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From Jesus Christ: "The Islamic faith recognizes Jesus as a wise man and a prophet"

-- suggest we find out the Arabic/Muslim term for "prophet" and include it in parentheses here as clarification. (27 September 2001)

Would you mind terribly to give this article some kind of structure? ;-) No, honestly: I guess this entry is going to be difficult, so I guess it would be better to clearly separate the different layers. I would propose a structure like this:

historical facts: the stuff currently located in the last paragraph (BTW, do you think it is a good idea to write he was born in the year 4 B.C.? I think BCE would be more appropriate here...)
biblical accounts: i.e. what the gospels have to say
other accounts: what the Talmud and Roman sources claim to know
later discussion: the discussions about Jesus, e.g. the councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon etc. This would be a convenient place to relate the different interpretations of the relation Godfather - Jesus.

What do you think about it?

I'm all for this sort of structure. So, go ahead and add it! --LMS

Re this wording--

was [miraculously caused to conceive]? him through union with the god of Judaism

I have to say that it sets my teeth on edge. I'm not a Christian, so maybe I shouldn't care about this sort of thing, but it sounds somewhat like saying "God and Mary had sex." What Christian doctrine would require us to describe the Immaculate Conception as the "union" of God and Mary? I am very far from being a theologian, so I'm asking you, because you seem to insist on this. I trust you have a good reason for doing so.

The other problem I have is with the phrase "the god of Judaism." If the Immaculate Conception happened, then the God that made Mary pregnant with Jesus would best be described as the God (capitalized in proper English, whether you're a believer or not) of Christianity. Of course, the reason you describe the thing as "the god of Judaism" is in order to emphasize that Jesus' birth was supposed to be a fulfillment of Jewish prophesy--and that's all very well and good, that needs to be said.

I would simply change these things back, but I thought I would give you a chance to explain why I shouldn't. --LMS

Immaculate Conception is the belief that Mary lived all her life without sin, beginning from her conception. It refers to Mary's conception, not Jesus's.

You're right to point out that there's been a lot of confusion on this point; anyway, I know that "immaculate conception" refers to Mary's purity (see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm ) but the implication is very often taken to be that Mary didn't have sex in order to become pregnant (sex would make her impure). --LMS

Okay this disagreement about the immaculate conception in the article reflects a very old split between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics do believe that the immaculate conception refers to Mary's sinlessness. Protestants believe that it refers to the miraculous way Christ was conceived.
Ok, here's a two minute theology lesson from the Protestant perspective(I'll let a Catholic explain their beliefs). In the beginning GOD created Adam and Eve who were creatures with free will and were sinless and were to be the progenitors of a race of sinless beings. But when Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying the one and only rule GOD gave them(by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) the human race became flawed. All of Adam and Eve's children inherited their flawed sinful nature, a doctrine called original sin. The only way to redeem mankind was to offer a blood sacrifice but according to the Torah the sacrificial lamb needed to be "without spot or blemish", in other words perfect, lacking original sin. When GOD incarnated into the person of Jesus Christ he became that perfect sacrifice, a "new" sinless Adam who could become the 'father' of a new sinless humanity. The protestant idea of the Immaculate Conception is that Jesus was conceived without Original Sin. Protestants do not believe that Mary was sinless or that she remained a virgin forever as Catholics believe. The disagreement stems largely from the fact that the Catholic Bible contains several books that Protestants reject as apocryphal.
Larry: "Mary didn't have sex in order to become pregnant (sex would make her impure)"
Christians don't believe that sex inside of marriage is sinful. Mary needed to be a virgin so Christ's birth would be perceived as a miraculous sign that fufilled old prophecies and so there would be no doubt of his parentage. No human man could be his father because they would all pass on 'original sin'. The conception needed to take place without sex not so she[Mary] would be 'pure' but so that he[Jesus] would be(again admittedly from a Protestant perspective). Shalom --MemoryHole.com

MemoryHole, if that's 'what Protestants believe', then they're misinformed. The theology of the Catholic Church from WELL before the Reformation had developed 2 separate events - the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception - but had not come to a definitive decision about the second. The Virgin Birth is the bit about no-sex-for-the-conception-of-Christ. Any Protestant who says otherwise isn't correct. It's a matter of terminology. Calvin, for one, understood the difference and was sure about the Virgin Birth and dismissive about the Immaculate Conception. The I.C. was a hot issue in theological debate from the 14th through the 19th century, when it was finally defined authoritatively. The Protestants missed out on the second doctrine because they left before it was defined. Some of them more or less believe it, but in an undogmatic way.

On protestantism and the perpetuation of Virginity -- The Virgin Birth is fiercely defended by all the Reformers against attacks. Calvin believed that she remained a Virgin, some did not (I'm basing that on memory, but he had a pretty high regard for the status of the Virginity of Mary). Luther I'm not so sure about. --MichaelTinkler

LOL, well I'm not about to step into the bear trap of whether or not Protestants are right when they use the term. I only assert that (at least some sects) do use the term that way. Its my understanding that the Immaculate Conception didn't become official Catholic dogma until 1854, after the Reformation. Perhaps the term existed in a more nebulous form when the split happened and the two meanings evolved seperately(?) A Google search for "Immaculate Conception of Mary"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22immaculate+conception+of+mary%22&btnG=Google+Search]] shows 1,980 hits, the "Immaculate Conception of Jesus"
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22immaculate+conception+of+Jesus%22&btnG=Google+Search shows 224 hits, so while people seem to use the term more often when referring to Mary they certainly don't exclusively use it for her. Thomas Jefferson uses the term "Immaculate Conception of Jesus" in a letter dated 1819 so the usage of the term is at least that old.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

--MemoryHole.com

Hmmm. Thomas Jefferson. Not the best witness for any kind of orthodox protestantism. HE sure was a Humpty Dumpty of the spirit - cut up scripture to match his preconceptions of what it SHOULD have said. :) --MichaelTinkler

I only mentioned him to prove that the term "Immaculate conception of Jesus" was in use hundreds of years ago. For the record he mentions it only in a footnote and he is in opposition to it.
Here's the letter: http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl259.htm
While trolling around Google I found something interesting, Muslims believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary and Jesus. --MemoryHole.com

There are several issues that are all getting mixed up together:

The term "Immaculate Conception" is defined as the dogma that Mary never had original sin. The term has a definition. There is no scholarly disagreement about the definition of the term, though it is frequently misused. Saying that the frequent misuse is a scholarly or theological disagreement is foolish. Shakespeare is often misquoted as having written "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well". No matter how often this mistake is made it will never be a scholarly disagreement, it will always be wrong. For the definition of the term you may check any dictionary you like. I just checked 3 online, and they all agreed.
There is a theological disagreement about if the well known definition is theologically sound. Catholics believe that Mary was without sin from her beginning, many Protestants do not. The fact that this disagreement exists, does not make it the definition of the word into a disagreement. I can agree that the correct quote is "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio" but still disagree on weather or not it as Shakespeare or Francis Bacon who wrote it. I can, of course, be wrong about the quote while arguing the valid controversy of identity of the author, but the two are still separate issues.
Jesus Christ coming into being directly by the will of God and not by sexual intercourse is not usually a point of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants. Both agree that it is fact. This is called the "Virgin Birth" and not the "Immaculate Conception".
The mother of Jesus, Mary, is never construed as having come into being without her parents having sexual intercourse by Catholics OR Protestants, and they could not possibly disagree on this since they hold the same opinion. As such, it isn't discussed, and doesn't have a term. However, if you try and make the term "Immaculate Conception" mean that, you would simply be wrong. Again, check a dictionary.
there is a theological disagreement between Protestants and Catholics about weather, after the Virgin Birth, Mary then had sexual intercourse and children with her earthly husband Joseph. This disagreement is NOT one of definition either. The term for this is "perpetual virginity". Any disagreement on this topic cannot be one of definition.
-Brian Fennell

Someone should also check up on the Jewish beliefs about the Messiah at that time. Isaiah does say that "a virgin shall conceive", but was that the primary sign they were looking for? Does "virgin" in the OT verse even definitely refer to the sexual sense and not just the "young woman" sense?

The Jewish beliefs about the messiah at the time are well documented by historical scholars. Their views of the messiah have *nothing* to do with what Christians call the messiah. It may be the same word, but their meanins are totally divergent. The Israelites expected a descendent of King David to restore Israel. This person would be the messiah. There was nothing supernatural about him, he was not considered to be the son of God, part of the God Himself, or anything like that. RK

The interpretation given by Marcello Craveri in "The Life of Jesus" of this passage is that the prophet meant to say, roughly (i don't have the book with me) that a virgin will give conceive (a girl will get pregnant), give birth, and name the kid Immanuel, i.e., a happy name, for a happy time, when the kid will be eating butter and honey. Furthermore, before such a time as the kid gets old enough to tell good from bad, the two kings that are causing Ahaz trouble will go kaput. I think that RK is pretty much spot-on about the messiah - the Jews mean it as a sort of national liberator of the Jews (the way J. Edgar Hoover used the term "black messiah"), a sort of Spartacus, or Emiliano Zapata not as the savior of all humanity.Graft 16:19 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)

This is not a simple open and shut case. The first Jews to become Christians believed that Jesus was the Christ, and that he fulfilled the Hebrew prophecies concerning the Messiah.

I have no doubt that a number of Jews during Jesus' lifetime believed that he was the messiah (in the strictly Jewish sense)-- although he may not have been an ideal or strong candidate for messiah, as he was more of a miracle-worker and healer than a warrior. The crisis that led to the emergence of Christianity came when he was crucified, which would not happen to a real messiah. But for whatever reasons (the disappearance of Jesus' body from his tomb; visions of Jesus after his death; maybe the very fact that he was a miracle worker and healer) his followers redefined what a messiah is, based on a belief in the resurrection and second coming. Now, at this point many of his followers may still be Jews, but it is not just a matter of whether they believe that Jesus was the messiah or not; it is a matter of Jews redefining what they mean by the very word, "messiah." With this redefinition, a literal virgin birth may have begun to make sense. Slrubenstein

I agree that accepting Jesus as Messiah did involve a change in how certain prophecies were understood. However, they continued to find support for their new understanding in the Psalms and prophets. Justin the Martyr saw two comings of the Messiah clearly predicted. Passages such as Psalm 21 (I may be off by a chapter either way) and Isaiah in the mid-50's point to a suffering messiah, others point to a conquering one. Justin also demonstrated why it was actually necessary for the messiah to be crucified. Christians still look forward to Christ's "second and glorious coming", but at the same time thank God for it as something that has already happened in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom. But you're right when you say it's a matter of Jews redefining what they mean by "messiah". And from that perspective, I find myself more inclined to agree with RK's original statement at the top of this sub-thread. Wesley

Yes, you are quite right to point out that the redefinition of "messiah" was based not only on contemporary experiences or needs, but also on an alternative interpretation of older texts. I think it is important that the article make clear both that Christians redefined "messiah," but also that they legitimized this new definition based on an interpretation of traditional texts. Do you think the article does this adequately, or do you think more needs to be said? Slrubenstein

I don't think the article is inaccurate as it stands, but it may benefit from the addition of your statement. Feel free to add this if you like. Wesley

The Jews of that time period who did not become Christians, did not. The same debate has continued from then until now. For example, Tertullian and others quote Isaiah 7:14 to say that the Messiah being born of a virgin would be a sign to them, and observe that a girl getting pregnant would not be any kind of sign, since girls get pregnant all the time. An actual virgin getting pregnant would be a sign. (The Septuagint makes her virginity explicit.) Isaiah 8:4 reads, "For before the child shall know how to call his father or his mother, one shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of the Assyrians." [1]Tertullian interpreted this to mean that the child would take the power and spoils while still an infant, that this clearly did NOT point to a military victory, but it was fulfilled by Jesus when he received gold, incense and myrrh from the three kings of the East. So, the Christian position is and has been that Jesus was exactly the sort of Messiah foretold by the Jewish prophets; and that were a number of Jews who did hold this belief from the beginning of Christianity. That Jews at the time believed this is also a matter of historical record. Wesley

The Christian attempt to find justification in the Tanakh of their belief in Jesus' divinity or his Messianic nature does not mean that the Jews perceived these prophecies as relating to the Messiah. In fact, the Virgin Birth is in direct contradiction to Jesus' claim to being the Messiah according to the Jewish reckoning, since according to the Jews, the Messiah would be descended from David. Since Joseph was not Jesus' father (except in a very weak sense), and Jews reckon family patrilineally, Jesus does NOT fulfill the Jewish view of what the Messiah should be. There may have been Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, but they were a minority, and I think it's more than fair to say that the Christian view of Jesus' divinity does not conform to Jewish ideas about the Messiah. Graft 20:28 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)

Regarding his lineage, Jesus was descended from David through Mary; but there is no need to recapitulate all of these arguments again. It is clear that even early Christians such as Tertullian and Justin the Martyr relied on the prophets of the Old Testament themselves to show that Jesus was the Messiah, and did not necessarily rely on even contemporary Jewish teachings on the subject. The real point of contention, where Christians and Jews differ, is not whether he fulfilled the expectations of any particular interpreters of the prophets, but that he fulfilled the prophecies themselves. Whether he did or not depends on how the prophets are to be interpreted. I know that the Zealots of the 1st century were expecting a national leader, but I'm not sure whether their view was shared by the Pharisees, Sadducees and other Jewish groups at or before the appearance of Jesus. Justin the Martyr claims in his Dialogue with Trypho that the prophets foretell not one but two advents of the messiah, one as suffering servant, and the second one as a glorious appearance. Wesley

Three Comments.

