User talk:Nerms1995

January 2016

Hello, I'm Materialscientist. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions to Antisemitism and the New Testament have been undone because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Materialscientist (talk) 21:52, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Antisemitism and the New Testament. Your edits continue to appear to constitute vandalism and have been automatically reverted.

• If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Note that human editors do monitor recent changes to Wikipedia articles, and administrators have the ability to block users from editing if they repeatedly engage in vandalism.
• ClueBot NG makes very few mistakes, but it does happen. If you believe the change you made should not have been considered as unconstructive, please read about it, report it here, remove this warning from your talk page, and then make the edit again.
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• The following is the log entry regarding this warning: Antisemitism and the New Testament was changed by Nerms1995 (u) (t) ANN scored at 0.950177 on 2016-01-28T22:05:45+00:00 .

Thank you. ClueBot NG (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. We welcome and appreciate your contributions, including your edits to Antisemitism and the New Testament, but we cannot accept original research. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you. GAB^Hello! 22:07, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

When accusations are made, the most constructive thing in the pursuit of truth is to allow responses.

The vast majority of my changes are responses to the accusations preceding them. Some are cited from reputable sources (The Bible and Got Questions), while others are logical. To suggest that either of the two is unconstructive is to deny that a building can only be constructed using opposing parallel structures. At the very least, Wikipedia policy would dictate that the former material be kept.

As for terminology, 'anti-Jewish' condemns before proving. Neutrality dictates the use of a different term. As an aside, the examples below my switches demonstrate anti-Pharisaic attitudes only, given Jesus' proclaimed target. Jesus would have to hate himself, his family, and disciples if he hated Jews. The whole New Testament condems that view.

Please make suggestions on the article's talk page

Hello,

Please refrain from making further edits to the Antisemitism and the New Testament article. Instead, propose changes on the article's talk page to try to reach consensus. What you are currently doing constitutes edit warring. Please read that article. Furthermore, I invoked WP:STATUSQUO (which you apparently failed to see), so you cannot keep on editing the article unless you wish to get blocked. Articles are improved through discussion on their respective talk pages when the issues are contentious, unless you have reliable sources for inserting information. Please also read WP:NPOV. You've already received a level 1 vandalism warning (above), and a bot is now monitoring your edits. As I said, please suggest changes on the article's talk page instead so that the community can try to reach agreements. I will have time for that tomorrow. Others might discuss the matters with you in the meantime. If things don't go your way, there are other options available, but first discuss the issues on the talk page of the article. Thanks. Dontreader (talk) 22:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hello to you! A war is a back and forth. All I did was change materials to make them more fair and reasonable. Now that I understand the contentiousness of the issues within Wikipedia, I will endeavour to present rather than impose. That said, the monitoring and warning is unnecessary.

For my part, I dispute the neutrality and completeness of the page. I do believe that many of my edits fall within the guidelines of Wikipedia, especially the sourced additions. Could you be so fair as to judge on a case-by-case basis?

Hello again,

I don't know if you saw my reply to your message on the talk page of the article yesterday. I wrote that the heavily anti-Semitic rhetoric used by early famous Christians was based on passages from the New Testament. Those Christian men did not attack the Jews just by coincidence, using similar language. Also, maybe I'm wrong but I assumed that you and the anonymous user who preceded you yesterday were the same person because, among other reasons, you both changed "anti-Jewish" to something else. If you admit you edited anonymously and then you created an account, then that's edit warring. Otherwise I apologize. But when someone comes and makes a change, and someone else restores the previous version, and the first person changes it again, that's edit warring. Now, the monitoring is automatically done by a bot at a certain point, based on certain parameters. Furthermore, you had to be warned because you were making several edits to the article without following Wikipedia's guidelines. I must emphasize that what you think is "more fair and reasonable" is clearly affected by your own bias. I am neither a Christian nor a Jew, so I believe I see these matters more objectively, and I have more experience on Wikipedia than you do (you made a mistake by jumping into a contentious article before gaining experience on less sensitive articles and learning the basic Wikipedia policies, which takes time). Likewise, there are most likely some atheists that are watching and editing the article, who are neither pro-Christian nor pro-Jewish, of course. I even wonder if you have read the entire article. An effort was clearly made to show some balance by providing other points of view. Of course the article can be improved, but not unilaterally, as you were trying to do. That just doesn't work with contentious issues. Ideas should be presented on the talk page to try to reach consensus.

