OR, which is a very important policy. And if you are a stickler for the rules, you'll also care about WP:NPOV. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Pretty much exactly what Mmeijeri said. If this article had a broad range of unbiased sourced, we could have the luxury of lifting their phrasing intact. It doesn't: it has a base of largely biased sources, ranging from religious bias to self-affirmation bias (i.e. "I, Bart Ehrman, say that everyone that is competent agrees with me"). Take a look at our articles on topics like homeopathy, and note how homeopathic sources are treated relative to those from the broader historical community: we are no obligation to repeat their statements in Wikipedia's voice as truth.—Kww(talk) 13:33, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

To clarify: my current opinion is that the sentence should stay as it is, but that further clarifying (and properly sourced) material should be added, perhaps in the lede, perhaps in the body, perhaps both. And Ehrman's more emphatic claim should also be included somewhere in an appropriate form. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:NPOV requires that we represent the field as accurately as we can. The comparison with homeopathy is very good, only it goes the other way around. We have a mass of scientific sources against homeopathy, and we present that academic consensus. For all his edit warring, Kww has not yet presented one single source in support of his WP:POV, just their own opinion. That is precisely what WP:OR is about. The accusations that every expert in the field is biased is downright ludicrous. Once again, we nned to follow WP:RS. If [User:Mmeijeri|Martijn Meijering]] and Kww want to argue WP:NPOV, then the onus is on you to present reliable sources in support of your views. As long as you're just edit warring (only Kww, not [User:Mmeijeri|Martijn Meijering]] who is most serious user) and insisting that all the experts in the field are biased because you say so, you're not doing anything for WP:NPOV, just pushing your own WP:POV.Jeppiz (talk) 13:41, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Jeppiz, you keep criticizing for lack of sources when the problem I am pointing out is lack of sources. Outside of biblical scholars and theologians, there are very few sources at all. The language in this article tries to portray this as something supported by near universal assent. In fact, it's a field essentially without secular comment. You want an analogy? How about if we had a history of Haile Selassie sourced to primarily Rastafarian sources?—Kww(talk) 13:50, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

We do have Lane Fox and Nobbs for historians too. What I do think needs to be made more apparent is that very few historians have published on the matter, although we would need a good source for that too. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:02, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Kww, I can only repeat that we go by sources, and we have a number of sources here. Your opinion that established scholars at leading US and European universities are not valid sources is just your WP:POV. Your constant comparisons (Homoeopathy, Haile Selassie) are just odd. In this field, we cite a number of scholars who in every way satisfy WP:RS, in that they hold PhDs in the subject, work at highly credit universities and publish research on the topic. Whether you like the sources or not (in this case you appear to dislike the entire academic field) is not relevant. I'm reluctant to recommend an admin to read WP:OR and WP:NPOV, but those are the policies we follow. And NPOV means we represent the academic expertise in the field, not that we try to balance between the academics and our own unsupported WP:POV.Jeppiz (talk) 13:59, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Why is Haile Selassie an odd comparison? He is believed by Rastafarians to have been a manifestation of God, made incarnate upon this earth to relieve suffering. The parallel to Jesus of Nazareth is strikingly obvious. We do, however, have a large number of non-Rastafarian historians that have written about him. The parallel to homeopathy is also strikingly obvious. Contrary to your assertion above, the vast majority of writing about various homeopathic topics support homeopathy, even those by people with advanced degrees. That's because homeopaths are the ones that are motivated to write about homeopathy. The parallel here is also blindingly obvious. As editors, we are always expected to recognize and balance source bias. For some reason, people think this article should be immune to such balancing.—Kww(talk) 14:10, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Quite the opposite, you're almost alone in treating this article as something special. In this article, as in every other article, we respect that academic consensus in the field. For some reason, you seem to have decided that in this particular case the academic field should be mistrusted, and you base that only on your own opinion. As long as all you do is insisting that your own opinion should trump a large number of professors and scholars in the field, I don't see the discussion moving forward.Jeppiz (talk) 14:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it has been protected against normal editing by a small group of editors. If you didn't edit war every attempt at balance out of existence, the article would look quite different today.—Kww(talk) 14:57, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

