Talk:Gospel/Archive 4

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"definitive and authoritative accounts"

I've just removed the following sentence form the lead:

According to Christian belief they provide definitive and authoritative accounts of Jesus' life, teaching, death and resurrection.

edit-summary

unsourced, too general, and not a summary of the article

• unsourced, indeed;
• too general: do all Christians believe this? Liberal Christians don't;
• per WP:LEAD: the lead summarizes the article; there's no corresponding section in the article.

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

A huge majority of Christians do believe this, and should be obvious enough to not need a source. The fact that there is no corresponding entry in the main article is a huge omission which I intend to correct at some point. But for now, let's take baby steps towards getting this to be an adequate article. I've made another edit for you to consider. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

- there is a separate article, The gospel which is about the message of Christianity. This article is about the written accounts of Jesus' life. - Epinoia (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly my point. This is all about the written accounts of Jesus life. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

- reverted edit - the lead already says, "They are the main source of information on the life of Jesus" so there is no need to repeat it - this article is about the written accounts of Jesus' life, not about Christian beliefs about those accounts - Epinoia (talk) 22:14, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Please don't just revert stuff. Try discussing instead. The Christian beliefs about the place of the Gospels is absolutely paramount. Without it they would be just an obscure piece of ancient writing (and probably wouldn't even exist because they wouldn't have been preserved). Anyway, I've made another attempt. DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

- that's why there is an article The gospel dealing with Christian beliefs - the gospels as books and gospels as articles of faith are two different subjects - Epinoia (talk) 22:51, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Everything I've put in this article is absolutely about the books. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The article also didn't mention the quest for the historical Jesus; a double standard. I've added a new section, and put back some of DJ Clayworth's info to the lead. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:37, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

DJ Clayworth, you say that "a huge majority of Christians ... believe" that the gospels "provide definitive and authoritative accounts of Jesus' life, teaching, death and resurrection," but is this so? You give no source, and you should, because many Christians believe some quite fundamental things that aren't in the gospels at all (e.g. the existence of the Holy Trinity) or believe that the gospel accounts of events such as the nativity and the resurrection are "definitive" when in fact they're deeply contradictory, one to another (eg, Matthew has the angel send the disciples off to Galilee to meet the risen Christ, but Luke has the same angel command them to stay in Jerusalem). You really need to provide sources for such statements.Achar Sva (talk) 09:57, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if you don't understand that the Gospels are fundamental source texts for the life of Jesus for virtually all Christians you should not be editing this article. Please go and read up on what the Gospels actually are, then come and edit. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Worse: the Gospels, and the Pauline letters, tell us that the Kingdom of Heaven is coming, and that the dead will arise from their graves. But none of them says that the soul will go to Heaven after death, a quite common Christian belief. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:23, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Exactly why we need to avoid popular Christian belief and stick to scholarly analysis.Achar Sva (talk) 10:42, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

You absolutely cannot write an article about the Gospels and not talk about their impact and affect on Christianity, nor ignore what Christians believe about them. That would be a complete travesty of an article. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:28, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I've just gone through the lead, doing no more than checking statements against sources, and it was pretty awful - I had to delete and rewrite a fair amount, and frequently find sources that say what the lead says. Please, when editing, be careful of sources.Achar Sva (talk) 12:02, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

This article needs to be brought to the attention of a wider community

Ok, so I tried to improve this article, but I now realize that this article might be affected by POV pushing. I read the contents section, and instead of reading about actual contents, it is basically a list of contradictions in the gospels. The article presents the inaccurate view that in the 3 Gospels Jesus is portrayed as a man, and only divine in the 4th one. This view has been denounced by the most critical scholars even. Dr Bart Ehrman has made 2 blog posts, see 1 here specifically making it clear that he 100% accepts that ALL synotpic gospels present Jesus as divine. Mark 1:3, Matthew 3:3 and Luke 3:4 identify Jesus explicitly as Yahweh. In all synotpic gospels, Jesus is identified as a pre-existing Son of Man figure, and Mark specifically implies that Jesus literally is God in Mark 2:1-12. Many scholars like,J. A. T. Robinson, F. F. Bruce, Leon Morris, and Martin Hengel still accept the traditional attributions of the gospels, at least, to some degree, and we can cite them here, for example, here, here and here. But none of this is going to be accepted. The "consensus" on this article is run by 3 or so Wikipedians who are determined to maintain the explicitly anti-Christian tone of this article. Instead of reading like an introductory article, this reads like a list of arguments against Christianity from some blog.

Do not bother arguing. I spent more than a week working hard to get consensus, and they wouldn't even let me include a small phrase that suggests that the synoptic "problem" isn't solved.

