Talk:Christianity in the ante-Nicene period

Orphaned references in Ante-Nicene Period

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Ante-Nicene Period's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceA":

• From Apostolic Age: Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church ed. F.L. Lucas (Oxford) entry on Paul
• From First Council of Nicaea: Ad Afros Epistola Synodica
• From Saint Peter: Historical Dictionary of Prophets In Islam And Judaism, Brandon M. Wheeler, Disciples of Christ: "Muslim exegesis identifies the disciples as Peter, Andrew, Matthew, Thomas, Philip, John, James, Bartholomew, and Simon"

Reference named "Harris":

• From Paul the Apostle: Harris, Stephen L. Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. ISBN 978-1-55934-655-9
• From Early Christianity: Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.
• From Apostolic Age: Harris, Stephen L. Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 10:13, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Proposal

Merge Christianity in the 2nd century and Christianity in the 3rd century into Ante-Nicene period; same topic, no need to have three pages on the same topic. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:01, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

.*Support with lower case a for ante. Laurel Lodged (talk) 13:34, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support - per above. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:01, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. Hesitant. There's reason in consistently offering higher resolution of History of Christianity in specific centuries articles. Could an alternative be to redistribute significant chunks of Ante-Nicene period into Christianity in the 2nd century and Christianity in the 3rd century, leaving Ante-Nicene period dealing more restrictively with purely the historiographical term? PPEMES (talk) 16:38, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Those two century-articles don't offer substantially more info than ante-Nicene period. It's still the same basic asrgument: the more articles, the more trouble to keep them synchronized. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 17:40, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with that point. However, what if we could narrow down the scope of Ante-Nicene period to only covering the historiographical term? Wouldn't that be a solution? PPEMES (talk) 17:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

But that's the same argument to keep two distinct articles on "Early Christianity" and "History of early Christianity"! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand how that's the same thing? PPEMES (talk) 20:42, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

It has repeatedly been argued that "History of early Christianity" could contain more historiographic details about the first 3 centuries of Chrostianity than "Early Christianity." In effect, both articles are doublures, with "Early Christianity" being the longest article. And "Ante-Nicene period" is the common name, of course, and also covered as such at "Early Christianity." But, with that argument, it could also be argued that "Christianity in the 1st century" should redirect to "Apostolic Age." Ad infinitum... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:40, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I still think Early Christianity suffices, containing both historical and historiographic aspects. For the rest, I'm sorry I still don't understand the point of how logically that means that Ante-Nicene period has to merge with a century article? It doesn't say Historiography of Ante-Nicene period, it says simply Ante-Nicene period, doesn't it? PPEMES (talk)

I this Epinoia below raised a very valuable point that seem to have ignored-- before proceeding further with these mergers it might be an idea to form an overall plan - the history of Christianity can be presented in various ways. (It also seem to be unfairly "archived" as a way to insure it is ignored.) tahc ^chat 02:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• -not unfairly archived, but redirected to Talk:History of Christianity#Results and proceedings where a reply is given - Epinoia (talk) 02:27, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Proceedings

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

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• Comment - before proceeding further with these mergers it might be an idea to form an overall plan - the history of Christianity can be presented in various ways - one path is to follow the development of Christianity with the Apostolic Age, the Ante-Nicene period, etc. - another path is to proceed chronologically, 1st century, 2nd century etc. - the article Apostolic Age was recently merged to Christianity in the First Century, which seems to indicate a preference for a chronological order - so which path are we to follow to be consistent? - we should get our act together before implementing random mergers and creating a confused mess - Epinoia (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

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

Update

Since the topic was raised above, for the record, Historiography of early Christianity has a ton of historiography coverage for this period. -- Beland (talk) 02:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I was planning to do the merge-down from Early Christianity (basically splitting that too-long article in half) and looking at the resulting length and overlap before revisiting the question of merge up from 2nd and 3rd century articles. -- Beland (talk) 02:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

We should consider this discussion closed, in favor of the current idea. I will remove the template on splitting into 2nd and 3rd century articles, but a new proposal (for that) could be presented at a later time. tahc ^chat 15:40, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 19 February 2020

Ante-Nicene period → Christianity in the Ante-Nicene period – Rename to match form of other Christianity history articles. tahc ^chat 17:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:16, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support. The proposed form is certainly an improvement. There is also the issue that "ante-Nicene" is no longer a word in common use. Judging from this ngram, it fell out of favor in the early 20th century. On Gbooks, the search term "ante-Nicene" returns a list of books published in the late 19th century. Colin Gerhard (talk) 19:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I am aware of no better term than ante-Nicene. While overall use has dropped off, to say it "fell out of favor" normally implies other term(s) are used in its place-- which I do not think is the case. tahc ^chat 21:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I see the landmark multi-volume work the Ante-Nicene Fathers was first printed in the late 19th century. This probably just resulted in an unnatural increase in the study (and use of the term) that died down in the several decades hence. tahc ^chat 21:36, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

NOTE: Does anyone think "...in the ante-Nicene period" is better than "...in the Ante-Nicene..."? Should such a word be here capitalized in an article name? tahc ^chat 21:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The "a" should be lower cased. See here. Colin Gerhard (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2020 (UTC)