More unfounded claims. You have repeatedly edit warred to change what the sources say to fit your own WP:POV, and several users have had to revert you. This is not protection against "normal editing" in any way, it's respecting WP:OR. What sourced content from a reliable source have you tried to add and been reverted? None at all as far as I've seen. You just keep insisting that the article should change to what you think it should say, regardless of what the sources say.Jeppiz (talk) 15:09, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I have only attempted to remove poorly sourced content. Every editor that has attempted to remove poorly sourced content has been topic-banned or harassed. There's an unfortunately large group of editors that refuses to acknowledge religious bias as a factor and accuses people that try to deal with it of misbehaviour. If people would simply acknowledge the religious bias of the sources in the article and accommodate it in the normal fashion, it wouldn't have been a locus of dispute for so long. When you can find a broad consensus among secular scholars and among scholars of different faiths, you can reasonably make a claim about near-universal support. So long as your support is concentrated in sources of a particular religious grouping, that concentration needs to be acknowledged. The sources you need to actually support the claims made in the lead do not exist, which is why I have attempted to weaken the claims to ones that the sources actually support. Questioning a source for religous bias is not slander. It's not a personal attack. It's simply an effort to deal with one form of bias in the same way that we deal with other sources of bias. I note that you seem to have stopped questioning the parallels to homeopathy and Haile Selassie. Can I take that as a sign that you actually took a moment to consider the merits of my argument?—Kww(talk) 15:51, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Kww, "poorly sourced content"? The content is from a large number of recognised experts in the field. It would appear that you consider them poor just because of what you assume (often erroneously) about their religion. Same thing goes for your accusation against other users here, you repeatedly insinuate that if people don't agree with you it's because they are "religiously biased". In short, most of your arguments are ad hominem. For the record, you're wrong. Not that it's any of your business but my interest here is trying to defend academia, not christianity. As for your weird insistence on homeopathy and Haile Selassie: if we had several leading professors of medicine at top medical universities saying that there is consensus that homeopathy works and if we had no leading medical expert saying the contrary, then I guess we would say that homeopathy works. But that hypothetical situation is far from the case. Furthermore, a large number of experts in this field are not Christians (Bart Ehrman, Geza Vermes, Amy-Jill Levine. Once again, you ascribe a religious bias to everybody who doesn't share your WP:POV. Now it's time for you to start presenting sources. The sources we have here satisfy WP:RS in every way and your ad hominem about the academics in the field does not change that.Jeppiz (talk) 16:25, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I have made no ad hominem attacks. Not a single one. Please stop debating by accusing me of attacks. To say that Christians have a bias in favor of believing that Jesus of Nazareth existed is not an attack. To say that that bias needs to be evaluated when examining a source is not an attack. By the way, Geza Veres was a Catholic priest: not much of a counter-example.—Kww(talk) 17:49, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

You make repeated assumptions about others, both about other users and about scholars. Worse, you misrepresent the actual situation in your frequent insinuations there's something "Christian" about this. We have both Christians and non-Christians, as well as both biblical scholars and ordinary historians, among the sources. And for the record Geza Vermes was Jewish, belonged to a Jewish synagogue and he was married.Jeppiz (talk) 19:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The risk of bias is mentioned in the very next sentence. If we change 'scholars' to 'biblical scholars', the sentence remains true, but then we no longer mention the fact that historians also accept historicity and dismiss the CMT. We could choose to mention historians separately, we certainly have excellent sources for that. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:18, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I've found a book by a prominent Jewish scholar that may be of relevance to the question of bias. The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies by Jon Levenson. I haven't read it, but I'll try to find some reviews and see if it's worth buying. We also may be able to find some interesting material in the Google Books preview. I'll also see what I can find on Google scholar. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:51, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

