Talk:Historical reliability of the Gospels/Archive 1

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Creation of Article

I have split this content off from the article Nativity of Jesus, partly to make the original article easier to read, and partly because it seems that the material is reproduced in other Jesus-related articles and the range of articles could thus all be improved by centralising the content.

I will resolve the various duplications of material as I work through the process - please assist if you have the time.

Wdford (talk) 01:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Noli me tangere

Mentioned in John ? Wizzy…☎ 16:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes John 20:17. Table needs to be reviewed and fixed. Also see talk on Gospel Harmony please. It would be a good idea to fix this partial table 1st then the rest. History2007 (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Is this table really needed - is it not maybe better to include the specific references in-line during the text (as I have now done as well), rather than to add a bulky table such as this at the end of the section? Wdford (talk) 17:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

To be frank, both this page and Gospel harmony are in such state of total disharmony and neglect that I can not bring myself to use the term "better" for either one. I find the inline format you have much harder to read and would prefer a table if the font size for the entries can be smaller. But "presentation" discussions are too early now. As is the content in these two pages and the one on Internal consistency of the Bible are so disorganized that presentation is secondary. As a reader I would give all 3 pages a failing grade. My problem is that I am no expert on the details, else I would have fixed much of it by now - but that may mean that this is a subject I need to learn. History2007 (talk) 17:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Clear or apparent "contradictions"

Obviously, and clearly, "opinions" by James Dunn and EP Sanders on how a census was administered 2000 years ago are NOT obvious and clear contradictions stated in the Gospels written before Dunn and Sanders learned to write. So if opinions are to be included in this article, the top line can not say clear and obvious, and the article title can not be "contradictions".

Indeed, opinions of modern scholars should be separated into the article on criticism of the Bible and has no place in the discussion on the internal consistency or inconsistency of the Gospels themselves. Moreover, the statement that "no ancient historians or geographers mention Nazareth before the beginning of the fourth century" is not a contradiction among the Gospels themselves. It is a contradiction between the Gospels and modern understandings of history and geography. And the list goes on....

A contradiction is a "logical incompatibility between two or more propositions" hence these opinions are not contradictions in the Gospels since said predicates do not get different truth values within the Gospels themselves. I think that material has to go anyway. I will delete it in a few days or move it somewhere unless the article title changes. Cheers History2007 (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Since new material of the same nature was added after I posted this on the talk page, I had to add a dispute flag. It should be made clear that "any" comparison with historical views of modern scholars can not be in this article since it will not be a contradiction in the Gospels but between the Gospels and the views of modern scholars. Hence I commented out a few statements. History2007 (talk) 19:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you - this is a much better plan. I will place the other material in the Criticism of the Bible article, where it will feel more at home. The Gospel Harmony article is something else entirely - I agree that needs serious work. Have your concerns on this article been satisfied? Wdford (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Only one positive thing has happened: I have learned new things. There are still large problems I think, but I have to address them tomorrow. I will have to check the actual gospels more carefully and see if there are no "possible models" that would render the statements consistent. That takes effort, but is educational for me, and I will document it as I go along. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 23:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

List of article logical and methodoligical problems

This article has serious logical and methodological problem. To start with it assumes that Christian = Catholic by starting with quotes from a pope and the Catholic catechism. It is a well known fact that there are many protestants out there and they do not follow what the pope says. Therefore to be about the Gospels, Catholic references need to go, since they do not apply to Christians at large.

Moreover the concept of "consistency" from a logical point of view has been totally missed in this article. I cleaned up a few cases, but the problem is deeply rooted in the reasoning used to write the article and it needs to be rooted out.

So let us begin with a short exposition about logic, satisfiability and consistency. Let S = {P1, P2, ... Pn} be a set of predicates. Leaving aside questions of Undecidability, S may be viewed as inconsistent if one can prove that there is no Interpretation that makes the predicates in S become satisfiable. If there is another predicate Q which is not in the set S, any assignment of a truth value to Q can NOT affect the consistency of S. This issue has been "totally" ignored in this article, with disasterous logical results. Indeed the MOST inconsistent item here is the logic used to write this article.

Think of it this way,

• P1 = David is in Paris
• P2 = Sara is in Paris
• P3 = David and Sara are in Paris.

Are these statements logically inconsistent? Not at all. Hence if the Gospel of John says Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and another says that she and another woman went there, these two statements are NOT inconsistent. One might try to blame John for being brief, but there is no logical inconsistency here. Moreover, the addition of an external predicate

• Q = Scholars X, Y and Z think that David and Sara never go to Paris together

does NOT affect the consistency of the set of predicates {P1, P2 , P3}. Hence large amounts of deletion from the text therein are required to avoid the inconsistency of thought as the Gospel consistency issue is being discussed. That would be a logical deletion, indeed. History2007 (talk) 10:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Point taken. However it is my understanding that all Christians accept that the Gospels (and the rest of the Bible) are "The Word of God". Certainly many Fundamentalists in the USA - who are not Catholic at all - believe that every word of the Bible is the literal truth, including that the earth is only 4000 years old, that it was created in six literal earth days and that the Devil put the dinosaur fossils in the rocks to mislead us. If we are to accept that the Bible is a random collection of conflicting accounts then Chistianity has no real basis, but if we accept that the Bible passages were dictated to the various scribes by the Holy Spirit then actual contradictions are more difficult to understand. However, I agree that we need some non-Catholic references in the lead.

I also agree with you re the consistency issue, although I didn't quite follow your P=S=Q example. However I think you are stretching a bit in the "was Mary alone" example, as the Gospel describes a whole succession of events that day involving Mary, and in every case it reads that she was alone. Never once does that Gospel say "they" or "them". This is itself a contradiction, as elsewhere Jesus and/or angels spoke with "them". A mathematical purist might still infer the possibility of a gaggle of other women in the background who somehow never get mentioned in John, but its a big stretch. However I am not married to this particular example, and I am open to amending it.

I am a bit confused however about your assertion that "large amounts of deletion" are required. Please do point out your other concerns, as I am also now trying to limit this article to only the "non-reconcilable" contradictions. ::Wdford (talk) 11:03, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I (or we) would be guessing at what all Christians believe. But in any case, what the Pope said has to be taken out. We know for sure that protestants do not follow him. So that is a closed issue: papal statements need to go. Moreover what Gospel means needs to be clarified. I think the Canonical Gospels would be most suitable here.

I did not say that P=S=Q. Here S is a set that contains statements P1, P2 and P3 and not the statement Q. Hence the truth value of Q can NOT affect the consistency of S. Hence anything scholars say can NOT affect the consistency of the Bible unless those scholars wrote that statement in the Bible! Hence all quotes from scholars need to go. Period. For instance, I have not checked if there was just one census or 2 or 4 in that 5 year period. But any assertion about the year in which a census took place is a historical fact Q added from the outside and does not affect the consistency of the Bible. Historians say that Census of Quirinius was in 6/7 AD. Good for the historians. But that is a contradiction between the historians and the Bible, not the Bible and itself. Same failure in logic, again, if one assumes otherwise.

And what most Christians believe about the age of the earth has nothing to do with the consistency of the Bible with itself. It has to do with the consistency of the Bible with modern physics. That discussion belongs to a page called "Science and the Bible", not this one.

I think the Mary Magdalene issue is thus symptomatic of the inherent logical problems used to write this article, and looking at it in detail is not being carried away. Indeed, there have been other cases where people "assumed" there were inconsistencies, but suitable other logical explanations were found. E.g. please see: Sanhedrin_Trial_of_Jesus#Structure_of_the_trial. One Gospel says the trial was at night, another says it was in the morning. One painter paints it at night another in the morning. Yet it is NOT inconsistent, since as it has been pointed out there, there could have been two trials, one at night, one in the morning. Similar explanations for some other apparent inconsistencies may exist and simply listing two Bible references and "asserting" inconsistency is illogical, unless you can prove that there is no possible Interpretation that makes the predicates fail all at once. The case of the Sanhedrin_Trial_of_Jesus clearly shows that the inability of some scholars to think of an interpretation does not immediately lead to a proof that none exists.

Furthermore, it is clear that in many cases, this article has totally confused consistency with completeness. Completeness is a very different issue, and a set of statements can be totally consistent, yet incomplete. E.g. in the example above Sara can have an umbrella that no one mentioned, or just one account mentioned. There is NOTHING inconsistent in that.

Hence I see many of the assertions of inconsistency here as far less than adequate, and less than logical. They are criticism of the authors of the Gospel, not inconsistencies. History2007 (talk) 11:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Step by step analysis

2nd parag of Nativity has a ref that I will check later. 3rd parag has no ref except the Bible. Hence it is WP:OR. The tag needs to go back until a book, article etc. is added as a ref.

Sorted. I have quoted the full text of the relevant passages, and I have eliminated anything that anybody could remotely conceive of as being analysis or interpretation. Wdford (talk) 17:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I can not agree with that. History2007 (talk) 17:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you perhaps be a bit more specific about that concern? Wdford (talk) 17:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Is one list in the 1st parag a sublist of the other or do the lists have different elements ? History2007 (talk) 16:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

As stated in the article, and as is easily noted in the referred texts, the two lists agree up to the point of King David, but are totally different thereafter.Wdford (talk) 17:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:OR inferences and definition of inconsistency

Well, you are not alone in trying to decipher WP:OR in your first article. If you look towards the end of Talk:Our Lady of Fátima you will see that User:Toroid, apparently an expert historian, had a lot of material, but could not include it due to WP:OR. As I explained to him there:

• "...if you happen disprove Newton's work, and you happen to be correct, you can not add it to English Wikipedia until some reputable physics journal in English publishes it."

I actually liked the material Toroid had, but it was all WP:OR.

Hence your approach of placing Bible references and biblical passages next to each other, then inferring a contradiction is WP:OR. However, if you just stated the passages "without" inferring a contradiction the Bible itself could act as a reference. So the Bible can be reference for a statement that the Gospel of John A:B says X, but nothing beyond that. To go beyond that you need a reliable published reference.

And consistency needs to be defined at the top of the article. The definition I assumed was the Wikipedia logical definition, and I can back that up with 30 pages of mathematics and logic. Under that scenario, NO external facts can be included in a discussion of consistency. However, if you want to bring in historical facts, indeed you can, by stating that in this article consistency means historicity. That would be a totally acceptable change of topic and the article title will then need to reflect it. I would, however, then initiate a merge suggestion to merge this article with The Bible and history. You do need to decide on a definition of consistency within this article. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 19:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I still don't see why you keep dragging consistency into this, but I am quite happy to change the name to Historicity of the Gospels. I wouldn't merge this article into The Bible and history, as that article would get too big, rather I was intending to follow the established precedent and make this one of the daughter articles linked to The Bible and history on that list they have at the bottom of the page. Do you know how to change a name, or will we need to create a new article all over again? Wdford (talk) 13:11, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Just click on the Move button. I just did that so it is already done. History2007 (talk) 13:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, dude! I assume this automatically redirects all the existing links and so forth? Wdford (talk) 13:20, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. History2007 (talk) 13:23, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Bart Ehrman's new book

I'm assuming those interested in this article already know about Jesus, Interrupted by Ehrman, his new book which deals with, among other things, the contradictions in the New Testament. I would assume that book, given Ehrman's generally good reputation, would be an excellent source for this article, although I haven't read it yet myself. John Carter (talk) 13:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi John. No I did not know about it. And yes, he has written a few books, so probably done some homework before. As for reputation, isn't that book grounds for excommunication? ... just kidding... History2007 (talk) 13:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Redirect

In this case I agree with Ari. I think page should be deleted. History2007 (talk) 08:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

It has been deleted. --Ari (talk) 09:44, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Article Scope

This aritcle requires a proper lead and introduction, preferably minus the POV consistent throughout the article. From here, the scope can be defined. As it stands, it is the most unconventional manner of discussing the historicity of the Gospels. Such a discussion would traditionally deal with issues such as (1) genre, (2) oral tradition and testimony, etc. Instead, the article deals mostly with text critical issues which are repeated in other articles far more clearly.

Links such as Science and the Bible, Western non-interpolations or Bible Version Debate are barely within the scope of the text criticism page, let alone Historicity of the Gospels. --Ari (talk) 09:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ari that more is required, and that this article is far from finished.

I agree also that much related information lies in other existing articles, but it is widely scattered around, and I could find no article that specifically addressed this topic. Therefore I am starting off by gathering such material into a single article, but where detailed main articles do exist I am just summarising the content and referencing the sections to the existing main articles. I thought that was approved practice, so as to avoid unnecessary duplication, although I have also noted that many Jesus-related articles duplicate each other substantially.