We need to bring this whole article to the attention of the larger community, and make this a neutral article that reflects reality, instead of being turned into anti-Christian apologetics page by 3 or so anti-Christian random Wikipedians. I demand that this article be given for consideration. There is censorship going on here, sources that do not comport with the particular anti-Christian view of people sitting on this article are getting removed... etc. I tried arguing and getting consensus, people sitting on this article are not interested in any consensus. They will play dumb as much as they can, to ensure that the article reads like an anti-Christian apologetics blog. --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I just watched Bart Ehrman debates Peter J Williams, are the Gospels Historically Reliable? on YouTube. Therein Peter J. Williams says that he cannot prove to a history department that the gospels are historically reliable, mainly because history departments are ridden with bias (they're skeptical). See WP:RGW. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this. This article seems to be an outpost, because it actually contradicts some of the things that are said elsewhere in Wikipedia. Sometimes you get that - people weight in to a battle on one article (and it is a battle - there are literally people who think that certain viewpoints should be excluded from Wikipedia - you can see an example in the section above) but then changes are quietly made in another article which nobody notices. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:27, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I have made a request at Wikipedia: WikiProject Bible for more people to come and look at this. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:34, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

There are massive contradictions within the article. In one place it states that the Gospels were authored in 66-150AD, yet in others there are statements predicated on a second century authorship. There is virtually no mention of the place of the Gospels in Christian belief (surely a significant thing !!!!). Discussions of the different theories of dependency deserve way more space than they get. "Mark, the first gospel to be written," is stated as a fact, denying alternative theories which are widely popular even among scholars. One sentence just finishes half way through with three dots. More space is devoted to non-canonical gospels than to the contents of the canonical ones. In short, this article needs some serious work. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:35, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

The absence of a section describing the significance of the Gospels to Christianity is a major omission. Does anyone feel like writing one? DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:01, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

DJ Clayworth - where are the statements predicated on 2nd century authorship?Achar Sva (talk) 10:44, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Not in the article as I'm looking at it now. They were there before. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:47, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

None were written by eyewitnesses

I checked the reference that is given to support the controversial statement that "it is almost certain that none were written by eyewitnesses", and the book does not appear to contain the word "eyewitnesses" or anything similar. I also submit that while it is probably easy to find a scholar who says "it is almost certain that none were written by eyewitnesses", it is also easy to find scholars who say that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses (that being the nature of studies on controversial subjects). Wikipedia should not give the impression that the opinion of one scholar reflects the consensus view. Unless I am given convincing arguments I intend to remove this statement.

Given the controversial statement of this, let me explain further. In order to state categorically that "the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses" it is necessary to do more than find one scholar who is prepared to write "it is certain that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses", because it is certainly possible to find many scholars who say that at least one of the gospels was written by an eyewitness. Scholars in this area unfortunately have a tendency to write about what "is certain" when all they mean is "I am certain in my own mind". To make a statement like this you would need to find a consensus statement from someone who has genuinely surveyed many scholars from all sort of backgrounds and concluded that none believe a gospel was written by an eyewitness. I think it is very unlikely you will find someone to say that. (And be aware that "reputable scholar" is frequently used to discount those who the writer disagrees with as "not reputable"). DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:28, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

- In An Introduction to The Gospels, Reddish says that it is unbelievable that Matthew was a disciple or eyewitness (p 37) and that Mark was "not an eyewitness or a disciple" (p 37); "Luke does not claim to be an eyewitness to the events he narrates" (p 157); and that the author Gospel of John was "more than likely" someone who preserved the teachings of the Beloved Disciple "and ultimately produced the fourth Gospel." (p 42) - so none were by eyewitnesses according to the source cited - Epinoia (talk) 21:34, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Epinola, you have conclusively proved that Reddish believes that none of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. And I agree with that. He very probably does. But he is only one person and I can find many, many scholars who believe something completely different. What we need here is evidence that everyone believes that, or the statement cannot stay in the article. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

It's only controversial for fundamentalists (meaning people who believe that the Bible is without error). It's a vanilla claim in WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:21, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

There are certainly people who believe that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses who don't believe the Bible is inerrant. And plenty of people who believe the Bible is inerrant who don't believe it waas written by eyewitnesses. And 'fundamentalist' is the wrong label to apply to both those kinds of people. But more importantly don't try to exclude an entire community from debate on this matter. Otherwise you end up with "Everybody supports the conservative government, except liberals who don't count." DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

E.g. Muddiman, John; Barton, John (22 April 2010). The Gospels. Oxford University Press. p. 243. ISBN 978-0-19-958025-5. Finally it is important to realize that none of the four gospels originally included an attribution to an author. All were anonymous, and it is only from the fragmentary and enigmatic and—according to Eusebius, from whom we derive the quotation—unreliable evidence of Papias in 120/130 CE that we can begin to piece together any external evidence about the names of their authors and their compilers. This evidence is so difficult to interpret that most modern scholars form their opinions from the content of the gospels themselves, and only then appeal selectively to the external evidence for confirmation of their findings.

