Talk:Biblical criticism/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

"Historical Jesus" is not a subtopic of "Biblical criticism"

There are a lot of very commendable aspects to this article, explaining the different methods of criticism clearly, but the "Historical Jesus" sections (there are two of them) do not cover the subject adequately and I am not sure that it is possible to do so in an article on "Biblical criticism". The historical Jesus and Biblical criticism are two different subjects, albeit that they overlap to a certain extent.

"The historical Jesus" is not studied just from the Gospels as this article would lead one to believe. Actually more important than anything in the Gospels for establishing that there was such a person as Jesus is Galatians 1:19, where Paul says he met with James, the "Lord's brother". Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews refers to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James." So there are two independent attestations, exceedingly rare for a person from antiquity, that Jesus had a brother named James and as Bart Ehrman has said "if Jesus didn't exist you would think his brother would know about it".This is one of the major reasons why historians, not just Bible scholars or Bible critics, say with unanimity that Jesus existed and had a brother named James. Sections called "historical" really need to pay some attention to history, not just religious writings.

The article says, in the second "The historical Jesus" section "Bible scholar David Mishkin says "[t]hat Jesus died on a Roman cross in Jerusalem is perhaps the one truth with virtual unanimity" among Bible scholars". Once again, although this section is marked "historical" it is only quoting "Bible scholars", not historians. Historians also say with unanimity that Pontius Pilate ordered Jesus' crucifixion but not just because of the Bible. The longer Josephus passage was probably subject to Christian interpolation, but is thought to be genuine when it refers to the crucifixion, and, crucially, Tacitus' Annals says that Christ "suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus". John Dominic Crossan says "That [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus [...] agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact", Ehrman that "his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by a wide range of sources including Josephus and Tacitus" and Eddy and Boyd "it is now "firmly established" that Tacitus provides a non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus."

Josephus and Tacitus don't belong in an article on "Biblical criticism" so the subject "The historical Jesus" cannot be covered in this article. "The historical Jesus" is not a subset of Bible studies or religion, it is part of history. Possibly the article could discuss how criticism helps to decide which sayings or deeds of Jesus in the gospels are most likely to be authentic. There are some valid points about the criterion of embarrassment, etc., but those sections need to be called something else, not "Historical" and cannot say things like "the crucifixion is completely certain" because that certainty is dependent on secular history, not the Bible. I would tend to agree with Jytdog that the sections are too long. They should be called something along the lines of "What Biblical criticism can tell us about the historicity of the gospels", not "the historical Jesus".Smeat75 (talk) 23:15, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Let me try to address these issues one at a time. the "Historical Jesus" sections (there are two of them) do not cover the subject adequately is not a reasonable criticism since it applies to every topic in the article. The best a broad spectrum article like this can do is give a sampling of the major aspects. For example, there are 25 criteria and I discuss 8. It is not possible to do anything but hit the high spots and give a taste of the subject--if someone decided to pursue more knowledge. That's what every aspect of this does. That's all any of them can do.

"The historical Jesus" is not studied just from the Gospels as this article would lead one to believe. If this were an article on the historical Jesus, this would be a reasonable criticism, as it is it is not. This is an article on biblical criticism. Therefore, discussing all the aspects of how the HJ is studied would be off topic for this article. I don 't make any arguments directly ab out the HJ. I just describe what some of the issues as they pertain to criticism are. That's all that's pertinent here. A sample, limited to what is pertinent to criticism, and that's it.

None of the third paragraph has any application here at all--it's completely off the topic of biblical criticism. The only point from the fourth paragraph that matters is Possibly the article could discuss how criticism helps to decide which sayings or deeds of Jesus in the gospels are most likely to be authentic. No. Absolutely not. That would be an evaluation of the subject which belongs in the historical Jesus article but not in biblical criticism.

Biblical criticism: methods used, and topics studied. Who did it. That's it. That's what belongs here and that's all that belongs here. Methods --like critieria--and topics--such as the Historical Jesus. The fact it is also studied by historians is completely beside the point of this article! Jenhawk777 (talk) 01:26, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I just do not accept that it is OK to have a section (or sections) called "The Historical Jesus" in an article on biblical criticism since by definition it excludes the historians (Josephus and Tacitus and modern historians who write on the subject) who are relevant to the subject. You cannot discuss "the historical Jesus" and leave out history. Maybe if those sections were called something else ("Biblical criticism and the historicity of the Gospels" or something) it would be acceptable as it is it is very misleading and partial.Smeat75 (talk) 01:48, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Alright, I am perfectly open to renaming/retitling. It was always kind of a stretch to title the central history section HJ when only two of the paragraphs actually discuss it anyway. I would be happy to just date it the 19th century--how about that? I will go change the title in history immediately if that will help. Then toward the end, there is really only one paragraph that is actually about the historical Jesus. The developing tradition is another subject--it is not HJ. The criteria are part of the method of biblical criticism and should be discussed to the same depth as the other methods are discussed, so that really needs to stay.

Can you agree the one paragraph that actually discusses the HJ stay titled that way? Is there a sentence on it being a historical issue--(which I think is implicit in the discussion)--something that would mention historians maybe--that you would like to add to that particular paragraph that would clarify what you're trying to say here? I have no problem with adding something about this being a history issue as much as a critical one. Would you write one for insertion into the front of that paragraph please? Something not too long. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Smeat75 Okay done. I even went further and removed the paragraph on the oral period (The developing tradition) altogether and repositioned the criteria so it does not look like a subheading underneath HJ. It stands alone. I was always a little iffy on the DT because it is only peripherally connected to BC. History is now dated--no mention of HJ except as aspects of history. There is only one paragraph specifically connected to the HJ by title now. I will even remove the Mishkin quote if you feel strongly about it. Will that satisfy your concerns? Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:13, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed Mishkin simply because you objected to him. I added an in troductory paragraph to the HJ paragraph, but I am not sure it adds anything of substance after all. Take a look see please. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:54, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

fwiw i obviously agree with the sentiment that there is way too much about this here. Smeat75 the real content on this topic is at the main page; this page should not be trying to summarize the whole question and its answers but rather have a brief summary of how answering the question was a focus of use for these tools. Biblical criticism does pull in what historians say btw -see historical-critical method. But there is just way too much about it, here. Jytdog (talk) 02:00, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Surprise surprise, you don't like an article I have written. So go to the FAC and oppose it, but don't come along at this stage of its development and start remaking it as though it were a brand new article. You were a part of the early stages of this article's development. If you had a solid notion of what it should be, you had the chance to do that, to put those ideas into print. For years. You chose not to. Historical biblical criticism is not done by historians Jytdog. Historical biblical criticism is what all biblical criticism was up until literary criticism. It's what textual criticism was and source criticism and form and redaction--it was all historical--by definition--one of the identifying factors in biblical criticism that separates it from what went before and what came after is that biblical criticism from 1750 - 1990 was focused on using history to answer questions about the Bible. That is what biblical criticism IS. And it was all done by Bible scholars--not by historians. You should actually read it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:57, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

@Smeat75 and Jytdog: Can we consider this resolved by the changes I made then? Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The reduction is WEIGHT is appropriate. Thanks for that. I still the bit that is left should be under "source criticism" (trying to get back to the urtext, as those germans liked to say). Jytdog (talk) 03:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC) (strike, see below Jytdog (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC))

Thanks for changing one of the subject headings that said "the historical Jesus". I changed the other one to "the quest for the historical Jesus through Biblical criticism". What was bothering the most, as I said, was that those sections were marked "historical Jesus" without discussing history. If you don't like what I changed the heading to feel free to alter it but please don't just flatly say "historical", it needs to be clear that biblical criticism is only one element in attempts to discover the Jesus of history.Smeat75 (talk) 12:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

No problem. Thank you for being reasonable enough to offer a suggestion and not just a criticism with no solution. I don't mind the change to the other heading. It reads a little awkward, but it is more specific which I always think is an improvement, so on balance, I am perfectly happy to leave it. How about going to the FAC and doing a review there? If someone doesn't show up soon, it's going to fail. I've been told that broad topic articles of this complexity do not usually do well at FAC, so I wasn't really expecting it to make it, but I hate it to go out with a whimper. I understand the topic intimidates most people, but I tried to write for ordinary people. I used no jargon—I don't think—and explained everything instead. That's part of why it's so dang long. Plus everyone comes along and wants more of their area of interest in it! That has in fact added a good bit of length. Someone wanted more on Sanders and more on Schweitzer, and someone else had me add a whole paragraph on the scholars involved in the historical Jesus in the 19th century—and the list goes on. Accommodating everyone is not always easy is it? Some contributions have genuinely improved things. I would put your input in that category. So no worries. It's good. And thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I missed this where the subsection was made its own section. The content on HJ is still massively bloated with OFFTOPIC content that belongs in Historical Jesus, not here. I have made it a subsection again. Jytdog (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

What about all the uses of the criteria that are not about the Historical Jesus? Cutting out criteria is like cutting out textual criticism or form criticism because it's controversial. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

See below. Having the same conversation in several places is unhelpful. Jytdog (talk) 01:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal for HJ section

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.