First I agree, there's some serious need for structure on this page...

Second, I don't think Christ should simply redirect to Jesus Christ since christ is simply the Greek word for messiah. Some historical Jesus scholars such as John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Sanders, make a strong distinction between the Jesus of history, and the Christ of Faith, and I think simply redirecting christ to Jesus Christ therefore makes an unattributed, unsupported statement on a controversial issue.

Many people make a distinction between "Jesus Christ", worshipped by Christians, and "the historical Jesus", the actual person who lived.

Second, My understanding is that the Hebrew word used in Isaiah is in fact translated both as virgin and "young woman" in various contexts. I can get references for this, though I don't think this is important, as it is commonly believed that the contemporary Jewish Messianic view of the messiah had more to do with Daniel than Isaiah. It's my understanding that the figure in Isaiah is associated with "servant of the Lord" terminology, which is not associated with messianic themes in any records before the time of Jesus.

To the best of my knowledge, this word is *never* translated as virgin by Jews or by serious Biblical scholars. It is only translated this way by people who want to prove that the Tanach was not a Jewish Bible, but was really a long list of prophecies "proving" that Jesus was the messiah. But these claims about the text in Isaiah didn't appear until _after_ Jesus died. RK

Technically, christ is the Greek word for "anointed one". A king, a priest, or a prophet might be anointed. Christian belief is that Jesus Christ was all three.

The Hebrew word in Isaiah is Almah, the greek word translating that in the Septuagint is parthenos. Later Jewish scholars have claimed Almah includes the meaning of young woman, but early jewish scholars (at the time) apparently thought they were synonymous. Probably a changing meaning based on changing society, with 'virgin' being a good translation of the word when originally written.

Not at all. Please provide sources for this claim.

As to the meaning of messiah among first century jewish speakers, I would be surprised if Jesus Christ didn't fulfill their understanding of the term, otherwise, the power of his message would have been diluted or ignored.

This is absolutely incorrect. OBVIOUSLY Jesus totally failed to fit the Jewish definition of the messiah. He failed in every way possible. The only conditions that he filled were LATER conditions that were created after his death. But it is an indisputable historical fact that Jesus never proved that he was a descendent of King David, he never became King of Israel, and he absolutely failed to kick out the Romans. In fact, things just kepting get and worse, until the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE and mass-murdered Jews by the tens of thousands. RK

There is also the Moshiach ben Joseph versus Mochiach ben David issues extent in the scriptural understanding and interpretation of the time, too. (Messiah son of Joseph, the Righteous Patriach versus Messiah son of David the King)

Nope. These are later additions to the Jewish faith. They are not Biblical.

I have included a bit from Josephus, from an online record of his works at http://www.studylight.org/his/bc/wfj/antiquities/view.cgi?book=18&chapter=3

I quote from the bottom of the page:

Copyright Statement

These files are public domain.

Most of the quote from Josephus is bogus, however. Josephus could only have written that if he himself were a Christian, which he wasn't. There have been attempts to reconstruct what Josephus actually said, but the only source other than the ones with Christian interpolations is an Arabic text which is also pretty dubious. See, for example http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/josephus-jesus.html and various other web-pages. --Zundark

Whether you feel the quote is bogus or not, I don't think it is appropriate to delete it. I did put some effort into finding a copy of it on the net, and in a copy-able format. I certainly have no problem with including the quote from the web address you quote as well. That will provide an alternate view, that would provide some balance.

If I found (and spoke) a copy of Josephus' works in Latin, I would favour including it as well.

The goal of an encyclopedia, in my opinion, is to offer information to those who may not be able to find it. If the quote I found is NOT that which has appeared in printed copies of Josephus's Antiquities, I'd like to hear it, because then it would NOT be appropriate to include in this page.

If the quote I included is the one that most people will find in a collection of Josephus's works, then I think it should be available in the encyclopedia article. A neutral point of view does not mean denying what is the historical record. Such denial is blatant manipulation of facts for the point of view that doesn't like what has historically been known.

The quote in question, which Zundark excised is:

Josephus in his work Antiquities of the Jews in Book 18, chapter 3, Item 3 says:

3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

The page Zundark mentions says this : (I don't know about its copyright status)

Professor Shlomo Pines found a different version of Josephus testimony in an Arabic version of the tenth century. It has obviously not been interpolated in the same way as the Christian version circulating in the West:

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders.

I am not trying to build up a controversy, but was trying to follow up on the request in the main page for more details about the extra-biblical mention of Jesus by Josephus... -BenBaker

I excised the quote you put in only because it is very misleading if given without any additional comment, as I don't think anyone seriously believes Josephus wrote it like that. I did consider moving it to the Talk page before excising it, but since it's easy to retrieve from the "View other revisions" page I decided there was no need. I think that if we want to cover this, then it needs to be on a separate page, because any serious treatment of it would overwhelm the Jesus Christ page. You could call the page Josephus on Jesus or something similar, and link it from the Jesus Christ page. (The Tacitus quote could also have a separate page.) --Zundark

I have seen changes disappear from the View other revisions page too quickly in my short time involved in wikipedia. I don't know why, as it is reasonably easy to set the number of days that versions are are retained to a big number like 999999 to keep from losing any.

The idea of putting the quote on a separate page is good. I'll put the link on the main page. Should it be a subpage since it only makes sense in a limited context? or should it be a top level page?

It should be a top-level page, as Larry doesn't like subpages. We would also want to link it from the Flavius Josephus page (when there is one), so it makes sense at top level. --Zundark

Should we really call this page "Jesus Christ"? Calling him Jesus Christ, implies he was/is the Christ (i.e. the annointed one, the Messiah), and a lot of people who don't think he is the Christ wouldn't want to call him that. Wouldn't "Jesus of Nazareth" be a more neutral name for him? -- SJK

Hmm, Jesus "the Christ"? That looks really goofy. :-) The way-NPOV name would be Yeshua benYousef or Yeshua benMiriyam. I don't think that'll work either.

I'd say put the history in Jesus of Nazareth and the Jesus-as-Christ discussion in Jesus Christ. --Damian Yerrick

But did he really come from Nazareth? I've seen it suggested this was just an early confusion between Nazarite and Nazarene, although I don't know how likely that is. I think "Jesus Christ" is OK, because most people just take it as a name, not as an assertion that he was the messiah. But why not simply call the article "Jesus" - no one would expect an article called "Jesus" to be about any other Jesus, would they? --Zundark, 2001 Nov 3

I've heard it put the other way. That early depictions of Jesus with long hair came from confusing Nazirite (see Numbers 6). But the Gospels are extremely clear that Jesus came from Nazareth. The references to the town in Galilee are explicit. <>< tbc 5Nov01

Yes, I know there are explicit references in the gospels. But when I said an "early" confusion I meant really early, pre-gospel. It doesn't sound too likely though, I admit. I don't really care what the article is called - all three possible names are OK. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 5

The translation of the verse in Isaiah as "virgin" is no longer controversial. No professional academic Bible scholar translates it this way. The majority of Christian scholarship in the last century has agreed that it was a totally erroneous translation, and is unsupportable by the text. Many Churches have actaully revoked their claims on this issue! While many Evangelical Christians and all Jehuvah's Witnesses still claim that this word means "virgin", it is indisputable that they are wrong. Why? Because while belief in Jesus (or anyone else) is a religious issue, the mistranslation of a word with a known meaning is a scientific and historical issue; theology has no claim here. Today, the consensus of Christians, Jews and "others" is that this verse has nothing to do with a virgin. RK

Well, many Christians still believe it means "virgin", so in that sense at least it is controversial. It isn't a modern mistranslation either -- the Septugaint translates it as virgin (parthenos), as do the Gospels. And it is always possible that the Septugaint's use of parthenos may be based on a different Hebrew text from the MT. -- SJK

RK, are you referring to the Masoretic text? I'm certainly not a scholar of Hebrew or Greek, but I have done a small amount of background reading concerning the early Church's use of the Septuagint. The most obvious reason of course was that Greek was more widely understood than Hebrew at that time, even among many Jews. The less obvious reason is that in many places, prophecies concerning the coming Christ in the Septuagint are more obviously referring to Jesus Christ, than are the corresponding passages in the Hebrew Masoretic text. I think the most recent Masoretic text we still have only dates to about the ninth century A.D., although it has been at least partially corroborated by the Dead Sea Scrolls.

While most English language Bible translations to date have tended to rely on the Masoretic text, there is an effort now underway by an Eastern Orthodox seminary in the United States to produce an Old Testament translation based entirely on the Septuagint. Details can be found at http://www.lxx.org. --Wesley

the Septuagint text is certainly an issue above and beyond whatever the Hebrew says. One of the problems is the (typically Semitic) rather limited vocabulary of Hebrew as opposed to Greek, which has at least two words in play here - parthenos and kore. Kore means "young woman" in a general sense - unmarried, youngish, etc., with the implied virginity of that station, though not necessarily verified, since the term could also be applied to a newly-wed woman. Parthenos is considerably more specific. It means "virgin." Just think of Athena Parthenos and her temple the Parthenon. It is interesting that the word Kore could be personified and applied as a name to Persephone, daughter of Demeter. Why is this lexical distinction important? Because the Septuagint has 'parthenos'. Now unless the contemporary scholarship has successfully challenged the Septuagint manuscripts (and I haven't read that they have), this is a problem, not a settled issue. The Hebrew may say '(generic) young woman' (though, by the way, the idea that young women in ancient Hebrew society weren't assumed to be virgins unless proved otherwise before marriage is, to say the least, surprising), but the Greek doesn't. The Greek was produced by Jewish translators well before the life of Jesus. --MichaelTinkler

Yes, but is that the Greek version we have today. Impossible to know. There are various codex versions of the Septuagint, but all of them postdate Jesus, even the earliest by almost 70 years (and all these versions were found in monasteries, where they were identifiably copied, redacted, and edited). Nor should we ignore the Aramaic translations made at the time too (though these suffer from the same problems). Additionally, though the Dead Sea Scrolls are incomplete, one of the few Scrolls that is nearly complete is Isaiah, which has alma not betulah. One can also look at parallel (though not necessarily contemporary) verses that use both or similar phrases in the Hebrew (eg. Gen. 24:7, naarah betulah, i.e., a young girl, a version, translated in Aramaic as almata betulata), clearly distinguishing the two. Basically, the debate is theological. It is impossible to start quoting texts, because all of the texts we have are later. Danny

There is a Hebrew word that specifically means "virgin", betulah. -phma

Article currently says one of the tribes of Israel are the Native Americans... is that true? (Long time since I read much on Mormonism...) I thought there were two or three peoples in the Book of Mormon, the good ones who died out... the one's who the Amerinds are descended from are the bad guys... (is it just me who detects the spirit of racism and colonialism in Joseph Smith? :-) Now I thought only the good guys came from Israel, and the bad guys were already there... But I'm not too sure... someone needs to check up on this. -- SJK

He is often held by Christians to be the Messiah and Savior, as well as the physical incarnation of God, the Son of God, and according to some theologies, one of the three persons of the Trinity, along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Surely this understates the centrality of Jesus' divinity to the overwhelming majority of Christian denominations. --Robert Merkel

"The question of whether Islam has the potential to explicate Trinity is being explored as an open question."

Does anybody have *anything* to support this? AFAIK the idea of the Trinity (non-Unity) of God is against the most central beliefs of Islam.

Some Shiite sects, possibly the Alawites, have the concept of a Trinity of God, Muhammad, and Ali. Danny

Eastern Christians, who account for just about as many Christians as Western Christians, seem to depend on the "Translation of the Seventy" from which the "virgin" text comes. The earliest Roman Catholic translations (Jerome included) also rely on this translation. Whereas Luther and beyond tend to go back to the original Jewish. Seeing that both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches derive their translations and subsequent traditions from these texts it is perhaps worthwhile to look more deeply into into the greco-jewish translatiuon - on which the Christian religion was based--- most early Christians were Hellenized (Greek) Jews.

I'd like to query the change from:

the birth and life of Jesus has had such profound significance to Western civilization that years are counted from the originally alleged birth year of Jesus.

to:

the birth and life of Jesus had a significantly high importance to religious men of the Dark Ages that years are now generally counted from the originally alleged birth year of Jesus

I would support the inclusion of something such as 'generally counted' in order to indicate that this is not the only convention for numbering years. However, the change from referring to 'Western civilization' to 'religious men of the Dark Ages' seems to me to be replacing one potential source of bias with another and rather unnecessary. I also prefer the phrase 'profound significance' to the use of 'had a significantly high importance' which sounds stilted to me.