Expressing "most scholars": Ehrman, Bart D. (2005). Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford University Press. p. 235. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Page 235 of the book you cite simply does not contain the statement you say it does, that most scholars believe this. And even if it did, that is a long way from making it the kind of unopposed fact that the article here would have you believe. If a signifcant minority of scholars believe something else, we should record that. The quote in your first paragraph simply expresses the opinion of the author, and I don't doubt that it correctly represents his opinion, but his opinion is not held by all scholars. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Why then do we call them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Because sometime in the second century, when proto-orthodox Christians recognized the need for apostolic authorities, they attributed these books to apostles (Matthew and John) and close companions of apostles (Mark, the secretary of Peter; and Luke, the traveling companion of Paul). Most scholars today have abandoned these identifications,¹¹ and recognize that the books were written by otherwise unknown but relatively well-educated Greek-speaking (and writing) Christians during the second half of the first century.

Verbatim quote. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Once again, this is just one person's opinion (meaning it is one person's opinion that most scholars have abandoned these identifications), and the fact that he is not necessarily right is evidenced by the fact that many, many scholars do not hold that view. And, again, even if it were true, "most scholars" is not "all scholars". The article currently states this viewpoint as a fact, whereas really it is just what 51% or more of scholars believe. Do I have to quote John Robinson, who believed that the whole NT was pretty much in its current form by 75AD?

Secondly, the line in question literally contradicts what is written on the previous line of the article, where is says the Gospels were written between 66AD and 110AD. Let's try to have at least a couple of paragraphs between parts of the article that contradict each other, eh?

But let's start talking about the article. At the very least the opening paragraph should acknowledge the place of the Gospels in Christian doctrine, which is at least as important for the reader to know about as the thoughts on dating of a single critical scholar. I'm very happy for the opening to then go on to mention current theories on dating, but they shouldn't be the main thrust of the introduction. (Unless of course your intention is for the article to become an attack on Christianity.) DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@DJ Clayworth: could you please provide sources to back-up your claims? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:05, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Which specific claims did you have in mind? The one that lots of scholars believe in the traditional authorship of the gospels, and certainly in contemporary authorship? DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

That the Gospels are eye-witness-accounts, and that that's not a pov which is outside mainstream scholarship. The scholarly discussion does not seem to be about the quation whether the Gospels are eyewitness accounts, but whether they are rooted in eyewitness-accounts. See Graham Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, p.170], OUP. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:28, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, let's start with the few that are to hand - anything by John Robinson, Gordon Fee, Richard Bauckham. There are plenty of others. Any quick browse of conservative scholarship will find you them. However if you would like to add to the lead the belief that the gospels were based on eyewitness accounts, that would be fine. I'd certainly settle on that as a compromise, and it would be better than what we have now.(And by the way, your link above appears to be in Dutch. Could you provide an English version?)DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Here is my proposal for the sentence under consideration: rather than "and it is almost certain that none were written by an eyewitness.", I suggest " and the majority of academics believe that they were not eyewitness accounts, but may have been based on eyewitness accounts". DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:06, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

"Believe" is not WP:NPOV; and the second part is inaccurate: it is amatter of academic academic to what degree, and in which form, the Gospels are rooted in eyewitness-accounts. The term "eyewitness-account" is misleading in this respect. The Gospels are about "Jesus remembered," not about "Jesus historical." Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:13, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I've added the following to the lead:

All four are anonymous (the modern names were added in the 2nd century), and it is almost certain that none were written by an eyewitness, but composed by later Christians from oral traditions, written collections, and proto-gospels.

That's in line with what the article says. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

That's a good statement. I've made a slight amendment "They were not originally ascribed to specific authors", because "they are anonymous" would imply that they do not currently have a name associated with them. I'd settle for "they were originally anonymous". DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Christian Attitudes to the Gospels

The central problem here is that there seems to be an unwillingness to write anything about how Christians view the Gospels. This is obviously a huge omission. Contrast the article on the Quran, which starts "The Quran (literally meaning "the recitation") is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (Allah).", or Bible which includes in the lead "Varying parts of the Bible are considered to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans by Christians, Jews, Samaritans, and Rastafarians." If we can write those, why should we not make a similar statement on the Gospels?