---

I am still not OK with the content in the section, which is completely out of sync with Historical Jesus and am not convinced there should be a section on this at all. If it is going to be there, how about this this? I did a test edit - copying the lead of Historical Jesus and then tweaking that some, and then self-reverted). That is a subsection of the source criticism section, in parallel with the documentary hypothesis and the synoptic problem... This keeps WP in sync with itself per WP:SYNC and has some relevance here, perhaps. The proposal is here:

Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and developing new and different research criteria. These quests have tried to recover what Jesus may have actually done and said using critical historical methods and the historical and cultural context in which Jesus lived, rather than using theological definitions ('the dogmatic Christ') and other Christian accounts of Jesus ('the Christ of faith')."

The body of sayings and deeds is usually then used to construct an "authentic" portrait of Jesus; these portraits have often differed from each other. These portraits include that of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish messiah, and prophet of social change, but there is little scholarly agreement on a single portrait, or the methods needed to construct it. There are, however, overlapping attributes among the various portraits, and scholars who differ on some attributes may agree on others.

A number of scholars have criticized the various approaches used in the study of the historical Jesus—on one hand, for the lack of rigor in research methods; on the other, for being driven by "specific agendas" that interpret ancient sources to fit specific goals. By the 21st century, the "maximalist" approaches of the 19th century which accepted all the gospels and the "minimalist" trends of the early 20th century which totally rejected them were abandoned and scholars began to focus on what is historically probable and plausible about Jesus.

References

-- Jytdog (talk) 20:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC) (redact to fix diff Jytdog (talk) 21:29, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

: okay I will remove the snark--but I will expect the same in return the next time the shoe is on the other foot.

• I don't agree this should be under Source criticism because the critical pursuit of the HJ includes all the other methods of criticism as well--including the criteria which it is now separated from.

* You undid Smeat75's edit on the heading and put it back to specifically what he asked not be there. * This Since the 18th century, three separate scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, repeats what is already in history. Redundancy is not good, especially in a long article. * These quests have tried to recover what Jesus may have actually done and said is also a repeat of what I said, and the rest of that paragraph: rather than using theological definitions ('the dogmatic Christ') and other Christian accounts of Jesus ('the Christ of faith') is inaccurate since most of the biblical critics do in fact use the gospels and as Theissen says, believe the Synoptics offer the best chance of identifying the HJ. New Testament scholar Gerd Theissan says "there is broad scholarly consensus that we can best find access to the historical Jesus through the Synoptic tradition."

* This edit is an evaluation of the topic--a view of it--rather than a description. The body of sayings and deeds is usually then used to construct an "authentic" portrait of Jesus with no definition of what that means and no way of including one and staying on topic * These portraits include that of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, charismatic healer, Cynic philosopher, Jewish messiah, and prophet of social change... there is little scholarly agreement on a single portrait with no mention of majority view. Presents them all as equals which gives undue weight and fails to include what scholarly agreement there is

• There are, however, overlapping attributes among the various portraits, and scholars who differ on some attributes may agree on others. no explanation given.

• I actually kind of like the last paragraph.

References

Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:59, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

See your talk page. Jytdog (talk) 21:09, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The content is from the lead of Historical Jesus with some tweaks. I will start an RfC. Jytdog (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

:: Do what you gotta do. This is perfectly timed to sink the FAC. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

What matters, is article content. Jytdog (talk) 21:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

::::Taking material from the Historical Jesus without changing it to a discussion of biblical criticism is problematic. This is not a good edit in my view. It is both redundant in places and in others contains insufficient information to be of any value to the article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:39, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

:::::I would, however, like to take that last paragraph and include it. It adds a level of detail not currently in the article. Okay? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I did change it to fit here, as I noted in edit notes and in the description above. As I noted in the edit notes and in the description above.

I would be fine with trimming this further to deal with any redundancies. I don't care a lot about where it goes. The WEIGHT issue with respect to this article matters a lot, as does adding a bunch of content about Historical Jesus here, that is not in the main article on the subject. That is just poor meta-editing; it leads to WP being out of sync with itself and leads to the encyclopedia even contradicting itself. These sort of meta-editing issues are discussedin WP:SYNC Jytdog (talk) 21:59, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

:::::::okay then, that resolves the issue of putting it under source criticism Thank you. ::::::: You removed criteria as a subsection of the Historical Jesus Jytdog, but that is a mistake. The criteria are used in every aspect of biblical criticsm. They are not exclusive to the historical Jesus. Please check that for yourself. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

That is a sort of interesting rhetorical maneuver, but that content is focused on the quest for the historical jesus. It belongs in that page. Jytdog (talk) 22:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

:::::::::Please support that assertion with a reference. If my source is wrong in saying the criteria is not exclusive to the HJ, I would like to know that. :::::::::I had already done these archives before you began reverting them. I don't understand what the objection is. Could you explain, please? Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Please discuss archiving, in the section of this page on archiving.

With regard to the "criteria" section, please read the content and sources in that section. It constantly refers to sorting out what is "historical Jesus" and what is not, and indeed if one spot checks the history, this section has always been completely focused on historical jesus. Here are more-or-less weekly spot checks:

• here is that section as of July 31;
• here as of July 28
• here as of July 20
• here as of July 11
• here as of June 25
• here as of June 14
• here as of June 7
• here as of May 31
• here as of April 6, which is before the big push to improve this happened. (and yes, this bloat has been there for a long time) Jytdog (talk) 22:54, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the version for April 6 before the "big push" I see a sentence that is not in the "improved" version - under "Multiple attestation", a subheading of the section "New Testament authenticity and the historical Jesus" ( much better than calling it just "historical Jesus") - There are, however, at least four early, independent sources. The criterion of multiple attestation focuses on the sayings or deeds of Jesus that are attested to in more than one independent literary source such as the Apostle Paul, Josephus, Q, and/or the Gospel of the Hebrews. This is actually the most important element of historical Jesus studies that there is and I would like something like this sentence put into the section of "historical Jesus" if one is to remain (and I will let others discuss that for the moment). I think it should say something like "more than one independent literary source such as the Apostle Paul and Josephus (agree that Jesus had a brother named James), Tacitus and the Gospels (agree that Jesus was executed on the orders of Pontius Pilate.)" "Q" is a conjectural document, there may not really have been such a thing, and "the Gospel of the Hebrews" does not exist any more, if it ever did. But the agreement of Paul and Josephus, Tacitus and the Gospels are rock solid facts which allow it to be known with certainty that Jesus existed, had a brother named James and was executed on the orders of Pontius Pilate. Once that has been established "biblical scholars" can then sift through the religious texts in the NT and decide what is most likely, but really that is all speculation and guess work and the facts of the matter need to be discussed in any section on "historical Jesus" or similar.Smeat75 (talk) 13:44, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Smeat75: It will be good to add this, I agree, assuming we can work out keeping the criteria in this article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

It is an aspect of critical method. That's the main point. It is used mostly for HJ but not exclusively. In the introduction of The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide: Gerd Theissen, Annette Merz say: "First came the criticism of the sources. The question here was whether everything in the Gospel accounts was historical or authentic..." The criteria are used in gospel studies and in Old Testament studies as well, particularly of the Prophets. They are used anywhere there is assessment of historicity going on. Excluding this because it has a primary focus is like excluding any of the other methods of biblical criticism. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I think the working over of that content would be very good in the Historical Jesus page, btw. It never belonged here. A very important part of the work that should go into GA and definitely should go into FA is stepping way back and looking at WEIGHT overall. This page was terrible before the campaign to improve it began; which did indeed greatly improve it. This is a leftover problem. Jytdog (talk) 23:27, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

::I left it after beginning the big push because all the sources indicate the criteria have long been an aspect of biblical criticism. The Quest for the Historical Jesus was begun by biblical criticism. It has continued to be largely pursued by biblical critics--not simply by historians who don't care that much about Jesus. Many of those Bible critics are also historians, i.e. N.T. Wright, Crossan, Meier and many others. One could go as far as saying the majority of historians in the HJ field are also Bible scholars--or vice versa. They stand with a foot in each camp. This doesn't mean they have a single view. Methodology remains an aspect of furious discussion in the HJ area, absolutely, but the point here is that the criteria were an off shoot of biblical criticism, they remain almost exclusively an aspect of biblical criticism, almost no one else uses them for anything outside of biblical criticism, and the HJ is a sub-topic of biblical criticism. Those are the only two points that matter here. ::If the pursuit of the historical Jesus is not a result of biblical criticism, it should be removed from history as well as being off-topic--and that would be an editing of reality itself. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:45, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Again, it has been both a research direction and a whole set of findings. Following your logic, should we have equally mammoth sections about exactly how people do textual criticism - how they decide what scrap of parchment has a more ancient text and how they organize manuscripts into traditions? Should we have a huge section on the details of working out the documentary hypothesis (how people parse between one source or another), and what passages fall into which (eg. with the two versions of creation, and the crazy stitching in the flood narrative? Or how people lay out the synoptic problem and parse passages into various sources and then relate them to each other? Those are rhetorical questions, but please do imagine this page if that is what it did, to the same extent as for this topic. It is very obviously UNDUE bloat. These things happen. These things need to be fixed. Jytdog (talk) 01:09, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

::::We do have mammoth sections on those topics. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:46, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

the documentary hypothesis section is 2590 characters (414 words)

the synopic problem section is 2722 characters (456 words

the historical jesus section (including its methods) as it stands is 55235 characters (8591 words)

The latter is mammoth, former 2 are not.

(the proposed historical jesus content above, is 1579 characters (262 words)) Jytdog (talk) 07:56, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• responding to the points above made in this diff (the bulleted list below the proposal):

I understand your objection about the location; I don't agree but this is not a huge deal.