Would it not simply be sufficient to assert something along the lines of:

in many parts of the world dates are now counted from the originally alleged birth year of Jesus

Agree, there is no way that statement is NPOV.

I took this out:

A small of group of Jewish converts to Christianity believe Jesus is the Christian Messiah (see Jews for Jesus).

For one thing, it is out of place where it was -- a transition for a discussion of Christian beliefs about Jesus to non-Christian beliefs about Jesus.

But why single out Jewish converts -- the only meaning I can see is in the old Christian anti-semetic screed that Christianity is the real heir to the covenant with David, and smart Jews know that.

If we were to read this line independent of this anti-semetic screed (for I am sure that the intention was not at all anti-semetic), then it really just reduces to this: some Jews have converted to Christianity. By the way, if they have converted to Christianity, they are not (as far as the Jewish community is concerned) Jewish. That's okay -- they can leave Judaism for Christianity if they want, they are just no longer Jewish.

But what is the point of adding a line, "Some Jews have converted to Christianity?" In fact, many people have converted to Christianity, especially historically. Are we going to have a long list of peoples who have converted to Christianity (Arabs, Armenians, Andalusians...)? What is the point?

Perhaps "Jews For Jesus" is an organization of sufficient importance or interest that it merits its own article. But honestly, I do not see how mention of this organization adds to our knowledge of Jesus, or belongs in an article of Jesus. We already know that Jesus had lots of Jewish followers, and that the religions established in his name has found followers all over the world. Genug! An article on Jesus should be about Jesus. Slrubenstein

For what it's worth, I agree that the "Jews for Jesus" movement isn't worth mentioning here. Perhaps it could be included in the lists of Christian organizations or denominations (is it its own denomination??), but it doesn't add anything to this article, as you said.

I am curious though, as to your statement that converts to Christianity would no longer be Jewish. Certainly, such converts would not be part of Judaism, but would they not still be racially or ethnically Jewish? Would it be any different for Jews who converted to Islam or Buddhism, to pick two random examples? Wesley

basically, I see a Jew as a member of the Jewish community. Thee are specific ways to bea member -- having a Jewish mother, or converting. Other than that there is not much to it. To leave the community requires an explicit act, and converting (whether to Islam or Christianity) is one way. Slrubenstein

Thanks for explaining why you took out Jews for Jesus. --Ed Poor

Any references or attributions for Jesus being at a Christian temple in India? Couldn't have been a "Christian temple" during or before his earthly ministry, since there were no Christian temples anywhere at that time. Any evidence there were Jewish temples in India at the time?

Also, any specific references or attributions about the virgin birth=out of wedlock birth claim? Who makes the claim? Any records of other people claiming virgin births in Palestine during that century or so? Wesley

Actually there were. Manicheism, which had a large following, particularly among Roman soldiers.

I was just wondering the latter myself. The text says:

It has been claimed that women around the time and place of Jesus's birth who became pregnant from someone other than the husband would frequently expain the pregnancy as being the result of a visit from God or from an angel.

This is just poor style. The claim is provokative; as such, simply to say "it has been claimed" gives the reader no clues about the provenance and therefore of the credibility of the claim. If "it has been claimed" by a dozen major theologians and historians, that's one thing. If it's been claimed by a random Wikipedian in a college essay, it's another. --Larry Sanger

I deleted the text referenced above, for the reasons given above. Wesley

About this sentence I removed:

The question of whether Islam has the potential to explicate Trinity? is being explored as an open question.

it looks to me like Trinity is a point where Islam explicitly opposes Christianity. "Allah" is unique and muslims see Trinity as a breakage of God's unicity. So why should Islam "explain" Trinity ?

It looks like this sentence was written by a Christian and says or implies Islam is inferior because it cannot explain a Christian dogma that makes no sense outside of Christian faith. If that is the case, the sentence should be simply removed.

So I eventually removed it.

BTW, is there a way to know, for a particular sentence, _who_ introduced it with _which_ revision ? That would help clarify the intent of the author and what (s)he really means. In this case, perhaps I'm wrong in interpreting the "open question" as an apologetic subterfuge, and perhaps I missed an interesting point of view. Hard to tell.

FvdP

You can look at the "History" link to see previous versions of any article. On the History page you can click on the "Diff" link to see a side-by-side comparison of a version and the previous (or current) version. --Ed Poor

Yes, I know that. But there are so many revisions for this page, I wanted to know whether there was a direct path to the right revision. --FvdP

So I made the hard-way search: the sentence about Trinity was there from the start on (first revision from automatic translation), and I'm the second person to question its relevance (see revision history of this talk page). --FvdP

I am going to try to add some more nuance to the discussion of "messiah." In the meantime, I have three questions concerning the first paragraph. I amnot personally invested in the answers to the first two questions, but I am curious to know what Christians think

1) is it right to characterize Jesus as an "object?" I understand that grammatically there is nothing wrong with this, but it does suggest a particular way of thinking about something. Maybe I identify "object" with what Buber called I-it...

2) is it right to characterize Jesus as one of three "persons" of the trinity? Certainly God (the father) is not a person, although we might speak, and try to listen, to him as if he were one. Also, I thought Christians thought of Jesus as God made flesh -- does the word "person" really do justice to this? I myself do believe there was a "person" Jesus, but when I say that I also imply my own distinction between that person and the "Jesus Christ" who is an "object" of Christian theology and adoration, and the subject of this article...

I do have more of an investment in the third question: 3) What exactly are Messianic Jews? Why are they not Christians? How is this different from "Jews for Jesus?" I believe I or someone else deleted the reference to Jews for Jesus without objection -- could we do the same thing here? Slrubenstein

I'll take a stab at (2), and hope someone else answers the other questions. The early church fathers spoke of three hypostases in one essence (homo ousios). The most common translation of hypostasis into English appears to be "person"; although it is probably not a perfect translation; it appears to be the best we have. Of course, any words we use to describe God are bound to be inadequate or misleading if pressed too far; hence the use of apophatic theology to say that God the Father is a person, but not exactly a person in the same way you or I are persons. Similarly, we might say that God exists, but not in quite the same way that the chair I'm sitting on exists, as one "thing" among many.

Also, talking about the three persons of the Trinity has historically been a way to distinguish the doctrine from variations such as Modalism. You might be interested in this icon and surrounding discussion: [2]. If you don't have time for all of it, the last two or three paragraphs are worthwhile.

Wesley

Thanks -- I will check the link (when I have time); I really was just curious and appreciate the answer.

Following Wesley's suggestion, I have revised the paragraph on Jesus as messiah. My intention was to add more precision and nuance to this paragraph. I hope that this revision is acceptable both to Jews and Christians. I also hope people do not consider it too tangential for this article -- perhaps someone else can edit it to make it more elegant or straightforward, Slrubenstein

Finally had a chance to look at the changes. SR, I think you've done a good job summarizing our discussion. There is one sentence that I wonder about:

Nevertheless, many of Jesus' followers -- perhaps inspired by visions of Jesus after his apparent death, but also drawing on alternative interpretations of Biblical verses -- redefined the concept of messiah to encompass the resurrection and the promise of a second coming.

Had I written it, I might have changed the italicized portion to "...perhaps inspired by seeing, touching and eating with Jesus after his death, but also...". But that would also be a bit biased and perhaps speculative. The rest of that paragraph seems fine, aside from possibly a typo or two. Is there a more neutral way to phrase that without Wikipedia saying either that he did or did not die, and without Wikipedia saying that the disciples either really saw and touched him or saw only visions of him? Wesley

I am glad that in ther respects the changes are acceptable. I take it you find the word "vision" to be too ethereal? How about "encounter?"

Exactly. "Vision" sounds very ethereal; combined with "apparent" death, sounds a bit like docetism (IIRC what docetism is). Changing "vision" to "encounter" would be an improvement from my point of view; it does seem to leave open to question whether the encounter was physical or ethereal. Wesley

Here is my concern, in the spirit of NPOV: I personally do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and at best consider this a matter of faith. But I personally do not doubt that the disciples and others had some sort of powerful experience. As far as I am concerned the exact nature and causes of this experience are a matter of debate. What is not a matter of debate is the accounts people provided of these experiences, in which they claimed that they had some sort of encounter with Jesis in the flesh (am I right?). So I do not mind making this passage more specific as long as it distinguishes between what did happen (which might be desccribed and explained in a variety of ways) versus a particular account of what happened (which is described and expleained in a versy specific way).

If you see an easy way to effect this in the article, give it a shot! In any case, I do not mind your changing the word "vision" if it is not precise. But if the most precise description comes from a set of Christian texts, than what we are really describing is not what happened, but what certain texts tell us happened... Slrubenstein

My problem with "vision" is that it is too precise, yet insufficiently accurate. Often in Wikipedia, it seems that the best way to remain neutral or accomodate multiple points of view is to make the language more vague. I think "encounter" does this, and fits the situation. Could we also change "apparent death" to just "death", or is his death as debatable as his resurrection? I know historically there are some who claimed he only seemed to die. If that view needs to be acknowledged, then perhaps we need to back up and just say something like "Here is what appears to be the operative set of assumptions/beliefs held by the Christians who wrote the NT." Wesley

SR -- good job. Thanks. Wesley

Separate subject, separate modification: who exactly suggests that stories of Isis and Horus influenced the writing of the Gospels? Or what group of people or school of thought? I'm going to add a counter-claim made by Justin Martyr in around the second century or so. Wesley

Earlier I added a reference to Frege and Gandy who are writers for the lay audience who have taken the position that "Jesus as a confluence of esoteric traditions." I'm going to add a little more detail on that position in a bit, because I think it's interesting and would add something of the currently absentee Gnostic view of who Jesus was. It's obvious though that it's not a new claim, given the fact that Justin Martyr wrote an apology dealing with it. I'm curious though, I've been thinking that the reference to Mithras should be removed or qualified in some way. Horus and Isis is one thing, but Mithraism is a contemporary faith of first century Rome that most serious scholars agree sprung up right around the same time Christianity did, so questions of who borrowed what from whom are probably not very valuable and rely almost entirely on speculation.JFQ

All the people I've met who consider themselves Messianic Jews also considered themselves Christians. Some Googling turned up Jews for Jesus using both terms for themselves ([3] [4]). Therefore, it isn't right to say "Both Christians and Messianic Jews believe ...". That would imply that they aren't a kind of Christian.

Right. And since they are a kind of Christian, I'm not sure why they need to be singled out for special mention in the opening paragraph. Wesley

Since they are a kind of Christian, I will delete this phrase from the first paragraph. Slrubenstein

Reference for my claim that the original meaning of "C.E." is unknown, this post from an English professor:

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/Humanist/v05/0281.html

--Larry Sanger

Sorry, SLR, but you should know better than to blithely assume that your term "redefined" is not pejoritive: it clearly implies that the foundation concepts of Christianity were man-made. While you and I might agree that's true, many Christian's obviously don't, and would be offended at the suggestion. You also made a change to Larry's note about "CE" that adds no enlightenment to the issue and is needlessly provocative. I don't think either change improves the article. --LDC

God made man, but man made religion. Whether Jesus was he "messiah" or not is a matter of faith and I see nothing in the article that requires that one accept him as such, or that denegrates such a belief. Nevertheless, "messiah" is a hebrew word -- Hebrew being a human language -- and how human beings use the word "messiah" is a matter of historical record. Before a certain time people used it one way, after a certain time they used it another way. I really do not see this as a criticism of Christianity.

As for the reference to CE, I fail to see what is gained by the italics, except a churlish tone. Slrubenstein

I'm still not quite convinced that "redefined" would not offend some; many Christians I know in particular rankle at even the slightest hint of man-madeness in scripture or dogma; perhaps something like "interpreted" would be even better? Yes, removing the italics is fine; I was referring to the "domination" remark (and I'm sure you knew that). --LDC

Personally, I feel very strongly that the redefinition of "messiah" is well- documented by historians, and important to understanding both Jesus' disciples and early Christianity. I am not even sure that "reinterpret" the word would be accurate -- a hundred years ago the word "consumption" meant tuberculosis, today it means buying cheeseburgers -- I do not think this is a mater of a new "interpretation" of the word, it is a new definition. In any case, it really seems to me like the difference between redefining a word and reinterpreting it is fine indeed Would it matter, to put in something like "According to historians?" (we could even name people, like Vermes and Fredricksen.) I certainly wouldn't be oppesed to adding such a phrase, if you thought it would be an improvement -- I am just not sure whether that would satisfy the Christians to whom you refer. I certainly would welcome some more discussion on the phrasing among Wikipedians -- I assume that practicing/devout Christian Wikipedians follow this page regularly. Since I am committed to NPOV I would certainly take their sensibilities seriously. Nevertheless, it seems like you are raising issues that have been hashed out before, concerning articles about people or events that are of importance both to religious communities and historians. Jesus is -- among all other things -- a literary and historical character, and has been an object of literary and historical study. I do not see how an article on Jesus can ignore that scholarship.