In my opinion, the articles Science and the Bible, Western non-interpolations and Bible version debate also touch in various ways on the issue of the reliability of the biblical content generally, although they do not focus solely on the gospels, and therefore they might well also be of use to readers who have an interest in the subject of this article.

Wdford (talk) 10:53, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I restored the deleted links, because the discussion so far has been inadequate. Ari has not responded to Wdford. And frankly, I think both people have expressed their views inadequately. As a third party I would benefit from reading th reasoning behind the views. It would be nice to see Ari and Wdford reach an agreement. Or for some other consensus to emerge. And if that consensus = deleting links, I won't get in the way. But it can't just be one person deleting them because one person doesn't like them. And dford, it is not enough for you in essense to say you do like them. Please spell out your reasoning. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I gave my reasons. The links removed were generally totally irrelevant to the article and the onus is on the editor arguing for inclusion. Take Science and the Bible - what exactly have biological and ecological factors of the Bible have to do with the historicity of the four gospels? What has King-James Onlyism or gender neutral debates reflect on the historicity of the four gospels? etc, etc. The See Also section should be (1) relevant and (2) not excessive. The current state fits neither of those categories.--Ari (talk) 11:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I base my approach on the wikipolicy at WP:SEEALSO, which says that “Links included in the "See also" section may be useful for readers seeking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question.” I firmly believe that articles like Criticism of the Bible and Internal consistency of the Bible are directly related to the current topic, and the others are “peripherally related” and therefore perhaps useful to readers who are interested in other angles to the question of how reliable are the scriptures generally. For example the Bible version debate explains inter alia that some translations of the Bible were deliberately 'not intended' to be literal, which fact might be of great interest to people who have noticed already that the wording differs hugely between certain translations. As the article develops, this link and some others might be moved to the body of the article, which will shorten this section. I am not fanatically attached to any of these links, but it did seem to me that it was all the links to articles critical of scriptural reliability that were being deleted. Wdford (talk) 13:12, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I still don't see a justification for most of the links. Science and the Bible isn't even almost peripheral to the historicity of the gospels - unless you are taking the article to be Bible bashing which your suggestion of POV pushing seems to suggest? etc. --Ari (talk) 14:01, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Content Proposal and Structure

Now, back on the topic of content. The article is unnecessarily pre-occupied with text critical issues - and these issues are at the periphery of discourse on the "historicity" of the gospels. I am not suggesting having no mention of it - but the selections should be brought together. For example, now it goes from Text criticism > death of Judas >text criticism > home town of Jesus > text criticism. Similarly, issues such as the ending of Mark and Pericope Adulterae which most scholars agree were not in the gospels doesn't bear on the question of the historicity of the actual gospels. In essence, there is a lack of discussion on historicity and establishing historicity which the title clearly suggests would be the topic of discussion.

What should be added:

• Discussion on the genre of the gospels, in addition to dating. E.g. texts as biography:

"The gospels are now widely considered to be a sub-set of the broad ancient literary genre of bioi, biographies. Even if the evangelists were largely ignorant of the tradition of Greek and Roman bioi, that is how the gospels were received and listened to in the first decades after their composition." (Graham Stanton, Jesus and Gospel. p.192)

• Criteria for authenticity for sayings and events - dissimilarity, etc.
• How scholars see sayings (eg. Dunn) and events (Sanders)as historical probabilities. However, deal deal with the synoptics separately from John (Richard Bauckham has some good work on historicity of John, and I believe there is a Currents in Biblical Research article on it).
• Oral traditions (probably Dunn and the Scandanavian model?), some on Bauckham's eyewitness testimony. Set aside some for views such as Crossan begging to a misapplication of midrash.
• Some info on the synoptic problem - Q, M, L, etc.

Discuss ;) --Ari (talk) 11:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I am still busy with cleaning up the layout of the content – that’s why I left the templates up. There is also a lot that still needs to be added, but I have now switched to first polishing the existing stuff based on your input.

I believe the interpolations such as the Markan Appendix have direct bearing on the authenticity of the gospels, as they are clear examples of the fact that extra stuff got added afterwards. Many people still believe that absolutely nothing has been changed since Mark’s ink was still wet, so these examples are valid and important.

I am happy to mention the comment that the Greeks and Romans considered the gospels to be biographies. I am however not sure how this bears on their authenticity. Help please?

I have summarised the “criteria for authenticity” that I have thusfar come across, but a few of those in Historical Jesus were not referenced and appeared to be contested, so I didn’t want to include those just yet.

I am not yet aware of the Dunn, Sanders and Bauckham work you refer to – I will certainly follow up your lead to the Currents in Biblical Research.

I have got material re Crossan and the Synoptic Problem lined up, and I will prioritise that now as well.

Wdford (talk) 13:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I still believe we have far too much repeated information on TC issues. Your justification that "some people believe x" and you want to go outside of the scope of the article to challenge something addressed elsewhere doesn't seem to be the most NPOV rationale.

The genre is probably the most important question regarding the historicity of the gospels. If the gospels are biography we expect a certain level of historicity; if they are midrash we expect less; and if they are myth historicised we shouldn't expect very much at all. As bios, we expect there to be historical elements, we expect character development to be presented in a specific way. These expectations also dictate what we shouldn't expect - such as strict chronology, extensive narratives on childhood, etc.

With regard to Sanders, he takes a different approach to 'authenticating' the gospels. Unlike people such as the Jesus Seminar who evaluate historicity relying on the authenticity of sayings, Sanders gives far more credit to historical events. Sanders proposes around 16 events that are highly probable (historically speaking) to be true from the gospels:

  1. Jesus was born about 4 B.C., near the time of te death of Herod the Great.
  2. Jesus spent his childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village.
  3. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist
  4. Jesus called disciples
  5. Jesus spoke of their being twelve
  6. Jesus confined his activity to Israel
  7. Jesus taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee
  8. Jesus preaches "The Kingdom of God"
  9. About the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover
 10. Jesus engaged in a controversy over the timple and created a disturbance there
 11. Jeuss had his final meals with his disciples.
 12. Jesus was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifcally the High Priest
 13. Jesus was executed by the Romans outside Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate
 14. Jesus' disciples fled
 15. Jesus' disciples "saw him after his death (in what sense he is not certain."
 16. As a consequence they believed he would return to found the kingdom.

Regarding Dunn, he has done a lot of work on the gospels, the climax in this regard probably being his massive Jesus Remembered. Here, he works on form criticism relating to the recorded sayings of Jesus. One of his analogies in understanding the sayings is with regard to the orality of the Lord's Prayer today - different regional churches know it by ear in slightly different ways, yet saying the same thing. His findings are probably summed up best here:

"The earliest tradents within the Christian churches [were] preservers more than innovators...seeking to transmit, retell, explain, interpret, elaborate, but not create de novo...Through the main body of the Synoptic tradition, I believe, we have in most cases direct access to the teaching and ministry of Jesus as it was remembered from the beginning of the transmission process (which often predates Easter) and so fairly direct access to the ministry and teaching of Jesus through th eyes and ears of those who went about with him. (James D.G. Dunn, "Messianic Ideas and Their Influence on the Jesus of History," in The Messiah, ed. James H. Charlesworth. pp.371-372)

With Bauckham, I am referring to his extensive work with Jesus and the Eyewitnesses where he proposes understanding much of the gospels in terms of eyewitness testimony. He also covers much area on eyewitness tradents in general (e.g. the prologue of Luke 1:1-4 with the eyewitnesses and ministers of the world.)

I hope this is a bit useful to you. --Ari (talk) 13:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt feedback. It will take me a while to chew through it all, but I'll work on it. BTW, I am working on the basis that "Historicity" means the same thing as "Authenticity". Do you agree? If this is wrong, would you prefer that we change the name of the article to "Authenticity of the gospels", or some such? Wdford (talk) 14:18, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

No probs. I would say that historicity and authenticity are not synonyms. Authenticity is open ended and subjected. Someone may argue that they are not authentic in that they were not composed by the person later tradition has ascribed to them. However, this authenticity doesn't impact the usefulness of these documents as historical windows, or that they are "authentic" in what they tell us about the event x or y.

I would use authenticity in regard to evaluating individual events or criterion, however, using historicity keeps us in the balance of "what we can know in terms of historical probability." It is a far more useful term when dealing with historical documents. I would stick with historicity of the gospels, or maybe even Historical Reliability of the Gospels. --Ari (talk) 14:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I have not contributed to the article, although I take an interest. So .... for what it is worth, I pretty much side with Ari here. I note that Ari uses the word "historicity" and Wdford uses the word "authenticity." I think these words have different meanings, and authenticity can mean different things (did mark really write Mark? Is the text we currently have the same text that mark or whomever originally wrote? Is the text an accurate/reliable account of events as they occured?) I think Wdford has to be clearer about which he means, and people contributing to the article need clarity as to what is and is not within the scope of these articles. (I see you two have already begun to discuss this and I am glad, I think consensus and clarity are necessary for the quality of the article).

Two more points - Ari identifies the Gospels as falling within a genre called "biography." I think we need some qualification as to whether first and second century Christians meant the same thing/had the same expectations from "biograhy" as we do today. I am not trying to stir up a sticky point among Christians, because the same sticky point can be made about contemporary biography. People today are often divided as to whether revisionist history is good or bad, and this debate hinges on claims that conventional history - I am talking about biographies of Thomas Jefferson or of Winston Churchill - are reliable and accurate accounts of events as they occured, or written to further a certain (often nationalist) point of view. With regard to the Gospels, I have read many Bible scholars who maake a distinction between "historical truths" and "theological truths" and argue that the authors of the Gospels and Acts were concerned with the latter rather than the former. You can call John or even mark a "biography" but the meaning of this word is opaque unless this other issue (historical versus theological truths) is addressed.

My final point follows from the previous one. Often times debates over when the Gospel was written are linked to claims about its historical reliability (as if an account closer to the event is more accurate, which is kind of funny since many lawyers, journalists, and historians question assumptions about the accuracy of eyewitness accounts). But another approach is to use the date of wuthorship to use the document to draw inferences about the time in which it was written. For example, Arthur Schlesinger's book about Andrew Jackson can be re-read as an book written by someone concerned about the New Deal in terms of the role of the working class in the Democratic Party. This is the approach Pagels takes to the Gnostic Gospels, to interpret them not in terms of their veracity (or lack of veracity) about jesus but rather as symptoms of debates within the emerging Church. This is the turf of Higher Criticism and I think it has a place in this article, how different Gospels (or different versions of each Gospel, the "corruptions" Bart Ehrman has carefully documented) may provide us with historical data about the emerging Church. This is not anything I know about, but I can tell you just as a reader, it is stuff I'd value seeing in the article, I'd learn from it. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, I see the problem. Per the dictionary definitions I quoted in the article, “historicity” pretty much means “authenticity”. I am not too concerned with the general “historical windows” issue, I am mostly concerned about “can we take literally what the gospels tell us” – including the parts about “Jesus is God” and “the end of the world is coming” etc. That was my original intention. If I read this correctly, Sanders does not think the "Jesus is God" material is historical? I do quite like the title Historical Reliability of the Gospels. I see the point re Pagels etc, and I tend to agree with it personally. Higher Criticism and lower criticism articles already exist, and I am happy to reference them here as well. I’ll add it to my list. Wdford (talk) 15:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

How would you authenticate the divinity of Jesus for a Wiki article? Theologically speaking, the NT gospels testify to Jesus as divine. --Ari (talk) 16:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

True - if the gospels are accurate records of actual events, we would then have to accept weighty issues such as resurrection and ascension. I am more interested here with "are the gospels accurate records of what happened in the first place, or have portions thereof been subsequently "altered" by various persons to serve various agendas?" BTW, why are you separating the Judas section - surely it is an interpolation as well? Wdford (talk) 16:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Interpolation refers to a physical addition to the manuscript. The divergent narratives of Judas are in the original documents and therefore not interpolations. --Ari (talk) 16:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Wdford (talk) 16:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Scholars have different conventions than most people, and this article is about a topic on which there is a great deal of scholarship. Therefore, I do not think it is wise to use a dictionary definition of "authentic" since dictionaries reflect general usuage or usage across a wide range of professions. If the article uses the word "authentic" at all, it should clarify how scholars use the word, and if scholars on the historicity of the Gospels use the word differently. Ditto "historicity" I guess.