Smeat75's MOS:HEADER mistake is not relevant here

Yes this is summarizing the "quest for the historical jesus". In my view it is useful to summarize if we are going to have a focused discussion of this, but trimming is fine.

This bullet has a lot of stuff going on. Since the goal is to replace the old version with a more condensed one, there is not "repetition". With regard to the supposed "error", this is directly supported by the The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, not me and not the Historical Jesus article. Problematic claim. There is perhaps diagreement in the sources, which is a different issue.

The two objections about "portrait of Jesus": doesn't need defining; is obvious in context. Is not OR but rather summarizing the source provided there. (again you don't seem to have looked at the source, as with the Oxford dictionary above?)

The list of portrait types is from the lead of Historical Jesus and seems fine to me as high level summarizing language (which it is here as well). Something you could argue there. This is where you mention the missing "majority view". The main article on this topic, Historical Jesus, does not describe any "majority view" about the portraits in the body or the lead. You are saying there is one. That may be true. That is a serious issue with the main article on the topic. This is exactly what I mean about the "meta editing" issue - how WP gets out of sync with itself when massive discussions of X are created separately and out of dialogue with the main article.

About the "overlapping/no clear agreement", i don't know what you mean by "explain". This is making it clear that there is little to no consensus, which is what summarizing language does. The details are in the body of the Historical Jesus page where they belong.

-- Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: The explanation of the error in this sentence These quests have tried to recover what Jesus may have actually done and said using critical historical methods and the historical and cultural context in which Jesus lived, rather than using theological definitions ('the dogmatic Christ') and other Christian accounts of Jesus ('the Christ of faith'). is not an error in the source. The error is created by conflating and omitting multiple sentences from the source and was done by the author of the HJ article. And you are absolutely right that it needs changing in the HJ article. Please look over ALT X below. I use that same source and the same material, but do not conflate or omit so it is more representative of what the source fully says.

Jytdog, I think we can come to an agreement on the content of this section. We are basically--again--saying to-mah-toes and to-may-toes for exactly the same ideas. We don't disagree on what should be included on Jesus research itself. I think you even agree it should be in this article.

What we disagree on is the criteria. Without the criteria, there is no issue of weight, but without the criteria, the method used to study the HJ will be the only method of biblical criticism excluded purposefully because of its content. So that is our true disagreement.

How about if we agree on and insert some version of ALT X, and you rewrite your RFC--since no one else has shown up and probably never will because we are becoming infamous and this is just too much for people--to just include the one question on the criteria. Maybe we could get someone to weigh in if it was less complex an issue.

This is a genuine effort at resolution Jytdog. I hope you will consider it. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:14, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Actually the Oxford source is quite accurate on its surface; you are misreading it in ways that are unhelpful. It is saying that the "questors" tried to set aside the overall picture of Jesus in the bible and in christology, as well as received images in culture etc, and go back and deal with ancient sources to try to sort out what was "authentic". (yes of course some of those sources are "other Christian accounts of Jesus", which is where you seem to be hitting the skids). We do disagree on what should be included, and pretty starkly, as far as I can see. Jytdog (talk) 22:42, 4 September 2018 (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.

bias

I don't want to stir up another hornets nest, but I am concerned about the heavy weight and the apparent POV in this sentence: Foundations of Christian anti-Jewish bias in the field were also established at this time, as these critics read the Protestant emphasis on grace and faith, and opposition to Catholic "law", back into the biblical texts, and treated texts in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament accordingly, albeit under the guise of scholarly objectivity.[22] It seems to me the "foundations" of anti-semitism go much further back, that there was always an anti-Jewish contingent within Christianity, (just as there was always a pro-Jewish one), so that Christianity has always had a split and spotty record of dealing with the Jews, and this did not begin with biblical criticism. When you say "in the field" I assume you mean in the field of biblical criticism, which should be specified, and "accordingly" should be explained, and "under the guise of scholarly objectivity" is pure rhetoric. I want to support including something, but this sentence seems awfully heavy handed to me. Jenhawk777 (talk) 14:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Yep, it means "in the field". I added this because there was glowing content there about the "landmarks" achieved; landmines were laid as well and we fail NPOV if we don't discuss both. As noted in the edit note. Jytdog (talk) 08:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Oh man do I 100% agree with that! I do agree with the importance of including both the negative and the positive--you know that!! Help me with this Jytdog. One of the things another editor here commented on after reading this article was what a mess BC actually is--they say one thing then years later they contradict it--which I did try to make clear but during the 19th century, BC had achieved a reputation of infallibility, and even though much has been discredited since--no one apparently cares--the conclusions stand anyway! It's terrifically exasperating! I can't quite figure out how to say they reached a pinnacle, and many modern ideas started here, without sounding glowing. I would love to say it without glowing. Not all the ideas have stood the test of time, and it incorporated several biases--I know that and you know that. Is there a way to work what you have into the bigger picture a little? Something about BC's flaws and failures??? I do not question the reality of what you have here, but it seems both too narrowly focused and not focused enough at the same time! Does that make any sense? I am still struggling with the idea that BC began these problems. I'm thinking the scholars carried their prejudices with them, and as happens with all biases, found support for theirs in BC and the texts because that's what we do. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't where you are getting any "it started with BC" out of that content. It says very clearly "Foundations of Christian anti-Jewish bias in the field...." It doesn't lack that phrase -- if it did, it would read "Foundations of Christian anti-Jewish bias were also established...." which would indeed be absurd. Jytdog (talk) 19:49, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

It would be. But the way it's written it makes it sound like BC started anti-Jewish bias. You know what you're talking about is "in the field" but the average person has no reason to know that. I was just thinking of flipping the order around a bit to make it a little clearer to those who don't know ahead of time what you're talking about. That's all. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:27, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Karl Barth

There is a picture of Barth and a discussion him. He was very much a systematic theologian; he used some biblical criticism for sure but this is not what he is known for. I don't know that he should be mentioned, and his picture is not apppropriate in this page... Jytdog (talk) 17:52, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it's kind of a stretch to include him, but I had a miserably difficult time finding pictures I could use, so I just kind of snuck him in there... you weren't supposed to notice--but you notice everything! The picture of Bultmann was there originally, but one of the people did an image review, and it isn't sufficient apparently to have "free access" or statements of "I give permission" or whatever, there has to be copyright information and a suitable US tag or the picture has to go. I lost half my pictures because there wasn't enough information. The one pic of Bultmann is available all over the WEB and has been for about as long as there's been a web or a Wikipedia--doesn't matter--couldn't use it cuz it couldn't be validated. It isn't enough that he has been dead for 80 years, I have to know who the person who took the photo is, and if they have been dead for 80 years. This is absolutely the most maddening thing I think I have ever had to deal with in my life--including kids!  :-) I found replacements for a few but simply couldn't find others. If you're going to criticize, can you also help? Can you find a usable picture that could go anywhere in BC and maybe we can move things around?? Please? I am completely willing to remove Barth--but it needs something--so much text with no image is boring. And I am at my wit's end with this image stuff. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:36, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Something from Dead Sea Scrolls? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:39, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Hmmmm—that could work. Will search. Oh joy. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:29, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Two Dead Sea Scrolls Jars at the Jordan Museum, Amman

This one looks ok. May still need that &%¤%#¤/ US.tag, but that should be uncontroversial enough to add. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:33, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

I already have one dead sea scroll fragment up by text criticism. I awill check copyright and see if I cxan figure out a way to add a US tag, otherwise it's a no go. Thank you for trying! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:08, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Rylands Library Papyrus P52? It didn't say DSS anywhere in that article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:16, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

OMG! You're right, I am so stressed I'm not thinking straight! The Dss would be a good addition. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:54, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't look like there's any way to prove copyright on that one. I will try some of the others. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:55, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Reference Check

Per User:Jenhawk777's request, I'm checking that all the references lead where they're supposed to. In case I break something, I'm listing all the changes I made here. If anyone thinks I'm wrong on something, just revert away. I'm not at all attached to reference style, I'm just running a check because WP:FAC apparently wants one done.

First change: the reference to Graeme Bird was formatted as a web citation, but the web page it leads to simply is an online edition of a book that was published in print, so I've switched to the "book cite" format. Alephb (talk) 22:47, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

2. The reference "Seid" seemed a bit light, so I filled out some information. Possibly worth another look for whether it's exactly set up the way people want websites displayed in this article. Alephb (talk) 22:53, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

3. In the Robert Stewart reference, added a colon. Alephb (talk) 22:56, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

4. In two Muller references (currently numbered 2 and 42 in the footnotes) I changed the chapter title to uppercase for consistency with other references. There's an inconsistency still between whether the chapter title reads "16th ... 17th" or "Sixteenth ... Seventeenth", which we need to be dealt with.

That's all for tonight. I've got to deal with the non-internet world for the rest of the evening. I'll probably be able to finish this late Friday night, or else on Saturday. Alephb (talk) 23:15, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I am weeping with gratitude. I will check those Muller references and try to figure out what's best there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 23:52, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm (sort of) through reference 84. I'm fixing right away things I think I can fix right away, and leaving comments in the text (not visible to readers) where something still needs to be addressed. My goal is for the comments to not be there very long. If anyone objects to the comments, I'll pull them all out.

In the last twenty or so references, I'm realizing the scope of what I check needs to be broader, so I'll be looping back around for the first eighty-four when I'm done.