For what it's worth, I agree 100% with SLR on the Messiah question. Christianity interpets a lot of things different than Judaism does. If we stated that Christians "reinterpeted" the concept of God to be trinitarian, would that offend some Christians simply because they happen to think that their interpretation is the correct one? Is there any historical basis for suggesting that Christians didn't reinterpret the concept of a Messiah? Are there any biblical scholars, Christian theologians, or historians who say otherwise? If so, let's see some citations. soulpatch

But, soulpatch, it doesn't matter who is right; happily, we don't have to settle that question. But we ought to be clear that lots of Christians would deny that they "reinterpreted" the concept. (It's certainly not an issue that they would be offended, which incidentally they might, but that they'd disagree.) They might be wrong, but that's what they think, and it's not our job on Wikipedia to insist otherwise, but instead to try to accommodate all relevant (significant, published) views fairly. --Larry Sanger

Fair enough, but I would be interested to know if there are indeed any relevant (significant and published) views by Christians that would disagree with the view that Christian perspective on the Messiah is different than the Jewish one was. After all, this encyclopedia labels creationism as pseudoscience, as it well should do, and that is also something that a lot of Christians subscribe to. soulpatch

As for "domination" -- yes, I see why you say it is provocative (and I made the change, and my reversion, before seeing your comment on this page). But again, like it or not, people in the United States, Israel, China, and Ecuador all use the Gregorian calendar because 1)after the fall of Rome Christianity came to dominate Europe, and 2) after Columbus, Europe came to dominate much of the world -- dominate often through direct military force, other times through economic hegemony. I rather thought that Christians at various times in their history wanted to dominate the world (motivated by good intentions). Perhaps this point belongs in a different article -- but then again, Jesus himself did not use the Gregorian or even the Julian calendar, nor did the first Christians, so an explanation of why the "BC/AD" system developed seems reasonable in an article on Jesus... Slrubenstein

Hopefully not to belabor an obvious point, at issue is not that it is or isn't accurate to use the word "redefine" (as an agnostic, I couldn't really care less, myself) but that plenty of (informed, well-meaning) Christians would disagree with the use of it. That can't really seriously be disputed; therefore, to adhere to the nonbias policy, we must find a more neutral way of putting it. Given that, the only question before us is how to fairly word the difference of opinion. If worse comes to worse, you can simply make the difference of opinion explicit, something like (I don't know if this is quite right), "Jewish scholars generally say that Christians redefined the concept of the Messiah; Christian scholars say, rather, that they interpreted the original intent." (I actually don't know if that's precisely true, so I'll leave it up to others...) --Larry Sanger

Yes, I think that's about right. I don't think there's really much difference between the two ways of stating it, except that saying that they "interpreted the original intent" emphasizes their continued reliance on the same Jewish scriptures. I really think this issue might be a tempest in a teapot. Wesley 05:11 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)

I deleted "(since European domination often coincided with Christian domination)." SR, before you add this back in, let me explain why I don't think it belongs. You have added what is in fact a very controversial and apparently unprovable assertion, to wit, that the reason that "C.E." is sometimes taken to mean "Christian Era" and sometimes instead "Common Era" is simply that "European domination often coincided with Christian domination." I don't see that at all. If you'll see the link I posted above (and please do), I hope this will be clear.

Also, I readded something SR deleted without explanation: "(It is presently unknown what this abbreviation was originally coined to mean.)" See the link I posted above, again, if you doubt this; or if you can supply evidence that it originally meant one thing or another, that would be very welcome. --Larry Sanger

Larry, the reason I deleted this paranthetical is because I think it is awkward prose and unnecessary -- not because I reject the claim. Please reread the paragraph as it stands pp I believe that it you cut the paranthetical, the paragraph still communicates clearly that we aren't sure what the abbreviation originally meant. I am going to delete it agian -- only because it is redundant.

Oops, you're right. I didn't read the amended version from beginning to end. --LMS

As for the redefinition of "Messiah" your way of framing the issue is inflammatory -- you suggest contrasting the views of "Christian scholars" and "Jewish Scholars" as if this were a sectarian issue. It is not. One need not be a Christian scholar to know that today, Christians think that the messiah is "the son of God and savior." Similarly, one need not be a Jewish scholar to know that in the first century Jews thought that the messiah was a descendant of David who would restore the Davidic kingdom. This is a matter of historical record. If you must make a contrast, please make the right contrast, between modern critical historical scholarship (MOST of which, by the way, is by Christians) and religious doctrine. --SLR

I don't understand what is inflammatory about saying, "Christians believe one thing and Jews believe another." Wikipedia is all about describing, rather than engaging in, disputes. That's the essence of the NPOV policy. I am also puzzled why you say it isn't a sectarian issue. If you and other Jews do insist that the concept of the Messiah was redefined, I can assure you Christians will want to disagree with you. If that's not a sectarian dispute, what is? I'm not saying they'd be right or wrong (or that they're "historically inaccurate": wouldn't they want to disagree?). I'm saying that the wording is (now, was!) clearly biased. It's no excuse to say, "But the facts are on my side." Of course they're on your side (we'll say). You ought to know by now that the nonbias policy will always favor characterizing a dispute about what the facts are over a straightforward statement of the facts! --LMS

I would add that it is at best misleading to say that most "modern critical historical scholarship" is by "Christians"; it implies all or most Christian scholars agree with that strand of scholarship and its conclusions. There is a diversity of opinion among both Christian and Jewish scholars on a number of topics, from the literal resurrection of Jesus and accuracy of the Gospels, to whether Moses really parted the Red Sea and led the Israelites out of Egypt. Of course one's theology will help determine whether one believes in miracles, which will affect the way any historian studies such accounts. Wesley

There is a difference between saying most critical historical scholarship is Christian, and most Christians believe in modern critical historical scholarship. I think that the first statement is probably true; I don't doubt that the second statement isn't. A lot of Christians reject modern scientific scholarship because their religious dogma doesn't permit any attempt at examining the historical veracity of any individual bibilical passage; instead, they start from the assumption that these passages are unquestioningly true, thus ruling out certain lines of inquiry a priori. This might be fine for their dogmas, but it isn't scientific. In any case, I think it is likely that most of the scientific scholarship comes out of the Christian community. And the question is whether we should put scientific scholarship and unscientific scholarship on equal footing in this encyclopedia. soulpatch

If by "scientific" you mean to include empiricist/rationalist approaches, then that approach rules out the possibility of miracles or of a God who interacts with humans or the world at large. Such an approach is no more objective than the religious dogmatic approach. As for such scientific scholars coming from the Christian community, I suspect it can be shown that they come from only a small subset of the Christian community which has already rejected many traditional Christian claims for other reasons. Also, even modern critical history isn't the same kind of science that something like chemistry is. You can't test your hypotheses via repeatable experiments; historians almost have to speculate based on the information available, and hopefully hedge their speculations the more limited the information. Wesley 17:36 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)

By "scientific" I mean the willingness to examine any biblical passage for authenticity, rather than blocking certain lines of inquiry because they might contradict one's religious dogma. If you start from the premise that certain lines of inquiry are off limits for examination, then you are not being scientific. And objective approach makes no assumption about the validity or non-validity of any individual biblical passage, and for that reason conservative Christian "scholars" are no scientific, since they assume from the beginning that the bible is true in its entirety. As for the comparison with chemistry, I would point out that there are plenty of other disciplines where you can't test your hypotheses in the same way that you can with chemistry--astronomy is mostly observational, for example, rather than experimental. The same goes for physical anthropology, where you dig up old prehistoric bones of pre-human species and make conclusions about your findings. soulpatch

So would the sort of scientific inquiry you propose allow for the possibility of miracles, of an interventionist God, or other phenomena not normally observable by the five senses? Or would it be forced to conclude that accounts of such things in the Bible and other literature must have other, naturalistic explanations because there is no scientific evidence for the existence of anything supernatural? (We may need to move this discussion to meta, since I think we're straying a bit off topic.) Wesley

As for the issue of the calendar, I have read and reread the research note for which you provided a link. I see nothing in that note that even calls into question the fact that people use the Gregorian calandar (designated by AD/BC) because of Christian hegemony in Europe, and European hegemony in the world. I do not find this a controversial claim at all. What other reason could there possibly be for people throughout Europe and then around the world using a calander that begins (or so it claims) with the birth of Jesus? Slrubenstein

I'm not disputing that point, but I am disputing what you wrote: "...although today it is taken to mean either the Common Era or Christian Era (since European domination often coincided with Christian domination)." This implies, as I said, that the reason "C.E." is taken to mean either one or the other is that "European domination often coincided with Christian domination." Again, I don't see that at all. How do you know that? People might have all sorts of reasons for interpreting it one way or the other.

Anyway, if you simply want to make the point that the calendar reflects Christian domination in Europe, part of the point is already made earlier in the paragraph: "Regardless, Christianity was of such importance to medieval Europe that the presumed birth of Jesus was used to mark the first year of the calendar." If you want to go further to say, "And it remains the most common way of counting years to this day because Christians have dominated Europe," perhaps the point would be better made (maybe it already is) under calendar, or perhaps Christianity (or history of Christianity) not Jesus Christ. Besides, the point itself is debatable; it's at least as plausible to say that it's sheer habit that led us to continue on the medieval tradition, not any ongoing special reverence for the Christian religion, or desire to continue its hegemony, or any such thing. Suppose someone were to say, "The popularity of romance languages, French, Italian, and Spanish, in Europe indicates the ongoing hegemony of Rome," or "The ongoing popularity of inches and feet in the United States indicates a continuing American sexism that measures things according to the width of men's thumbs and the length of men's feet."

Sorry for the long reply... --Larry Sanger

---

Not supposed to be there, but...
Is it a good idea to replace an explicite convention such as AD by a rather ambiguous one, such as BC ? If the significance widely understood is "christian", nothing is gained in term of neutrality toward christian claims. And if the significance understood is "common", what does it change to the fact it still considering the central point of human civilisation to be at Jesus birth ? Rather it's "using up" the word "common" that cannot be used anymore by others. The other datation modes existing in other nations can't even pretend to be defining the "common era" anymore since the BC system has been officially proposed and accepted by the NC (Neutrally Correct).
BC rather than AD looks like cosmetics.

To Larry -- okay, your last reply is not that long and reasonable. To the above: I think you are confused, no one wants to replace AD with BC. But for the past 100 years many scholars have replaced AD with CE, and BC with BCE. There is nothing ambiguous about it, and it is a well-established convention. Certainly, as a Westerner I am quite happy to go along with the convention of calling this year "2002." But not being Christian I refuse to designate "2002" as "the year of our Lord."

I also want to add one more thing to my last comment to Larry. It is vaguely offensive to suggest that because I am Jewish, my claim about history is "Jewish scholarship." There were people who dismissed Einstein's theory of relativity, and Freud's theory of the unconscious, as "Jewish science," and that was just as offensive. Just as physicists and psychologists may strive (to whatever degree of success) to be objective and rigorous, a historian too may strive to be objective and rigorous. To assert that "Messiah" is derived from a Hebrew word, and that at a particular time that word had meaning x, is a claim about Jews -- but it is not a "Jewish" claim. It is a claim based on the comparison, and critical reading, of historical documents. If the claim is valid, any historian -- Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, or whatever -- should be able to reach the same conclusion based on the evidence. This is not always possible, but when it comes to this particular example I know of no debate among scholars over what the term meant prior to the rise of Christianity (and then Rabbinic Judaism).

I am truly astounded by the depth of your misunderstanding (and misconstrual) of what I wrote. I wrote that it is not an argument between Jews and Christians but rather between historians and the faithful -- and you reply by wondering what is wrong with saying "Christians believe one thing and Jews believe another." Do you really not get it? Of course there is nothing wrong with saying "Christians believe one thing and Jews believe another." What IS wrong is to suggest that only Jews believe that the word "messiah" meant what it did in the first century BCE, and and that they believe it because they are Jews. My point, which I really thought was clear, is that it has nothing to do with their being Jewish (Just as it didn't matter that Einstein was Jewish, his theory was NOT a "Jewish" theory, despite Hitler's claims to the contrary). I think it is wrong, prfoundly wrong, to suggest that Jews (or Christians -- to Wesley I want to emphasize that I did not say that most Christians embrace critical theory, just that most critical theorists are Christian. Perhaps it doesn't even matter that they are Christian -- although were I a Christian I would be as proud of critical scholarship within my community as I, as a Jew, am proud of critical scholarhip within the Jewish community -- but my larger point which I thought was really clear was simply that "critical theory" is not "Jewish science") are not capable of rigorous scholarship. I am especially concerned that you persisted in construing this as a "Jewish" claim after I cited a non-Jewish historian (Fredricksen) who made the point.

If you still do not see how offensive that suggestion is, all I can do is ask that you pause from participating in this discussion for a couple of days and reflect on the matter.Slrubenstein

It seems to me we're writing on this talk page not to determine who is right and who is wrong, but to explain our edits to each other and reach agreement on how the text ought to read. Can we agree on that? I'm firmly persuaded we can do that without going on and on and on.