The article is being protected by "a small group of editors"? Now that's funny. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:43, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I do agree that the article is probably over-protected by the main editors here who seem to revert almost everything included into this article. As I have felt how painful and frustrating that is, and how it can really prevent a good quality article elsewhere, I ask that we are careful and wise about our reversions here. Just justifying with "consensus is needed!!!!" isn't good enough. We should utilize some logic or reasoning instead in the edit summaries. Granted I don't see where kww is coming from in this situation, but I think the user has a point of a bit of vulture-like behavior here. Prasangika37 (talk) 16:50, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

You may very well be right in general, but that's not the case here. Kww has repeatedly altered a sourced statement to say what he wants it to say, rather than what it really says. That's WP:OR, and it's natural that it gets reverted by others. The only reason Kww has offered for his change is his perceived WP:TRUTH. He feels all the scholars in the field are wrong or irrelevant, so we should change the article to what he thinks. That's both POV-pushing and violation of WP:RS. Last but not least, Kww has tried to make it out as if the reason he doesn't get his way is religious bias and that the sources are also just religious bias. He's wrong there as well, as the sources are from leading scholars, certainly some who are Christians but also others who are non-Christians. Some are not even in the field of bible studies but just ordinary historians. With all due respect to Kww, if he feels his edits are being resisted, it may have something to do with his not presenting a single source himself and insisting an entire academic field is irrelevant. I don't think there's any article on Wikipedia where that would fly. Once again, this is not a question of Christians vs Others, it's a question of respecting WP:RS. If we have a number of distinguished scholars saying one thing and an anonymous Wikipedia user insisting they are all wrong, in what article would we change based on that?Jeppiz (talk) 19:37, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Stop misrepresenting my actions and my statements. I have not argued that the scholars quoted here are necessarily wrong. Note that "biased" and "wrong" are not, and never have been, synonyms, nor does one lead to the other. and you may note that I have not once argued that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist. I have simply pointed out that the article uses biased sources and presents statements from them as fact, in Wikipedia's voice, without noting the bias. That's unacceptable.—Kww(talk) 21:05, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so you think the sources are biased. Based on what? I'm sure you agree that if a fundamentalist Christian turned up on Evolution and demanded to change the article because the sourced scholars are all biased, then we would not change the article. You have asked why this article should be treated differently from others. It should not, it should get treated just like other articles. In no article would we change a claim from a large number of leading experts (with PhDs and decades of scolarship in the field) because there's a user who thinks all the sources are biased but cannot present any other support than his personal WP:POV. You have insinuated the sources are by Christians, which is flat out wrong but wouldn't be an argument per se even if it were right. As it's not, it's a moot point. So once again, based on what do you claim the sources are biased?Jeppiz (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Your distortion of my arguments is what causes the problem. I say a source is biased, you say that I have attacked the author. I say that we have a concentration of Christian sources, you say that I have said all the sources are Christian. You deny obvious sources of bias, and make false claims that anyone exploring that avenue of bias are making personal attacks. You compare an area like evolution, which has a large evidence base endorsed by a large group of people spread among an enormous number of faiths, with an area that has a relatively few pieces of supporting evidence explored by not very many historians where those historians fall largely (not "entirely", not "exclusively", but "largely") into one faith where that faith creates an obvious predisposition towards one answer. After all that, you have the audacity to describe me as the source of the problem.—Kww(talk) 23:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Let's back up a bit. Why does it matter whether biblical scholars are biased? We're discussing whether to change 'scholars' to 'biblical scholars'. What does bias have to do with it? It seems to me that we need to know whether the scholars in question are biblical scholars or not, not whether biblical scholars are biased. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I wonder how often I'll have to repeat the question. Based on what do you say the sources are biased? It's not a difficult question, I'd hope. We have a large number of sources, none of them particularly "Christian" but all of them academic. Some may be written by Christians, some are not, but that's irrelevant. If you think the sources are biased, the onus is on you to come up with some evidence, not just WP:IDONTLIKEIT or your personal evaluation of leading academics. So for the umpteenth time, based on what do you say the sources are biased? .Jeppiz (talk) 06:39, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