I do not understand Wdford's point, "If the gospels are accurate records of actual events ..." At Wikipedia NPOV is the non-negotiable policy. Wikipedia is not about truth, it is about verifiability. Our task is to provide an adequately contextualized and proportionate account of all significant views from reliable sources. It doesn't matter whether any Wikipedia does or does not think the gospels are accurate records of actual events, and it is not for any Wikipedia article to argue that the Gospels are accurate records of actual events. The only purpose of this article is to provide an account of significant views from reliable sources. And from what I have read, the significant views in reliable sources are only partially concerned with whether the Gospels are accurate records of actual events. From what I have read, one thing they are concerned with is how different authors/audiences have different ideas about "history" i.e. "historical" truth (or, perhaps, "authenticity"). They are also concerned with the history of the Gospels themselves, i.e. the process through which the texts we have today were composed. They are also concerned with the way that historical conditions and forces (as we understand the meaning of these words today) influenced the authors, and thus the composition, of the Gospels, which means that the Gospels can tell us something about the historical moment in which they were written.

I am not sure that our guide in writing articles should be what we personally are interested in. I am concerned that this approach can lead to POV violations. We can all agree, Wikipedia articles are not meant to forward our own views. This is salient because oftentimes experts are not interested in the same things we are. Isn't our first task to find out, what are the reliable sources on this topic most interested in? Shouldn't we have an open mind not just regarding what the significant views are, but also regarding what they are about?

Anyway, I am quite sure that no Wikipedia article is going to say that "The Gospels are accurate" or "Portions of the Gospels have been altered." At most we can say "According to some scholars, the Gospels provide an accurate or reliable account ... but according to other views ....." Anything else violates NPOV. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Fine with me. However I’m sure there are other articles that are concerned with how different authors/audiences view "history", and there are certainly other articles about the process through which the texts we have today were composed, and the way that historical conditions and forces influenced the authors, e.g. Gospel. When I started this article I was concerned about the "gap", namely the historical reliability of the gospel information, so I attempted to fill that "gap". Does anybody maybe know if scholars actually do use the word "historicity" differently to that used in English dictionaries? Wdford (talk) 19:50, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Slrubenstein in what he sees regarding scope and NPOV. Wdrofd, quite a few of your choices seem to edge closer and closer to POV. For example, historicity of the gospels goes past picking the most controversial issues for historians (the birth narratives) or by pushing something very fringe regarding the existence of Nazareth. That Nazareth was small doesn't seem to impact the gospels in any great way. --Ari (talk) 03:02, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, just to repeat something Slrubenstein pointed out - Wiki is about verifiability, and what scholars say. So you have to avoid original research and synthesis. --Ari (talk) 04:30, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Historicity of the Gospels

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

Reference named "ODCC self":

• From Gospel of John: "Gospel of John." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
• From Jesus: "Matthew, Gospel acc. to St." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
• From Christianity in the 1st century: "Sermon on the Mount." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
• From Ascension of Jesus: "Ascension of Christ." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
• From Paul of Tarsus: "Paul, St" Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
• From John the Baptist: "John the Baptist, St." In: Cross, F. L. (ed.) (2005) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press
• From Gospel: "Gospel." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
• From Historical Jesus: "Historical Jesus, Quest of the." Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 23:52, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Scope and Content - 2

Much of what Ari is adding is useful to a point, but I am growing concerned that the article is drifting away from the original topic and is becoming more an article on “History of the Gospels”, which is a different topic altogether. I appreciate that this is a notable topic, but I feel this has been done already in existing articles, and I don’t want to duplicate that theme any more than necessary. The original intention of this article was to report the views etc on the extent to which the gospels can be relied upon as accurate reports of actual events. I contend that this is a notable topic in itself, because the elements under dispute (the Birth, Death, Resurrection and Ascension) are the core of the Christian faith, which has about 2 billion adherents.

The choice of the title “historicity of the gospels” was based on accepted dictionary definitions, i.e.

• where “historicity” means: a) the state or fact of being historically authentic; b) the condition of having actually occurred in history; and
• where “authentic” means : a) worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact; b) conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features; c) made or done the same way as an original; d) not false or imitation.

Since nobody has thusfar presented evidence that we should not accept the dictionary definitions, I would prefer that we adhere to the scope as defined per the title. I feel therefore that the lead section should not limit the debate to “historical Jesus vs theological Jesus”, but should also specifically mention that a number of scholars have identified a range of discrepancies and contradictions that cause them to doubt the “historicity” of the gospels themselves, as defined above. This is not “polemical”, it’s actually the original topic of the article.

Obviously we must adhere to verifiability, and that means only including material that has been asserted by credible sources. However, in those cases where we are referring to disputed Biblical texts, I see no reason why we should not also include the disputed texts themselves, to illustrate the basis of the dispute so that readers can see for themselves exactly what the dispute is all about. Also, the fact that there are many discrepancies between different translations (minor or otherwise) has direct bearing on the “authenticity” of the material, as defined above, and so I don’t see why that material should be deleted as being “off-topic”. For balance, we can open by stating that “there are no disputes about all the other texts”, or words to that effect.

I am not fussed about the existence of Nazareth in the 1st century, although its role is indeed disputed, but I thought the alternative sources for the title "Nazorean" were credible and notable, and would be useful in the aticle.

I would still like to add additional sections, namely: material on “corroboration by non-Christian authors”, such as Josephus etc (criterion of independent attestation); and “discrepancies with known historical facts” such as the details of the implementation of the Census of Quirinius, which has been disputed as being historically unfeasible (criterion of cultural congruency); and “were the miracles really supernatural incidents, or are there natural explanations” (criterion of congruency with the laws of nature and physics).

Lastly, if the interpretation of the word “historicity” is causing problems re scope and focus, I again suggest renaming the article so as to better allow a clearer focus on the original theme. I am open to suggestions on this.

Wdford (talk) 11:08, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

You cannot determine the historicity of a group of documents without understanding what makes up the documents. Understanding issues such as independent sources and oral tradition is essential groundwork to "report the views etc on the extent to which the gospels can be relied upon as accurate reports of actual events."

Agreed - some relevant background is certainly necessary. I am happy with what has been added so far. Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Historicity is not searching for apparent contradictions as if it invalidates x as a historical document. For that reason, I am not too sure what your objections would be to this information being added as being outside of the scope.

If one eye-witness says the man was hit by a bicycle, and a second eye-witness says he was hit by a bus, then you have good cause to doubt the reliability of both the reports. You would always expect eye-witnesses to differ on minor details, but not on the core issues. One of the reports could be accurate and the other wrong, but you won't know which is which. In my opinion, major contradictions on key issues do undermine the reliability of the sources in question, especially when they can't both be right. It doesn't mean the entire gospel is a complete fabrication, obviously, but it does indicate that this particular event has not been reliably recorded. Since that's what the article is actually about, I am very sure that this is important content. Similarly when translation errors are known to have occurred - and if there were some that we have recognised, there might have been others too. Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

And when we see the a guy bleeding on the floor we know he got hit by something. Just because two eyewitness disagree on what hit him, it doesn't make the fact that he was hit any less important. And add the bus with blood all over the screen and we find no reason to throw our hands in the air crying "all history is lost." Historicity is far more complex than contradiction = unhistorical.

"the elements under dispute (the Birth, Death, Resurrection and Ascension) are the core of the Christian faith, which has about 2 billion adherents." I wouldn't say the birth narratives are at the core of Christian faith, nor are they at the core to the historicity of the gospels. As a historical fact - Jesus was born. The theological importance is the incarnation - and that can't be historically evaluated.

Of course Jesus was born. This is not an article disputing Jesus' birth - that has been covered somewhere else already. The issue here is - was he just an ordinary human baby, born under normal circumstances like other babies, or was he special, a god-man, born of a virgin and attended by angels and kings (or whatever). The reported details here are greatly at variance, and the questionable details are those which point to "specialness" (and thus undermine the theological aspects). If you think the birth narratives are not at the core of Christian faith, you must have slept right through Christmas last week. I think this is significant enough to be included, and while I prefer to avoid duplication, I think its valid to include the actual texts under dispute, to illustrate the problem to the readers. Christmas is core to Christians. Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

But you are trying to bring a theological agenda into a historical question. A polemical agenda it seems. Regarding the theological importance of the details of Jesus' birth in the gospels, I stand by my point. Just because people buy heaps of presents around December 25th doesn't cheapen the fact that the theological core is the incarnation. That is what the Christian faith leans on, not the stories around it. Following on, to doubt this would be a theological/philosophical and not a historical question., etc, etc. --Ari (talk) 15:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Death and resurrection are important - but no scholars doubt Jesus' death (Gerd Ludemann for example, "The fact of the death of Jesus as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable, despite hypotheses of a pseudo-death or a deception which are sometimes put forward." - Gerd Ludemann, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection. p.17.)

Of course Jesus died, and quite probably through crucifixion as reported. (I have however read several theories about substitutions and coma-inducing anaesthetics etc too, and the parallels with other "mythical" dying gods are certainly remarkable). However the Romans crucified lots of people, and the issue here is again the additional element of supernatural-ness, with graves opening and corpses emerging, and prophecies being fulfilled etc. Key elements are at variance, and therefore those portions of the record aren't actually reliable. Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

On the resurrection it is either interpreted as (1) a historical physical event (e.g. Dunn) or as a (2) true resurrection experience (Sanders, "That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know" The Historical Figure of Jesus, 280.)

Ditto the above - there is a lot of contradiction here too, and a key point (to my mind) is that the people who saw the risen lord usually failed to recognise him, which leaves wide open the issue of who it actually was. And the resurrection really is critical to the Christian paradigm. PS: mass hallucinations are not uncommon, particularly when under a combination of religious fervour and trauma/grief. Consider alien abductions, UFO sightings and such. The human mind is something else. Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

For these, I am not saying not to spend time on them (contrary to my opinion on spending too much time on the birth narratives), but we should be careful about original research and doubling up on the articles already on these topics. --Ari (talk) 12:35, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It won't take much time - the material already exists, and it just has to be merged back in. Its just a few lines here and there, so it won't replicate noticably, and its certainly not original research, as the many reliable sources have already shown. Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Finally, re the genre section - I assume the upshot is that biographies are intended to be more historically accurate than morality tales and allegories etc? In that case, surely the intention of the authors (the evangelists) is key - if they intended to produce an allegorical mythos, then historical accuracy would be less important to them when writing, and it matters little how the Roman audience perceived the material. (Obviously the audience believed it to be true, or we wouldn't have the Christian religion today). PLease clarify? Wdford (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

To complete the bus example, if we did have a dead body and a blood-spattered bus, we would simply accept the story from witness no2, and move forward. However if we can find no such bus at all, and no dead body either, and there is no other evidence at all that could clear it up, and no other witnesses come forward, we are then forced to depend on the accounts of only these two witnesses. In that case, since their stories contradict, the “history” of this incident is indeed on thin ice, so to speak.

I have no issue with peoples’ faith and theology, and I don’t intend to bring that into this article. Obviously the theological core is the incarnation, and I agree that we can’t answer the great questions here, since they are in fact theological. I never intended to attempt to identify which gospel account is most likely to be true or anything like that. My agenda here is not at all theological or polemical, it is simply as I have stated – can we really trust the gospels re these (and other) portions of the record? Some say yes and some say no. Some have reasons to back their arguments, and others say only that “there can be no doubt whatsoever” and so forth. I propose only to document the arguments (and reasons) of the scholars concerned, limiting the article to consideration of the reliability of the gospels as historical records. If a particular scholar actually did the homework and found that only half the gospel texts are consistent across all translations, then that speaks toward the consistency of the translations over time, which in turn has an impact on the authenticity of those records. This seems very much on topic, and I see no reason to exclude this information. Wdford (talk) 17:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Wdford, I am still concerned with what you think this article "is about." I understand many Christians think that the Gospels are history books, like a biography of John Adams, and some people (I assume former Christians) think it is fiction. That this is something some Christians or anti-Christians care about does not mean it is an encyclopedic topic. I do not think people can look to an encyclopedia article for help in resolving this question. People could read books by historians who study the Gospels, and perhaps leave frustrated, if they think they will find the answers there. Encyclopedia articles usually, and in this specific case I think most definitely, provide accounts of scholarly debates and what you refer to just is not a scholarly debate. From my experience (and I have had friends on both sides of the issue) it is not even a debate for them. I have witnessed countless arguments between sidewalk preachers and angry atheists and year after year they repeat the same things, so there is definitely no debate, just two sets of speeches occuring simultaneously, and I see no reason to reproduce them in an encyclopedia. Moreover, I feer that doing so would simply make this a magnet for POV-pushers: some contriutors would write the "argument for" and other would write the "argument against" and honestly, this is not What Wikipedia is for. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Wikipedia is not a blog. What you describe sounds to me more like a blog topic and I bet there are already LOTS of blogs on the topic so I see no need to try to turn this encyclopedia into one more blog.