In the present case, you could have revised the text and written about two sentences (if that) explaining why you had revised it as you did. In the present case, I no doubt would have said "Fine"; your explanation is reasonable enough. If I misunderstood you earlier, it was because I was impatient that you were trying so hard to advance your view of the issue rather than simply revise the text to reflect, fairly, the different views that actually do exist. That was my point.

As to your point, if the traditional Jewish understanding of the Messiah concept is also a view held by mainstream Jewish non-scholars and some Christians, so be it. You could always make the text reflect that fact as you understand it; berating me at length on the talk page is unnecessary. What's the point of doing that, when you can, indeed, just go ahead and change the text? Our mission here isn't to change other people's minds about the controversial issues that our texts present, doing which is usually very difficult, but simply to change and improve the texts, which is much easier and more in line with our overall mission.

Why don't we work harder at coming to a compromise, in order to save time wrangling over relatively small issues--then we can use the time instead to work on articles. I want to spend my time more efficiently (if I'm going to spend any time at all on Wikipedia). --Larry Sanger

Well, as a matter of fact the text you seem to take issue with was introduced to the article some time ago. At that time there was indeed some discussion over NPOV -- I explained my point, others provided other points, and the text was revised accordingly. At that time it seemed that the various people working on this articel were satisfied with its NPOV and accuracy.

As for wasting time on trivial matters, if that is how you feel about this issue, then I simply suggest you drop it and work on articles towhich you can make a real contribution.

In any event, it surprises me that you still misunderstand what I continut to think is a very clear text. The text states that up to a certain time in history the word meant one thing, after a certain time in history it continued to mean that thing to some people, but was redefined to mean something else to other people. This is a historical phenomena that has been studied by professional historians.

So I simply do not understand why you write, "As to your point, if the traditional Jewish understanding of the Messiah concept is also a view held by mainstream Jewish non-scholars and some Christians, so be it." This is not what I wrote at all. Nor is it implied by what I wrote. I too would rather not expend useless energy, but I will try to explain it even more simply to you.

1) Jews have a certain view of the Messiah

2) Christians have a certain view of the Messiah

3) Historians -- scholars who may be Jewish or Christian or neither or something else -- have studied the history of these concepts.

The current article does not claim that the Jewish or Christian view of the Messiah is right or wrong -- it presents both views without judging either of them. It ALSO provides historical information that has been developed by scholars, about when these views developed.

If you think that I have "berated" you just because I observe that to identify historians as "Jewish historians" is offensive, then perhaps you need to be berated -- although at that time, that was not my intention; I simply wanted to call your attention to something offensive in what you wrote, that perhaps you did not intend and would have liked to be made aware of. There are many good historians out there, Jewish, Christian, and others. But in their work as historians they strive to present themselves as "scholars" in general, and hold themselves to standards applied to all historians, regardless of religion. To label the work of a scholar who happens to be Jewish as "Jewish scholarship," rather than simply as "scholarship," is anti-semitic. And if that was not your intention, just do not do it.

I have no desire to argue with you -- but if you still think that my point is that the claim that there was a change in the meaning of the word "Messiah" in the first century CE is "the traditional Jewish understanding of the Messiah concept," and that it "is also a view held by mainstream Jewish non-scholars and some Christians," then yousimply do not understand much about the current scholarship on 1st century Judea. This is not a claim made by "traditional" Jews or Judaism; I have no idea of how many Jewish non-scholars, or Christians, have thought about it. Al I know is that it is a claim made, and documented,by a number of historians, none of whom identify themselves as "Jewish" historians or as "Christian" historians (although they do identify themselves as historians of first century Judaism and Christianity).

In any event, it is not my point, and based on my study of first century history it is wrong, so I have no intention of inserting it into the article. Slrubenstein

I'm willing to say you are absolutely right about matters of scholarship here. Thank you for enlightening me. Again, as I said several times, I don't much care about the details, except that the word "redefine" is not used, without qualification, to describe a view of the Messiah that those holding the view would not want to say constitutes a "redefinition." It's as simple as that, as far as I'm concerned; as to the rest of the dispute, I don't care: you're right.

It would be helpful if you would acknowledge (even if to disagree with it) my point that this endless trying to prove that the other guy is wrong, and you're right, is pointless. Instead, you just went right ahead and did it again. If you had read what I said earlier, you would have learned that I frankly don't care about what the correct view of the Messiah is, nor do I even care about who holds what views. OK, it's all as you say it is. All I really care about is that the text be neutral!

I'm sorry I sounded patronizing. I suspect the reason I've sounded patronizing to you is that I have presumed to know something that you don't, viz., that it's more efficient and polite to achieve consensus instead of engage in verbal warfare on Wikipedia talk pages. Maybe I shouldn't have said that at all; I guess there isn't any way to say it without sounding patronizing. In fact, I was wanting to send you that part of the message privately, but I didn't see a private e-mail address on your page.

I'm sure you will have a devastating reply. Please think twice before composing it, though. I'm not here to show you I'm right and you're wrong. Let's agree to agree, and move on. --Larry Sanger

There seems to a lot of un-productive chit-chat going one here. The energy and time taken to create the above string could have been spent making serveral new articles or improving many others. With that said, I really don't see what the fuss over the origin of CE is or the other issue (which I am unclear on). I tend to side with the statement about CE "(It is presently unknown what this abbreviation was originally coined to mean)." becuase this is the sense I got from one of my philosophy instructers some time ago. But that was one of my general ed classes and I don't know as much as about this as you two do. Either way, it doesn't seem to be that important. I will shut-up now. --mav

Re your first two sentences above: precisely my point, mav. --Larry Sanger

Larry, are you certain that some Christians would be offended by the use of the word "redefined"? I consider myself a devout Christian, but I don't think using that word in this context is entirely inconsistent even with a plain reading of the Gospels and traditional early church history documents. If there are other Christians who would be offended by it, I'm willing to stand corrected, but I don't want to tippy-toe around a group that may be only hypothetical. Wesley 12:16 Sep 22, 2002 (UTC)

No, as a matter of fact I'm not certain that any Christians would find it offensive. But it seems pretty clear. The idea here is that, theologically, it's pretty important to some Christians that Jesus is the messiah of the prophesy; if the very concept of the messiah is "redefined" in such a way that it basically no longer matches the prophesy at all (that's what I take "redefined" to imply), then to say that Jesus is the messiah (the Christ, you know) is not to say that he fulfilled the prophesy. Now again, I don't really know for sure, but I suspect there are indeed some Christians who would care about that. Rather than writing another 5,000 words about this one word, I suggest that we find a different one.

Go ahead and let the text remain biased, if it is. One word isn't worth all of this! --Larry Sanger

To Mav -- I consider the CE issue ot have been resolved a long time ago -- there was some discussion between myself and Larry but (with the esception of some purely editorial changes) I was satisfied that Larry's changes were an improvement. As for Larry's continued objections: I believe that the article is NPOV and unbiased, and historically accurate. I will try (one last time -- *sigh*) to explain to him on his own page. Slrubenstein

Please don't bother, Steve. --Larry Sanger

I believe that the term "Hebrew Bible" is preferred over "Old Testament" by some people as a way of avoiding offending Jews, since Jews don't consider their Bible to be any way an "Old" testament that has been superceded by any sort of "new" testament. It is similar, I suppose, to the idea of using BCE instead of BC. I favor using "Hebrew Bible" in this article over "Old Testament". soulpatch

Hi, Soulpatch! While I appreciate what you are saying, I still think that within the context of speaking of a New Testament, it wouldn't be problematic to juxtapose it with an Old Testament. However, if you choose to change it back, I have no problem with that either. Danny

Danny, I went ahead and changed it back, but if anyone really feels strongly about reverting it back to "Old Testament", I am pretty much fine with it. I was just trying to use a more respectful terminology, but you do raise a valid point. soulpatch

I agree (for additional reasons). "Hebrew Bible" is better, or "Jewish Scriptures", and a piped link to Tanakh|Old Testament is okay, as a clarification (if there's agreement that some might not know what we are talking about, otherwise) . -- Mkmcconn

But does anybody 'call' it "Hebrew Bible"? It's certainly not a common term. I'm not Jewish, so I could be wrong, but I would think it would be offensive to Jews to use imprecise terminology for their sacred texts, especially in an encyclopedia that claims NPOV. -- Zoe

I've seen the term used in scholarly contexts. Whether it is commonly used outside of that realm in common speech, though, I'm not really sure. soulpatch

I object maintaining equivalence between the Christian Old Testament and the Jewish or Hebrew Bible. Although they contain a great deal of material in common, the texts are not identical. The Christian Old Testament from the beginning was the Septuagint, which for two or three centuries was a widely used and honored Greek version of the Jewish scriptures. The Eastern Orthodox continue to refer to it as primary and base Bible translations to other languages on the Septuagint as much as possible; Catholicism moved to the Latin Vulgate, which was still primarily based on the Septuagint. It differs from today's Tanach in at least two important ways:

It contains several books and portions of books missing from the Tanach; see Deuterocanon.
It translates many passages in such a way that they more clearly point to a divine Messiah, and such that Jesus fulfills the prophecies of Messiah or Christ.

In the first few centuries of Christianity, Christians and Jews accused each other of altering scriptures to support their theological position on this point. Whatever the truth of these claims may be, the result is two different texts. Call'em what you will, but don't say they're identical. Wesley 17:18 Oct 31, 2002 (UTC)

Ah, but as you point out, Christians don't even agree among themselves on what constitutes the "Old Testament". So we have a case where there are differences among Christians themselves on the details of what constitutes that particular work, and yet we can collectively place those variants of the Old Testament together and still call them the same name ("Old Testament"); yet when we throw the Tanach into the mix, those small differences in what books are included are suddenly significant enough to cause us to use different names for the Tanach and the Old Testament. This seems to me to be an arbirtrary criteron for separation. soulpatch

But they're not called by the same name. In most bookstores, Bibles that include the deuterocanon will be clearly labeled on the spine as "Old Testament with Apocrypha" or something similar, or at the very least indicate that it's a Catholic edition. The distinction has to be made so the reader knows what he or she is purchasing. Wesley

My copy of the Bible, which includes the so-called Apocrypha, includes all those deuterocanonical works in the Old Testament, not in a separate section. soulpatch. The reason Bibles are sold that way is so that the purchasers will know that they are getting the version that contains the scriptures that their faith says is canonical. That doesn't change the fact that catholics and protestants disagree on what goes into the Old Testament. soulpatch

In my opinion, there is nothing at stake in using Tanach as the equivalent of Old Testament, except in those cases in which the Septuagint has an important variant. Since the Septuagint was prepared by Alexandrian Jewish scholars, and not by Christians, the readers will not be misled, nor the Traditional importance of the Septuagint diminished, if in all cases in which the Septuagint and Tanakh agree, we refer to the "Hebrew Bible", "Jewish Scriptures" or "Tanach", instead of "Septuagint". In the case of this article, for example, the passage quoted is not unique to the Greek translation of the Tanach, and it is not part of the Deuterocanon - so, I think that the statement is made more universally understandable and less controversial in this particular case, if "Old Testament" is made equivalent to "Tanach". -- Mkmcconn

To me, calling them equivalent (as wikipedia tends to do not only in this but in most of its articles that touch on the subject) reflects a bias common in at least some Protestant seminaries that these scriptures are Jewish scriptures, and therefore should be interpreted for the most part as the Jews interpret them. It also reflects the Protestant decision to accept the Jewish version of the canon as authoritative rather than the early church's. It also builds the impression that the Septuagint was translated from the Masoretic or other Hebrew texts we have now, and that therefore the Septuagint scholars were in error when they said the Messiah would be born of a virgin, etc. So I see a number of issues at stake here. Wesley

Well, some people do have this radical notion that the Jews who wrote their own scriptures knew what they meant when they wrote them. What is really at stake here is that some Christians want to claim the Hebrew scriptures for their own, basically to take them away from the people from whom those scriptures arose. This means that they get to claim for themselves the right to reinterpret these scriptures, and to presuppose that there were strange, mysterious, and hidden meanings in those scriptures that the authors of those scriptures didn't understand as they were writing them, but then when Christianity came along suddenly the true meaning of those scriptures was revealed to the followers of the One True Faith. This has led to truly bizarre interpretations, such when prudish Christians couldn't explain away the erotica of the Song of Songs so they claimed it was a metaphor for the love of Christ for his church. So I suppose you raise a valid point that some Christians feel that it is necessary to the defense of their doctrine to claim the Hebrew Scriptures as a sort of mystery Christian scripture. However, for this encyclopedia to take that position in order to satisfy this dogma would be to take their side in that debate. The fact is that the Old Testament was produced by the Jewish people and was written long before Christianity came along; I am not wedded to the idea of calling it the Hebrew Scriptures, as I stated earlier, and if Jews are not offended by the term "Old Testament" then I am fine with calling it that. But I am also concerned by attempts by Christians to usurp scriptures that their religion didn't write and claim it for their own, and based on what you've said, I am now less inclined than I was before to support the use of the term "Old Testament". soulpatch