And how many times have I said "because most of them are by Christians"? It's not irrelevant, and I don't dodge that question. Once again, please stop providing distorted descriptions of my behaviour. That you declare an obvious source of bias irrelevant doesn't bode well for your ability to take it into account while evaluating sources.—Kww(talk) 13:20, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

You've said it a lot, but it's neither accurate nor relevant. A professor at a leading university with a distinguished career spanning decades of peer-reviewed publishing is not automatically biased because he or she is Christian. You haven't even discussed the actual sources one by one (once again, they are not all by Christians), you've just stated a categoric accusation of bias based on nothing but your assumptions of the scholars' religion.Jeppiz (talk) 15:20, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

It is both accurate and relevant. Having a bias doesn't make one wrong. Having a bias doesn't mean that everything a person says should be discarded. A professor at a leading university with a distinguished career spanning decades of peer-reviewed publishing is automatically biased because he or she is Christian, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to him, discard his findings, ridicule him, or anything of the sort. It simply means that we should take note of that bias and ensure that we have a well-rounded and well-distributed group of sources that ensures that any bias is labeled and, to the extent possible, counteracted. In this case, we have a group of sources that is disproportionately Christian (note that only 35% of the world is Christian, and adding Muslims bring it up to a little over 50%) and, try as I might, I can't find enough sources from the remaining half of the world to balance things. Christians and Muslims that support the historicity of Jesus are easy to find. Jewish scholars that support it are less numerous, but not difficult to find. The rest of the world seems largely silent on the issue. When I say "silent", you can't then claim that I have to provide sources that demonstrate that there aren't sources, nor can you point at two or three sources as support for statements like "virtually all scholars". That's an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary sourcing.—Kww(talk) 16:18, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

83% of Americans are nominally Christian. 59.5% of the UK 60% of Australia, 67% in Canada. Since we are primarily looking at English sources, it is not surprising that the majority of the authors are Christian. You will likely find the same breakdown of authors writing in English about Ra, or Zeus. If there aren't sources that support your point, tough on you. Nowhere in WP:WEIGHT does it say we need to balance reliable sources with sources that you admit can't be found. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:25, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

The issue is presenting a dispassionate encyclopedic article. ""There is near unanimity among scholars that Jesus existed" to "There is near unanimity among biblical scholars that Jesus existed"". I am happy with that myself. I agree balance can be found and probably in the sources already provided and more if needed. Its a subject rich with sources from a lot of different types of scholars.--Mark Miller (talk) 16:35, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

1) Do we have reliable sources describing these folks as bibilcal scholars, vs say just scholars of antiquity, historians, in general? Gaijin42 (talk) 16:40, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

As Gaijin42 says, as Martijn Meijering says above, and as I said yesterday, the key issue is that none of the sources say "biblical scholars". As I suggested yesterday, we could say "scholars of antiquity", that would match the source even better. But saying "biblical sources" when none of the sources say that? What would be the support for that?Jeppiz (talk) 16:59, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Kww, you make some fair points but I also see some problems with it. Just to be clear, I don't want to put words in your mouth and I don't want to claim that any of the following points are the truth. I bring them up so we can discuss them, and see where we agree and disagree.