You wanted me to judge on a case-by-case basis. Today I only have time for one issue. You claim that the New Testament is not anti-Jewish but that instead it's anti-rabbinic or anti-Pharisee. First of all, even many Christian scholars disagree with you (some of them are cited in the article). And I don't think Michael Houdmann (the founder of Got Questions) is a scholar (do any scholars cite him in books or essays?); besides, many of the articles on that website are not written by him, which poses a big problem if you want to use that site as a source. Now let's discuss the matter setting aside the scholars. I will try to reason with you regarding the matter of the New Testament being anti-Jewish or not. It's basically all in the article but I'll go through this anyway.

Take, for example, John 8 New International Version (NIV). Jesus is clearly speaking to a crowd, and in that crowd there are some Pharisees:

12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”

But there is no reason to believe that all of the non-Pharisees in the crowd supported him, because John shifts to "the Jews":

22 This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go, you cannot come’?”

23 But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.”

So Jesus is saying that any Jew (not just the Pharisees) who does not believe that he is the son of God will die in his sins. And definitely there were many Jews that didn't believe him because the crowd that demanded his crucifixion was not merely comprised of Pharisees. Remember that even John the Baptist sent out his own disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one or if they should look for someone else. John the Baptist had no faith in Jesus. Then again John writes "the Jews" in that chapter, not specifying that it was only the Pharisees that were challenging him:

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word.

John could have written, "The Pharisees answered him," but he didn't, so there's no reason to assume that only the Pharisees opposed him. Besides, then we also read these words:

48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”

Jesus even labeled any Jew that dared to question him as a child of the devil, opposed to God (which later on had disastrous consequences for the Jewish people):

42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

So look, I could use many more examples, but one chapter in the New Testament is enough to show to any objective person that Jesus damns any Jew that won't believe him (they will die in their sins). This turned out to be enough for Luther to write On the Jews and Their Lies (read that article, please), in which his hatred of the Jews is beyond comprehension if Luther thought he was a good Christian who should love his enemies. If you have read the history of Christianity to some degree, you will know that even before Luther's time millions of Jews were either killed, expelled from nations, or treated in other cruel ways in the name of Jesus and Christianity. Thousands of them were burned alive by Christians during the 14th-century Black Plague because if the Jews were evil enough to reject and even kill Jesus (the Jewish crowd demanded his execution), they were certainly capable of poisoning the wells. Of course they were innocent (Pope Clement said so, urging Christians to stop letting the devil seduce them).

Therefore, if we can't agree on this point, we won't agree on anything. The facts are the facts. What Got Questions does is force square pegs into round holes. Dontreader (talk) 02:14, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

As a bonus, here Jesus once again is ready to damn any Jew who won't accept his message (don't tell me he's talking about Pharisees, please):

Matthew 10:14-16 New International Version (NIV)

14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

Dontreader (talk) 02:27, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

A few pointers, because I see that you're set on your side of things.

Regarding who changed what, the first and last time I have ever edited a Wikipedia page was that day. When I chanced upon the article in question, I decided to make 'one' quick edit, for which I thought it would be bothersome to create an account. When I realized that I wanted to make more changes, I created an account. Hence the shift from anonymous to nerms1995.

Second, nothing you have shown me is antisemitic. To your accusations of personal bias, allow me to partially reveal myself by saying that I was born to an Ultra Orthodox father whose family was subject to pogroms and the concentration camps, and a Sephardic mother whose family went through the Inquisition and hate-filled riots.

That aside, let's look at the definition of antisemitism, which is prejudice against Jews. It does not matter who supported or opposed Jesus, rather who Jesus Himself opposed.