I understand your concern entirely. It is true that Christians have historically claimed the right to interpret all of their Bible. It has been a matter of contention whether the proper "inheritors" of Abraham's religion were Jews, Christians or Muslims, at least since Christians and later Muslims came on the scene. I'm only trying to point out that there's more than one viewpoint; I'm not trying to get a wikipedia endoresement of "my" view, just an acknowledgment that it exists. Wesley

Then why not call them "roughly equivalent" and then point out the (small but crucial) differences? --Ed Poor

There's nothing particularly objectionable about this to me - however, how "rough" is the equivalence? It seems to me that even on a Septuagint-centric view of the Old Testament, it matters that one believes the Septuagint is the Old Testament of Christianity when there is a difference on some point (and only then IMO). In those cases, it can be pointed out as emphatically as one would like, that "the Old Testament of Jesus and of the Apostles, was the Greek Septuagint; and the reason that matters in this case is because the Septuagint was translated to say yada-yada, whereas the Hebrew version is more ambiguous." -- Mkmcconn

I appreciate Soulpatch's remarks, but although this is an issue that in the past has bothered me a lot (as I am Jewish) it does not really, here -- perhaps because I have of late been preoccupied with what I consider a more disturbing issue. In any event, it seems to me that this question (OT=TaNaK) has been addressed (and I thought pretty well) on the Biblical canon page. I hope that what follows is actually constructive: I do not think the issue is wording like "roughly equivalent" or anything like that. There was no NT when Jesus was alive, which means there was no OT either. But the Hebrew Bible/Tanach hadn't been canonized yet either. It seems to me that the point being made is that 1) early Christians believed that Jesus was the messiah, as foretold by Hebrew prophesy 2) these prophesies are found in certain books 3) which now belong to the Hebrew Bible, and 4) also belong to the New Testament. Do I understand what you have been discussing, correctly? If so, it seems that these four phrases take up a lot more room than "roughly equivalent" but also communicate certain information more accurately and precisely... Slrubenstein

Slrubenstein, I agree entirely with your observations above. I think the issue me is that the actual texts of today's Tanach are materially different from an Old Testament based on the Septuagint. I'm sure many of the differences may simply suggest that there were some differences among Hebrew manuscripts at the time the Septuagint was translated; I don't know. For the record, some differences I'm aware of are:

obviously the number of books in the Old Testament;
number of chapters in a few books, notably Esther and Daniel;
the numbering of the Psalms is off-by-one for most of the Psalms, I think from around Psalm 16 to Psalm 140-something, just because of how the chapters are divided. So the Psalm 51 I grew up with is Psalm 50 in the Septuagint, but by the last few Psalms they're back in sync.
The book of Jeremiah is arranged very differently, and might have some small differences in content being added or omitted in one or the other version, so chapter and verse references are different there.
I think there are some differences in what stories are included, or in which books stories are included, for I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, and I and II Chronicles.

Most of those differences probably aren't of earth-shaking theological significance, but they would make it difficult to follow along at a public reading, depending on the passage being read. Do those differences warrant calling them different? Wesley

Yes, personally, I think they are different -- although they draw on many of the same source texts. Is this a more elegant way of putting it, than "rough equivalence" (which I would reject)? I think you and Soulpatch are basically in agreement (although perhaps for different reasons), and I continue to think that the specific, substantive points you just made belong in the Biblical canon article. Here, as elsewhere, it seems to me that the issue here is simply rhetorical/editorial: how to convey the point clearly and economically. "Equivalent" would be misleading but any text that is specific enough will make it clear that much of the textual material is included in some form in the canons of Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and... I put the two phrasis in italics because perhaps they may be the clear and economical way to make the point in the text, in lieu fo "equivalent." But I relaly leave that up to you and others who have been working on this article more recently. By the way, I can't help but to comment about the Dionisian/Osiris thing -- maybe there should be a linked article on Eastern Religions in the Roman Empire that could discuss all of these traditions that were circulating (and from a secular point of view maybe cannot be so easily identified as Jewish, Christian, Egyptian, Greek, or Babylonian or whatever), which surely influenced one another. I have no doubt that this was going on, and may have affected some elements of the NT or may explain why so many people eventually converted to Christianity (i.e. their own beliefs predisposed them to Christianity) -- but this does not mean that the NT stories about Jesus are merely rehashing pagan myths. I think this article could be even stronger in bracketing the scholarly status of the Osiris argument. Slrubenstein

It looks like someone inexplicably removed a large amount of information. I'm attempting to put much of it back as I think the article is considerably weaker in its current form. The paragraphs as they existed before the edit are below. de:Jesus eo:Jesuo Kristo sv:Jesus pl:Jezus Chrystus nl:Jezus Christus - There are numerous lines of thought that question the historicity of Jesus Christ or suggest that he is merely the combination of numerous individuals who lived during that time period. Apart from the Gospels, there are very few contemporaneus accounts of the historical Jesus. The most famous reference is in Tacitus (see Tacitus on Jesus). Josephus is one of the non-biblical sources commonly mentioned (see Josephus on Jesus). There are also other Christian accounts that are not part of the New Testament. It has been suggested, in recent times most notably by writers Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, that aspects of the story of Christ were derived from popular mystery religions in the Roman Empire at that time period. These religions worshipped savior figures such as Isis, Horus, Dionysus and Mithras. During the 100s, Justin Martyr acknowledged the existence of such similarities. In the First Apology of Justin Martyr, he describes at great length how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of Moses and the other Hebrew prophets, and how these prophets predate similar stories told in Greece and Egypt. He goes on to suggest that stories in Greece, Egypt and other parts of the world were based on flawed interpretations of the Hebrew prophecies, particularly in chapters 54 and 55. In chapter 60 Justin writes, "It is not, then, that we hold the same opinions as others, but that all speak in imitation of ours."

The Biblical account recounts little about Jesus' childhood or young adulthood. By the time he reached his early 30s, he became known as a religious teacher. After teaching as a wandering rabbi and performing miracles for three years, he was convicted by the occupying Roman government of claiming to be king of the Jews, and crucified. During this time period, many thousands of Jews were murdered by the Romans in this manner; the complete absence of this from the New Testament is a matter of controversy, although it may simply mean that the writers felt no need to write what was obvious to their readers. According to the Gospels (the first 4 books in the New Testament of the Bible), he rose from the dead on the third day and appeared to his disciples; forty days later he ascended into Heaven.

Mainstream Christians believe Jesus was born after his virgin mother Mary (betrothed to Saint Joseph) was miraculously caused to conceive him by the Holy Spirit, and was thereby the Messiah the Jews had been waiting for. According to a prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 (a book in the Christian Old Testament, or the Jewish Tanach) a young woman (often translated as 'virgin'; the correctness of that translation is controversial) would conceive a child called Immanuel (meaning "God with us"). The New Testament states that the Isaiah prophecy refers to the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:22-23). Many Christians understand the Isaiah prophecy as referring to both the virgin Mary at the birth of Jesus, and also to a non-virgin young woman in the time of Isaiah. Others believe his "virgin birth" to have been only metaphorical in nature.

I think I've restored pretty much everything that was excised Thursday and done my best to preserve changes that were made since then. I don't follow this page extremely closely, so I hope I didn't put back anything that it was the consensus that it should go. I couldn't find any justification for the original deletions though, so I saw no harm in putting it back. If anyone restores a prior version, please leave a note as to why. JFQ

Yes, it looks like on Halloween Day Kiiaapet deleted a good deal of material without any explanation. I have re-inserted the paragraph "Jesus as Messiah;" others should check carefully to see what else was deleted and ought to be reinserted.Slrubenstein

In the section on the "message of Jesus in the gospels", I think the article should be careful not to give an interpretation of specific passages, unless the interpretation is attributed. If specific passages are discussed, it would be helpful to have a chapter and verse reference for those passages. I don't want to see wikipedia used to proselytize, but I also don't want to see passages interpreted in novel ways and see these interpretations spelled out as 'factual'. I hope I've avoided doing this myself, but welcome any correction in this resepect. Wesley 13:48 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

I just delete this paragraph from the main article:

Jesus many times stated that he was for peace, if not outright pacifism. But one gospel reports that he was not for peace but for "a sword", and threatened to lead his followers in an open armed assault against the Romans, who were occupying the Jewish state at this time. He ordered his men to sell their coats and arm themselves with swords before his confrontation with the Romans on the Mount of Olives

Would it be possible to at least provide a citation; I rather doubt the above is factual as stated. I recall Jesus saying "I came not to bring peace, but a sword", and then predicting that brother would rise up against brother, etc. I don't recall any threat "to lead his followers in an open armed assault against the Romans". At best, I suspect this is some modern interpretation of a passage the church has always read quite differently, but I could be wrong. Wesley 22:00 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

I just deleted this section from the article:

Jesus himself summarizes his message in the famous two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40) "Jesus said to him 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.'

While the quotation is accurate as far as it goes, it's not obvious from the text that Jesus was intending this statement to summarize his entire message. Instead, he is answering a specific question; later he answers a followup question by defining "neighbor" through the story of the Good Samaritan. To call this quotation a summary of his entire message as the above section does, without any kind of attribution but phrased as a statement of fact, places Wikipedia in the role of interpreting scripture. I think this is a departure from the NPOV policy. Wesley 16:39 Nov 14, 2002 (UTC)

I have no objection to Wesley's deletion of this text; his reasoning seems sound. But for anyone considering moving this deleted text back into the article, I have one observation: this is one of the passages that was modified some time ago, when someone vandalized the article and a considerable amount of material was cut; at that time Quackenbush and I tried to restore most of the deleted material, but I now see that I missed something. Prior to the vandalism this passage included references to the Hebrew Bible:

Jesus himself summarizes his teaching (Mark chap 12 verses 29 and 30) - the most important commandment (echoing Deuteronomy 6:5) is to love God with all the heart, the soul, the mind and one's strength and at the same time he says that the commandment to love one's neighbour as oneself (found in Leviticus 19: 18) is as important.

If someone thinks these quotes from Jesus should be put back into the article someplace, all I request is that they revert to the more complete version, Slrubenstein

"Jacob son of Joseph," -- is this a typo? Shouldn't it be "James"?

"Jacob" and "James" are the same name in different languages. -- isis 04:08 Nov 23, 2002 (UTC)

Further older discussion

Err, maybe I am being a pain, but I vote to remove the image of JC. No one is sure what he really looked like (personally I believe he had curly black hair), and some people have suggested that conventional images of Jesus have been used as tools of racism. I do think that an article on Images of Jesus, with some serious discussion of art history and how changing depictions of Jesus reflect changing ideas about Jesus, would be very valuable -- and that article could inlude the current image as well as other perhaps more famous images from icons, da Vinci, etc... Slrubenstein

A vote more for removing the image and another vote for a separate article, which would be really interesting. G

I agree as well. That could easily be its own article. What about the picture at Mary, the mother of Jesus? In fact, most religious art should probably be separated from articles on the religious subject, if only because of Neutral Point of View; any depiction of this sort reflects an underlying theology or belief about the person portrayed, and these sorts of things should of course be acknowledged and discussed, not ignored or presumed. Wesley 22:25 Jan 9, 2003 (UTC)

Another vote to move the image to a separate article. Mkmcconn

Count me for the move too. --FvdP

I've removed the image from this page. If somebody wants to start on Images of Jesus (which I agree would be fascinating, but far too much like hard work for me to take on), the link is Image:Jesus1.jpg --Camembert

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,869359,00.html Comments? // Liftarn

The story appears to suggest that some sort of cannabis derivative was used by Jesus and his disciples when they annointed people with oil, and that this was the cause of the healings. It also claims that this particular sort of oil was commonly used in Judaism at the time... which if true, would mean a lot of other people would have been accomplishing the same healings, and it would have done little to advance Jesus' or anyone else's claims to be a unique messiah. In any case, the article seems to be more aimed at justifying the recreational use of cannabis today, then to really say anything substantive about Jesus Christ or the history of early Christianity. Wesley

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1949.html - is an article about a book by the same guy. I think an article on Chris Bennet's theories could find a place in wikipedia. If anyone wants to go read his book and write such an article, do go ahead... :) Martin

Well, we have an article on pseudoscience, why not an article on pseudohistory? Or do you just want to flat out call this "myth" -- the use of an historical narrative for contemporary political purposes? If the article from the Guardian is any indication, the whole thing is BS; or to be charitable an example of schizmogenesis: when anti-cannibis people start using stupid arguments to support their cause, pro-cannibis people respond with their own stupid arguments. Actually, this is a pretty intersting phenomena. Still, it is time to move it off of this page! Slrubenstein

Why is this article empty? Anyway, I suggest redirecting Jesus Christ to Jesus. Muslims, a large and recognized religion that reveres Jesus since 500 CE or so, don't consider him a "Christ". The title, Jesus Christ, seems to me, therefore, to be definitely POV.

