Talk:Jesus in comparative mythology

Remove Christmas

I propose removing the Birthdate section of this article. There has never been notable mythology around Jesus' birthdate, so I reckon this is out of the scope of this article. Of course, we should check if anything needs to be merged into Christmas#Choice of December 25 date when deleting. Daask (talk) 14:39, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

What do you mean "There has never been notable mythology around Jesus' birthdate"? The birthdate itself is part of the mythology. When most people think of Jesus, "born on December 25" is always one of the first things they think of. The section is completely within the scope of this article. --Katolophyromai (talk) 14:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I think that you two may have different meanings of the word "mythology" in mind. Paul August ☎ 15:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The title of the article is rather vague, for several reasons. One is that "comparative mythology" could refer to all kinds of things. The word "mythology" itself can have all kinds of different meanings depending on a person's cultural background. The second problem is that, when we say "Jesus," that does not just refer to the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, but rather all the views that anyone over the ages has ever had about Jesus. (Indeed, it would also include views on Jesus by practitioners of Graeco-Roman paganism, by second-century Gnostics, by early Muslims, medieval Catholics, and even present-day Mormons.) For this article, however, I have been trying to focus on the Jesus of early Christianity, since I think that is what most people reading the article will be looking for information about. --Katolophyromai (talk) 15:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I should perhaps note that I am still working on this article and that there is still much more that needs to be added. The greatest concern of mine at this point is that I am still trying to decide how I want to handle the vast array of fringe theories that have been promulgated on this subject, such as Gerald Massey's argument that Jesus was totally copied off Horus (and that King Herod was apparently actually an Egyptian snake-god), Joseph Atwell's insistence that Jesus is actually based on the Roman emperor Titus of all people, Richard Carrier's argument that the Sumerian goddess Inanna was "crucified" (she definitely was not, and this coming from the person who wrote our article about her), or those zany ideas linking Jesus with the Hindu god Krishna. We definitely need to address these sorts of ideas, since they are the comparisons that most people reading the article will be most familiar with, but I am still trying to decide exactly what would be the best modus operandi for discussing them. I have a general idea in mind, but I am still working on the details. --Katolophyromai (talk) 15:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Katolophyromai: In my opinion, it is unnecessary to include more on fringe theories than you mention here. There is a separate article on the subject in existence already that this can be linked to so it doesn't need to be covered extensively here. I note this article is missing some research applicable to this subject. Birger Gerhardson did research comparing rabbinic Judaism to early Christianity and it deserves a mention. Samuel Byrskog has done work comparing the practices of ancient historians and applying it to early Christianity. Richard Bauckham has completely shifted the paradigm in early Christianity research. am not accusing you but there seems to be a bias on Wikipedia quite often in these various articles toward mythicism using Bultmann and form criticism from the mid-twentieth century which has since been largely undermined from the last fifty years of orality studies. Bultmann (form criticism) is a valid historical reference but not so much a good critical reference. Literary criticism created a dramatic shift in the 80's and biblucal criticism has continued to move on reflected in the work of those mentioned here and many others whose ideas are not included here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 15:46, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

John overtly influenced by Platonism?

The first sentence under the section of the Gospel of John says;

"The Gospel of John, the latest of the four canonical gospels, was influenced by ideas from Platonism.[74][75]"

The problem is, as it seems, that when I checked two the sources offered, both don't say this at all. On pp. 47-48 of Stephen Smalley's John: Evangelist and Interpreter, Smalley writes;

"There is no reason to suppose that John was heavily dependent on Platonism because his Gospel shows familiarity with occasional ideas which were current coinage in the Jewish-Hellenistic environment of his day, and shared indeed by other New Testaments writers."

The other source, Stanley Porter's book, says on pg. 103 that Greek origin influences of logos theology "has generally been dismissed in recent thought." This means that the lead sentence doesn't look like it accurately reflects its source. Perhaps it can read something like "The Gospel of John did not directly borrow from, including in its Logos theology, Platonic sources, but these sources likely influenced earlier Jewish deuterocanonical texts which John inherited and expanded his own Logos theology from." The sentence in the lead of this page that says "The Gospel of John bears overt influences from Platonism" certainly needs to be changed, if not removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.181.61 (talk) 05:53, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I have attempted to correct the wording to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding. To be clear, though, even if John was influenced by earlier Jewish texts that had been influenced by Platonism, that is still influence from Platonism; it is just not direct influence. --Katolophyromai (talk) 17:03, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

The edit looks better, though I still have a quibble. The article should also clarify just how much Hellenism in Logos philosophy was retained in Judaism. In Platonic terminology logos was a universal force that represented the rationality and intelligibility of the world (see the Oxford Classical Dictionary pg. 882). On the other hand, as adapted into Judaism, Logos becomes a mediating divine figure between God and man and the idea seems to have been borrowed more from the Wisdom literature than Platonic philosophy. In the 2nd volume of the Cambridge History of Judaism, the author writes "This primeval and universal Wisdom had, at God's command, found itself a home on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. This mediatorial figure, which in its universality can be compared with the Platonic 'world-soul' or the Stoic 'logos', is here exclusively connected with Israel, God's chosen people, and with his sanctuary." As far as I can tell, what seems to have been retained is the universality of the concept, whereas the rest is novel in Judaism and in fact influenced more by the idea of Wisdom (as the previous quote shows). So I think this clarification is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.49.181.61 (talk) 19:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

The lede could use some rewriting

I was giving this article a read since I think the subject is really interesting, but I almost immediately found a lot of issues with the lede.

For starters:

"Although the vast majority of New Testament scholars and historians of the ancient Near East agree that Jesus existed as a historical figure,. However it appears most New"

Where is the second half of this sentence? What is it intended to say? I also feel that "vast majority" feels like an inappropriate term here for multiple reasons. Even if this claim were backed up by the sources cited, I'd rather just say "most" or "many." "Vast majority" on a very contentious subject feels loaded. That brings me to the next problem: it's not backed up by the sources. Or if it is, the sources cited are really bad in spite of the citation overkill. There are 9 sources attached (4 regular sources, 5 notes). That alone is really weird to me. The notes are also terrible. For example: Robert M. Price, a former fundamentalist apologist turned atheist who says the existence of Jesus cannot be ruled out, but is less probable than non-existence, agrees that his perspective runs against the views of the majority of scholars. What even is that phrasing? It's very poorly written, full of loaded language, and feels very cherry-picked and out of place.

The next sentence of the lede is as follows:

However it appears most New Testament scholars and historians do not take into account the sequential parallels between the Jewish War and the Synoptic Gospels.

This also comes off very weirdly written. Definitely not encyclopedic language. The grammar is poor, it reads like an opinion statement, and I have no idea what it's trying to say. It feels like a lot of context is missing.

I would try my best to rewrite the lede myself, but this is outside my area of expertise and I would not feel comfortable making major changes. I will, however, be downgrading the quality assessment, as I don't think it meets most of the criteria for "B" class.

I hope that someone more knowledgeable on this subject is able to address some of these issues.

 Vanilla  Wizard 💙 20:12, 29 March 2023 (UTC)