I propose that we have some serious discussions on how we address this lack, what we should write in such a section, and what parts of it should be added to the lead. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:53, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

- this article is about the history, development and scholarly approaches to the gospels - there is a separate article, The gospel which gives Christian perspectives - Epinoia (talk) 17:48, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm talking about the Christian approach to the Gospel texts, and what the texts mean to Christians, not the general "gospel" that is part of the Christian message. As you say, there is a separate article for that. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:51, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

- this article is objective - it neither promotes nor criticizes Christianity, but gives facts and scholarly research on the gospels - injecting Christian interpretations into the article would disturb the neutral point of view - as noted, what the texts means to Christians is covered in a separate article, The gospel - Epinoia (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, and I'm expecting to see objective descriptions of how Christians view the Gospels, what objectively is the significance of the Gospels is to Christians. That is totally in keeping with NPOV. If you are not sure about how NPOV would handle that, please ask. Go and check other articles and see how they do it. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:06, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I saw the problem with your edits at [1]. Namely WP:GEVAL to true believers and WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

DJ Clayworth, what, concretely, would you propose? Bear in mind that we still need sources.Achar Sva (talk) 22:39, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I propose sections on how the Gospels are viewed by Christians, how they have been approached and treated over the centuries, how their contents has shaped theology. If we can do those then it would be a good start. Later we might add information about Gospel manuscripts. DJ Clayworth (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

And the sources?Achar Sva (talk) 07:06, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Do you have available sources that Christians assign any special significance to the gospels? Theology has drawn from other parts of the New Testament, which are out of scope for this article. Dimadick (talk) 17:21, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Remvove clean up banner

- removed banner, "This article is lacking significant sections vital to the understanding of the subject." - this article provides basic information for the understanding of the history, development and scholarly approaches to the gospels - based on previous comments on the Talk page, I believe that the poster of the banner meant "This article is lacking significant sections vital to the Christian understanding of the subject." - for a Christian approach to the gospels, see the article The gospel - Epinoia (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Please do not remove banners like that without discussing. The template meant exactly what it said, not what you thought it meant. Maybe you could instead think about how to expand the coverage of the article. See the above section for one of the ways it needs to be expanded. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

- I removed the banner and started a discussion - that is the correct procedure - see WP:BRD - that the article is lacking significant sections vital to the understanding of the subject is one editor's opinion and without support - Epinoia (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Epinoia; the approach advocated by DJ Clayworth would lead to unnecessary redundancy and the repetition of content in more detailed main articles.Achar Sva (talk) 21:43, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see a discussion here. I'm saying stuff here, making suggestions, and you guys are just reverting. Where is this duplication you speak of? And why is it necessarily a bad thing? We have lots of articles that cover the same ground. Why do you think it is wrong that an article about "Gospel" should contain a summary of the contents of the Gospels in its contents section? DJ Clayworth (talk) 23:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The article does contain a summary of the contents of the gospels. It has three long paragraphs. Considering that there's so much else to cover, and that there are individual articles on each gospel, that would seem adequate. Achar Sva (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

The article does not contain a summary of the contents. The three paragraphs in the section marked "Contents" are almost entirely about the differences between the texts, not about the actual content. It's like having a plot summary of Hamlet which almost entirely talks about the variations between manuscripts without ever describing the plot. DJ Clayworth (talk) 01:50, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I will copy paste what I wrote earlier:

Ok, so I tried to improve this article, but I now realize that this article might be affected by POV pushing. I read the contents section, and instead of reading about actual contents, it is basically a list of contradictions in the gospels. The article presents the inaccurate view that in the 3 Gospels Jesus is portrayed as a man, and only divine in the 4th one. This view has been denounced by the most critical scholars even. Dr Bart Ehrman has made 2 blog posts, see 1 here specifically making it clear that he 100% accepts that ALL synotpic gospels present Jesus as divine. Mark 1:3, Matthew 3:3 and Luke 3:4 identify Jesus explicitly as Yahweh. In all synotpic gospels, Jesus is identified as a pre-existing Son of Man figure, and Mark specifically implies that Jesus literally is God in Mark 2:1-12. Many scholars like,J. A. T. Robinson, F. F. Bruce, Leon Morris, and Martin Hengel still accept the traditional attributions of the gospels, at least, to some degree, and we can cite them here, for example, here, here and here. But none of this is going to be accepted. The "consensus" on this article is run by 3 or so Wikipedians who are determined to maintain the explicitly anti-Christian tone of this article. Instead of reading like an introductory article, this reads like a list of arguments against Christianity from some blog.

Do not bother arguing. I spent more than a week working hard to get consensus, and they wouldn't even let me include a small phrase that suggests that the synoptic "problem" isn't solved.