Here's what I've done so most recently. For ref 78 (Elwell, Walter) I've pulled "Encountering Biblical Studies" out of the title, as according to the title page it doesn't seem to be part of the actual book title. It looks like a series name or some such that got sucked into the Google metadata. For ref 80 (Bauckham), I've removed a hyphen not in the book title. For ref 84, Maureen Yeung, I've still got an unresolved question regarding the books "actual title" -- the Google books cover page, the title page, and the Wikipedia reference read three different things, so I've left a comment that that still needs resolution. Alephb (talk) 03:12, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and for ref 74 (Wenham), the author link was going to the wrong guy (now fixed). Alephb (talk) 03:13, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Alephb I will find 78 and fix it. I just went through and deleted all the author-links--there's only about a dozen--and couldn't save because we had an edit conflict. I will do it later. It wasn't onerous, took about twenty minutes, so I can do it. I don't know how or why I ended up with any author-links--I never fill that in on the template. It's not a requirement. Someone came through with the bot and put all those url's and that google meta data in, and I am making a wild guess but I suspect that's when those links showed up as well. The bot is what messed up reference #8 for awhile so that when you clicked on the title it went someplace other than you went if you clicked on the doi--it was weird. I never would have figured it out, but the administrator went and found when and how it had happened and notified the guy and he came back and undid that one--but look how many of these refs have those google url's now! I didn't do a one of those. Now they are saying the bot is causing problems with referencing, and they should have all been checked before being saved. I didn't save them, and I'm sure the guy who did it was just trying to help--how was he supposed to know the bot was screwed up? So that is apparently what caused a lot of the trouble--a helpful editor armed with a bot! :-) Don't worry about author-links--I will remove them. And as far as I am concerned, feel free to remove any google meta data you think might be causing a problem. Delete I say!! Delete delete delete--my favorite button! Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:39, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Ahhh--I see what you are saying, for ref 78 Encountering Biblical Studies is the name of the series the book is one of--it is in parenthesis in the center of the title on Amazon--but you were right to pull it out. It is not part of the title of that individual book. Checking 84 now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:44, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

So the title of #84 is--in English--Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison with Special Reference to 'Faith that can remove mountains' and 'Your Faith has Healed/Saved you'. Only the Germans would write that. :-) It's changed now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, crap. Here I'd been adding in Google URL's as I went along to make spot-checking easier. I was kind of thinking that pulling a Google URL out without having any reason to first believe it was experiencing problems would make the text less verifiable and generally be a bad edit. I mean -- I won't get in your way if you do it, but I was thinking it would be the kind of thing that a FAC would frown on (though I don't know much about FACs and am doing this stuff almost entirely on instinct).

As for the edit conflict, I've been burned enough times by edit conflicts that I generally don't keep an edit window open for more than three to five minutes. That way I dont' lose much work at a time. Your mileage may vary. Alephb (talk) 03:50, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

All right, I'm getting tired and will head to bed here. 85, 86, 87 looked good. 88 (Yair Hoffman) seemed a little light, so I added some information. 89, 90 looked good. I noted that 4 (Nahkola) had a capitalization anomaly and fixed it. 91 looked good. 92 (Meier), I fixed formatting to more clearly distinguish the editors from the author. 93, 94 looked good. Off to bed. Alephb (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Well I am guessing that's why the guy put them in in the first place, that he thought exactly the same thing, and if you think they are good--go for it. As you wish. You are doing the work, you do it however you damn well please!! I back you all the way. I am just passing on that Laserbrain said the bot was causing problems. I don't know anything about bots and have never used one--and as it stands now--don't plan to! If you are putting them in, that will probably not be a problem.

I have not pulled any of the url's because I have no way of knowing if they actually are a problem--and I had exactly the same thoughts about ease of access you did! However, I am pulling the author-links. I think that's the easiest way to cope with them, they are unnecessary, not all authors have them--not even the best authors all have them--and I didn't put any of them in, so--they're outta' there! Gosh I like working with you again.

Yeah, no worries over the edit conflict--happens all the time--no biggie. Sleep well. And thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:02, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I believe all the author-links in the refs are now gone. If an author has a wiki-link, I always put it in the text itself, so they are really redundant in the refs and just clog things up--so gone! Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:55, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

All the google links are now gone. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Based on what you said on my talk page, it sounds like the FAC reviewers you asked preferred the Google links gone, so I'll accept that. So that changes what I'm doing here, because a lot of what I was doing was checking the authorlinks and Google links against the citation in the article and seeing if things matched up. So now I suppose I'm just doing two things: checking if things generally look right, and checking that the DOI/ISBN links go where they're supposed to. I can probably make quicker work of that. As of last night, I'd gotten 1-94 sort of looked at, although due to things changing throughout the process, I'll want to go back and look over them again anyhow. So now I'll go through 95-the end just checking that things generally look right and the ISBN/DOI links work right, and then circle back through 1-94.

If there's anything else I should be specifically looking out for, let me know. Alephb (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Update: Ref 95 looks good. 96 (Burke O. Long) -- the citation referenced the paper as existing in the professor's archives, a set of file folders at a university library, but did not indicate that it was published in VT or when. So I changed it over to a more standard sort of journal citation. 97 looks good. 98 (Laurence W. Wood): I added the rest of the title. 98 looks good. 100: I added the rest of the title.

101 (Daniel Harrington). The citation says 1990; the ISBN seems to lead to a 1979 edition. The Google Books scan indicated that the 1990 publication is a reprint of an earlier 1979 edition. So the 1979 original publication has the ISBN 978-0-8146-5124-7, while the 1990 reprint has the ISBN 0-8146-5124-0. There were two uses of the reference in the article. The first reference lead to pages 96-97, which I checked against the 1990 version and found that it matched. The second reference lead to pages 96-108, which also seemed to match the 1990 edition. So the reference should be to the 1990 reprint, I think, so I changed the ISBN # accordingly, and added the orig-year item to the reference so that the reader can see that the 1990 print is a reprint. Alephb (talk) 18:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Wow. That description actually made me physically shudder. Another reviewer added two references in an image without formatting them like the rest, 122 and 123, so I fixed those last night--I hope. I have previously gone through and made sure all the isbns are 13 digit--what a huge pain that was--and I think between us we have caught all the capitalization differences. It seems to me that I remember being taught to write out chapter headings the way the author did, but with Wiki having everything visible on one page, I can kind of sort of understand why they care about it all looking the same. Now that the links are gone, all that really matters is that the pages referenced actually go to what the article references. That's an awful lot of back and forthing. It made me nuts. Maybe that part shouldn't be on you--so long as pages are there and are accessible--I should be the one to check content. I have to go now. I have sobbing and weeping and moaning to do. Busy busy. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:13, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I think there could be a horror movie about a Wikipedia editor slowly losing her grip on reality during an FAC. As a clearly insane editor with bloodshot eyes frantically tries to fix things for a FAC, a low and foreboding voice-over could read, The citations says 1990, while the ISBN seems to lead to a 1979 edition. The Google books scan ...

Aw, crap. The ISBN's all have to be 13-digit? Does that mean they all have to include a 978 prefix? Because I might have broken that on a couple as I was fixing some ISBN edition issues. Alephb (talk) 19:49, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I can't stop laughing long enough to type! I read that one out loud to my husband! OMG! Thank you. I went round the bend some time back... :-)

Yes the isbn's have to be alike--but you can't change them till after you input them anyway, so it's a three step process to get them that way--don't worry about it, all you did was step one. And I know how to do this one! I have done it so many times now I can do it in my dreams--uhmmm--my nightmares... I will take care of that. You are doing the hard stuff. Put them in as you find them and I will follow behind you and convert them. I learned the hard way that the converted isbn's don't all go where they're supposed to either--so they all have to checked after they're changed. Isn't this fun? Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:08, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Goodness. FAC is even nitpickier than I am. In my mind, if they work and they're identical to the ISBN as displayed in the book itself, that would be good enough. I guess I must not actually be the most anal-retentive person on the internet. Alephb (talk) 21:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Nowhere close my friend. You are the laid back one. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:42, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm running into a little bit of a dead end on reference 125. It's currently got the names of the editors, Cross and Livingstone, but I don't know which entry is on the cited page (779), or who the author is. I've unexpectedly got a sister in town, so I'm calling it a day. I'll be back at this some time tomorrow afternoon. Alephb (talk) 23:06, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

A Somewhat Snarly Quote issue

I figured I'd comment this as its own separate section because there's sort of multiple problems jammed together here and it likely has implications for how other reference issues should be handled.

The issue is in the section "Major methods of criticis sub-section "Form criticism", sub-sub-section "Redaction criticism". There, an unnamed source is quoted as saying that redaction criticism "provides a corrective to the methodological imbalance of form criticism". At the end of that sentence, there are two different citations: one to ref 103 Soulen and Soulen, and one to ref 101 Harrington.

The quote itself is from Soulen and Soulen. The reference to the Soulen and Soulen, fourth edition, where the Google Books allows me to confirm that the quote exists but does not allow me to see the page that it is on. So the first issue is making sure that a reader can see which source the quote is from. Now, of the two references (Soulen&Soulen and Harrington), Soulen&Soulen is cited first, but I don't know if that's enough to show which reference the quote is from. Presumably Harrington provides supporting information but not an exactly quote. So my instinct would be to add the words "Quote in" to the beginning of the Soulen&Soulen ref and "See also" to the beginning of the Harrington ref.