You say you have yet to see a reason do diverge from dictionary definitions but I see a perfect reason: there are qualified historians (with PhD.s in history, or in Biblical studies which is a more specialized degree require knowledge of Biblical languages) who have written a lot on the historicity of the Gospels and they hve their own way of using these words. The very fact that you do not see a reason to use anything but dictionary definitions to me is evidence that we do need an encyclopedia article on this topic, because such an article would explain to you how historians use thse terms, and why. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I don’t think the concern should be as great as it appears to be. I started this article as “Contradictions in the gospels”, which is quite a notable topic considering all the actual scholarly debates and publications out there, and in the context of the wide range of daughter articles that the Bible and Jesus series have already produced – several of them to do with the “historicity” or “historical reliability” of various books and texts. Many authors have contributed to this debate over time, and while some people are obviously not open to discussion, that doesn’t mean the encyclopedia should avoid the topic. I don’t personally think that the gospels are compete fiction (although some authors have made strong cases for this, and I think their viewpoint deserves a mention too somewhere) and it’s not my intention to prove or disprove a religion.

I would much like to see a verifiable source that says historians etc deviate from the ordinary dictionary definitions of “historicity” and “authenticity”. If such a source is provided then I will accept that I should not have used the word “historicity” in the title, and we can change the name to “historical reliability” or “authenticity” or some other word that means something closer to the original topic. Wdford (talk) 17:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Conflating the dictionary definition of historicity and authenticity isn't how historians treat historicity. I am firmly with Slrubenstein on this point. --Ari (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not conflating - the dictionary definitions for "historicity" actually use the word "authenticity". Please provide a source that says historians use a different definition, and I'll change the name of the article straight away. Wdford (talk) 13:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Genre and Development

This section deals with the genre and the development of the gospels, dealing with the questions of sources. The logic of the section is oral gospel > written gospel with different traditions represented in the synoptic gospels AND John. Moving the bit about the synoptics up into another section breaks all continuity here between the sources, and it doesn't have anything to do with authorship. It may make better sense to put authorship after the genre and development so we won't have to double up on the synoptic problem. --Ari (talk) 13:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually think the issue of who copied who has quite a lot to do with the authorship topic. Perhaps we should merge authorship with development rather, and have genre as a separate section altogether? PS: what happened to that quote from Justin Martyr re the genre? Wdford (talk) 13:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

What are the Gospels?

I believe this question really needs to be answered. Wdford, it appears that you believe that the gospels are intertwined with the history of the King James Version of the Bible. Instead of dealing with issues which define historicity - genre, sources, corroboration, etc it seems all that matters are peripheral issues like textual variants, the KJV and the town of Nazareth seem to be dominating.

If we are evaluating the actual gospels - we are dealing with the autograph material in their original language. --Ari (talk) 16:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

PS, I think we are both coming up to WP:3RR so oops.--Ari (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The "actual gospels" are the gospels that appear in Bibles today. This is not necessarily the autograph material in their original language, due to 2000 years of translation errors, scribal errors and interpolations. Part of what we read today as "the gospels" includes errors and interpolations, hence in discussing the historicity thereof, we have a section called "interpolations". I can't understand why you referenced this section to the main article List of Bible verses not included in modern translations but you now refuse to allow a few lines summarising the points of that main article that are relevant to this topic? The KJV is a commonly used Bible today, and its version of "the gospels" are familiar to many. Errors (and interpolations) in the KJV are thus present in "the gospels" today, irrespective of how old or young that translation is. Why is this confusing to you? Wdford (talk) 11:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

So we aren't talking about the historicity of the gospels but the history of a specific translation. That is not how historians treat ancient sources. The Gospels are works from the first century written in Koine Greek - not the modern translation you may have on your desk. I left the List of Bible verses not included in modern translations which you added to appease your desire to go off topic talking about translations, the Johannine Comma (which isn't in the gospels) and other things which have little to do with the historicity of the gospels. Similarly, textual criticism isn't that big a deal regarding the historicity of the gospels, or theology. The two big ones which could weigh on the question of historicity are dealt with, even though most scholars wouldn't include them in an evaluation of the historicity of the gospels as they aren't really gospel material. --Ari (talk) 12:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere did I ever suggest limiting this article to a discussion about a single translation. However I am starting to see the source of your confusion - not only do you have an alternative understanding of the word "historicity", but you also have an alternative understanding of what constitutes the "canonical gospels" as well. I think we can resolve this by renaming this article the Historical authenticity of the current canonical gospels. There is wiki-precedent for this too, as Wikipedia has a "Jesus" article as well as separate articles for Historicity of Jesus and Historical Jesus and Cultural and historical background of Jesus and Christ etc etc. Any objections? Wdford (talk) 13:32, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have renamed this article, after five days with no objections to the proposal, because of the apparent differences in understanding of the words "historicity" and "gospels". I hope this will clear up the problems we have been having. Wdford (talk) 14:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Undid renaming. Two editors have already explained the incorrect use of authenticity by yourself in this regard. Similarly, your use of gospels reflects your own idiosyncratic understanding. --Ari (talk) 23:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I have a serious objection to Ari’s behaviour.

I started this article to fill a gap in the existing copious set of Jesus and Bible articles, namely the issue of the authenticity of the gospels. This issue is addressed by many reliable scholars and sources, and is backed by serious evidence, including from the Bible texts themselves. I used the word "historicity" in the title based on the dictionary definition thereof, and now Ari is claiming the word doesn't mean what the dictionary says it means - without presenting any reliable sources to support his POV and disprove the dictionary.

In good faith I changed the article name to remove any possible confusion, and this proposal stood for five days on the talk page before I implemeted it. Ari made no effort to discuss the name change on the talk page. However once I implemented the change he immediately changed the name back again - once again based on his own POV interpretation and with zero reliable sources in support.

Ari has been making increasingly far-fetched efforts to exclude the concept of "authenticity" from this article, even going so far as to dispute the meaning of “the gospels”.

I request / challenge Ari or other editors to please provide reliable sources to back up their alternative interpretation of the word "historicity", failing which the dictionary definition must stand.

Wdford (talk) 09:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

As has been pointed out by myself and Slrubenstein, your use of authenticity is incorrect. The category is too broad and meaningless. Complaining about other editors won't resolve this issue. --Ari (talk) 10:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

"The issue" is that you keep repeating your POV that the dictionary meaning is "meaningless", without offering any substantiation. I submit that the word "Authenticity" means exactly what the dictionary says it means, namely: a) worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact; b) conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features; c) made or done the same way as an original; d) not false or imitation.

If you have any reliable source to the contrary, please let us know, failing which the article should follow the dictionary definition and the content should address the issue of "are the gospels worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact, or are they false or imitation."

I have repeatedly offered to reword the title to remove confusion, assuming in good faith that there might actually possibly be some confusion here somewhere, but you persist in reverting to the use of the word "historicity" and then applying your unsupported and "idiosyncratic" definition. Please come to the table here. Wdford (talk) 10:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Numerous examples of the inadequacy of the term have been provided, if you chose to ignore them then it isn't without any "substantiation". As has also been pointed out, historians do not use generic dictionary definitions for historicity. Anyone with a speciality in any area knows that dictionary definitions are generic, inadequate and do not even intend to touch on the debate. Especially when dealing with something such as historicity, placed in the debates about what history is, etc. The reliability of a historical text entails questions of genre, development, accuracy, corroboration, etc as can be found in treatments of the question. Tell me when you find this in a generic dictionary.--Ari (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, as I suggested earlier a better name for the article would be Historical Reliability of the Canonical Gospels. There is precedent such as Historicity of Acts of the Apostles > Historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles. --Ari (talk) 10:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Ari, you claim that “Numerous examples of the inadequacy of the term [authenticity] have been provided.” In reality, you have merely offered the opinion that “historicity and authenticity are not synonyms”, although with no reliable source whatsoever. You have opined that “Authenticity is open ended and subjected” – again with no substantiation. Slrubenstein on the other hand pointed out that “authenticity can mean different things (did Mark really write Mark? Is the text we currently have the same text that Mark or whomever originally wrote? Is the text an accurate/reliable account of events as they occurred?)” This is quite correct, it’s exactly as per the dictionary, and this is exactly what I have been trying to add to the article all along. It was also suggested by Slrubenstein that “If the article uses the word "authentic" at all, it should clarify how scholars use the word, and if scholars on the historicity of the Gospels use the word differently.” However no proof has been put forward that scholars really do use these words differently to the generic definition – there has only been unsupported personal suggestion. You claim that “The reliability of a historical text entails questions of genre, development, accuracy, corroboration, etc as can be found in treatments of the question.” Please provide me with reliable sources which support this definition, and which indicate that “historicity” must exclude the concept of “authenticity”.

Finally, you suggest changing the title to Historical Reliability of the Gospels. Before we can discuss this as a possible solution, please could you clarify what exactly you take this wording to mean, and specifically, does this refer to the current canonical gospels, and does this include or exclude the concept of “authenticity”? Wdford (talk) 11:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Cut the dishonesty please, sticking to the issue with candour achieves much more. I said far more than that, just to quote one time "historicity and authenticity are not synonyms. Authenticity is open ended and subjective. Someone may argue that they are not authentic in that they were not composed by the person later tradition has ascribed to them. However, this authenticity doesn't impact the usefulness of these documents as historical windows, or that they are "authentic" in what they tell us about the event x or y. I would use authenticity in regard to evaluating individual events or criterion, however, using historicity keeps us in the balance of "what we can know in terms of historical probability." It is a far more useful term when dealing with historical documents. I would stick with historicity of the gospels, or maybe even Historical Reliability of the Gospels." Similarly, Slrubenstein's argument is not as per the dictionary, as the dictionary does not go into any detail. Your only argument seems to be "I like the generic non-speciality dictionary definition which I have created, and I am going to use it." Academic specialities require relevant definitions, and a generic dictionary is not a reliable source in this regard. Anyone can tell you that.

All books dealing with the historical nature of the gospels deal with my proposals, and these are proposals you have objected to. It clearly demonstrates your personal inadequacy in this regard, and to be stubborn from this standpoint simply makes no sense.

Once again, the onus is on the editor arguing for inclusion. If you want to include an intricate definition of historicity on the basis of conflated generic dictionary definitions, happily find a historian who defines it in such a manner. All the works I can find on this question deal with oral tradition, genre, etc. And that is why historical reliability is where we should head. It is uncontroversial (except for your incessant pov pushing which seems to make everything controversial), and the standard in addressing the question. Take The RELIABILITY of the Gospel Tradition (Gerhardsson); The Jesus Legend: A case for the HISTORICAL RELIABILITY of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (Body and Eddy); HISTORICAL RELIABILITY of the Gospels (Blomberg); etc. --Ari (talk) 11:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Similarly, even if we take generic dictionaries they don't agree with you. The Oxford English Dictionary:

*Historicity -"Historic quality or character (opposed to legendary or fictitious: see HISTORIC 1)."

*Historic - "Of or belonging to history; of the nature of history; historical; esp. of the nature of history as opposed to fiction or legend."

Historicity defines concepts of a historical nature, not of a generic nature. --Ari (talk) 12:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The entry on the question of the historicity of the gospels in The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels[1] is titled "Gospels (Historical Reliability)".--Ari (talk) 12:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Evidently, we have Wikipedia precedents (e.g. for Acts) as well as a firm tradition in the scholarship on the use of the Historical Reliability (numerous books and articles above) for an article title of Historical Reliability of the Gospels/Historical Reliability of the Canonical Gospels. There doesn't seem to be any precedent for "Historical authenticity of the current canonical gospels" or "Authenticity of the canonical Gospels", especially as the term authenticity does not reflect the purpose of the article. --Ari (talk) 12:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You accuse me falsely of dishonesty, and you indulge in a little thereof yourself.

I was discussing the issue of the definitions of the word “authenticity”, as is clear from the context, as so I quoted only those elements relevant to that matter, rather than regurgitating your entire post. This does not excuse your accusing me of misquoting you.

You attempt to further mislead by claiming that I am “stubborn” and “inadequate” for having “objected” to including elements like “genre, development, accuracy, corroboration, etc”. However, as the history pages clearly show, I have accepted all of these, and added a lot of the related content myself. What I actually asked for, as the talk page clearly shows, are “reliable sources which support this definition, and which indicate that “historicity” must exclude the concept of “authenticity”.” (Italics added)

You have still not brought forward any reliable sources to support your deviation from the dictionary definitions, and as you say yourself – “the onus is on the editor arguing for inclusion”. Unless you can “happily find a historian who defines it in such a manner”, then your proposed alternative interpretation is WP:OR and the accepted English definitions should prevail.