• To the best of my knowledge, there is no support in Wikipedia policies for that kind of edit. To be sure of that, I went back to read WP:NPOV. It does not state that articles should be neutral per se, it states that Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic So we're limited to considering what we have reliable sources for, we're never required to make a compromise that suits everybody with an opinion.
• I really don't get the argument "the other half of the world", and I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I can think of almost no topic where experts truly represent the world's demographic. If we look at the history of the American Civil War, almost all sources will be American and the fact that we don't find Chinese, Indian, Indonesian or Pakistani sources (half of the world) does not mean a thing.
• Likewise, there is no topic in the world that all scholars, or even a majority of scholars have published an opinion on. Saying that "most scholars don't have an opinion" is not even an argument, as there is no such thing as topic where most do have an opinion. That does not mean we cannot say there is academic consensus if we have sources for it, as WP:RS/AC clearly states.
• I do agree with you that any source that could be biased need to be counteracted, I think it's a very valid point. I have to say, though, that even though I didn't write the passage we're discussing, I think the users who wrote it did a good job on that. While many sources are used, the formulations is from a scholar who definitely isn't Christian, far from it. I'd guess Bart Ehrman makes the top-3 of persons that Christians think are/were attacking Christianity, along with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. It would be hilarious to say he has a Christian bias, and I'm not saying you've ever said that. But that makes me wonder what the problem really is, as we have exactly this mix of Christians and non-Christians. If you think some of the sources are not relevant, could you please outline which and indicate why?

I guess the points above are what I don't quite understand, and once again, I list them so we can discuss them and I do not intend to misrepresent you, just like them how I've understood them.Jeppiz (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken in thinking that part of WP:NPOV doesn't involve identifying and analyzing bias. "As far as possible, without bias, ..." extends to detecting that our sources come from a biased group. As for your American Civil War example, the question to be asked is whether the bias in the group selection is relevant to the topic at hand. If there was some aspect of the Civil War that was only discussed in sources aligned with one side of the conflict, or was covered substantially differently in one group than the other, that would need to be highlighted. There are, in fact, numerous studies of the American Civil War by European historians, but you are correct that there is a selection bias due to interest: a Chinese historian is less likely to take interest than an American historian. If I found one of those American historians making a claim about what Chinese historians believed about the American War, I would be extremely skeptical, and would expect someone to produce a reasonably substantial list of Chinese historians that had said something about the topic to substantiate the statement.

As for the issue (brought up by Gaijin42 above) as to whether our selection bias towards English sources would result in our disproportionate representation of Christians, that is something to look at. His figure of 83% Christian just for being an American is correct as far as it goes, but American with advanced degrees (i.e., a group representative of "scholars") tend towards around 25% atheism. That would make me expect in a random sample of "historians", I would find an approximately 25% atheism rate. It wouldn't be a case of finding one atheist source in a pile of Christians. I think any analysis of the sources in this article would result in a similar conclusion. What proportion of historians would I normally expect to find teaching at religiously-affiliated universities? A lot lower than I find in this article (although I will have to wait for the weekend when I'm not at work to do some number-crunching on that one). What proportion of historians would I normally expect to find served as priests or ministers? Again, a lot fewer than I find here. We have a serious case of source selection bias.

The summary of "what do I think the problem is" is that while we have a mix of Christians and non-Christians, it's heavily weighted towards the Christian view. The Civil War analogy isn't wrong, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Whether you believe is his divinity or not, whether you believe in his existence or not, the belief in Jesus Christ is a force that has shaped the modern world. None of us are untouched by Christianity. It seems that I could find at least some trace of sources by the "rest of the world", and I cannot. No Hindus. No Buddhists. Lots and lots and lots of Christians and Muslims with a random scattering of Jews (even though Muslim historians don't seem to question the existence of Jesus: they just assume it). The atheists tend to be reformed Christians. I'm not restricted to English myself, and the few Japanese sources I've ever traced were by Christian converts. There's just not enough meat out there for me to be comfortable making statements about "all historians". It's an extraordinary claim, and I'm not finding support. What we do have support for is that Biblical scholars overwhelming believe in the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth.—Kww(talk) 20:02, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