The second issue is that the Soulen&Soulen ref is to pages 158-160 of the Soulen&Soulen source, and of course a tiny little quote like this one won't be scattered across three pages. Again, I'm not sure if this is a real problem or I'm just being nitpicky, but it would seem good to indicate the exact page the quote is on. However, I can't tell from the Google Books of the fourth edition (2011) of Soulen&Soulen as currently cited. But there is a first edition (2001) of Soulen&Soulen visible on Google Books, where I can clearly tell that the quote is on page 159. So I'm thinking maybe I could just cite the Soulen&Soulen 2001 source, page 159, unless you think the whole 158-160 range should be included for some reason. Alephb (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

You're instincts are right on target again--go with the 2001 and page 159. I have the bad habit of thinking everyone else will find all of this as interesting as I do--all three people out there--so I include the whole discussion, thinking they will actually want to read it all if they take the time to look it up--so I include ALL the pages when the reviewer just wants to know where the frickin' quote is. I like the whole "quote in" and "see also" idea too--I didn't know that could be done. Where do you put it in the template? In the quote space? I have never written anything in that space before! So that seems like a great idea.

You will find the Soulen and Soulen Third Edition is referenced too. There was some stuff accessible in one and not the other. I don't remember using the first Edition--but obviously I must have, trying to run something to ground that was just out of reach in other additions. It's also possible to see different things on Amazon than google--isn't that weird? And that can really screw things up because half the time it's the paperback edition which has different pages and isbn. Oh the joys of reference Hell. I am feeling the heat! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:24, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

All reference reviewers are nit-picky. I don't think you can be too much so in this. It has to survive review by others who love orderly details as much as you do--which is not me. I totally respect those of you who can--and will--do this kind of close careful work--and I thank the good Lord I am all the way at the other end! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:31, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Hrmm. The 2001 Soulen&Soulen seems to be the third edition, not first. For "quote in" and "see also", you'd put that outside of, and immediately before, the citation template, while inside the ref tags. I'll go ahead and put "Quote in" and "See also" in to both of them, so you can look at how the formatting would work, and then I'll take it back out if you don't like it that way. Alephb (talk) 19:52, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

The "Quote in" worked but the see also showed up in the text not the ref. I am going to look at what you did differently so I can learn--don't fix it--let me see if I can. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Nope. I'm clueless. I think maybe it isn't possible when using the name only reference--there's just nowhere to put it that doesn't create other issues. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:01, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

What's going on here is that because it's a name only reference, that is cited in two different places, you'd actually need to split things up so that there's two different Harrington references; one with and one without the "see also" wording. I'll do that now.

I'm not sure if that explanation makes sense. I'll go ahead and fix this one myself now -- maybe looking at the edit summary I'm about to create will help.Alephb (talk) 21:06, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I think I get it. Normally if you give a full citation of the same book in two places you get the pretty red ERROR ERROR that so brightens up everyone's life. But the fact one has "See also" in it makes it just enough different that the software accepts it. Is that right? Hey, you really made things sound bad at the FAC--are the refs really all bad like that? I'm crushed. They'll archive it for sure. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Yep. I think you get the "See also" problem just fine.

I would bet that more than half the existing refs have something that needs to be fixed. It's not "bad" in the sense of being an article that will actually take creative thought or rewriting to fix at this point. It's one of the finest Wikipedia articles in the Bible-related space I've seen. It's well-written, it's extremely well-referenced (in the sense that everything is backed up in clearly verifiable sources). It's just got loads and loads of little technical issues. I'm really hoping you're willing to revive the darned thing after I fix all the references, because I'm likely looking at another 10-15 hours of computer time to get all the references correct. Alephb (talk) 21:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

More than half. Well. If you can endure, then I will too. If you do all this nit-picky work, I will make sure it gets through FAC. I may have to bribe someone. How many images of good wine do you think it would take? Or you can nominate it yourself you know! :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I've kind of scrolled through some of the FAC conversations, though it's very detailed and a lot of it has already been addressed. Generally speaking, are they basically in agreement that the article is good to go other than the referencing issues? Alephb (talk) 21:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Axl is the only other reviewer right now and he is down in contemporary methods and may be done today or tomorrow I am guessing. I am thinking they have been waiting for him to finish--not wanting to archive it in the middle of his review. (I am hoping he will support--but you never know. The only oppose so far is over the references and apparently justly so. But otherwise all the "votes" are in support, so yes, I would say it is good to go when the refs are all good. Images have been reviewed--that was torturous--prose has been reviewed three times, content has been reviewed, so that's it. The refs are the only obstacle.) They said we could have some more time, but they are concerned with how long this has been open as well. They are concerned that fixing the refs will take so much longer that it shouldn't be left open.

It has been very slow to get people willing to review it. It's an obscure field--and complicated--although I worked hard at simplifying complex ideas--still--some of it is just difficult. And the article is very long. Maybe 8 people have shown up altogether in that entire two months--all 8 of the people in the world who care about this subject! The admins left it up and left it up in an effort to help it, I think, to give people time to show up, but I guess there are limits. I don't really know. I just know the refs are the issue--they have to all be 100% right--and not being perfect is enough to fail it; yes it's all nit-picky stuff, but that's part of what makes an FA--the torture required to get there. I have endured it all--so far. With your help, perhaps I will actually get to see this through to the end. Then I will never, never do it again. :-) Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:14, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Okay, so there's seven people who support making it FA and just one citation-related oppose? Does these things have to be unanimous? Alephb (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

They don't have to be unanimous, and one oppose might not be a problem normally, but it depends what the oppose is, as to how much weight it carries,and since this oppose is about references, it's a big enough deal it will kill it--all by itself if they aren't fixed--hence my panicked appeal to you. No matter how many times I go over them, I have no confidence at all that I would ever--ever--get them all right. You however, U I have complete confidence in. So what's the matter with 125 and 128? They look alright--do they not accurately reflect content? Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:54, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

ref#125, Cross, type in historical Jesus, p.779, 1st paragraph; ref#128, Sanders, type in know a lot, p.5, get quote center of page Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:04, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

All right. So I've got the entry title now for 125, but is Cross the actual author of that entry. I believe there's quite a few contributors? I'm not seeing anything that clearly shows who wrote each article. For 128, the problem is that this article has the Sanders book being from 1993, while Amazon says 1995 and Google Books says 1996. I'm not having any success getting into the Sanders book, so I don't know which edition we're actually using.

Lord God above this is so annoying! I went to find Cross--which I swear on all that is Holy was there when I researched it--and now, neither Google nor Amazon will show me those pages. So I dumped it and found another source. There's a gazillion of them on the historical Jesus, so if this one has any problems I'll do it again, and again, till I find one that can be dependably seen! It is now J. A. McGuckin. I had to redo a little text--so he better not disappear on me! I do not understand how that happens. I'm sure it is somehow my fault. The date for Sander's book is correct in the ref--it is in fact 1993. You may be getting different dates because the one I could actually see pages in was on Amazon and it is the paperback version--but the isbn still worked. The quote is there on page 5. So I think that one's good. Thank you thank you! Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:16, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

An Agonizingly Detailed New Pass

All right. So, in light of our most recent talks, User:Jenhawk777, it looks like more detailed work is needed, all through the references, one by one wherever a sourcing issue occurs. In the spirit of "ignore all rules", if no one objects, I think this particular section of the talk page should be managed in a manner a little bit different from the others. I propose we organize it as a series of sub-sections, hopefully mostly very short, each devoted to one particular reference. Because the reference numbers move a bit as we fix things, I'm thinking let's organize all the sub-headers here alphabetically by the name of the person cited. When a section is resolved to your satisfaction, just let me know and I'll strike through everything in that sub-section. Hopefully no one will object to organizing this particular section of the talk page this way. If anyone does, we'll figure something out.

I figure I'll just start with reference 29, work through to the end, and then do 1-28. As long as there's something standing in this section and you're willing to keep plugging away, I'll keep adding stuff. If you get tired of the whole exercise and want to stop, I'll stop. I'll follow your lead on this bit. Alephb (talk) 23:45, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned you can do anything you want. You are king of Wikipedia in my book.Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Clements (32)

[Johannes Weiss (1863–1914) is associated with the history of religions school]'s concern for Near Eastern religion.[32]:1026–1028

Wikitext: Clements, R. E. (2007). "Weiss, Johannes". [In McKim, Donald K. Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters. Downer's Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-2927-9.]

Comment: I've been able to confirm that Johannes Weiss is broadly associated with the history of religions' school's interest in Judaism's relation to Christianity. Whether he had anything to do with "Near Eastern religion" more broadly I've not been able to confirm, but perhaps that is on page 1027, which I was not lucky enough to access.

That particular statement is on page 161 of Soulen's Handbook of Biblical Criticism (3rd ed) [1] at Religionsgeschichtliche Schule

"His continued importance for NT study is reflected in the republication of his major works in Germany (1962-66) and ,,, by situating (ancient Israel, Judaism, and early Christianity) within the history of ancient Near Eastern religions generally." I will change it. I changed it originally because you can't see page 161 when you google the book, but once again, if you google the phrase, "Johann Weiss and near eastern religion", you can.

You know it's not that significant a point really. I think I will change content a little--it's simpler for me. Okay--so I sort of reworked that paragraph and added a reference. It's good and the page is right I swear! I was careful! Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Renan (31)

Wikitext:  Ernst Renan (1823–1892) promoted the critical method and was opposed to orthodoxy.[31]

Citation: Wardman, Harold W. "Ernest Renan". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 11 July 2018.