You also falsely accuse me of conflating dictionary definitions, and you claim that the dictionary definitions “don’t agree” with me. However as you point out, the Oxford English Dictionary defines “historicity” as follows:

• Historicity -"Historic quality or character (opposed to legendary or fictitious)". As I pointed out, “authenticity” is itself defined as “not false or imitation.”. However this is one of the few dictionary definitions that doesn’t use the word “authenticity” – see also:
• historical authenticity: the state or fact of being historically authentic - Encarta
• the condition of having actually occurred in history; authenticity - Websters New World College Dictionary
• historical actuality - Merriam-Webster
• historical authenticity - AskOxford
• historical authenticity; fact- The American Heritage Dictionary
• historical authenticity – Collins English dictionary, at
• The characteristic of having existed in history. – Wiktionary

I note that once again you repeat the falsehood that “the term authenticity does not reflect the purpose of the article” – I created this article for exactly that purpose, as I have stated many times already.

It’s also disingenuous to found an argument on the fact that no Biblical article thusfar exists on the topic of “authenticity”, as no article existed on any topic until the first such article was created. Incidentally, there is an article called Authenticity of the Bible – it currently redirects to Biblical inerrancy.

Nonetheless, as I have stated several times, I am happy to consider a name change to the more standard wording Historical Reliability of the Canonical Gospels, once you have explained what you understand this to mean – lest we have another stalemate about definitions.

Perhaps we should rather call it Gospel inerrancy, as we have precedent for this too?

Wdford (talk) 17:34, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't get it - is it that you have no idea what you yourself are saying or is it that you don't understand what I am saying? Now, before we go any further I did ask that you remain honest so we can actually get through the issue. You did object to my edits saying they were going well off topic, when all the experts I can find on the topic see them as essential to the question. The general rule of wp:verifiability is that Scholarly consensus trumps your personal opinion, Wdford. Moving on, using the definition used by everyone on the topic is not original research. Conflating generic and non-specialised dictionary definitions is original synthesis of non-rs on the issue.

Regarding the Oxford definition, there is no logical manner in which you conclude that historicity is a synonym of authenticity. It simply isn't as HISTORicity refers HISTORY. With regard to historical documents, historicity is determined in no way like we determine the authenticity of a Da Vinci painting, a fake passport or a secure network connection. ALso, even if we take your definitions they ask for "HISTORICAL authenticity". Authenticity is qualified by what makes something HISTORICALLY authentic.

Your next point seems to be nothing but you claiming to own the article in breach of wp:own. Now, you wonder why no article exists on t "authenticity" of the gospels? Because the term is meaningless in regard to what you want this article to state.

Regarding historical reliability of the the gospels, I don't think I can actually explain it. It is so deadly obvious, and it covers the topics the scholarly works cover on the topic. It avoids the inability to understand historical definitions, and is in line with how it is worded everywhere else.--Ari (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Ari, it’s that I don't understand what you are saying – most probably because you claim to be using “specialized definitions” of words whose definitions I thought until now were “blindingly obvious”.

Actually, what I said on 29 Dec was “Much of what Ari is adding is useful to a point, but I am growing concerned that the article is drifting away from the original topic and is becoming more an article on “History of the Gospels”, which is a different topic altogether. I appreciate that this is a notable topic, but I feel this has been done already in existing articles, and I don’t want to duplicate that theme any more than necessary.” I did NOT say your edits were “going well off topic” – rather, this is something you accused me of several times – such as when I added some relevant gospel examples of interpolations into the section on interpolations.

I do agree with you that wp:verifiability requires that “Scholarly consensus trumps … personal opinion”. However you then claim that “using the definition used by everyone on the topic is not original research.” Despite repeated challenges, you have still not produced any reliable source to show that “scholarly consensus” accepts any definition of “historicity” which is different to the English dictionary. In fact, you have not even presented the “specialized definition” at all. You have stated several times that “The reliability of a historical text entails questions of genre, development, accuracy, corroboration, etc”, which I am happy to accept, but I would like to see your “specialized definition” specifically please. And please don’t resort to weasel comments like “I don't think I can actually explain it. It is so deadly obvious.” The dictionary definition is “deadly obvious”, but your alleged “specialized definition” is not. See also WP:OBVIOUS.

A quick scrutiny doesn’t turn up any examples of scholars pointing out that they use “historicity” differently to the dictionary, but I did find two examples that associate historicity with authenticity. In “The ‘Criteria’ for Authenticity”, Robert H. Stein says at pg 228 – “Besides these general arguments which are primarily helpful in establishing a general attitude toward the gospel material, there exist certain tools which can be used to ascertain the historicity, or at least the historical probability, of a specific saying, teaching, or action of Jesus found in the Gospels. These ‘tools’ or ‘rules of thumb’ have been referred to as ‘criteria’ by which the authenticity (or unauthenticity) of certain material can be established.’ Also, in “The modern preacher and the ancient text”, Sidney Greidanus says at pg 43, in a paragraph headed “Criteria for Historicity”: “A few New Testament scholars have developed a number of criteria for assessing the authenticity of Jesus words and deeds.” He then lists and discusses the familiar criteria of dissimilarity, multiple attestation, coherence and necessary explanation. Through the pages that follow, the words authenticity, reliable and historicity are used interchangeably. Similarly, on pg 275 Greidanus again uses the words historicity and authenticity interchangeably.

It is thus clearly possible to consider the authenticity of the gospels, and the term is far from meaningless in this regard. In fact, there are existing books with this very title, such as “The Genuineness and Authenticity of the Gospels”, by B. A. Hinsdale (MA), Kessinger Publishing, ISBN-10: 1417962046”.

Finally, before I can consider a title change to Historical reliability of the canonical gospels, I really need to understand what you mean by this. Your assertion that “I don't think I can actually explain it” is not at all reassuring. However, your closing comment that this wording “avoids the inability to understand historical definitions, and is in line with how it is worded everywhere else” could be helpful – does this mean we should apply dictionary definitions to these words? If “yes”, please say so, that we can move forward and resolve this disagreement. However, just in case these words also have “specialized definitions” that utterly defy explanation, how do you feel about Gospel inerrancy?

Wdford (talk) 17:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

If you wish to understand the term, open some of the books I have referenced. You don't seem to understand what authenticity means, and how it is used in terms of historicity. As has been noted numerous times, including with regard to the numerous generic definitions you produced, the authenticity in historicity is qualified by HISTORIC. Historicity is a term in the discipline of history, and the historic authenticity is qualified by historic. This is evidenced in the quotes you provided above, so you stating that you found examples which associate the two isn't at all accurate. Take the first quote. What does applying an individual authenticating criterion do to the gospels? "ascertain the historicity, or at least the historical probability, of a specific saying, teaching, or action of Jesus found in the Gospels." Notice, this is again consistent with my introduction of individual authenticating criteria into the article, where these are most definitely not synonyms or reliant on the definition of authenticity.

Regarding "historical Reliability" we use the definition that has been set out in precedent works. We do not conflate generic dictionary definitions in order to pov push. Historical Reliability has both Wikipedia and scholarly precedent. I'll break down the words for you:

• Historical - this is an essential adjective describing what sort of specific "reliability" which is going to be evaluated. Since you are fond of dictionary definitions, Oxford Dictionary defines it as "Of or pertaining to history; of the nature or character of history, constituting history; following or in accordance with history.".
• Reliability - "The quality or fact of being reliable."

So, we are asking - in historical terms are the gospels able to be relied upon. Determining whether they are to be relied upon depends on for what purpose they were composed - e.g. as a historical biography? As a theological discourse free from history? Historical questions demand historical answers, not generic definitions.--Ari (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yet again you decline to quote the “specialized definition” you claim everyone is using – far less do you substantiate it. However you have at least progressed to discussing the issue of authenticity, rather than merely claiming that its “meaningless”.

Obviously “historic authenticity” is qualified by “historic” – nobody ever claimed otherwise. Since “authenticity” is generally accepted to mean that the assertion is “worthy of belief; based on fact; reproducing the essential features of the original; not false or imitation,” then “historic authenticity” would presumably mean that the “history” in question has the above-mentioned attributes. Do you agree? If your “specialized definition” says something different, please quote it (with reliable references).

Since the term “historic authenticity” would probably only ever be used in historical scholarly contexts, its hard to conceive of a range of dictionaries all coming up with identical NON-scholarly interpretations of the term, and its even more unlikely that any such “specialized definition” would specifically exclude the concept of authenticity.

I also strongly disagree with your contention that my quoted examples do not associate historicity with authenticity. If you had considered the entire quote, rather than just half of it, it would be obvious that Stein in the first sentence refers to the “criteria” as being useful to ascertain the historicity of gospel material, and in the directly following sentence Stein refers to the very same “criteria” as being useful to establish “the authenticity (or unauthenticity)” of the material. This certainly seems to indicate a fairly close association between historicity and authenticity.

Certainly the authenticity criteria need to be applied on an incident by incident basis, with some incidents in the gospels probably being authentic and others not so – the contention of Brown and Ehrman and the Jesus Seminar etc is not that the gospels are complete fiction, but rather that the gospels do not contain ONLY accurate facts, and thus they are not reliable on many issues. See also Historical fiction.

Regarding "Historical Reliability", and based on your conviction that the gospels were intended to be biographies, I understand from your previous post that this title would effectively mean “is it appropriate to rely on the gospels as factually accurate records of actual historical events”, where the current majority opinion is “yes” and Brown/Ehrman/Crossan/Funk etc say “not necessarily, because …” . Is my understanding correct?

In your opinion, to what extent would this title agree/conflict with the title Gospel inerrancy?

Wdford (talk) 12:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Wdford, you opened this section saying "I started this article to fill a gap in the existing copious set of Jesus and Bible articles, namely the issue of the authenticity of the gospels" and now you are trying to negotiate a different title that you think will allow you to write what you want to. I think we really have a problem of WP:OWN as well as WP:SOAP. Wdford, this is not your article, and Wikipedia is not a soapbox, so you won't get very far trying to figure out how to title an article on what you think. What next, propose an article entitled, What Wdford thinks? No one owns any Wikipedia articles because Wp articles are not for expressing the views of editors. We can call this article anything, but it has to be notable i.e. cover a topic that is of serious concern. In fact, the history of the Gospels, and their use as historical sources, are the topics of a great deal of scholarly literature. As far as i can tell, Ari just wants to make sure the articles in WP represent these scholarly debates. From your own comments it is not even clear to me you have read them. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:05, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, I think you are perhaps over-reacting a bit here. This is not an article on What Wdford thinks, this article contains the views of numerous recognised scholars, and is fully referenced. WP:SOAP is not relevant here, so please AGF.

Every article is started to address a specific topic, and every article is started by a specific editor – this is normal. However the article is then required to stick to the topic, and when another editor starts moving away from the topic some action is required. This is not WP:OWN, its actually WP:TOPIC. I have not argued against including relevant additional content, I have merely expressed concern that the article should not lose sight of the original topic.

I fully agree that “the history of the Gospels, and their use as historical sources, are the topics of a great deal of scholarly literature”, and that the articles in WP should therefore represent these scholarly debates. No problem. However, as I have indicated previously, we already have numerous articles that already cover gospel history etc in much detail. We already have articles on Gospel, List of Gospels and Synoptic Gospels. Each of the canonical gospels has its own dedicated article, as do each of the non-canonical gospels. These existing articles cover the history of the individual gospels and their sources in significant detail already. We also have existing articles for Development of the New Testament canon, New Testament, Synoptic problem, Two-source hypothesis and dozens more. However, we did not have an article that focused on the authenticity of the canonical gospels, which is the gap I intended to address. I do not advocate leaving “the history of the Gospels” out of Wikipedia altogether – I merely point out that that topic is already addressed elsewhere in other existing articles.

As regards the title, I am quite happy to retain the existing title provided we can all agree that “historicity” means what the English dictionary says it means - i.e. "historical authenticity". However Ari is concerned that this word has alternative interpretations (although he has still not provided any reliable evidence of same, and not one dictionary I have seen mentions this alleged alternative usage). Therefore, in order to avoid misinterpretations, I offered in good faith to change the title so as to properly represent the topic of the article using words that would avoid any possible confusion. Irrespective of a change in title, the content would stay the same, i.e. the fully referenced views of reputable scholars re the "historical authenticity" of the gospels.