Please let the fact that Jesus and his disciples were Jewish sink in. Were Jesus or his followers (Yonathan included) prejudiced against themselves? Unlikely. If they were, we could expect Jesus to shun his brethren so as to exclude them from heaven. But Jesus does the opposite, indicating to His disciples 'To the Jew first and then the Gentile,' offering them first place in Salvation. So why is Jesus so condemnatory toward Jews? The two part answer is that Jesus is condemnatory toward ALL of man but only ever preaches to his brethren. There's no prejudice, it's just a matter of audience. It would be like inferring that a French teacher hates French kids because he only ever scolds French students.

So when Jesus says that unbelieving Jews are going to hell, it is spoken in the context of any unbelieving man going to hell. Any person, yes including Jews, are the spiritual children of Satan if they oppose him in his quest to enlighten these truths. The insert of Abraham into the discussion reveals that Jesus' urgent insistency and tone is meant to keep his fellow Jews from believing that they are exempted from his global requirements by virtue of our (their) ancestors.

Jesus is in fact prejudiced against the falsehoods of the Pharisees who lead my people astray from Our Mashiach 2000 years ago. Harassed sheep without a shepherd, Jesus had and continues to have mercy on us to this day by freeing us from false leadership. Surely opposition to leadership does not constitute opposition to people.

Ultimately, by the Grace of God, my family and friends are slowly but surely understanding that Yeshua is their greatest lover. Won't you join us in the loving family dynamic?

Thanks for clarifying that you and the anonymous user are the same person. Then indeed you engaged in edit warring, or at least you were close to doing so, when you changed "anti-Jewish" twice. That article states:

An editor who repeatedly restores his or her preferred version is edit warring, regardless of whether their edits were justifiable: "but my edits were right, so it wasn't edit warring" is no defense.

But I don't see any malice in what you did, just lack of experience on Wikipedia. Anyway, it's clear to me that you are a Messianic Jew (or you might prefer a different term, but you believe in Jesus as your lord and savior). Therefore, your bias is the same as the bias of an Evangelical Christian. I have debated both groups countless times, and they are equally militant, on average, in my opinion. But please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not the place to try to convert people. We are merely here to deal with articles and to try to improve them or create them, or nominate them for deletion.

The point I was making is that your claim that the New Testament is strictly anti-Pharisee is wrong. You seem incapable of reading the article objectively. You refuse to believe what both Jewish and Christian scholars say. The New Testament most definitely has passages that at the very least appear to be anti-Jewish, and millions of Jews suffered terribly because of them. And it's not just passages. The main theme of Christianity is that Jesus died innocently at the hands of evil Jews for our salvation, making the Jews unrepentant "Christ killers" - even God killers. That's the main point of the article: the historical evidence that the New Testament wiped out countless Jews and made many more of them suffer terrible atrocities. If the New Testament is not anti-Jewish then important leaders of the Christian church before and after the emergence of Protestantism misunderstood the New Testament, which is equal to saying that the holy Spirit never dwelt in them. Dontreader (talk) 04:31, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Unconstructive Edits

When accusations are made, the most constructive thing in the pursuit of truth is to allow responses.

The vast majority of my changes are responses to the accusations preceding them. Some are cited from reputable sources (The Bible and Got Questions), while others are logical. To suggest that either of the two is unconstructive is to deny that a building can only be constructed using opposing parallel structures. At the very least, Wikipedia policy would dictate that the former material be kept.

As for terminology, 'anti-Jewish' condemns before proving. Neutrality dictates the use of a different term. As an aside, the examples below my switches demonstrate anti-Pharisaic attitudes only, given Jesus' proclaimed target. Jesus would have to hate himself, his family, and disciples if he hated Jews. The whole New Testament condems that view. Nerms1995 (talk) 22:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Nerms1995, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi Nerms1995! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from experienced editors like Worm That Turned (talk). Visit the Teahouse We hope to see you there! Thank you so much :) I'll check it out! Delivered by HostBot on behalf of the Teahouse hosts 19:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)