Talk:Jesus

Major changes. I look forward to reading the final product. It will be important to analyze the changes after this major reworking is complete. Happy writing and best of luck on this huge article! -Tom Kelly (Talk) 00:58, 15 January 2007 (CST)

This one has gone from bad to worse - so far. Stephen Ewen 21:53, 16 January 2007 (CST)

will the history of jesus according to the Christian gospels still be included in the final product? [comment added on 19 January 2007 by User:Thomas E Kelly ]

Feel free to join in... I had assumed that each of the gospels would have its own article. How much time do we have, anyway? Bei Dawei

I don't think there really is a time limit. It's going to be a long time before CZ has a ton of articles so just work hard on a few articles that you are passionate about. The reason I liked the history according to the gospel is because a lot of people won't actually go to the gospel subpages but will read this article. I think it's important anyone else? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 14:00, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, I think it is absolutely important. Stephen Ewen 19:47, 19 January 2007 (CST)

I just want to point out that the article in its present shape is horribly biased. The very first thing the article says under "Sources" is: "The major historical difficulty concerning Jesus is that the most important sources of information, the four canonical gospels, are works of sectarian propaganda. As historical sources, they suffer from the following shortcomings: ..."

Pathetically biased--and I say this as a confirmed nonbeliever, by the way.

And the first sentence is bizarre in its description of Jesus as "a Palestinian Jewish religious figure": "Jesus (or Jesus Christ) was a Palestinian Jewish religious figure who was executed by the Roman government by crucifixion around AD 30 or 33. He is chiefly remembered as the (perhaps unwitting) founder of Christianity, and as a prophet of Islam."

Sure, he was Jewish, sure he lived in what is now called Palestine, but surely these aren't the first most notable things to say about Jesus.

In every controversial subject, the only way to proceed according to the neutrality policy is to begin with a vanilla description (such as "Jesus (or Jesus Christ) is generally regarded as the founder of the Christian religion") and then proceed to describe the controversy as neutrally and engagingly as possible.

This article does something quite different. It pretends that skepticism is equivalent to neutrality, when that is so obviously (since it is a topic about which so many people have faith) incorrect. The Wikipedians have certainly completely gotten the neutrality policy wrong in this case. --Larry Sanger 21:38, 19 January 2007 (CST)

I not trying to privilege "skeptical" views of Jesus here, just start from the least-contested and proceed to the more controversial. (A common approach in Jesus Studies, by the way.) While other Palestinian Jews were crucified at this time, this opening does serve to pin him down to as close as we can come to a generally-agreed historical event. Anything else, such as a description of his teachings, would be far more iffy, and in any case less influential as a sheer symbolic image.

The very next line does describe him as the Christian founder (and Muslim prophet). And two more paragraphs of the introduction cover the essentials of how they see Jesus. Later sections should go into even more detail. In what way is this inadequate? Is it a matter of language, or of presentation? I'm afraid I don't understand your objection.

On rereading, I think you object to the phrase "sectarian propaganda." "Sectarian" means that the gospels were created and promoted by a religious sect. "Propaganda" means that it is material meant for distribution, in order to bring other people around to their views. Both are statements of fact, though I admit the phrase does sound jarring. (But then, you don't want to sound neutral anyway, it seems...?)

Or perhaps I should ask, How would you organize or express the basics of Jesus? Do you think we should begin with a summary of the gospels? Bei Dawei

The basic principle of writing an encyclopedia article is: you begin with the most general description of the thing; in the case of a historical personage, what the person is best known for. Therefore, one does not begin with "the least-contested and proceed to the more controversial." Since beginning with "what a person is best known for" is what people expect, after all, out of an encyclopedia article, to begin with anything other than the precise reason why Jesus is famous--he is reputed to be founder of Christianity, and the son of God according to Christians--is going to look biased to a lot of people. Certainly to me (a confirmed agnostic, by the way).

The second sentence, beginning "He is chiefly remembered as the (perhaps unwitting) founder of Christianity," is plainly biased, because for Christians, he is chiefly not remembered, but known as an immediate presence, as God. For us not to say so in, indeed, the first sentence is precisely to be biased against Christians. It would be like opening the article about Muhammad without saying both that he was a prophet of God, according to Muslims, as well as the founder of Islam. Surely all this is obvious?

Bei, I am indeed trying to make controversial articles like this neutral. The reason the phrase "sectarian propaganda" is obviously not neutral is that it is the way that one group of people would describe Jesus, and a way that another large group of people (i.e., most Christians) would not describe him.