Comments: Added "Online edition" just to clarify, because there's been so many Encyclopaedia Britannica's. Everything else looks fine. Alephb (talk) 01:36, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Rollmann (30)

Wikitext: William Wrede [(1859–1906)] was a forerunner of redaction criticism.[30]:1056–1059

Citation: [Rollmann, H. (2007).] ["Wrede, William".] [In McKim, Donald K. Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters.] [Downer's Grove, Illinois]: [InterVarsity Press]. ISBN 978-0-8308-2927-9.

Comments: I wasn't able to substantiate (possibly due to not having all the pages at my disposal, that Wrede was indeed a forerunner of redaction criticism. However, I did find words to that effect on page 901 of this edited volume, on page 901 in the article about Albert Schweitzer. However, I'm afraid I'm not sure who wrote that particular article in this dictionary, because I can't see the page where the article ends. Alephb (talk) 00:06, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

It's on page 1058, right hand column, last line in the upper paragraph. I changed the page # to 1058 in the article ref. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Rumsheidt (29)

Wikitext: Adolf Von Harnack (1851–1930) contributed to the study of Jesus in history and was opposed by German Protestantism his entire life, though his purpose was to provide a scholarly, scientific basis for Christianity.[29]:399,491–495

Citation: Rumsheidt, H. M. (1998). "Harnack, Adolf von". In McKim, Donald K. Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters. Downer's Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-1452-7.

Comments: I read the source material, except for page 494, which I couldn't pull up.

There's a fairly close bit of paraphrase, where the original quote says (494) "Harnack set out to provide a scholarly, scientific foundation for Christianity". I'll leave it to you to judge if the wording is too close.

Is there perhaps a bit of a value judgment hidden in the word "though", as though the author finds it suprising that someone seeking to find a "scholarly, scientific basis for Christianity" would be opposed by the German Prot church? It sounds to me like Wikipedia is almost telling us that there was something unjust or surprising in the Protestant opposition to Harnack. And yet the rest of the Rumsheidt citation talks about how Harnack was opposed to the Old Testament as a part of the canon and disliked the creed. It wouldn't seem surprising in that way at all that he was opposed.

It was just a convenient connector. I don't remember reading that! You're right. It's gone. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

There's also a problem with who the cited author is. For pages 491-495, the chapter is indeed Rumsheidt, and the chapter title is indeed "Harnack, Adolf von". But page 399, also cited, is from another chapter, "Zahn, Theodor", which is by A. J. Bandstra. If we want to include the material from page 399, we'd need to make up a seperate citation for Bandstra.

Page 399 is now gone. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I didn't see anything in the pages I read to substantiate the claim that Harnack "contributed to the study of Jesus in history", although perhaps that's on page 493. Alephb (talk) 23:45, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I know all these guys in this paragraph are associated with the quest for the historical Jesus. So I changed content to reflect that better. But it's in a different book--so I had to change the reference too. Rumsheidt is now gone and replaced with Holmberg. It's good--all the capitals are right, everything's okay with it-- I'm certain. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I have to say I am a bit relieved to hear you call this "agonizingly detailed." I had begun to think badly of myself for having such a problem with this--but if it's agonizing for you--I know it's just honestly agonizing, period. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Reference Check -- First Pass Complete

I've made my first pass through all 152 references. I think we're in pretty good shape on 95-152. 1-94, however, I went through just looking to see if links went to the right place. I'll run back through 1-94 now casting a somewhat broader net. Alephb (talk) 03:30, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

You're brilliant--and kind and good. What else can I say? Thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:55, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

On the second pass through 1-94, I've now covered 1-28. That leaves me about 66 to go for reference formatting. However, somewhat more alarming is that, even though "checking and making sure the stuff cited is on the actual page claimed" is outside of what I'm mostly looking for, nevertheless I've stumbled already on three places where the material isn't where the citation says it is. That's the Benedict Spinoza citation (where there was also some mild misquoting), the citation to McKim's Historical Handbook that about Johann Salomo Semler (where the book's title was wrong by two words), and the New Testament as Canon citation, where there was also a problem with the page numbers.

I'm not sure how big this problem would turn out to be if someone systematically checked all the cited page numbers to make sure they actually support the sentences they're attached to. Alephb (talk) 22:13, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

That's what I thought you were doing. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:52, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

The problem with Spinoza is that it was originally quoted from a different book and was altered because of a different issue. I will go back and find what I need to fix these. You must not feel as though you need to try and do that--it's enough that you found them and told me. I will take care of it. Thank you Aleph. I am grateful to have issues found and identified. It cuts the problem down to a manageable size for me. I can cope with this--it was going through them all all over again I just couldn't do for the fourth time. This is perfect. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:04, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I think I found the problem with Spinoza--it's a reprint of the classic and you have to find exactly the right one--so I found one with an isbn, and I altered the date and publisher--then I removed the miquoted quote and replaced it with alternate text that accurately reflects what's on the page referenced. The page numbers are now correct for that particular book.

There is no McKim reference to Semler that I can find. The Semler ref in the next paragraph (after Spinoza) is David R. Law. Once again, neither Google nor Amazon would let me see those pages, but I decided to type in "Semler father of historical research" instead, and lo and behold the book comes up and it's page 43 and there's the whole discussion--you can't see it when you just look for the book but you can see it when you look for the phrase. How maddening is that? Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:51, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I can't find the New Testament as canon. Can you give me a number? Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:56, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

All right. So, to take the outstanding issues one by one: the translation date (1900) has now disappeared from the Benedict Spinoza citation (currently #1). I'm pretty sure we've got to have that in there in some form or another. I suspect you've picked up some form of Google-fu I don't have. How did you access the contents of that new 2017 reprint you're now citing?

Haha! Google-fu! Okay, I will own that one. You are the king of the trolls and great at referencing and all that highly detailed technical stuff, but I am pretty okay at research itself. I follow the trail--wherever it leads--sometimes for hours on end. :-)

Okay--the original date was wrong. This is a reprint of the translated edition--not the original work by Spinoza--so it is 1884. It's correct now. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

For the Semler article, all you've got to do is Ctrl+F from the Biblical criticism (or command+F if you're a Mac User) and type in Salomo. This will take you to (#14), a contribution to McKim's Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreter's, contribution by Rollman. The stuff there was cited to pp. 348-349, which I corrected to pp. 358-359.

Thank you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

For the "New Testament as Canon" one, all you've got to do is Ctrl+F "New Testament as Canon", and it takes you to reference #111, James Sanders. That one was cited as pages 1-10, when it fact the material referenced was on pages 7-11. Alephb (talk) 22:27, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:29, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Alephb I don't know whether to laugh or cry or cheer--I got online tonight fully expecting you to say you never wanted to hear from me again. I wouldn't have blamed you for a second. Aleph. I don't know what to say. I am completely overcome. Jenhawk777 (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Textual Criticism of the Old Testament

The article states at one point that the Masoretic Text (MT) is the basis for the "Christian Old Testament." This is only partially true. While it is broadly the basis for the Protestant Old Testament (OT), both the Orthodox Church and Catholic Church use OT forms that differ from the MT. The Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint, and the Catholic church broadly uses the Vulgate, which was based on Proto-MT manuscripts. The difference is more clear in the deutero-canonical books, which the MT does not contain. It would be more accurate to say that the MT is the dominant form of the OT in Biblical Studies. Rpward (talk) 03:11, 2 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rpward (talk • contribs) 03:09, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Using {{rp}} for references that are only used once

@Jenhawk777: This article seems to use {{rp}} (with ref name) every time that a page number is referenced (over 200 times), even for references that are only used once. I don't think this is how {{rp}} is meant to be used. The page on {{rp}} states:

"This is a relatively uncommon method of citing page numbers, usually used when other methods produce undesirable results. It is used in about one out of every 300 articles at the English Wikipedia... Use this template when you are referring to specific pages within a source which is cited many times in the same article." [emphasis mine]

Is there any reason not to just include the page in the citation as is usually done?Yaakovaryeh (talk) 06:31, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I use {{rp}} a lot when citing one book multiple times. But for just a single reference I'm unlikely to use again, this is an inelegant solution, and really makes this page harder to view. Unless there's a very good reason for doing it this way, I'd support changing the majority to including the page(s) within the citation itself, and removing the rp templates. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:21, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Nick Moyes, thanx for the interest. There are two problems with this: first, one would have to know ahead of time that the reference was only going to be used once. I started using the rp reference style because I asked on Teahouse what the best way to reference different pages from the same reference was and this is what I was told to do. Otherwise, one has to create a separate reference for every page. That ends up misleading on how many times a ref is used and makes the ref list larger than it actually is. Second, when I started putting this through FA--which I never completed as I left WP for awhile from some unpleasantness, the reviewers said my referencing should be consistent throughout.

Changing this now would require going back through this entire long, long article, checking every ref to see if it's used more than once, and making some look different from others, which could potentially be confusing and look weird. I will grant you that having the page numbers stuck out there like rp does is not the best look, but it does seem as if options are limited. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:33, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Jenhawk777, glad you're still around/back. First of all, thank you for all the effort you put into bringing this to GA, and now I see almost FA status (perhaps we can get that process finished now that you're back). As far as the first issue, one can just include the page in the reference as is normal, and then pretty easily change it if the reference is used again. For the second issue, I agree and use {{rp}} extensively myself to merge sources that are used multiple times with different pages, which is what {{rp}} is for; however, the issue I'm raising is about its use on single use sources where it serves no purpose.