But it's not weighted towards the Christian view. It represents the consensus views of academics regardless of faith (or lack of faith). You could use the same academics to support that Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, that neither the first Christians or Jesus himself thought Jesus to be God, that Mary wasn't a virgin, that several book in the NT are forged, that none of the gospels can be taken as accurate descriptions, that the gospels are impossible to reconcile with each other, and the list could go on. None of those views are Christian, far from it, every single one is "anti-Christian" in that they challenge key Christian beliefs. And they are made by those same academics. If they happen to agree with Christians on one single point (the person Jesus existed) and disagree on a great number of points, then they are hardly biased. With all due respect Kww, I feel you're arguing an impossible position. You won't accept the consensus unless it's confirmed by "unbiased" sources, but it seems your definition of bias is confirming the consensus. Once again, these academics make a very large number of points that no Bible-believing Christian could accept. There's nothing to suggest they have a Christian bias, conservative Christians hate their guts. It just so happens that virtually all academics agree that even though Jesus was nothing like the gospels say, he did exist.Jeppiz (talk) 20:19, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Its weighted towards a conclusion that there was a historic Jesus who was a person that lived and died. If we are still using the same three sources from the discussion way above, it doesn't look like there is a consensus for this text nor that the sources being used actually do not support the text as it was written. I believe the sources are taken out of context here and that further balance would be needed in this instance.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:29, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Mark, we're not using the same sources. The sources you commented on some days ago are still removed. The reason the article is weighted towards a conclusion that there was a historic Jesus who was a person that lived and died is because that's what virtually every scholar in the field says and (more to the point) that's also what our sources say that virtually every scholar in the field says, in perfect agreement with WP:RS/AC. (The main source from which the text comes is written by a recognized expert in the field and he is not a Christian.)Jeppiz (talk) 11:03, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." You agree that there are not reliably published sources with a contrary view correct? You agree that reliable sources have themselves made comments about the consensus of other scholars? There are many militant athiests out there, many of them in acadmia. (25% to take your number) If they aren't publishing anything saying something to the contrary, that should tell you something - the problem certainly isn't motivation. In fact quite to the contrary, even most militant athiests (of all stripes, not just the historians) agree that Jesus existed as a historical person - and the historians among them regularly describe the consensus for us.

Erhman (again an athiest) specifically answers your concerns "Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds — thousands? — of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology"

Here are more sources and statements (many athiest for) you (some of which is even non-english!)

• Foreign language wikis provide shortcuts to a great group of non-english sources. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historische_Jesusforschung https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesu-liv-forskning
• Bart D. Ehrman who is the primary WP:RS/AC source and an athiest (quoted significantly above)
• Gerd Lüdemann who is an athiest (former Christian) and wrote "Der große Betrug: Und was Jesus wirklich sagte und tat (The Great Deception: And What Jesus Really Said and Did)" which is highly critical of most of Christian beliefs "Jesus death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable"
• Günther Bornkamm
• Pierre Geoltrain Nul n'oserait plus, de nos jours, écrire une vie de Jésus comme celles qui virent le jour au xixe siècle. L'imagination suppléait alors au silence des sources ; on faisait appel à une psychologie de Jésus qui était le plus souvent celle de l'auteur. L'ouvrage d'Albert Schweitzer sur l'histoire des vies de Jésus a mis un terme à ce genre de projet. Quant à l'entreprise inverse, quant aux thèses des mythologues qui, devant les difficultés rencontrées par l'historien, ont pensé les résoudre toutes en expliquant les Évangiles comme un mythe solaire ou un drame sacré purement symbolique, elle ne résiste pas à l'analyse. L'étude des Évangiles permet de dire, non seulement que Jésus a existé, mais encore bien plus
• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Guignebert Je fais toutes réserves sur les détails du récit évangélique, je ne crois pas possible de douter de l'historicité de la crucifixion
• Giancarlo Gaeta. "The modern Jesus", Einaudi, 2009