We need to bring this whole article to the attention of the larger community, and make this a neutral article that reflects reality, instead of being turned into anti-Christian apologetics page by 3 or so anti-Christian random Wikipedians. I demand that this article be given for consideration. There is censorship going on here, sources that do not comport with the particular anti-Christian view of people sitting on this article are getting removed... etc. I tried arguing and getting consensus, people sitting on this article are not interested in any consensus. They will play dumb as much as they can, to ensure that the article reads like an anti-Christian apologetics blog. GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 01:07, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedians who are determined to maintain the explicitly anti-Christian tone of this article fails WP:NPA. Historical criticism isn't anti-Christian! "Criticism" does not mean being against Christianity, it means critically evaluating historical sources, including the Bible. Historical method demands criticism, there is no way around it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:32, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

GoogleMeNowPlease, that's not a helpful approach. Making accusations against people does not help any cause. What would be helpful would be to find actual references where Robinson, Bruce, Morris and Hengel actually talk about the traditional authorship. (And Fee and Stuart while you are about it) DJ Clayworth (talk) 01:51, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

To be precise, making unfounded accusations against people does not help any cause (here on Wikipedia, wherein evidence can easily be checked). Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:55, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay in commenting, but I have been away. This offending paragraph is written in a non-neutral manner and almost like a ad for the "born-again" movement. Considering Bundy's other attempts to avoid execution, one must doubt the sincerity of this conversion. As I have stated elsewhere on Wikipedia, this article received GA status as a result of the efforts of DoctorJoeE and a para such as the one being discussed completely wrecks the neutrality of the article. I strongly oppose any re-insertion. David J Johnson (talk) 13:32, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Seen the above, it seems I am accused of being both pro-Christian and anti-Christian. The same as in pornography articles I got accused of being both pro-porn and anti-porn. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:07, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

GoogleMeNowPlease, nice work on those references. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Epinoia, if you are going to start removing tags saying "see talk" you actually have to write something in the talk. I have written above what critical sections are missing from this article, and you have said nothing, nor contributed to adding content that might make up the deficiency. Please do not just edit war. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:45, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@DJ Clayworth: - I started the Talk page discussion and gave my reasons for removing the banner - you have presented no compelling reasons or evidence to show that "This article is lacking significant sections vital to the understanding of the subject." - it is an opinion, not supported - contested material should not be re-added until consensus is reached - WP:BRD says, "Don't restore your changes or engage in back-and-forth reverting." (there are other guidelines that support concsensus editing) - "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is upon those seeking to include disputed content." (WP:ONUS), so you need to show that the article lacks sections vital to understanding beyond expressing opinions and you need agreement from other editors - I presented my views on improving the content in the "Content" thread above - so I request that, as there is no consensus to add it, you remove the banner as contested material and achieve consensus before re-adding it as per Wikipedia guidelines - thanks - Epinoia (talk) 18:33, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@Epinoia:I responded to your messages, and explained the deficiencies qyite a while back, long before you removed the tag. There are in fact two whole sections on this talk page detailing them, and in neither case have you posted anything. Please try to spend your time improving the article, not edit warring. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Anonymous

It may seem like a small thing, but the Gospels are not anonymous. They may not have had an authors name attached to them originally, but they now very definitely have names attached to them - Matthew Mark, Luke and John. If you want to express that they did not originally have names attached, please find a way to say that. I'm suggesting "were anonymous", "did not originally have names attached", "did not have make claims to authorship", something like that. DJ Clayworth (talk) 04:14, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Doesn't bother me. But I doubt anyone will pick up the distinction.Achar Sva (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

- Merriam-Webster defines Anonymous as "of unknown authorship" - although authorship was ascribed in the 2nd century, the actual authors of the gospels are unknown, therefore, they are anonymous - this is a quote from a book I happened to have handy, Who Wrote the Gospels by Randal McCraw Helms (1997):

The gospels are so anonymous that their titles, all second century guesses, are all four wrong...It's relatively easy to show that these identifications are imaginary and based on wishful thinking.

- there are other reliable sources that confirm this - Epinoia (talk) 16:14, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

What would be the purpose for this? The texts themselves offer no information on the writers. All information on Evangelists is part of Christian mythology, not part of the New Testament. Dimadick (talk) 17:29, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Let's not call this "mythology". At the time of the ascription of the gospels there could easily have been people still alive who were living when the documents were written. Just because the people of the second century didn't leave document recording the reasons for their decisions that survived to the 21st century let's not assume their decisions were just fabrications. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

- that could easily have been is speculation and not verifiable - see WP:VERIFY, "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable." - Epinoia (talk) 19:39, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Textual History and Canonisation