I think that a summary of the gospels should, obviously, be one of the first things, not the first thing, in an article about Jesus, because for the vast bulk of your audience, that is the most interesting information about the topic. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the gospel story is again what Jesus is famous for. What could justify omitting it from the beginning of the article, since that is indeed the very explanation for the existence of the article?

I'm sorry, but it really is difficult to write neutrally about controversial topics. You must realize something that you appear not to realize fully yet, namely, that you are speaking on behalf of everyone--including Christians--interested in this topic. That means that, essentially, you have to write in such a way as to make everyone as happy as possible. Surely we can do better than how the article is at present.

The real trick to writing neutrally, by the way, is by "going meta," i.e., rather than making vague, but widely-agreed claims ("was a Palestinian Jewish religious figure whom Roman authorities executed by crucifixion"), one makes quite specific, but attributed claims, and one proceeds to describe the disputes fairly. So it's all right to say, in the first sentence, that Jesus is regarded as son of God, as long you say he's so regarded by Christians as the central tenet of their faith. And, of course, as long as you also say that he's regarded in other specific ways by Jews and by Muslims. The emphasis in the beginning should, clearly, be on attributed Christian claims, for the simple reason that it's Christians who care most about the article's subject. That's the article's "constituency." You'd give the Islamic view of Muhammad similar billing in the Muhammad article, and so forth. It's just that, in each article, you also present other views of the subject--each one, indeed, presented sympathetically. (And in a lively fashion, as well.)

I will rewrite the article myself, if and when I have time, to demonstrate what neutrality, on my view of it, requires. Please do read [1], if you're interested in the policy I'll be editing for CZ.

--Larry Sanger 20:23, 21 January 2007 (CST)

I don't think we disagree terribly much about neutrality, only in whether what I have written so far qualifies as neutral. Try as I might, I don't see what the problems are. You keep insisting that I have somehow ignored Christian beliefs, when I think I have given them appropriate prominence.

What I would most like to see happen, is to have actual biblical scholars come and go over this. After all, this isn't really my field. I'm only trying to get it into some sort of condition where real scholars wouldn't just slam their heads against the wall.

I have assumed that the historical Jesus--i.e. the real guy--should have priority over faith-based fantasies thereof. I propose that an analogy would be with Saint Nicholas / Santa Claus. Compare the following descriptions:

(a) Saint Nicholas was a fourth-century bishop of Myra, who ultimately inspired the legends of Santa Claus.

(b) Saint Nicholas is a folk figure said to deliver toys to children during the Christmas holidays. He is loosely based on Saint Nicholas of Myra.

(c) "Saint Nicholas" has more than one referent. For the Christian saint, see Saint Nicholas of Myra. For the Christmas figure, see Santa Claus.

Note that discussion of the Santa Claus cult only makes sense when grounded in time and place, so we can't just declare that he has eight reindeer (not Rudolf?), or appears on Christmas Eve (not Epiphany?). Better to start with the real guy (or as much as can be known of him), and then trace the development of the legend over time.

On to other points... To say that Jesus "founded Christianity" is very likely wrong, which is why I said that he is remembered that way (as it happens, by most of the world's people). To say that Jesus is mainly known for being the Son of God, ignores the fact that the Qur'an explicitly denies this. (How important is it that Christians slightly outnumber Muslims, or that they presumably care somewhat more about Jesus?)

While the phrase "sectarian propaganda" would not be used by most Christians, it is nevertheless accurate. Which is more important--the happiness of (non-liberal) Christians, or accuracy? (Perhaps the phrase is needlessly inflammatory, since the same points are developed later.)

Anyway, I look forward to your rewrites.

--Dawei / Dawud Bei Dawei

Is that User: Be Ware? Or Borat? Is that a goof? Is that Ken Kesey off the bus? Or on? Is that a big waste of everybody's time? Or just a big waste of everybody's good will? But then, waste's a goof, too! Goof on you, you, you! Where's the line? Here? There? Or are you over it? Get over it! Maybe just push us over it? Maybe just focus down down down bring us down to the line you can draw right here, in religion, that's always a good goof, right, one big goof, keep it going going gone, always a line to draw in religion, always a way to get a rise, and the biggest goof, is you can just keep that goof GOING GOING GONE, and nobody catches ON. Hey, man, what a goof! In case you are wondering, that is my very considered opinion of this sophisticated pranksteristic essay. Oh, you had NO idea it was offensive? It is offensive and I object to it, right down to the Santa Claus analogy and I'm not a believer, either. But I do have respect for people that are. Nancy Sculerati MD 00:55, 22 January 2007 (CST)

I'm sorry that you're offended, but I assure you that everything I wrote was in earnest. At least I am attempting to communicate rationally. The bulk of your post appears to consist of some sort of dadaist ad hominem.