Wdford (talk) 08:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"(although he has still not provided any reliable evidence of same, and not one dictionary I have seen mentions this alleged alternative usage)." Er...I can see my references on this page rather clearly and even your own definitions failed to back you up. Pleading ignorance isn't the most convincing way to argue your point of view. As has been pointed out with numerous examples, your aim of an article "focused on the authenticity of the canonical gospels" is ambiguous to the point of meaningless. You go on and on about how an online dictionary defines X as if that is how historians approach the question. There are millions of pages on the question of what makes history, how we apply historical methodology to the gospels, what defines historicity, etc yet you insist on the generic term "authenticity" from a generic dictionary, without ever qualifying how verifiable scholarship approaches the question.

You make a point that you want to have an article that covers areas that other articles do not - yet you discuss arbitrary examples that have their own article! Take Nativity of Jesus, Crucifixion of Jesus, Resurrection of Jesus, Empty tomb and pretty much everything else. What this article seems to be is your take on arbitrary points supplemented by lists of original research.

To repeat, historicity of the gospels is in regard to issues of HISTORY. How should one approach the document? What assumptions on genre and methodology (e.g. should we expect chronology to clash with a thematic approach to historiography?)? The underlying tradition - the Scandanavian approach to transmission, form criticism, etc?

Your point about inerrancy shows quite well that you have an axe to grind in this article, and taking Slrubeenstein's advice from above - maybe it would be better suited to a polemical blog? --Ari (talk) 09:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I am starting to doubt Ari’s good faith – once again he uses distortions, evasions and outright falsehoods in an attempt to protect his POV.

Ari continues to drone on about how “an article focused on the authenticity of the canonical gospels is ambiguous to the point of meaningless”. Rubbish! Were it not for repeated reverts by Ari, the meaning of “authenticity” would be clearly clarified at the top of the article, and there would be no ambiguity at all. Besides, a number of authors have already published specifically on the subject of the authenticity of the gospels, including the following: “The Genuineness and Authenticity of the Gospels”, by B. A. Hinsdale; “Fact or fantasy : the authenticity of the Gospels”, by David C C. Watson; “The Anointing of Jesus in the Synoptic Tradition: An Argument for Authenticity”, by Kathleen Corley. This is apart from the work of Brown, Ehrman, Crossan etc etc.

Ari continues with his theme that historians don’t include authenticity in their evaluation of historicity, and that historians use a different definition of historicity to that contained in English dictionaries. He still has not provided the alleged alternative definition of historicity, which is not acknowledged in any dictionary I have seen, and he claims that my definitions (i.e. the formal dictionary definitions) don’t back me up. This is an outright lie – I have repeatedly quoted referenced definitions from a range of dictionaries, and they all include the concept of authenticity. Ari claims that he has indeed provided such references, but actually he has merely thrown in the titles of three books – none of which provide a definition of historicity that excludes authenticity. In fact, the exact opposite is true. One of the authors Ari cites here is Craig L. Blomberg. Well, in the work “Jesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey, Second Edition”, Blomberg conflates authenticity and historicity repeatedly, including at pages 326, 335, 374, 381 and others.

Blomberg goes a lot further at pg 424, where in the chapter headed “Historical Trustworthiness of the Gospels”, he states “An investigation of the historicity of any ancient document must begin with the discipline of textual criticism.” He goes on to mention three other factors that must be considered - “Authorship and Date”; “Intention and Genre”, and the already–familiar “Criteria of Authenticity”. Ari’s own source Blomberg thus very clearly and unambiguously includes “authenticity” as one of the four factors that must be included in investigating the historicity of ancient documents. Case closed, don’t you think? (I think this “definition” should be included in the article itself.)

Ari again accuses me of original research, although all the info I have included is fully referenced to reliable sources. Furthermore these are not “arbitrary examples” or “arbitrary points” – they are clearly linked to the subject of the article. I haven’t rehashed the entire main articles, I have merely extracted those details which are relevant to this article.

Finally, Ari concludes with an aspersion that there is something wrong with having a WP article about “inerrancy”. On the contrary, the editor who refuses to accept that “historicity” includes the aspect of “authenticity”, despite tons of reliable evidence to the contrary, is actually the one grinding the axe.

Wdford (talk) 14:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Acting like a dishonest and tactless child won't get us anywhere, Wdford. Just to briefly address your misrepresentations and what not.

You stated: "Besides, a number of authors have already published specifically on the subject of the authenticity of the gospels." No, they have not. And you are yet to bring forth evidence of such. Tell me, where do historians on the nature of the gospels describe their inquiry as "Authenticity of the Gospels", or as you earlier put it "Authenticity of the Current Canonical Gospels". Just a quick overview of your 'sources':

Hinsdale – a book written over 120 or so years ago without much to do with the contemporary scholarly debate on the historical nature of the gospels.

Watson – a book by an evangelist, not dealing with the contemporary debate on the historical nature of the gospels as far as I can tell.

Corley –like I stated numerous times, authenticity here is in regard to a SPECIFIC event. Hence why I called the criteria of authenticity for a specific event or saying criteria for determining authenticity.

"his is apart from the work of Brown, Ehrman, Crossan etc et" Umm...where?

To your next point, you sated “He still has not provided the alleged alternative definition of historicity, which is not acknowledged in any dictionary I have seen..." Demonstrated and provided above. Playing the ignorance card the first time achieved nothing, just as little the next.

You go on, "Ari’s own source Blomberg thus very clearly and unambiguously includes “authenticity” as one of the four factors that must be included in investigating the historicity of ancient documents." Now this is just getting sad. As I have repeated a few times (including just above!) the criteria of authenticity (which I introduced into the article) deals with specific events. It is not a term describing the historical nature of a source. If it were, wouldn’t Blomberg’s book have been “Authenticity of the Gospels”? Yet, it isn’t. Odd. The same can be said about the chapter heading "The Historical Trustworthiness of the Gospels" and not "The Authenticity of the Gospels".

--Ari (talk) 15:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Case in point - what does the second dot point from the 28th of December state?? What should be added:

* Discussion on the genre of the gospels, in addition to dating. E.g. texts as biography:

"The gospels are now widely considered to be a sub-set of the broad ancient literary genre of bioi, biographies. Even if the evangelists were largely ignorant of the tradition of Greek and Roman bioi, that is how the gospels were received and listened to in the first decades after their composition." (Graham Stanton, Jesus and Gospel. p.192)

• Criteria for authenticity for sayings and events - dissimilarity, etc.
• How scholars see sayings (eg. Dunn) and events (Sanders)as historical probabilities. However, deal deal with the synoptics separately from John (Richard Bauckham has some good work on historicity of John, and I believe there is a Currents in Biblical Research article on it).
• Oral traditions (probably Dunn and the Scandanavian model?), some on Bauckham's eyewitness testimony. Set aside some for views such as Crossan begging to a misapplication of midrash.
• Some info on the synoptic problem - Q, M, L, etc.

Discuss ;) --Ari (talk) 11:58, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

--Ari (talk) 15:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yet more insults, evasions and falsehoods. I strongly question the motives underlying Ari’s determination to use a definition of historicity which excludes the concepts of “authenticity” or “fictitiousness”. Ari has still not presented any evidence whatsoever to support this POV – the three books he mentioned earlier actually do not give any such support. However, try this quote from Blomberg pg 219 : “On the other hand, even for those who insist that we begin from a position of methodical doubt, various standard “criteria of authenticity” have been developed that can go a long way toward enhancing our confidence in the reliability of the Gospel record.” Blomberg can call his book anything he wants – there is nothing “odd” about his title - but in his book he clearly talks about applying the “criteria of authenticity” to draw conclusions about “the record”, not just about “specific events”. Wdford (talk) 15:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Cut the childish false attacks already. So in essence you won't respond to my numerous posts? Ok then. --Ari (talk) 01:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Every statement I made, I can back up. I have responded to every one of your posts, I have pointed out which are inaccurate, which are evasive and which are false. I have presented evidence from reputable scholars to support my contributions. I have also challenged you repeatedly to substantiate your assertion that historians don't consider authenticity when they consider historicity. Thusfar you have merely sprinkled around some vague book titles, none of which actually support your assertion, and then you have tried to stoke up a cloud of misinformation and misdirection to hide behind. You even tried at one stage to pretend that the Historicity of the Gospels does not actually refer to the gospels in the modern Bible. And you call me childish? OK then. Wdford (talk) 08:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

As we can all see, they haven't been. Your posts are nothing but dishonest and childish attacks. When you are ready to act like a civil adult inform me and we can start discussing but as it stands, I see no reason to entertain your childish games anymore. --Ari (talk) 09:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh please Ari - who started this very section on the talk page, named it "What are the Gospels?" and stated in his opening post - "If we are evaluating the actual gospels - we are dealing with the autograph material in their original language."? Why, that was you! Who kept deleting referenced examples on interpolations from the section on interpolations, claiming it was "off topic"? Why, that was you! Who claimed that historians don't consider authenticity in the concept of historicity, even though a large range of scholars clearly included authenticity in their considerations? Take a guess! Who asserted that reliably referenced material was OR? Goodness, once again, that was you! Who described published works by respected professors as "POV websites and whatever book"? Need I continue? Who is playing "childish games" here, Ari? Honestly? Wdford (talk) 09:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I know what I said, and everyone can see your obvious dishonest misrepresntations. For example, as has been earlier explained regarding the autographs, they are the works of which we are determining the historicity of i.e. - for detemrining how the work fits and deals with history, we examine the actual gospel. What did the authors think of them? Not what did Wdford think of them in the 21st century. How were they developed? Not how did we get the KJV translation. Was their reliable oral tradition behind them, etc. These are questions on the HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. Misrepresenting me (again) in an old discussion is just pathetic. Yet you go on with this - I was deleting referenced interpolations? Rubbish. I brought it into line - for example, deleting a section about an interpolation in a Johannine EPISTLE. An epistle is NOT one of the four GOSPELS. Now, the rest of your post (attack) is just as pathetic in nature, and many of them have repeatedly been demonstrated to be obvious misrepresentations. As I said, cut the childish attacks and games and discuss like an adult. Do you think you can do this? --Ari (talk) 09:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we all know what you said, its a matter of record and misdirection now won't change anything. This article is about the gospels as we know them, not about the original manuscripts - which no longer exist and whose original contents were disputed by large numbers of "heretics" back then and some quite serious scholars today. The KJV is still published today, millions read the gospels according to the KJV, and the KJV contains numerous interpolations, as has been pointed out by reputable scholars. How can that not be relevant re the historical reliability of the gospels? You didn't only delete a one-line reference to a Johannine Epistle, you also repeatedly deleted the KJV material and the conclusions of Aland, which is directly relevant to the canonical gospels. And, of course, you throw in a few more personal attacks to create a smokescreen while you engage in serious disruptive editing. Pathetic indeed! Wdford (talk) 13:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Wdford, you're right. This article should discuss the gospels as currently found, as well as how they may have originally existed. Leadwind (talk) 04:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

OR/Synthesis

I have pointed it out before, on what basis do we include arbitrary original research and synthesis in an article on the historicity of the canonical gospels? Unless you can bring verifiable sources that argue that the historicity of the gospels is intertwined with marginal points such as the death of Judas - or even the OR regarding the rest of the issues - then I see no reason to include them in the article. That is amplified by the fact that these issues have their own articles (which they are often crudely redacting). --Ari (talk) 13:24, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I have pointed it out before, these issues are not arbitrary original research and synthesis, they are valid points raised by valid scholars who are specifically questioning the historicity of the canonical gospels. The issues do have their own main articles, but this article discusses only the elements relevant to this topic (i.e. the historicity thereof) and its fully referenced. There is ample precedent in the many Jesus articles for articles with slightly differing focuses to duplicate elements of material where necessary. It seems to me Ari's most recent post is the start of an attempt to remove this relevant and reliably sourced material in order to defend his POV. Wdford (talk) 15:37, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No, you have not pointed it out. You have asserted it and finished it with a false attack. It has to be said that collecting quotes off POV websites and whatever book has a few pages available on google books is an insufficient way to write an article. Evidently, you have the inability to place the points within the wide contemporary scholarly debate - whether it be about Q, genre of the gospels or something as insignificant as the death of Judas. --Ari (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Still the misdirection continues. Ari "asserts" that this content is "original research and synthesis" - even though it is clearly referenced to reliable sources, as required by WP:OR. Ari "asserts" that this info comes from "POV websites and whatever book" - although Ehrman, Brown, Vermes, Crossan and the members of the Jesus Seminar are all competent and respected scholars, and the material is clearly referenced to them. Ari "asserts" that the content is not considered in the context of the "wide contemporary scholarly debate", as though reputable scholars like Ehrman, Vermes etc are not competent to research and present their information in context. And the contradictions within the New Testament re the death of Judas are not "insignificant" - they are yet one more example of the "historical unreliability" of the current gospel record, as pointed out by Ehrman et al. There is more content requiring to be added - we have not finished with Judas etc yet, and we have not even started with the apocryphal gospels, the heretics and the many contrary versions of the gospel content that were excluded from the canon (refer e.g. the criteria of "multiple attestation".) That will happen soon. And there was no "false attack" from my side - when an editor with a track record of POV-pushing aserts that relevant and reliably referenced material is "original research and synthesis", there exist solid grounds for concern. Wdford (talk) 09:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

If you paid attention to what I have been saying, you wouldn't find yourself on such an offensive position. It seems you are angry because I have hit the nail on the head (and I wasn't the only one) about your POV pushing. If you wanted issues to be discussed, you would openly discuss them. Instead, you take to attacking me (falsely, might I add) instead of dealing with the issues. Just to point at some of your clear misrepresentations and aversions:

• " even though it is clearly referenced to reliable sources" I am not calling the reliable information original research. This is clearly an evasion of what I am addressing.
• "Ari "asserts" that this info comes from "POV websites and whatever book"" - No, I know you are taking information straight from POV websites such as the quote on biography. If you had read the relatively old work in its context, you would know where it stands in the debate on the genre of the gospels. Evidently, you do not. And do not try and pretend that my contention is with scholarship (which I am sure you have not actually read.)
• " as though reputable scholars like Ehrman, Vermes etc" - Once again, as you are surely aware, my contention is not with the scholars but with your poor redaction of articles, and whatever google brings up which you place in the article without having any knowledge of where it stands in the debate. A debate which you have clearly shown yourself to be unaware of.
• "the death of Judas are not "insignificant"" Okay, then find the verifiable source which argues that it is an important factor in evaluating the historicity of the gospels. I stated this earlier, misrepresenting me or continuing to assert it is because you personally think so isn't good enough.