This is another embarrassingly short section, containing basically a reference to Marcion and a cherry-picked statement about the number of Gospels. Nothing about the actual selection of the canonical gospels, or the history of the process. We have better articles on this elsewhere on Wikipedia, and we should take a lead from them. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Agree.Achar Sva (talk) 20:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

And similarly, though I won't make another section for it, the article has virtually no discussion of the current (or past) theories on interdependence of the Gospels. Q gets precisely one mention, in the middle of a sentence talking about something else. That's another huge omission. We should at least have a paragraph or so on this. DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:00, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

You're talking about how they shared material? Or the origins of their contents? A very contested and very complex field. Achar Sva (talk) 10:51, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I am. And just because it's complicated doesn't mean we should ignore it. And what we do have gives no indication that it's a contested field - it presents a single theory as though it were the universally agreed one. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:53, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The lead

The lead is currently awful, and not just because of the disagreements over authorship. At this time you could read the lead and still not know what a gospel actually is, it's place in the Bible, it's significance, its history or lots of other important things. As it stands the lead does not even say that the gospels purport to describe the life of Jesus. It reads like the article author wants to immediately start talking about how unreliable they are before even explaining what they are. let's do our readers the favour of explaining the basics before we start into the criticism.

I should say that the detailed listing of the scholars who hold traditional authorship is a bit much, in the lead. It's appropriate to list them in the main body, but not at the top. Can we agree on some phraseology that describes the sides of the debate without having to get too detailed. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:04, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I made a small attempt to put the basics into the lead. Please try not to undo them while you are busy reverting other parts of the lead. If you disagree with something there let me know - I'm open to other wording. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

"There is no guarantee that the events which they describe are historically accurate." Weasel words. There is no guarantee that anything is historically accurate. Let's replace with what scholars actually think, or drop it from the lead. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

- perhaps something like this sentence from the Historical reliability of the Gospels article: "scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus," - Epinoia (talk) 17:40, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

References

That sounds pretty good. DJ Clayworth (talk) 00:21, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

This article needs heavy improvement

So, basically, we need to improve this article greatly. I already made good changes, and would welcome any feedback. Basically, there are several problems. First, the way this article is written does not align with other, even MORE detailed articles we have on Wikipedia. Without going into too much detail, I would like to draw your attention to the sub-section of "Genre and Historical Reliability", when discussing the Genre, the article is good, but when it moves on to historical reliability part, it starts to get really weak. Let's for a second ignore the possible ideological bias here. This subsection does not even link to a MORE expanded, separate article specifically on historical reliability, or other relevant articles. Rather than being an introduction on what the consensus is on the methods used for determining historicity, the different moments that are accepted, and some episodes that are doubted... The subsection jumps to a very specific example of "Census of Quirinius" and uses 1 citation. After that, the article stops talking about historicity and inexplicably starts to talk about textual history of the gospels. Instead of giving an outline of EVEN THAT, it jumps to a very particular case of Matthew and Luke using Mark for their own purposes. Again, we have at least 10 separate pages that discuss the various theories on the compositions... rather than giving an outline of ANY of it, it simply uses a very specific example, then quotes Origen, concludes that the Gospels are "corrupt" and moves on. And I will repeat, most of this subsection does NOT even deal with historical reliability. It does not introduce the various tools scholars use to assess it, the diversity of views, the episodes of Jesus' life that are universally accepted and which ones are doubted... It doesn't even LINK to separate articles, for heaven's sake. This is travesty.

Here is a change I propose. It is taken from the intro of a large article on wiki, dealing with this specific issue. It gives broad outline of what historicity is, how it is determined, what views are there, what methods scholars use... And it links to a separate and relevant article for details.

I ask you that you take a look at this and come to a consensus. If it is NOT reached, then I will have to separately correct this, hand by hand. Thanks GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 18:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

- see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia - I added a hatnote linking to the "Historical reliability of the Gospels" article - this article is a general article and a brief summary is sufficient - more in-depth detail can be left to dedicated articles - Epinoia (talk) 21:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

But it is NOT. I disagree with that assessment. It does NOT give an introduction. It doesn't even discuss the Historical reliability of the Gospels... It inexplicably jumps to textual history... Concludes they are "corrupted" and then moves on. There is no introduction. It needs to reflect WIDER views, and CONCENTRATE on "Historical Reliability" debate, rather than jumping to assessing its textual history GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 22:44, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Epinoia - this is a general article, hatnotes and hyperlinks can take readers to the more detailed main articles. It does discus the historical reliability of the gospels, it has a paragraph on that, and seems to cover the topic adequately, saying in essence that they aren't reliable but can be used to reconstruct the life and teachings in a general way. Certainly this article should not concentrate on that subject - that's the job of the article Historical reliability of the Gospels.Achar Sva (talk) 01:56, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