I have a suggestion. One of Citizendium's authors is User: Peter Kirby, who created this webpage. Perhaps he could be persuaded to edit the "Jesus" article...?

As for me, I will try to get the "biographical details" sections into some sort of order in the next week or so. Perhaps this should be combined with the requested section summarizing the canonical gospels?Bei Dawei

Sigh...yes, I think that might be helpful. Here's my concern: The topic of this article is one that is, as I know you are aware, legitimate from a variety of viewpoints. Although in one sense the amalgamation of those views into one article is neutral, their juxtaposition is inflammatory. I'm going to copy a post I made (4 days ago, by the way) in the Neutrality section of the forums below: I understand that balancing the presented facts in an unslanted manner is important. I'd like to present a different aspect of bias, one that feeds into offensiveness, and might be handled in a pragmatic way for our "unforked citizendium" experiment. I started going through articles and mentally constructing workgroups for each of the CZ live articles, simply as a way to come up with workgroups we might be missing. I was analysing 'rabbit' (of all things!) and it struck me that one article containing a balanced view of this subject would be (1) offensive (2) a sort of dictionary definition and (3) boring. That's because the very same rabbit can be legitmately handled 4 ways:

1. Rabbit- Animal husbandry workshop (perhaps a division of Agriculture?)
2. Rabbit-pet rabbit- Animal Hobbyist (Recreation)
3. Rabbit- anatomy, physiology, evolution of: biology workshop (Natural Sciences)
4. Rabbit- recipe for red sauce, cholesterol content, use in low fat dishes- (Cooking) Culinary Arts Workshop

Having an article that includes practical wisdom on “caring for your pet rabbit” along with “Recipes for rabbit” promotes gratuitous discord. Having an article which includes “keeping a house rabbit”, “making toys for your rabbit”, along with “mass production of rabbits” and “world survey of techniques for proper butchery of rabbits” does the same. It's inflammatory. It's also so scattered that it will almost certainly produce an unreadable article. Keeping to our convention of 32 kilobyte articles converts a single article on rabbits, or any other subject that has many contexts, into an overview kind of a list, rather than something entertaining and enlightening. So, one way to deal with this is to use workshops to approve different articles with the same main subject. We need a software adaptation to title articles accordingly.

Anyway, this same schema might work for religions, Let say Religion X, where including a sacred view- how believers see it, with a very sceptical view, is much like including a detailed section on rabbit cookery along with a detailed section on socializing rabbits as household pets in the same article. Juxtaposing them is liable to make even an extremely tolerant person who happens to be either a member of Religion X or a pet rabbit owner offended for a gratuitous reason. Having whole articles that are from a single point of view can be neutral, is my point, as long as there are several of them and there is an outright statement at the start making the slant explicit. I'm not saying this is a rule that articles can't include the whole array of views, I'm saying that single view articles are not biased if the bias is openly stated and articles from other points of view are linked.

My apologies for not believing that you were in earnest, because I did not. I do believe that we have a responsibility to fairly present all views, but optimally, do that without shattering us as a community. Perhaps we can work together to do that here in a manner that is not whitewashed but is sensitive to the many people who hold Jesus sacred. For example, the portrayal as a wandering excorcist, alhough colorful (and strictly true) might be less offhand. ;-) Nancy Sculerati MD 02:31, 22 January 2007 (CST)

No problem. Grace and peace to you (as one of those Bible people says somewhere or other).

Are you proposing separate articles for "The historical Jesus" and "Jesus Christ in Christianity"? Or separate articles covering various points of view about the historical Jesus?

The part about exorcism is more than just strictly true. Exorcism seems to have been an important practice of Jesus's, and one of the few things about him we can be relatively confident about (which is why I put it up there in par. 2). I suppose it must have formed a part of his/their theory of disease / insanity, since it's linked with healing. Anyway, the gospels seem to take it for granted, though it may seem garish to some of us moderns. Bei Dawei

The central constraint on all articles, required by the neutrality policy, is that articles on a general subject must express every sincere viewpoint as sympathetically as possible, given that many other viewpoints must be expressed equally sympathetically. It is quite frankly difficult to believe that Bei Dawei is, as you put it "in earnest," if he maintains that the Christian view of this subject is expressed "as sympathetically as possible, given that many other viewpoints must be expressed sympathetically as well." I say that because it is perfectly obvious that the Christian view is not presented sympathetically at all in this article.