• John Dominic Crossan That [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be
• Louise Antony I don't personally know a single atheist who would deny that Jesus existed. It would be really unfair to suggest that it's part of being an atheist to deny the existence of Jesus as a historical person
• Richard Dawkins (confirming the consensus is historicity) It is even possible to mount a serious, though not widely supported, historical case that Jesus never lived at all "probably existed"
• Michael Grant (Historian in general, not biblical) If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned
• Gary Habermas another WP:RS/AC "Certainly one of the strongest methodological indications of historicity occurs when a case can be built on accepted data that are recognized as well established by a wide range of otherwise diverse historians"*
• Michael Martin (philosopher) WP:RS/AC athiest and repeated author critical of Christianity. "Some skeptics have maintained that the best account of the biblical and historical evidence is the theory that Jesus never existed; that is, that Jesus’ existence is a myth (Well 1999). Such a view is controversial and not widely held even by anti-Christian thinkers"
• Mark Allan Powell Anyone who says that today [i.e. that Jesus didn't exist]–in the academic world at least–gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willi_Marxsen

• Not a reliable source probably, but a major Athiest blog with links to many other sources which are reliable http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2013/10/on-atheists-attempting-to-deny-the-historical-jesus/

• Another in the same vein http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

Gaijin42 (talk) 21:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

How many and which of those were published in a scholarly historical journal or a peer reviewed academic press?Scoobydunk (talk) 02:25, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll point out that your list of sources has the same bias that I'm talking about. Günther Bornkamm was a pastor, John Dominic Crossan a priest, Gary Habermas a dean of theology at a Christian university, Mark Allan Powell is an ordained Lutheran minister, Willie Marxen is a theologian. Your list supports a phrasing of "biblical scholars" or something similar, but not the more generic "historian".—Kww(talk) 14:59, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree with Scoobydunk and Kww that that long list is not something I'd feel comfortable building on. It's not about the number of sources, it's about the quality of them. I think Bart Ehrman is a very good source (a respected scholar in the field) while the publications of somebody without a higher academic degree is not something I'd consider WP:RS. Fortunately we don't have to rely on such sources as proper academic sources exist.Jeppiz (talk) 15:05, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

At this point, since there is so much rift-raft surrounding the historicity of Jesus, we need to up the level of scrutiny when it comes to using sources. The highest and most reliable sources are those that undergo peer review. So we should start limiting sources to ones published in scholarly history based journals or in peer reviewed academic press. So Ehrman is fine if we're using a source from him that has undergone the peer review process and was published by a scholarly historical journal or academic press.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure thats the standard you want to set? As numerous sources have stated, the Christ Myth advocates are generally not scholars, and not publishing in reviewed journals. Your standard will eliminate all mention of the minority viewpoint. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:52, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

You misunderstand the application of most reliable sources. It's not that the entire article is limited to those types of sources, but that where those sources are available on a given topic, that they receive priority and the topic should mostly reflect them. So when evaluating the criterion of embarrassment, we use the strongest sources available on that specific topic. When evaluating what counts as evidence, we use the strongest sources for that topic. When evaluating the Christ Myth theory, we use the strongest sources that discuss that topic. The Christ Myth theory is notable enough to merit mention just like Young Earth Creationism is notable enough to merit mention in other science related articles even though it doesn't have any real representation within the peer-review/scientific environment. It needs to be presented as a minority viewpoint or a fringe theory, but be accurately represented. The ultimate result of this is that the article should reflect the arguments and evidence available for evaluating the historicity of Jesus, instead of just being a page littered with quotes asserting appeals to popularity or authority that dismiss/insult dissenters. The Climate Change article presents the facts available surrounding Climate Change and isn't just a giant page of quotes from scientists asserting how prominent their opinion is. I'd like to see this article start to take the form of other scientific/history related articles that actually present facts and not just opinions everywhere.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:56, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree strongly with Scoobydunk. Our first question should not be "with whom does this person agree" but rather "is is this a reliable source". I intent this in the most neutral way possible. There are scholars taking more or less any position on this matter. Yes, a very large majority agree Jesus existed but there are perfectly good scholars taking another view. So we can limit ourselves to established academics and still present every view we want. Likewise, all "sides" in the debate have opinionated persons with no academic background, and I agree with Scoobydunk that we could do without them.Jeppiz (talk) 19:54, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