You are missing the point. The tone of this article contradicts what we write in more detailed articles. If one article is telling you one thing, and the other is telling you something else... you've got a problem. I will try to make some edits. GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 03:41, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

My edits are being censored. I am bringing reliable references GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 03:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

- it might be a good idea to present your proposed edits here on the Talk page before changing the article - My edits are being censored., please remember to assume good faith (WP:GF) - if other editors feel your edits improve the article, then they will be allowed to stand - Wikipedia works on consensus (WP:CONS) - Epinoia (talk) 03:51, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gospel&type=revision&diff=926403627&oldid=926364876 HERE ARE my proposed edits. All of them are well referenced, and ALL OF THE references can be found on Wikipedia itself. Removing them is tantamount to censorship. --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 03:53, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

- for copying between articles, please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia - the information added is in the article Historical reliability of the Gospels, does it need to be repeated here? - especially trivia such as scribes possibly having poor eyesight - irrelevant detail for this article - and please remember to assume good faith (WP:GF) - let's wait for some other editors to weigh in - be patient, we need consensus here (WP:CONS) - thanks - Epinoia (talk) 04:08, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

That matters. The article is implying something COMPLETELY different when you omit those sources. --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 04:18, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Since you mention your sources, this is what I find when I look at that list of six consecutive ones you have in support of your line, "Some believe that all four canonical gospels meet the five criteria for historical reliability; and others say that little in the gospels is considered to be historically reliable":

• E.P. Sanders, "The Historical Figure of Jesus": No page number given, therefore unverifiable.
• Alvar Ellegard, "The Myth About Jesus": Ellegard is a proponent of the "Christ myth" theory, which is fringe, which makes his book irrelevant (one important Wikipedia guideline is that we present consensus, or else major and important minor points of view, and Christ myth falls outside those). Also you didn't give a page number or link.
• Craig Evans, "Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology": I can't find this paper and you give no link, but from what I can find Evans doesn't seem to be discussing the reliability of the gospels so much as engaging in the mythical-vs-historical Jesus debate.
• Charles H. Talbert, "What Is a Gospel?", p.42: Once again, no link provided. It's not essential to do so, but material has to be verifiable and links help verification. I did find the book, but page 42 says nothing about historical reliability. (It's about the cultural background to the accounts of the ascent of Jesus in Matthew and Mark).
• Dr Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, "Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word (Vol. II): Meditations on the Gospel According to St. Matthew": a devotional work, not relevant to our article. No book-link, no page indicated.
• Robert M. Grant, "A Historical Introduction to the New Testament": Published 1963, meaning more than half a century old - too old to be relevant when we're trying to establish modern scholarly views. No book-link, no page.

All in all, none of these sources are admissible, although some might be if page numbers were provided. (As I said, book-links are not essential, only useful). If this came from the article needs to be re-written.

Just a final point, one of your earlier edits resulted in this statement: "The degree to which the Gospels are historical is disputed", sourced to Reddish, "An introduction to the Gospels", page 22. Reddish does not say this. The mis-attribution happened because you inserted you own statement into an existing sentence. Please be careful of this sort of thing. Achar Sva (talk) 05:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I just read Reddish pages 22-23... I need to comment that to reach a consensus I propose following changes. First, take out the specific example, and instead put in the point Reddish is making. Reddish says, in pages 22-23, that the gospels are historical in the context of their OWN time... So we should look at them from that standpoint, he is NOT necessarily making the point that they are not historical. His point is that they are historical by the standards of their OWN TIME, and this is how we should look at them. That they are written in the style of ancient history. 2) Mention that Markan priority is the most accepted theory in scholarship, list quick reasons why, and then mention other theories that have been proposed. Third, mention that the textual variants or "corruption" in the gospels are a result of very minor changes, and that very few of these changes are meaningful... Because right now, the tone of the article implies that textually, the New Testament is completely corrupt... and our other articles say JUST THE OPPOSITE... I can provide citations for that... I believe this will change the subection's tone of being almost a scathing analysis of Christianity to presenting what our other articles on the subject do. I can reference them if you want. I feel like I am willing to compromise TOO much, but I want to see some compromise from your side too. I am here to reach a consensus. Please, make clear, what changes I can make, that would be accepted and that would also bring this subsection MORE in line with how the rest of the articles read, rather than this being a seemingly scathing report on a "corrupt" "ahistorical" book. --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 07:22, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Taking your three proposals one by one:

# We should put in the point Reddish is making ... that the gospels are historical in the context of their OWN time. The point Reddish is making is that ancient historians felt free to make things up ("prone to use fiction", p.21) and didn't bother to check their facts ("Luke ... was thwarted by faulty data" - Luke could have checked. p.22), and that 1st century biographers were first and foremost apologists and hagiographers who selected, reshaped and retold traditions "in order to highlight or downplay certain aspects" - p.22; this leads to his conclusion, that the gospels "may not correspond to what actually happened". If you want to make this more explicit, that's fine by me, but we have to explain that the gospels contain fiction, questionable facts, and propaganda.