Furthermore, you are yet to address why doubling up material which has their own articles, and are not represented in a verifiable source on the historicity of the gospels, should be included. As far as it stands, it is an unnecessary addition. WP is not about providing original answers to questions, or applying original research to examining a question, but how verifiable sources examine the question. I should add, your last few statements (again) make your POV pushing clear. As I said, if you could start discussing like an adult it would be great. We could make some progress, include verifiable research instead of Wdford's personal Wiki blog, etc. --Ari (talk) 09:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The POV pushing is all yours – I am sticking closely to WP:VERIFY and WP:TOPIC. Just to point at some of your clear misrepresentations and aversions:

• You did call reliable material original research. You then deleted it all, even though it’s relevant and reliably sourced.
• Ehrman, Vermes etc said what they said – clearly, unambiguously and in plain English. I didn’t distort them; what is in the article is what they said. As to “where it stands in the debate”, the authors were clearly questioning the historical reliability of specific portions of the gospel records – exactly as they said in their work. Don’t come with your Alternative English again and claim that they actually meant the opposite of what they said.
• You seem to think that merely having been quoted on a website undermines Talbert’s credibility and invalidates his work. Rubbish! Lots of authors get quoted on websites – that’s meaningless, and largely beyond their control. Talbert is a reputable author, who makes a solid argument based on research and evidence. It’s clear “where it stands in the debate on the genre of the gospels” – he believes that the gospels were part myth, i.e. not entirely historical. However, just because his conclusions are different to your own is no basis to disregard them.
• Re the relevance of the death of Judas, consider for starters the authors Aaron Saari, in "The Many Deaths of Judas Iscariot: A Meditation on Suicide", and Hyam Maccoby, in “Judas Iscariot and the myth of Jewish evil”, who claim that the stories about Judas were fictitious (which aligns with the Oxford definition of Historicity, namely “opposed to legendary or fictitious”.) Also Pagels and King, in “Reading Judas” pg 30 - “Often we can see that the historicity of events matters less to the gospel authors than the moral lesson they want to convey—in the case of Judas’s suicide, for example, that evil brings ruin.” Also Ehrman, in “The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot” at pg 33 – “We will see this in the next chapter, when we explore the account of Judas death in the Book of Acts, which has some striking similarities with the account in Matthew .. but important discrepancies as well. Accounts that contain discrepancies cannot both be historically accurate.” The article is not about Judas alone, but about the historical reliability of the gospels. Judas is a substantial player in these narratives, and the (un)reliability of the stories about Judas are part of the many examples of unreliability put forward by the various reputable scholars who dispute the reliability of the gospel records.

The material you disruptively deleted is all contained in verifiable sources, who were specifically writing on the reliability (or otherwise) of the gospels. I did not “double up” here – this material is not discussed in any depth in the main articles. There is much more doubling up between Jesus and Historical Jesus and Historicity of Jesus and the individual articles on each of the four gospels, but I don’t see you deleting material from those articles on the grounds of duplication. More of your blatant POV?

It is clear from the verifiable material that a number of reputable scholars have doubts about the historical reliability of the gospels, and that they have grounds for their conclusions. For you to argue otherwise is not only childish, it is blatantly dishonest. This article discusses the historical reliability of the gospels, and so these reputable criticisms of the historical reliability of the gospels are directly relevant - under the section on "Authenticity", which you keep misrepresenting. Your on-going campaign to pretend that the article should exclude any such consideration has been shown conclusively to be false and dishonest. The best way to make progress is in fact for you to accept that a lot of respected scholars don’t agree with your personal views, and to stop your disruptive editing on this article.

Wdford (talk) 16:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said earlier, falsely claiming that my contention is with scholarship is a pointless task on your part. When you want to respond to me, do it appropriately so we can move on to the actual article as opposed to your personal distaste for (your strawman version of) myself. --Ari (talk) 01:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

You have now effectively removed all the referenced material from reputable scholars that challenged the historicity of the gospel narratives. The article in its current form gives a sanitised and one-sided impression that the gospel narratives are historically reliable, and completely omits all the many concerns and challenges. The single paragraph that refers to Crossan doesn't even mention the Jesus Seminar, far less give a full picture of all the concerns expressed by numerous other scholars. The paragraph on interpolations mentions Ehrman in a single context only, and downplays even that. Otherwise, the many challenges from reputable scholars have been completely eliminated. This article is thus completely unbalanced, and does not comply with wikipolicy. Wdford (talk) 08:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I have not. I have put the article in line with treatments of the question. I have no idea what your specific examples of Crossan and Ehrman are meant to mean. Is it that you really think that Ehrman discovered something new in his popular level book Misquoting Jesus? Are you trying to imply that there is a conspiracy at work here against Ehrman? I simply don't understand your criticism, but to me it confirms everything I have said about you not understanding the wide debate on any of these issues. --Ari (talk) 23:54, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

You have indeed "removed all the referenced material from reputable scholars that challenged the historicity of the gospel narratives." To say otherwise is an outright lie. You cannot hide behind the claim that you have put "the article in line with treatments of the question" - you have merely deleted referenced material from reputable scholars whose "treatment" disagrees with your POV. Wikipolicy requires at WP:NPOV that articles must represent "fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors." Your one-sided "treatment" pretends that no contrary "treatments" exist, and thus clearly disregards this core policy of WP:NPOV.

Once again, lying about my edits as if slander will achieve something isn't a useful approach. What I removed has nothing to do with my own POV, but everything to do with WP policies. We have no reason to include original synthesis in this article, especially when the topics are dealt with in their own articles. If you think those respective articles are lacking, then get to work on them! If you have significant views about verifiable approach to the historicity of the gospels then by all means add them. However, I am not responsible for your lack of initiative. Am I meant to be some sort of fairy that magically synthesises every major view?

You then claim you have no idea what I mean when I point out that you have deleted the other side of the debate. Please read the material you deleted, and it will be come abundantly clear to you what I am referring to.

Once again, what other side of the debate? Could you point to where this is - because what I deleted had nothing to do with the 'debate'.

You dispute that Ehrman discovered something new, as though the fact that these disputes go way back invalidates the material. You also refer to Ehrman's "popular level book', as though once again this somehow undermines the validity of his claims. And please note that the word "conspiracy" is your word - yet more misdirection, it seems.

No, I do not. How about you try reading what I say instead of forcing your conspiracy idiocy into my mouth? And on Ehrman's popular level has more to do with your inadequacy regarding the debate than anything else. This is evidenced by the fact that you actually believed Ehrman discovered something new as a "contemporary" TC that no one else, including Kenyon quoted before was unaware of. Evidently, all you want to do is fight and lie instead of actually heading to my numerous calls to deal with the actual article. -Ari (talk) 15:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Finally you end with yet another personal attack, trying yet again to distract attention away from the fact that a number of reputable scholars have published material which points out that much of the gospel record is unreliable.

Wdford (talk) 11:48, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is not limited to the “approach” to the historicity of the gospels, it is about the “historicity” of the gospels. I hope you are not intending to spend the next few weeks pretending that the article is about the “approach” only?

A number of reputable scholars have challenged the historicity of a number of "historical details" in the gospels, and WP:NPOV requires that those verifiable views be included. The material you deleted is not “original synthesis” – it is the work of reputable scholars, and I supplied a number of verifiable references. Repeating your lie does not make it true.

I see that you now accuse me of “forcing your conspiracy idiocy into my mouth”. However you remain the only person to have mentioned any conspiracy, and it certainly seems you are determined to create the (false) impression of a conspiracy accusation. I never claimed that Ehrman “discovered something new” – in fact I clearly pointed out that "these disputes go way back". However Ehrman and other reputable modern scholars have raised concerns relating to these discrepancies, and their views need to be represented in the article in terms of WP:NPOV. It doesn't matter which of the modern scholars published first, since the historicity of the canonical gospels has been challenged by “heretics” since ancient times. Your accusation is clearly just another blatant attempt at misdirection.

So – to address the article itself – WP:NPOV requires that all verifiable views be fairly represented. This article is about the “historicity of the canonical gospels”, and Brown, Ehrman, Vermes, Crossan and other reputable scholars have expressed relevant views on the “historicity of the canonical gospels” which you have deleted. The material is not OR, it’s verifiable and it’s referenced. Deleting verifiable and referenced material is contrary to wikipolicy. Please cease this inappropriate behaviour and comply with wikipolicy.

Wdford (talk) 22:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I really see no reason to respond to these repeated false misrepresentations. Your post seems to fit into three camps - (1) blatant lie; (2) blatant misrepresentation or (3) repeating (1) and (2) that have already been addressed. Claiming that deleting content that is original synthesis, or has its own article is not a violation of any WP policy.

Evidently, you prefer malice attacks to actually contributing to the articles content and quality. --Ari (talk) 02:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I see that, besides the on-going personal attacks, you are claiming that deleting all that referenced material was based on a) the material was “original synthesis” and b) main articles already exist on these topics.

As I’m sure you know full well, WP:SYNTHESIS defines “synthesis” as combining “material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources”. As the reliable sources I quoted all stated very clearly their own conclusions, and as the material made it clear who said what, and as the material was clearly referenced, there has been no contravention from my side of WP:SYNTHESIS.

Similarly, WP:NOR requires that: “To demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented.” I have done exactly that, and have provided a number of references to a number of reliable sources who have stated conclusions concerning the reliability of gospel information. The guideline WP:These are not original research specifically states that “compiling related facts and information from independent sources”, “comparing and contrasting conflicting facts and opinion” and “collecting related information under a common heading” are all acceptable, and do not constitute Original Research. Once again, there has been no contravention from my side of WP:NOR.

As regards the existence of main articles, this in no way prohibits the creation of other articles that deal with related topics. There are many Jesus-related articles that continually rehash the same info for different reasons, and nobody seems to have any problem with that, least of all you. I don’t care much which article contains the detail, but if the detail is to reside elsewhere then the Historicity article must at least include a proper summary and links, for balance and completeness. Your current content does not reflect the range of challenges to the historicity of the gospels that have been raised by the reputable authors I referenced (and others besides), and so its in contravention of WP:NPOV.