I respect the intention here, but frankly, I do not think it is a big issue. To me, "Christ" is a title that has meaning to Christians, and if I refer to "Christ" it is not because he is my messiah, but because I recognize that people are still talking about him only because so many people think he was the messaih. Look at it this way: I refer to Queen Elizabeth as Queen Elizabeth, although she sure as hell isn't my queen or sovereign, Slrubenstein

Umm, it wasn't. Did it appear empty for some reason? Very weird... Martin

Was it really necessary or helpful to remove the paragraph about the Virgin Birth? Wikipedia is not paper, and there's generally no harm done in duplicating information. Wesley

Brevity.

No, seriously. The article is already quite long, and while the various translations of Greek and Hebrew and suchlike are interesting, I don't think they're central to the Christian account of Jesus. Martin

Maybe not central, but no less important than a good deal of the other information included in the article. It is one of the central differences between Judaism and Christianity. Wesley

In the Historicity section, it mentions "The Infancy Gospel". I can think of at least two: the Infancy Gospel of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which I assume is different than the Gospel of Thomas. Which is meant here? Wesley 22:26 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Don't know which is intended, perhaps the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which has no relation to the Gospel of Thomas. Some of the historicity material needs refactoring, though, since it is now mentioned in the Sources section. SCCarlson 05:00 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

I think we need a discussion and hopefully a consensus on the birth and death dates of Jesus, not just for this article before for scores of others in Wikipedia. H. W. Hoehner in his article in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels places the birth year at 5/4 BC and the year of death at AD 33. I like to know people's other sources are and what they say. SCCarlson 04:52 Mar 11, 2003 (UTC)

Nothing specific from me except 4 BC is the date that I was taught in school and is the date that most encyclopedias cite. IIRC my Sunday school teacher taught that the big J died when he was 32 so your above range looks odd. --mav

Neutrality of images of Jesus

It can be justly considered POV on my part but, I have a problem with pictures of Jesus in an article that is supposed to provide "neutral" information about him. Mkmcconn 17:15 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

These images don't say this is him, merely that this is a widely used one. It is clearly categorised to indicate which branch of christianity use this image. It does not suggest this is him, just that this is how billions of christians see him as. Just because we have no definitive image is no justification for not using some image. We don't have a live picture of George Washington, Elizabeth I, Napoleon, St. Peter, all popes before Pius IX, all US presidents before the 1850s, the Irish Famine, the Black Death, etc. but sourcebooks, textbooks, etc still use drawings, paintings, representations, etc. Sometimes we have images made during their lifetime. In many cases, we have artworks that are pure speculation.

One problem with many articles on wiki is that we have few images. We have vast texts which as anyone who has ever laid out a page in a publication knows are an instant turnoff to readers. Creating a reader-friendly layout involves using headings, definitions, a reader-friendly typeset and images that break up the text and give a context. All this image does is remind people that this man had a facey. It reminds people that most christian religions have images of him which they use in their churches and prayer-houses. It contextualises this image by saying which branch of christianity it comes from. There is nothing to stop people adding in alternative images of Christ from Orthodox soures, various protestant sources, etc. Creating a special images of Christ page would run contrary to the basic rule of laying out main text pages, which is always if at all possible use images in the text to break up the text and make it more userfriendly. This image (and the others used) just happen to be from a website with states its images are free of copyright and are free to be used in any context. But I find the argument that in a page on Jesus Christ you should not use images of Jesus Christ strange. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:31 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

Please calm down JT. It is not "absurd in the extreme" to suggest the number and content of the images on this page is excessive. Each of the images is not, as you say, an image of JC - they are only interpretations of how certain artists thought he looked like (all following a common set of themes). These images were created for religious purposes and advancing a religious purpose was the goal of the artists and religious institutions that commissioned the work (they are designed to evoke certain emotions in the viewers – this is highly POV). Also, more current historical and ethnological evidence casts serious doubts on the popular picture of how JC looked. For example, the skin color is too light, the hair too straight, the face too long, and the nose is both too long and thin. Now an image showing what experts think JC might have looked like would be far more appropriate - esp since the whole purpose of having images of people is to illustrate how the person looked. Therefore the images are only tangentially associated to the subject of this article - JC. The popular depiction of JC in art is another subject. As it is, this article gives a strong religious-focused impression that is not in conformance with our NPOV policy. There is also a technical issue that the number of images in this article is not at all friendly to people with dial-up modems. In short most, if not all, of the current images should be removed. --mav

I'm just suggesting that there are all sorts of ethnological, aesthetic and religious arguments that can be avoided if images are not used. Personally, I think that the images chosen are more than a tad too sentimental for my taste. And, besides, I'm not sure that "traditional" is the right label to apply to Rennaissance and Romantic portraits of a blond Jesus. If your intention is to portray "tradition", St. Luke's icon of Christ is widely admired, how about using that instead (if my taste matters in this regard)? Anyway, I'm not going to delete these images; but I am understating my dislike for them, and that's regrettable if the article evokes such an immediate subjective response, even before it is read. Mkmcconn 00:27 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

I disagree. All the images say is - this is how some religious believers in Jesus Christ perceive him, not this is how he looked. In addition, these images have been used for centuries, which is by definition tradition. That does not mean they are right or wrong images, just that they have been used for centuries, hence they are traditional images. As to dial-up modems, I'm on a dial-up modem & it caused no problems. Nor did it cause any problems on another person's computer when I used a dial-up modem there earlier tonight. If you want a problem, look at articles with vast amounts of text and no images. As anyone who has ever laid out a document knows, that is something you should never do, not for a general readership (academic texts are another matter). Visually contextualising an article is a basic rule of laying out text, because it makes the text more visually friendly.

I think it is irrelevant that Christ didn't look as these images suggest. For a start there is no image anywhere of how he looked. Most pictures of Queen Elizabeth I are doctored. Many middle-ages images of monarchs are false. Many images of modern film stars are phoney. (I can think of one top actress whose face looks like the surface of the moon but with proper makeup, lighting and severely doctored pictures, she is made to look like one of the great Hollywood beauties.) Billions of christians across the denominations perceive Christ as in these pictures. It would be absurd for wiki to say that it will only show real likenesses; does that mean that wiki will only carry images of George Burns and Frank Sinatra if they show them minus their toupees? George Hamilton without the hair-dye? Princess Diana before her nose job? We are dealing with a figure who has been represented in the forms shown for two millenia. You can't simply say 'sorry, billions of people, your images of Christ are wrong therefore we won't show images you use on wikipedia'. You can say in the article 'of course Christ didn't actually look as christian art suggested.' But we don't know how he looked. We do however know how billions, albeit wrongly perceive him to have looked.

Of course art is generates up emotions. Are you saying then that art shouldn't be on wiki pages, other than those devoted to art? I think that is preposterous. If they had captions that said 'Jesus Christ', 'Jesus's birth', 'Jesus on the Cross' etc then you would be right to complain. But they very deliberately don't. They have NPOV captions - a Greek Orthodox Icon of Christ, a Catholic image of Christ. A traditional image of the Nativity, etc. The captions do not say these are accurate images, just commonly used images to illustrate the stories in Christ's life. The captions form no judgments as to the accuracy of the pictures and doesn't ask the reader to do so. All they do is visually highlight common impressions about Christ. You are talking about the crucifixion - here's a common image used of the crucifixion. Christ's birth in Bethlehem - here's a common image used by billions of people of that event. And here is how Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believers perceive Christ. They do nothing more than highlight commonly held perceptions. They form no judgments, express no opinions, give no analysis. All they do is use commonly held images with deliberately neutral POV captions to make a long article less daunting and more user-friendly. And I simply do not for the life of me see what the problem is or how there could be a problem. STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:35 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

I think having pictures is a good idea, but given the fact that we can only present a small number of images, we need to make sure that the images do not favor one POV over another; we need to make sure that images are not used to push someone's POV. For instance, see the Rachel Corrie article, which certain people tried to use to create a cyber-shrine to one individual, effectively violating Wikipedia's NPOV policy. (No one makes such cyber-shrines for Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist victims of terrorism. Why did Rachel Corrie deserve more space in this encyclopedia that most serious historical topics? Hmm...sounds like POV pushing.) RK

(cutting in) Wiki is not paper - we're unlikely to run out of "space". And by all means add photos to, say, Netanel Ozeri if you want to and can find them.

Note that Rachel Corrie includes a photo of her burning the US flag, thus complimenting the POV that she was "anti-American". Martin

In this case, mainstream Christianity has always held that it is permissible to make pictures of Jesus, and historically we see that the use of Jesus in art is a big part of Christianity. Since we can only have a few images per article (otherwise they will be too slow to load for most people, and waste bandwidth) we need to maintain NPOV. Solution: Give a few popular images of Jesus that are accepted as valid by large Christian denominations, and then explain this topic new section: We need a serious new section on Jesus in Art, or Christianity in Art or something like that. We could explain the development of how Christian artists portrayed Jesus in different times and places. BTW, the early pictures showed him without a beard. In regards to beards, I wonder what the general practice of Jews in this era was? (I have no idea.) RK

A fair point, RK. I chose the images of the nativity, death and resurrection because they tend to be commonly accepted aspects of christ's life, rather than images that are specifically identifiable with one faith. As to the two earlier pictures, I captioned them to highlight that they are the views of specific branches of christianity (Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic), rather than implying they were acepted by all christians. There were other images available which I judged too denominational to use, such as of the Last Supper, which different faiths interpret differently, etc. But his birth, crucifixion and resurrection seemed sufficiently non-denominational. (I even made a point of not choosing a crucifixion scene that had Mary in it, for fear of it being perceived as overly Roman Catholic, given that church's particular 'devotion' to Mary.) STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:35 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

We seem to be rehashng an old argument -- I agree with everyone above except JTDIRL. The representation of Jesus Christ in art is a very complex issue and deserves its own article; conversely, to include images here would require too much tangential discussion on art history. Put it in another article. Slrubenstein

Number 1: If you read RK's comments you'd see that he too believed there should be some images used in this article. The issue is simply which ones.
Number 2: to include images here would require too much tangential discussion on art history. T Explain. STÓD/ÉÍRE 05:00 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

This is an article on Jesus Christ. It tries -- as it should -- to distinguish between what most scholars agree on about Jesus as an historical figure, versus what they do not, versus his (His) meaning for various religious communities -- this is a complex issue that requires some nuanced presentations of how critical and religious scholars read texts. Images are texts too, and the process of reading them is no les complicated than reading a written text. No one on this page claims that an image could innocently "represent" Jesus -- the implication is that ay image reflects an artist's conception of Jesus in a particular period, as a well as a tradition of how people have experienced that image. An encyclopedia has an obligation to represent scholarship, and believe me, there is considerable scholarship on this matter. I think we obviously cannot include one image or two or three to represent "Jesus;" including any images must be to represent changing ways of imagining Jesus. To do this well -- we ll want to do well, don't we? This is a serious project, isn't it? -- we should provide as many major examples of changing images, as well as a good discussion of how these images have ben read. I just think this would be more appropriate to another article; if we did it here too many servers are too slow and it will screw people up. Slrubenstein

Just to add another opinion to the mix: I think the first two images work quite well for the article. They are varied enough to show that there is no fixed view and having images from different denominations evens out the POV. The other images don't feel quite right to me, somehow showing images of the crucifixion and nativity seems to be making too much of a statement. I agree they would be better as part of a "Jesus in art" article.

Using the first two images would give versions from two of the three main branches of Christianity, how about using them plus a traditional image from a Protestant denomination? -- sannse 09:14 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

I have been searching for a protestant image but so far I have not been able to find one. I agree the article should feature one. STÓD/ÉÍRE

Is there's really any such thing? Although there are certainly Protestants who have created images of Jesus, I'm not sure that that there is a "protestant tradition" of religious art, or of Jesus-portraiture. Roman Catholic and eastern orthodox art, backward from the 17th century, is the tradition in which Protestants partially share. As I say that, I can think of a few works that have a distinctly Protestant point of view - but, I'm not sure that this constitutes a tradition which Protestants of various and all stripes would recognize if they saw it. Mkmcconn

I was vaguely thinking of the images in stained-glass windows in churches. Would an image from one of them be suitable? I know there isn't the same tradition of religious art as in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. -- sannse 18:15 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

If there are going to be pictures shown, I like seeing pictures from the various traditions, personally. Would it be possible to give the year or at least the century that each one is believed to be from? Also, regarding the captions that say the picture is "traditional", it would really be appropriate to identify the tradition you're talking about; they're certainly not traditional Orthodox icons.

Regarding the Greek Orthodox icon, I have some technical nits to pick. It appears that it has been cropped on all sides, and thereby distorted. In the upper left, there ought to be a large "I" with a circumflex over it, to match the "X" in the upper right corner; the initials I.X. signifiy Jesus Christ in Greek. His right hand is mostly visible, but his left hand should be holding a book, either open or closed, but it has been entirely cropped. If that were shown, it would be possible to identify the proper title for the icon, and the book itself is really part of the icon and is part of what it is meant to communicate. (Typically it represents the Gospel or the Law and Gospel if open (not entirely sure which), or the Book of Life if closed.) In Orthodoxy, icons are written as carefully as any doctrinal treatise; cropping it and presenting it as Orthodox is almost like omitting a paragraph from one of the creeds. Wesley 17:59 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

It is a fair point. Unfortunately it was already cropped to lose these elements before I found it. I cropped it to make it the same scale as the picture of the Sacred Heart. If anyone can find a better full icon, by all means use it.