As far as the reasoning about lack of usage resulting in the article being "misleading on how many times a ref is used and makes the ref list larger than it actually is." This reasoning only applies to sources that are used multiple times. As an aside, I don't think that these are the reasons for combining/naming references, as the more commonly used solution recommended for citing multiple pages of the same source is short citations in footnotes, which does not address/help for either of those two reasons. Rather, the purpose of combining citations is to reduce clutter from having the full citation written out each time, which again only applies to sources cited multiple times.

Regarding consistency, the issue of consistency raised in the FAC was "In some entries information that is usually included is missing; some entries for books aren't capitalized; individual studies are sometimes capitalized and sometimes not date formats are inconsistent; notable authors are not always linked". There is no consistency issue with using {{rp}} only for repeated citations, as that's the way it is meant to be used (as I quoted from the template page). I don't think I've ever seen a page that uses {{rp}} for every citation (which is what prompted me to raise this issue). (Perhaps you're thinking of the issue raised in the GA review page), but that was more of an issue with using both rp & internal page reference in the same reference, which created redundancy. There is no issue with using rp just for sources used multiple times, in fact that is what it is made for. (The issue that I'm raising about rp was also alluded to in that comment, but it was not the comments main point.)

The biggest issue is time, but using ctrl F, C, and V can speed it up, and I'd be willing to start working on it. But now that I see that this article is so close to reaching FA status, I'm also interested in what needs to be done to get there. (BTW, I noticed that the source for fn 8 has been retracted recently due to plagiarism.)Yaakovaryeh (talk) 03:23, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yaakovaryeh: Thank you, I am glad to be back as well. I am having a much better experience this time. I am not sure I followed all that you said, but if you want to work on cleaning up references, I say more power to you. Go for it! I was still pretty new to WP when I worked on this one and didn't know all the rules. I was told the ISBNs all had to be in the same 13 digit format, and they wanted the google urls for every book I looked at, and don't get me started on the images! Everything was supposed to be the same. So that's what I did--I even went back and added some of those rps! You do whatever you feel is right, and I'm with you.

I knew at the time that ref.8 had been plagiarized and thought I had referenced the original article instead: [2]. It's Brazillian--the guys from India just took it and put their names on it--but it's also available in an English PDF: [3]. It would be great to see that fixed. My only explanation is that I was a little frazzled by the time I left here in the middle of this FA--well--more like complete collapse. I was being harassed, but he's gone now. He's been banned for a year and then he can reapply to come back. If he returns, I'll probably leave again. In the meantime, I pretty much only have bad memories of this page. I worked really hard on it for a long time--months--but the idea of coming back to it now makes my stomach queasy. If you can finish cleaning it up and take it FA, that would be awesome and amazing--especially if you can do it without me. Well, I will help if I can. At least I'll have good thoughts for you. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:01, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yaakovaryeh: Okay, I was gone for two years, avoided WP that whole time, and even avoided this article since I returned here recently. You have prompted me to look at it again, and I want to thank you for that. I wouldn't have come back, maybe ever, if you hadn't written me. Reading over it made me proud of the work I did. You're 100% right that it should have its problems fixed and go FA. So I will help. I will start on the references today. It's possible to see in the ref list which ones are only referenced once, so I will begin putting page numbers inside those refs where they should be. Anything else you see, please go ahead and fix! I appreciate collaboration. It makes WP better and will definitely improve this article. When you think this is good enough, I hope you will see fit to renominate. Thank you again for caring about making WP better and for caring about this article and for including me in that. I am genuinely grateful. Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I beat you to it. The {{Rp}} are gone except where needed. Some minor issues you might know about:

• The Willey cite (119) already had |pages=615–618 in the cite template but also had {{Rp|615}}. I assume the 615–618 was for the whole chapter and that 615 was the more specific, so I changed the cite to |page=615. I left a commented-out |chapter-pages=615–618 for when/if that feature gets added to the cite templates (there's a recent discussion about it somewhere).
• Similarly, the Schnell cite (95) had |pages=177–194, which I assume is the whole journal article. I migrated the {{Rp|182}} to |page=182 and left a commented-out |article-pages=177–194.
• The Levenson cite (142) had {{Rp|42,42,82,83}}. Was one of the 42s supposed to be something else? I went with |pages=42,82,83.

—[AlanM1 (talk)]— 01:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I have no experience with getting articles to FA status, so I'm not sure I feel competent to determine at what point it's "good enough" to renominate. I was hoping you could kind of lead the way by letting me know what needs to be done, and I could help with the 'grunt work' like fixing the issue that I brought up (which it appears AlanM1 has already taken care of).Yaakovaryeh (talk) 03:25, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1 Hello ol' buddy ol' pal as they say in the Bedford Falls bar--what movie?? I love movie quotes! You are a marvel! Thank you! I went back and checked each of these, and can now say your instincts are amazing.

• The Willey cite is exactly as you thought. Trible has her own little chapter but the one page has what's referred to.
• I have to say, I can no longer locate The Schnell book, I can only locate references to it within other books. I will have to check content for other sources on this one. I'll be back!

Yes! The Levenson cite was supposed to read pages 42 and 43 as well as 82 and 83, but page 43 and 83 basically reference the same quote from Schechter so it doesn't really matter. Alan I know you begged off on content last time I asked for a review, but if you could give this one the technical once over, I would still deeply appreciate that. Thankk you! Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yaakovaryeh: Yep, Alan rocks doesn't he? It's okay, I don't blame you for a second for backing off. I knew nothing about FA when I nominated this--had only ever had one GA review and expected something similar. It was more like being put through a meat grinder. They did keep telling me that this wasn't like most FA articles which have a more concise topic. I think the problem is more along the lines of this not being a highly understood--or respected--field I'm afraid. It's mine though, for better and worse, so if it gets nominated again, it should probably be by me. I will have to really work up my courage for that one! Thanx again for bringing me back here. I'm glad you did. Good luck out there! Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I'm not backing off, I'm just saying that I don't think I'm qualified to determine when it's ready for renomination, but I would love to do what I can, time permitting. If you're reluctant to renominate it, I can read up on the requirements for FA status and all the details from last nomination. I just thought that you would be more qualified (and deserve the honor of doing so).

I just made an edit merging some sources, if you could double check it for errors that would be great. I removed the sentence about DH also being called the Graf–Wellhausen hypothesis, because it didn't seem to be supported by the source (if anything, the source seemed to contradict that notion by referring to Graf–Wellhausen hypothesis as the "new documentary hypothesis"). Subsequently I found it in another source. So now I'm wondering whether I should add it back. Is it even a detail that's worth adding back? Yaakovaryeh (talk) 05:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yaakovaryeh It seems my phrasing might have offended you, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything beyond you having better sense than I did. I am no more qualified than anyone else when it comes to knowledge of FA. I tend to jump in and then worry about that kind of thing after the fact. Hence the meat grinder.

Yes, definitely put Graf-Wellhausen back. If someone has heard of it by that title, then they will look for it here. Multiple names can be confusing, and having them all referenced where someone can see what they refer to is important--at least as important as anything else.

All these details are tedious, but this is a heavily detailed and often pretty complex subject. Most people have no appreciation of how much this is like boiling down physics for kids. I'm glad you have taken an interest. I usually feel pretty alone out here on this limb. Jenhawk777 (talk) 08:00, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Jenhawk777 No offence taken, just wanted to clarify that I'm not giving up on this. I think having gone thru the GA & much of the FA process makes you more experienced and thus qualified than me. Additionally, I surmise that you're actually an academic in the field whereas I have no formal academic training in the field (I've read James Kugel's How to read the Bible, taken an online intro course by Christine Hayes (thru Yale University), read articles on Thetorah.com, and am pretty fluent in biblical hebrew; but that is a far cry from real academic training in the field). I do tend to try to avoid jumping in before I know what I'm getting into, and unfortunately, that often prevents me from jumping in at all, so not necessarily a good thing.

When I put back the sentence about DH also being called the Graf–Wellhausen hypothesis should I use the original source or the other source (pg 23 fn 10) that I found. The former seemed to me to not support (and in fact contradict) the claim, but perhaps I misunderstood it.?.Yaakovaryeh (talk) 08:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yaakovaryeh I have an undergraduate degree in religion, one in philosophy and a masters in ethics. I went to a little state college and Vanderbilt. I am retired and have lots of time and the inclination to write for the public since I feel there is too much ignorance and bias in the area of religion. I am interested in church history, and though I had a limited number of classes in it, I still read a good bit in that area too. I am interested in all things about Christianity and am delighted to find someone who shares it. I concede to your reasoning about qualification.

I trust your judgment on which source to use. If you have found one you think better reflects the claim, then by all means use it. WP is a collaboration. You have every right to put into this article whatever you feel is appropriate. This article does not belong to me, it belongs to all of us, including you. BTW, I am not at all even competent in Hebrew, so I may call on you for help with that, if that's okay. And don't worry. I watch this page, and if you do something I disagree with, I will contact you here and explain why. Good luck out there. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1 Thanx to you I have now checked content of Schnell and can verify that page 182 is correct. Should this reference include the url to the PDF since it is not otherwise accessible? Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:03, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: No, that was just for your private use, as it's copyrighted material. I'll remove it if you're done with it. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:05, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1 Remove it as a source in the article? I guess that explains why I couldn't find it! Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:07, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: No, I meant the Google Drive link I sent you should not be added to the cite. The JSTOR link in the cite should be sufficient for access (by those who have JSTOR access) unless you find an alternative source. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I found and added the URL to the (freely-accessible) original source of the journal. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1 And that's why you are the best. Thank you! I got sidetracked here trying to look up a quote about Matthew Tindal and the effects of his deistic views. I found a quotable source----but can't access the content so I have posted a request for access at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request Keep your fingers crossed for me that they can help!