Wdford (talk) 11:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

As you seem to ignore everything I say in favour of attacking a strawman, I won't bother responding. When you are ready to deal with the article in line with verifiable treatments please share them! --Ari (talk) 15:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually the “treatments” of Bart D. Ehrman, Geza Vermes, EP Sanders, Robert Funk, Marcus Borg, Raymond E. Brown, Aaron Saari, Charles H. Talbert, Elaine Pagels, and Hyam Maccoby, are all “verifiable treatments” as well. Following the set of “treatments” you agree with but ignoring “treatments” you don't like is blatant POV. Wdford (talk) 17:17, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Ari, please stop trying to exclude so much information from the page. It's WP policy to be inclusive, not exclusive. Leadwind (talk) 04:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not trying to exclude information. In fact, I have been incorporating the scholarly debate with the sources that Wdford attempts to imply I am ignoring. My problem was with copy/pasting about 6 articles with minor changes straight into this article. If you want to catch up on the discussion, you should read what has been going on instead of a few irrelvent strawman attacks. --Ari (talk) 05:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ari, sorry if I got it wrong. The article is vague, and it looked like you were trying to keep relevant information out of it. If we can agree that we need to incorporate the work of the best current scholars into the article, then we're on the same page after all. Leadwind (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Wdford, I don't think we've crossed paths before. You bring an impressive array of top-quality sources to the conversation. Thanks. Leadwind (talk) 04:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Points for Moving Forward

Following the criteria in Blomberg, the article is in four categories

• Authorship and Date of composition;[14]
• Intention and Genre;[15]
• Gospel sources and oral tradition;[16][17]
• Textual Criticism; (that is, do the extant copies accurately reflect the autograph (original) texts.
• Historical authenticity of specific sayings and narrative event.

On authorship and date of composition, the information should be dealt with in the respective pages for the gospels, so it should really be a summary of the scholarly discussion - and then how this applies to historicity. However, the problem with how Authorship and Date apply to historicity is dependent on Gospels sources and Oral Tradition. For example, if we hold the view that composition had very little to do with original apostles, but relied on a firm tradition based on eyewitness or apostolic testimony (e.g. Papias on Mark but for Luke and Matt) authorship is not as relevant a criteria. I assume the reason that Blomberg takes up the point is to defend apostolic authorship?

Would changing the order help? Or should we say above in less words?

On Genre, I believe we should start with prose as opposed to numerous quotes. After stating the majority position of biography, the prose should go into how this affects historicity, and various other views. For example, Talbert has a freeer model than Burridge on what makes biography, however, this should be nuanced in a way that represents the debate. As it stands, it seems to read like a number of qualifiers to the view noted by Stanton as opposed to a different or modified view.

On sources and oral tradition, it would be great to work more on (1) transmission {if nothing was reliabily transmitted then fat chance for accurate gospels, vice versa) dealiing with form criticism, the Scandanavian school, Bauckham's eyewitness testimony view and whatever else is out there and (2) transmission to gospel, specifically for the synoptics. Possible referneces for this:

• Birger Gerhardsson, Reliability of the Gospel Tradition; Memory and Manuscript.
• James D.G. Dunn - the discussion on oral tradition and the gospel in Jesus Remembered.
• Richard Bauckham - Jesus and the Eyewitnesses : The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
• Craig L. Blomberg in Historical Reliability of the Gospels discusses Form Criticism.
• Stephen H. Travis “Form Criticism,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods. ed. I. Howard Marshall. However, this should be nuanced by how current (i.e. further removed from Bultmann days) takes on form criticism. I believe Michael F. Bird has an article on such in WTJ however I can't remember the name.

On textual criticism Bird again has an article on its use on Historical Jesus studies. This should give a feel of how TC affects the historicity of the gospels, as opposed to the implications of variants within a textual tradition. As there is an article on this, the focus should be on implications - starting with the major narrative events (which are already listed) and whatever else there may be.

Historical authenticity - a few articles exist on the specific criterion, so no need for too much explanation. However, an example of a verifiable source using that criterion should most defintely exist. This will probably be found in any intro to historical Jesus, and even some NT intros (e.g. Ehrman). I'll try and get this done asap as it isn't as demanding as the other sections. --Ari (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The order seems fine to me. However I feel the issues of authorship are important, and need to be broadened. We are heavily dependent on “tradition”, and critics have challenged the accuracy (and even the honesty) of this “tradition”. Some scholars claim there were many eyewitnesses around who would have pointed out divergences, and conclude that therefore the traditional accounts must be reasonably accurate. Others point out that many eyewitnesses did in fact point out divergences – these came to be called “heretics”, and their “alternative” manuscripts were destroyed.

More discussion on sources and oral tradition would be great. However I don’t believe its appropriate to exclude the implications of variants within a textual tradition, as these have bearing on the reliability of the transmission of the tradition.

I obviously support an additional focus on the implications of variants re the major narrative events. These discussions should however include also the input of Ehrman, Geza Vermes, EP Sanders, Robert Funk, Marcus Borg, Raymond E. Brown, Aaron Saari, Charles H. Talbert, Elaine Pagels and Hyam Maccoby. A balanced article about the “historicity” of records should also include verifiable sources who challenge the “historicity” thereof. We therefore also need to reflect somewhere the views of scholars who challenge the historicity of the gospels. Blomberg has laid out the issues to be considered in determining historicity, but the article can’t be limited only to process.

Wdford (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Wdford (and Ari), I think you will find The Anchor Bible editions of the Gospels absolutely invaluable for what you are doing; their introductions provide a very thorough review of higher and lower critical work on each book of the Bible. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:37, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

On authorship, I agree with what you mean about relying on tradition, however, I don't think you would need to spend more than a few sentences outlining that. My issue with authorship is that whether or not the individual that penned it was one of the twelve does not necessarily impact historicity, with the question being more dependent on point 2 and 3. Wdford, you don't need to try and name drop when I have read at least one work by everyone in that list except Aaron Saari. When those scholars touch on something that is determinant in a scholarly treatment of the issue, of course we should include it. However, I am yet to see a convincing reason as to why we should double up content on arbitrary individual events, instead of simply working on those individual articles. With that in mind, we could start a hub (or category?) page for the narrative events to the gospels, linking to the respective pages and just making a link to that on this page. If we are to include examples, they should go under the specific criteria.

The Anchor Bible Dictionary is great, but there is no direct treatment to follow on the topic as a whole for structure. On the individual topics, there are a few articles of different relevance (e.g. the article on genre isn't very full vs the better treatment of NT form criticism.) Dictionary of Jesus and Gospel has a prototype worth following for structure which is worth looking at. --Ari (talk) 02:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ari, "On authorship and date of composition, the information should be dealt with in the respective pages for the gospels, so it should really be a summary of the scholarly discussion - and then how this applies to historicity." Not really. The great thing about WP is that what's described on one page gets summarized on a hundred other pages. If we're talking about historicity of the gospels, then we should clearly state where and when the gospels were apparently written. WP pages should be inclusive, not mutually exclusive. Leadwind (talk) 03:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I never said I was against stating where and when the gospels are believe to have been written as my point was the opposite...? My issue of summarising is not to again go through the various reasons for individual dating of each gospel and to discuss in some way how this actually applies to the topic at hand. --Ari (talk) 05:42, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ari, you offer these sources.

   * Birger Gerhardsson, Reliability of the Gospel Tradition; Memory and Manuscript.
   * James D.G. Dunn - the discussion on oral tradition and the gospel in Jesus Remembered.
   * Richard Bauckham - Jesus and the Eyewitnesses : The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
   * Craig L. Blomberg in Historical Reliability of the Gospels discusses Form Criticism.
   * Stephen H. Travis “Form Criticism,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods. ed. I. Howard Marshall. 

By what measure are these the sources we should use? Are any of these books university-level textbooks? I've read a lot and these aren't the first scholars I'd turn to to represent modern, mainstream history. First I'd put Harris, who literally writes the book about the Bible. Then I'd go to Sanders, probably the very center of current, mainstream scholarship on the issue. Harris and Sanders basically agree with Vermes, Funk, etc. I propose we stick to the very best sources and make sure the article depicts their viewpoint first, and only then should we add non-mainstream views. Leadwind (talk) 04:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

First of all, it is a fruitless task to try and imply that I have set up a 'use my sources' when all I have done is suggested some authoritative sources on the issue. It seems the earlier poisoning of the well has affected how you have come into the discussion. But that aside (and hopefully the end of it! :)-

In this suggestion of possible sources for moving forward, a wide range of the debate is present because that would best represent the contemporary debate. We have the form critics, the scandanavian school, the influential work of Dunn in the gospels and historical Jesus studies, and the work of Bauckham which, to say the least, is unique and gaining influence especially as a response to traditional form criticism. Covering the wide range of debate is essential here as there is no uniform mainstream position, despite your placing of Sanders, Vermes and Funk in the same basket. If we were to go back 40 years it would have been a far easier task, but we aren't there anymore.

So to summarise the use of the sources - paint the debate on pre-gospel sources to gospel giving due weight where dominant views are present. The inclusion of Blomberg was for structural reasons as we are following a more inclusive structure that he has employed and Travis for Wdford as he only seems to have access to online sources. Similarly, to supplement Travis I suggested the Anchor Bible Dictionary on NT Form Criticism. --Ari (talk) 06:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ari, what's your source that says your sources are notable? I have a university textbook that says Sanders, Crossan, and Vermes are experts, as well as an encyclopedia britannica article. Let's stick with the mainstream people first, and only add the non-mainstream when the mainstream scholars are well summarized. Leadwind (talk) 06:20, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't doubt that your textbook states that Sanders, Crossan and Vermes are experts and I most definately wouldn't disagree. I own numerous copies of their works, and many more by other experts that engage with them. However, these experets you exclusively present do not even fall into the same camp on the issue I provided suggested sources on. For example, you grouped Funk and Sanders together despite them reconstructing the Jesus tradition in very different ways (sayings vs eventss). Similarly, NT scholarship goes far beyond these three people -especially when there are details that these guys simply barely scrape the surface of. If we were going to have another Historical Jesus article, then go on with Sanders, Vermes, Crossan (as well as Meier, Dunn, Brown and Wright as key players) but that isn't necessarily what this article is. There are scholarly treatments of the question outside of specific Historical Jesus scholarship, examples being Gerhardsson, Bauckham, and others on oral traditions as well as Burridge (What Are the Gospels?. Cmabrige Uni Press (1992))and Stanton on gospel genre.

So, it is an odd question to doubt the notability of peer-reviewed scholarly tomes by world leading scholars such James D.G. Dunn and Richard Bauckham because they aren't a part of a list of three names you saw in a book somewhere.Also, you may be surprised as to how not mainstream Crossan is outside of North American historical Jesus scholarship.

Finally, could you provide the citation that states that there is mainstream consensus on oral tradition, transmission and development held by Sanders, Vermes and Crossan as I am sure that it is neither of their speciality. --Ari (talk) 09:48, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Wdford, I found the article on TC that may be of use for placing the issue appropriately in the scheme of things. Michael F. Bird, "Textual Criticism and the Historical Jesus" Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 6 (2008) 133–156. Abstract: Th is study argues that historical Jesus research needs to pay greater attention to the field of textual criticism and study of early Christian manuscripts. It is accordingly argued that the fi eld of textual criticism impacts historical Jesus studies in at least three ways: (1) the textual integrity of the New Testament and the possibility of historical Jesus research; (2) the signifi cance of the agrapha ; and (3) text-critical contributions to historical issues in life of Jesus research. --Ari (talk) 06:34, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ari, again, do you have a source that names your sources as prominent scholars in this field? Maybe they are, but if they are, I'd like to know on whose authority we are to take them as prominent scholars. As for my source, Funk, Crossan, and Sanders agree on the basics as far the historicity of the gospels is concerned. They stick to the mainstream consensus, which I summarized in the lede. I know that Crossan is eccentric, but even the people who find him eccentric still list him as a prominent scholar in the field. As for oral transmission, the basic historical facts are well accepted. If there's some particular point that these historians are not up to tackling, what is it, and who would one look to for a more expert opinion? My lists of prominent scholars come from a university-level text book and from Encyclopedia Britannica. Where does your list of prominent scholars come from? Leadwind (talk) 14:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Leadwind, the Anchor Bible is certainly generally accepted as an authoritative source (if, as Ari says, it is limited in scope because of its approach). As for other scholars Ari mentioned, I do not think we need another source to tell us whether they are reliable enough to include as views (since nothing we put in, nothing by nobody, is "truth," it is all just different significant views). I propose a three-part test for significance: first, does the person have a PhD. in Biblical Studies or an adjunct field (e.g. Classics, Ancient History, religion); second, does the person teach at a major university; third, is the work published by a major university press? I am not claiming that these should all be necessary requirements (e.g. I also accept Leadwind's list. But Leadwind, there is no reason to believe it is a compelte list of significant sources either). I also realize we could haggle over what is a prestigious university or an academic publisher. But if someone teaches at Cambridge and has a book published by Princeton University Press - this is just a ferinstance - I would not question that the book is a source we should consider. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:41, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

SLR, I am happy to agree with you. Allow me also to add that we should divvy up word count roughly according to the prominence of the view. For example, Crossan is a renowned expert in the field, but his view is eccentric, and the mainstream view should get more ink. Leadwind (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)