Since I made my earlier comment, I've learned that cropped versions like the one here aren't that uncommon. I personally still don't like to see them cropped, but perhaps that's just my personal feeling more than anything. So, I withdraw that objection. I certainly understand the desire to make similar images the same size, for aesthetic reasons :-) Wesley 22:22 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

I think the other pictures are useful because they are associated in general with christian imagery. If they are not used in orthodox churches, perhaps they should be described as traditional western christian images. The nativity scene, for example, is used in millions of christmas cards. I do disagree with Sirubenstrein. Yes encyclopædias need to be encyclopædic. But all encyclopædias use general images like these to create a visually attractive page. They do not treat such images as themselves encyclopædic - I know, I have designed a page on Christ for one major encyclopædia and they specifically requested images like these, ones that weren't official artwork associated with one faith (eg, famous catholic mosaics, etc) but were generic images of the life of Christ, as believed in across the denominations. These images are non-denominational; I deliberately left out any pictures that did have denominational content, such as showing Mary at the foot of the cross, pentecost, the Last Supper, etc. If they are to big for some servers (though I am on an exceptionally slow one and have no difficulty) they can always be cropped or made smaller. But I think as a matter of design principle, I think it is crucial that some images be used to contextualise the page. I think it would be left pretty unfriendly reader-wise without some images. Yes there should be a page on christian artwork, but given that Christ's image is the most copied one in history, it makes no sense not to use some images on the page itself. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:12 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

If you are looking for "protestant" images, then I suppose you're looking for something like Rembrandt's Christ. Protestantism turned sharply away from the liturgical and devotional use of portraits. Mkmcconn

The style of second and following images feels very Roman Catholic to me. One might be OK, especially when counterbalanced with the first one, but a whole set of them creates quite a different impression. The scenes may be non-denominational but the style of art is not. SCCarlson 03:13 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

I still feel that the images beyond the first two don't work. Many people flicking through an article will read the first paragraph or so and look at the pictures. So the tone of the article is set more by the images than by the text. I feel the tone the later pictures are setting is one of proselytising (I know this isn't your intention STÓD/ÉÍRE, it's just the "atmosphere" I get from the page in its current form).

I can see that they don't feel that way to STÓD/ÉÍRE and that the first two images do feel that way to Mkmcconn, mav and Slrubenstein (I think RK is somewhere in the middle of those views?)

Is there a compromise possible here? Or does everyone feel too strongly about it? -- sannse 08:00 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

This is an acceptable compromise. The first two images can stay but the others need to go. I feel like I'm back in church seeing the second two - their content definitely gives a feeling of proselytization to me. --mav

I think that proselytization may be in the eye of the beholder as much as beauty. The Orthodox picture "feels" more like church to me, the Catholic one probably "feels" more like church to Catholics and ex-Catholics. Historically, Christian artwork was intended to convey the Christian message or parts of it, among other purposes. Just treat the pictures as POV statements or representations, with appropriate captions and disclaimers like any other POV that gets presented. That way they can be presented neutrally. Wesley

My feeling is that the article is too busy with pictures (besides the particular pictures being not to my personal liking). Would you consider trying to embrace the largest number of perspectives in one image, rather than trying to find diverse images? Most early icons of Christ pantocrator are acceptable to both, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, and are (speaking subjectively, of course) the least offensive to Protestant sensibilities - avoiding the romanticism, sentimentalism and effeminacy of more recent Roman depictions. Mormons also have expressed appreciation of this tradition of icons of Christ, because these "depictions" tend to fit the LDS conception of a "muscular Jesus". But, as I've said before, I'm determined to leave it to someone else to make these decisions; I'm just registering my own preferences for your consideration. Mkmcconn 01:29 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

the 'effeminacy' of Jesus??? The mind boggles. I still can't see any logic to the argument. (Sorry guys, not being rude!). The central core of christian belief is that he was born, crucified and rose from the bed. Three widely used non denominational pictures show him . . . em . . . being born, being crucified and rising from the dead in an article that mentions him being . . . born, being crucified and rising from the dead. Where is the proselytizating in that? As to the suggestion of using early icons, the trouble is most christians of all denominations don't recognise them? (ie, they aren't familiar with them). Such images undoubtedly belong on a page on christian art. The images here are widely used, certainly in the western tradition. The Orthodox Christ is immediately recognisable to Orthodox believers. The Catholic one recognisable to billions of Catholic believers. The Nativity scene is used on millions of christmas cards worldwide, bought by, sold to and sent to catholics, anglicans, protestants and non christians alike. (I got one from a Muslim friend last year!) The death on the cross is used across the denominations, and almost all Christians believe he rose from the dead. None of the captions suggests 'this is what would have been seen if CNN had had live coverage'. All are simply commonly shown images used across the denominations to show the three major stages in Christ's life; birth, death and resurrection. As to the reference to 'Roman depictions' which I presume means Roman Catholic, these three images (all uncopyright) are to be found on Roman Catholic, Anglican and protestant sites. I don't know if the RC had them first and then they were copied to the other, or whether they originated on the Anglican and protestant sites, and then were copied by the RC site. But they are most definitely not exclusively RC depictions. I am still at a loss to understand how three common images of three key stages in Christ's life, mentioned in the article itself and believed in across the denominations, is somehow POV. If the images are POV, then so is the article's mention of the events they show. All they show in commonly used pictorial form things mentioned in the article, ie 'this is how christians across the denominations imagine those events'. STÓD/ÉÍRE 04:08 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

So this article is supposed to be focused on Jesus as a religious figure (that is the feeling I get from the last two images)? That is only one POV about him. The last two images may look fine to you but several people now have said that they are too romanticized and unnecessarily emotion-provoking to be appropriate. If images of Jesus' alledged crucification and resurrection are needed and are commented on, then other images that do not have the above described problems should be used (taking the 'technical problem' argument off the table for the moment). We have had similar problems with excessive images at Rachel Corrie and Kosovo War where excessive images from only one POV distract from the article. Overdoing it is also a very important thing to consider in web design. You are right that not having any images in an article is boring but having too many or ones that are designed to evoke certain emotions (as the last two are) is distracting. --mav

I don't think we are going to reach a consensus here. STÓD/ÉÍRE, would you agree to a compromise in the name of Wikilove? -- sannse 08:55 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Without trying to be argumentative, I want to try to explain how seemingly neutral pictures can be POV. The first "Orthodox" picture shows Jesus with a fairly serious expression. This is intended to indicate that he is "passionless", not controlled by his passions or emotions; saints are similarly shown with serious facial expressions for the same reason. This is clearly an opinion about Jesus, based on a theological/religious belief about him; I won't pretend that it's neutral. The later western pictures show a Jesus that is more clearly touched by emotion, perhaps based on the idea that Jesus must have experienced all the emotions we do in order to sympathize with us, or simply because he was human like us, without the idea of passionlessness being one of his attributes as God, and without the idea of passionlessness being one of the objectives of a Christian life. The picture of the resurrection shows Christ looking up towards heaven, seemingly leaving earth and earthly scenes behind him. By contrast, the typical Orthodox icon of the resurrection shows Christ rising out of the grave, but looking downward as he grasps Adam with one hand and Eve with the other, pulling both of them out of the grave as well, symbolically showing that his resurrection was not just a personal triumph but that by it he rescued all of humanity.

I once saw a picture of the resurrection similar to the one shown here that showed an angel opening the tomb, and Christ rising from it looking heavenward. It seemed to give the impression that Christ could not have risen had not the angel come to rescue him; clearly a religious idea that I'm sure has been advanced by someone somewhere. I saw this picture (a rather large one) behind the altar in the sanctuary of an Orthodox church in Chicago while visiting there almost a year ago; the priest told me how very offended he was by it (I don't recall how it came to be there), and how happy he was that day to have just received a genuine icon to replace it. To sum up, I really don't think there's such a thing as a "nondemonominational" picture of Jesus, unless by nondenominational you mean a picture that most Western Protestants who don't affiliate themselves with a specific well-known denomination would feel comfortable with.

As far as recognizability goes, I wonder what the statistics are concerning number of Protestants worldwide compared to the number of Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox worldwide? From a global perspective, I think the older icons might be as recognizable as any, even if most Americans are unfamiliar with them. Wesley 17:34 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Wesley, thank you for a very thoughtful comment. I want to register that I am still opposed to the inclusion of pictures in this article -- the pictures do not illustrate the article, which is about Jesus; they illustrate an article on Christianity (the primary consequence of/response to Jesus' life) or an article on representations of Jesus. In the context of this article, they seem to me to be anachronistic. Frankly, I do not understand STÓD/ÉÍRE's investment in this matter. As far as I can tell, his argument is that it would make the article prettier. Personally, for me it doesn't -- but I am not arguing with his asthetics. I am, rather, asking why he cares so much about this asthetic issue when most other contributors to this article are opposed? I am not saying we should put this to a vote -- I am saying that I often give up on a point when I see that no one else agrees with me -- unless I think it is a point absolutely crucial to ensureing that the article is NPOV or accurate. STÓD/ÉÍRE, do you really think these pictures have to be included to make the article NPOV or accurate? If not, why are you so committed to this issue? Slrubenstein

Might I suggest that a link be placed (if still possible on a locked page) to an article on the iconoclast movement in the early church... or would that be covered in a link to Christianity? --eleuthero 04:16, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Genealogy of Jesus

Removed these links:

The ancestry of Jesus according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke:http://www.bcbsr.com/survey/sgosp1.html
A geneological tree of Jesus focusing in his ancestry:http://www.american-pictures.com/genealogy/persons/per02851.htm#0

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke give incompatible genealogies (note spelling) of Jesus: a detailed description of how people have tried to synthesize these into a single genealogy, and attempted to harmonize them with Old Testament genealogies with which they conflict might be useful, but a link to any particular genealogy (such as those above) is an endorsement of a particular point of view. -- Someone else 23:18 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

I actualy added them as four very different interpretations of Jesus family tree.Matthew and Luke give two very different accounts.The first tree accepts Luke and disqualifies Matthew.The second, if you removed it, is a combination of various recent geneological theories that include alleged descedants.I think the only point of view given is that his geneology is a matter of debate.As is anything else about him it seems.Any ideas of adding a mention to the various points of view about his origin? User: Dimadick

Well, that his genealogy is debated is a fact, not a point of view! It seems to me a simple statement that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke give incompatible genealogies for Jesus, and that there is no other documentation of his lineage (and for that matter decendants!), is preferable to linking to speculative genealogies. If anyone wanted to get into the various ways people have tried to reconcile the conflicting genealogies, that could be added, too. -- Someone else 00:29 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Actualy the theory that Jesus had descedants is a recent one but ,at least in Greece where I live, it has been gaining popularity and is presented in various books by greek authors.The previous geneology is the only one I could find in an English page that had a similar theory. But the simple statements you propose would work fine for me. User: Dimadick

I think it would be accurate and objective to say that Matthew and Luke give genealogies which are not identical to each other. To conclude that they are also incompatible with each other is one Point Of View. It's possible that the Infancy Gospel of James has some info about his lineage as well, but I would have to look. Some of the Epistles and other NT books probably make passing references to it without going into any great detail. Wesley

They give Christ two different paternal grandparents: since humans have only one, they are incompatible. They become more divergent the further back they go. The approach of most who claim that the Bible contains no errors is to say what neither Matthew nor Luke say: that one is Christ's genealogy through Joseph and the other his genealogy through Mary. They are that different. --Someone else 18:09 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

They are incompatible if you assume he had the usual human sort of parentage of one human father and one human mother; given the premise of both Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born of a Virgin, and Matthew's explicit declaration that he was giving Joseph's genealogy, one is only left to wonder why Joseph's is given at all. John Chrysostom discusses this at length in his first four homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, as well as many other writers. See http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-10/npnf1-10-07.htm#TopOfPage. I think it's at least fair to acknowledge that the explanation is internally consistent, though you're welcome to question the premise of the Virgin birth. Wesley 22:39 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

"Some of the Epistles and other NT books probably make passing references to [the genealogy of Jesus]". I cannot find any such references. The epistolary writers, especially Paul, display no interest in that question. Such interest is late (around AD 90?) and attested only in Matthew and Luke. -- Sebastjan

One such reference is in Romans 1:3-4 (NKJV): "... 3concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." A reference to his lack of genealogy is in Hebrews 7:14 (NKJV): " 14For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood." In Hebrews 7 much is made of his genealogy, including a comparison with Melchizidek who has no recorded genealogy. I was guessing when I made the comment initially; these are just two references I found via a short Google search. :-) Wesley