I also do not think that you have understood what I wrote earlier, Dawei, regarding "going meta." Should I explain this further? --Larry Sanger 09:37, 22 January 2007 (CST)

You're right--I don't understand "meta," and suspect that the theory may turn out to be incoherent. May I suggest that you focus your remarks on the practical issue of what to say in this article, and how to organize its presentation?

The way I have been dividing the topic is (a) historical Jesus (which necessarily includes many ideas contrary to the Christian mainstream, (b) Jesus in Christianity, (c) Jesus in Islam, (d) Jesus in Judaism, and (e) Jesus in the broader culture (or something like that). You've been complaining about (a) the "historical Jesus" section and saying that it neglects Christian views, which I had intended for (b) based on historical order. Is your objection to the order of presentation--perhaps (b) should come before (a)? Or do you think that my "historical Jesus" coverage itself is slanted, and that I have unjustly favored the minimalist end of the spectrum? Bei Dawei

The notion of "going meta" is not incoherent, and indeed is the bedrock of the neutrality policy to which all participant in CZ are committed. It is something we have illustrated many times in many ways on Wikipedia.

Do you take the view that the Christian view is indeed expressed sympathetically in this article? Or, perhaps, do you not care whether or not it is? If you think it's adequately sympathetic, you clearly haven't got a grasp of what a sympathetic presentation would look like; and if you don't care whether it's sympathetic, then you have rejected the neutrality policy. --Larry Sanger 00:07, 23 January 2007 (CST)

It would help my answer if you could identify some specific objections. Again I ask: are you complaining about the accuracy / comprehensiveness of the "historical Jesus" section, or about an article plan which assigns "Christian views of Jesus" to a subsequent section? (While I have not gotten that far yet--the current content from that section is just re-arranged Wikipedia--I assume that the final version would cover a similar range of material.) Bei Dawei

Commenting on the rewrite of the introduction, is this all you were talking about earlier--paragraph order? The reshuffling itself doesn't bother me. However, the rewrite as it stands now suffers from certain infelicities:

(1) It unintentionally privileges Jesus's status as an ethical exemplar, over his mythical (I mean as the hero of miracle stories and the like) and theological roles.

(2) The purpose of the second paragraph is unclear, as it now lumps together points from Christian theology with points showing Jesus's importance in the world.

(3) The paragraph about Islam is treated differently from the one on Christianity, and now sits awkwardly at the end of the introduction.

(4) The number of at least nominal Christians would be somewhere between one and two *billion*, so talk of "millions" is odd. Bei Dawei

Just an attempted rejuggling to try to ensure that the tone of the article is sympathetic, without compromising any factual content. I've tried a further change in the light of your comments. I don't think Larry was talking just about the lead and order but about the overall tone. I'm not a Christian as it happens, so perhaps am not the best person to judge whether a Christian would see this as a sympathetic rendering. However I suspect that he would be more likely to do so if the ethical example of Christ was given prominence. Yes, for me it was an intentional privileging of this positive aspect in order to balance later skeptical treatment. Though as it happens I do think that the ethical values of Christ are not really covered as extemsively as perhaps they should be. But just my two cents...Gareth Leng 09:51, 24 January 2007 (CST)

Now the introduction has become rambling and disorganized. May I suggest devoting each paragraph to some particular point?

For many (perhaps most) Christians, the image of Christ as an ethical teacher is not more "positive" than his other roles. (Think C.S. Lewis's "trilemma.") Bei Dawei

Go ahead. I'd tried, obviously not well. I had tried to rearrange the introduction where each paragraph had an intended purpose

• 1) Brief overview
• 2) Summary of Christian story of Jesus
• 3) Jesus as a prophet of Islam
• 4) Social and cultural impact
• 5) Historical view

I don't have the time or knowledge for a rewrite however which is perhaps what is needed. As for positive aspects, I don't know how to rank positive aspects, but I feel that a lead article on Jesus should not be dominated by the issue of historical evidence; perhaps the interrogation of the historical evidence would be better placed as a separate article. It seems to be to be no more appropriate to start with the issue of historical accuracy here than it would be to start any article on a religious theme with a discussion of the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of the relevant deity.Gareth Leng 04:45, 25 January 2007 (CST)