References

Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

AlanM1Yaakovaryeh YAY! They found the reference for me! I have now fixed all the tags and I think the refs are in good shape. Now I am thinking of adding a paragraph in responses because I don't have anything on its legacy. Should that be separate? What do you guys think? Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Jenhawk777 What do you mean by legacy? If you mean more contemporary, that sounds good. There's a great quote from the Catholic church and if you need, I can help with the Jewish side. Not a strong preference on separate vs not, I can hear making it a subsection.

However, in that section, I don't think it's accurate to say that "Yehezkel Kaufmann was the first Jewish scholar to appreciate fully the import of higher criticism." The very founder of biblical criticism was Baruch Spinoza. Additionally, there were members of the Wissenschaft des Judentums who dealt with higher criticism long before Kaufmann was born (ex. Leopold Zunz, Nachman Krochmal, Abraham Geiger, Heinrich Graetz, and Samuel David Luzzatto. There was also, Marcus Kalisch and even Julian Morgenstern who came before (or at-least the same time as) Kaufmann.

Additionally, in the lead, I was thinking perhaps it should be emphasized that biblical criticism is not about criticizing the Bible (As is done for example in the third sentence of the Oxford entry).

Finally, perhaps the article should have sections on Historical criticism, Linguistic criticism, tradition criticism. Yaakovaryeh (talk) 08:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Yaakovaryeh By legacy I mean the ongoing impact and effect of bc and its various conclusions. Some of it is already here in the contemporary section where it speaks of the reaction of fundamentalism and so on, and the response of the Catholics feeling that scripture had been taken from them, but there is nothing about the impact on biblical authority and the impact it has had in the secular world. I have a quote from Northrop Frye about how the Bible was the central fact of western culture for centuries and how it has been replaced by science and humanism and how bc contributed to that by undermining faith in it. I have some counter-quotes as well and some on how it has changed our perception of it but actually deepened appreciation as well. It seemed notable enough to mention--maybe. The Jewish perspective would be wonderful. I will check out the Catholic ref you have here and get back to you. Perhaps we should write something together either in a sandbox or even here on the talk page, so others can kick in their two cents as well. . It seems like it might be a decent paragraph to stick at the end of all of this.

As to Yehezkel Kaufmann: I haven't checked yet, and I will, but as I recall, that was the claim made in the source. Spinoza is mentioned at the beginning in the history section, and this is the contemporary section, so he doesn't belong here. These are all contemporary by definition of being in this section, but I will go and add 'contemporary' to the reference about Kaufman just to be sure that's clear. We'll see if it seems redundant or not once it's in there. But I do think you should go add those names in the history section in their appropriate time frame. I find that interesting that they were left out of the sources from Oxford and the rest--why aren't they there? They should be there, and they should most definitely be here. Please do add them. Have good sources--don't reference a blog--but another encyclopedia is acceptable. I would go to google scholar and just put in their names and see what kind of references you can find and what they say. Get some good quotes about what they did, what kind of impact they had, or what particular insights or views they promulgated, and why it matters to bc. I'm excited about this!

The lede: There is a line right at the top of the page that says: This article is about the academic treatment of the Bible as a historical document. For criticisms made against the Bible as a source of reliable information or ethical guidance, see Criticism of the Bible. The lede is only a summary of what is in the article itself, and there is no discussion of that in the article--it would be off topic--so I think that statement is sufficient. Besides, bc does in fact criticize the Bible in many ways--hence the concern over including the effects of that in a discussion of its legacy.

Possible additions: We could add historical in the contemporary section. All bc used to be historical criticism, but since bc has now transformed into so many other contemporary literary approaches, historical criticism has broken off as a separate type of its own. I knew that, but I guess I didn't feel it was notable enough to include as a separate type since it's kind of a continuation of what bc has always been. Still, it might be worth a line or two. How about writing something up? Where would you put it?

Linguistic criticism is actually a method, not so much a type of criticism, however, it is the oldest method of textual criticism. It is sort of obliquely referred to in that section, but probably does deserve to be named there as such. If you have a source, please go add a sentence--or two at most--saying that and explaining it very briefly. If you don't have a source, I can do it. Let me know.

I went back and forth on including tradition criticism. It was one of the originating concepts of form criticism, and since that idea has been so effectively undermined by later scholarship--see the discussion of finding oral laws in scripture--I opted not to muddy the waters by including what amounted to a biblical dead end. If you disagree, as there are other dead ends mentioned in history, write out what you would like to include, and let's see if we can come to some kind of compromise on it.

Thank you for all of this! Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I added 'contemporary' and new historical criticism.Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

The legacy stuff sounds goods. You are right about the source saying that Yehezkel Kaufmann was the first Jewish scholar to appreciate fully the import of higher criticism, I was just questioning the accuracy of it. He was definitely one of the first Jews after Spinoza to significantly contribute to modern biblical scholarship, I'm just uncomfortable with the wording "the first Jewish scholar to appreciate fully the import of higher criticism". IIRC, even the source tempers/prefecas with the claim with a "probably".

Of course, I agree that Spinoza doesn't belong in that section, I was just bringing him (and others) as counterexamples to the claim that Kaufmann was "the first Jewish scholar to appreciate fully the import of higher criticism".

Adding contemporary definitely helps with respect to Spinoza; however, as I mentioned, there were others in the 19th cent. Kaufman's thesis may have had more of an impact on the field than those I mentioned, but I just don't see how it can be definitely stated that he was "the first Jewish scholar to appreciate fully the import of higher criticism." Perhaps the sentence should be prefaced with something like 'According to Sommer Kaufmann may have been...' or replace "first" with "one of the first"?

As far as listing the names of those I mentioned, at least one of the names that I mentioned are already in the article. In fact, the very paragraph in question starts off by mentioning that Kalisch was "The first contemporary historical-critical Jewish scholar of Pentateuchal studies" (which makes the sentence about Kaufman all the more troubling - are we to believe that Kalisch did not "appreciate fully the import of higher criticism"?). As far as the rest are concerned, I don't think they really need to be mentioned since they were not all that influential in shaping the field. An encyclopedia entry summarizing the topic cannot mention every single Bible scholar that has ever lived. (Of course the fact that they did not have as much of an impact as Kaufmann does not mean that they didn't "appreciate fully the import of higher criticism". )

As far as tradition & linguistic criticisms, they are both mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry.Yaakovaryeh (talk) 05:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yaakovaryeh: I will go re-read that source and see if I can better understand the gist of what they are claiming about him and if I can then rewrite that sentence. I am trying to go through the whole thing again--slowly--and recheck every reference for accuracy anyway.Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:28, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I found another source with a better explanation of what first meant. I hope you like it. As far as Brittanica is concerned, my advice is, don't be intimidated by the name Brittanica. Their articles are written by individuals just like ours. It is my personal opinion that if you put the two articles side by side, ours is a better overall article. Ours mentions the various problems and failings of bc as well as its virtues, definitions, achievements and examples. Brittanica doesn't go into the depth ours does. Our history is also more complete. If Brittanica wants to waste time mentioning methods that died--without explaining that--then that is that author's choice of course, but I don't agree it is a good one. It's misleading. All they do is extoll bc as though it is, universally, a continuous progression toward enlightenment, which is nonsense. BC has been full of contention, reversals, dead ends, contradictions and failures--like any other 'science' I suppose. Brittanica glosses over all of that giving a false impression. I personally think that makes it a rather poor job.Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:15, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Well of course Britannica is written by individuals, but I wouldn't say "just like ours", they're generally written by professors who are subject matter experts and have devoted their lives to studying and teaching the topic. Wikipedia's primary strength lies more in its collaborative nature. They each have their advantage. "Brittanica wants to waste time mentioning methods that died... All they do is extoll bc as though it is, universally, a continuous progression toward enlightenment". It seems to me that these two criticisms are contradictory. I would say that perhaps this article is more history oriented, while the Britannica is more focused on just giving a more general overview of the field. I don't see a problem with either approach. They each have their merits.Yaakovaryeh (talk) 03:18, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Reopen FA

@Ian Rose and Laser brain: Two years ago you participated in the Featured article review of Biblical criticism. Unfortunately, it was going on at the same I was coming to the end of a long period of harassment by another editor. I left WP altogether for a year and a half because of it and was unable to complete the FA assessment. That particular editor has since been banned for life, as I was not the only person he harassed, and since he is gone now, some wonderful people here encouraged me to return. I've been back for a month or so now, and feel capable of facing getting Biblical criticism through the gauntlet to FA. I would like to renominate. I have checked its references, replaced a few, added a few, and I believe they will stand any amount of scrutiny. If I missed anything, then we will find it. Many of the books have to be found on Amazon, not google, because Amazon will have page numbers that google sometimes doesn't. Some I had to buy--but I am a bibliophile, so that's actually a good thing in my book. Having been reduced to poor puns, I will just say thank you for all the work you put into this article, for the professional manner in which you conducted yourselves, and will only ask what is needed to reopen the nomination. Thank you again, Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:57, 27 August 2020 (UTC)