"Scholars" or "Biblical scholars" continued File:Peace dove.svg.png

OK, there is clearly no longer a consensus for this. We have had a number of editors who have expressed concern and support of that concern over making conclusions in both the body of the article and in the lead. There are issues with the way the text is written, sourced, cited and summarized from the references. First we have enough information to know and source a direct claim that, in general scholars do tend to mostly agree that there was probably a real person, but (and many sources add this in different ways) all of the opinion doesn't make it a fact and has some rebuttal that is not "fringe" and should be included for balance. There are several disputes on the article but the main stickler does seem to include both this text and the actual conclusion of fact the direction of the page takes in what maybe should be more neutral. On the side of those that support the statement as it is, there are many sources that they say support these claims. Perhaps but...there still is no actual inline citation next to the actual claims that are contentious and each claim should be directly supported by a source. Right now the first source is spread out over too many pages for the idea that it supports a simple statement. Also in my quick research over this in the last few days I have found a lot of stuff. One thing caught my eye and it was this: "I Was Wrong: Why the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Called it Quits …and Other Trouble for the New Atheism" By Dennis Prince. He discusses this article and this very quote. Has this been discussed yet on the effect of the way the article is written and if this line is being strongly held onto for an academic since of irony? It comes close to being a reference to the information we are discussing if it wasn't circular sourcing. I think that we need to revisit the claim and parse out what it should say from the available sources.

A good start would be to go through the sources and ask that we determine which source is supporting what claim first.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:36, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

As a good faith effort I am going to go through and format references in just these parts without removing them, moving or changing or removing content of the prose. I would also like to introduce using notes and references since this is a very detailed subject that there is a good deal of commentary that could be better served in the same spots but as a note and way to avoid over stacking references.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Sounds likes an excellent idea! Over stacking references is a real issue in the article at the moment.Jeppiz (talk) 21:09, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Now I will move the references and notes, so that the immediate claim is cited with the notes that refer to it and the second claim has the references and note that refer to it. No change in content.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:03, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I did have to do a slight copy edit to the notes, taking out the book title now that the references are properly formatted they were no longer needed. Each not has the reference linked to it still and are now separated into a notes section making it easier to see the notes and better read the reference list. I will do the same to the largest of the over stacking in the exact same way. I will not make any changes to the claims. I will format the references into inline citations and notes and then place the reference and not that pertains to the direct claim where separated and where not I will just format.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:31, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Alanna Nobbs

Why was Alanna Nobbs removed as a source? What's wrong with her? I don't see any obvious bias or lack of qualifications. Martijn Meijering (talk) 08:45, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, when I followed the link, I realised that it does point to a highly biased opinion piece. I don't think this is fatal, since we are not quoting the author, but the reliable sources quoted by him. Maybe it calls into question the reliability of the quote, in other words, did the quoted sources really say what they are alleged to have said. To be honest I don't think it does, or the publication would likely have been forced to publish a correction. It would be good however if we could get a more direct citation for the views of Nobbs. Martijn Meijering (talk) 15:35, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

New source

In 2011, a Handbook for the Study of the Historicity of Jesus was published by Brill. Reviews describe it as being a roughly encyclopedic nature with over 100 articles from roughly 100 leading and/or prominent academics dealing with the general topic of the historicity of Jesus. The list of articles included is available at WorldCat and I tend to think that it probably is the case that most if not all of the articles in that work could probably be turned into individual articles here as well, particularly many of those articles in it dealing with the specific study of the historical methodologies used in the study of the historicity of Jesus. I think it would probably be very useful for those interested in this topic to review the table of contents and the books themselves if those individuals have access to them. I am willing to make copies of some articles at request to distribute to interested parties, but realize that the work is over 3500 pages long and that I am almost certainly not going to make the expenditure of time and money required to reproduce all of them. I would however be willing to make copies of at least some, and if possible get PDFs of the sources in the bibliographies of the articles, on given topics at request. John Carter (talk) 18:59, 18 October 2014 (UTC)