# We should mention that Markan priority is the most accepted theory in scholarship, list quick reasons why, and then mention other theories that have been proposed. We already do mention the existence of non-Markan hypotheses - see footnote 2 in the Composition section. The synoptic problem is too complex for a detailed discussion in this background article, and readers are directed to the article Synoptic problem for further information.

# We should mention that the textual variants or "corruption" in the gospels are a result of very minor changes, and that very few of these changes are meaningful. The article could certainly use a paragraph on texts and textual transmission, probably in the "canonisation" subsection. Feel free to draft something, preferably no more than half a dozen lines in keeping with the overall balance of the article. Use the sources in the bibliography where possible, otherwise add new sources in the existing format (just to be neat). Try to use the most recent and neutral sources you can find. And post it here before putting it in the article.Achar Sva (talk) 09:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

OK. Here is a draft page of the changes I made. I added to the Historical reliability subsection, and created a new subsection for textual history. Here you can compare the differences between the present version and the changes I am proposing. GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 19:15, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

- I don't think we need to get into the existence of Jesus on this page - I don't see this as an improvement of the article - copying text between articles is not always a good idea (WP:COPYWITHIN) because the source article can be corrected, amended or improved, but the copied text remains uncorrected and conflicting information creeps into articles - also see Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a reliable source - Epinoia (talk) 18:05, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I will be honest and say that I feel slight frustration, and not with any specific person, but with the situation, because I feel like I have been willing to compromise for the sake of a solution, but I am just not getting anywhere. I am willing to let you guys make the first step, I have been waiting patiently, but all I see is a denial of the problem. The problem is there. Aside from this article's section being misleading, it also contradicts other articles we have here on wikipedia. I have checked other articles on the topic, and they are saying something different. First, I tried re-writing this article, and you guys objected. Then I tried leaving the material, while adding other stuff, you guys objected. So I ask you to work with me towards the solution. I will not leave this article, since I can demonstrably show it has severe problems. It is written poorly, and it contradicts other material we have here. If you have a problem with copying other Wikipedia places, I can write it in my own words, while providing a citation or whatever. Basically, the ball is in your court. I am willing to meet you half way to get to the solution, but I ask that you guys also meet me half way. I am willing to work closely with you, so that we can all come to a compromise, and better this article. I am not willing to leave these obvious mistakes and contradictions within this article. GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 17:30, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

- the edits have been confusing as it has not been clear exactly what the problems are - you point out two problems: 1) poorly written, 2) contradicts other Wikipedia articles - perhaps you could lay out clearly where the contraditions are in a "Gospel article says/the other article says" format so the contradictions can be dealt with individually - after the contradictions are dealt with, we can work on improving the writing of the article - thanks - Epinoia (talk) 20:00, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

I had been holding off posting because I was hoping that more people would join in, but so far that hasn't happened. GoogleMeNowPlease, your paragraph on textual history doesn't really address the topic - you rely on WIkipedia articles, but you need to go to books. I suggest you start with Hill and Kruger's "The Early Text of the New Testament", which is an authoritative recent study. In your paragraph you'll need to mention, but no more than mention, the earliest textual fragments (don't go into details or you'll be swamped), and then the earliest complete witnesses. (In the jargon of biblical studies, a text is a "witness"). You might also consult Hurtado's edited volume, The Freer Biblical Manuscripts - the Preface includes some concise information, though the essays are rather specialised. Your point about the number of texts and the generally trivial nature of the differences is true but disguises the fact that most of these manuscripts are many centuries later than the originals and that they do, in fact, contain major theological differences, such as Johannine Comma, which need to be mentioned, otherwise there's no history. Hurtado's blog post here is probably the first thing you should read (note his comments about "{wild" texts), but we can't use blog posts in the article. Achar Sva (talk) 04:34, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I have to say that as much as I appreciate all of you being so respectful and kind to me, I still do not feel like we are understanding the root of the problem. Let me try to outline the problem. I have a problem with a specific part of this article. I will put the quotes in Italics, so you can distinguish it better. All quotes will be without references. I just want you to take a look at how this looks from the eye of a neutral observer. So, the following is what I have a problem with: As Luke's attempt to link the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the gospels are historically accurate. Matthew and Luke have frequently edited Mark to suit their own ends, and the contradictions and discrepancies between John and the synoptics make it impossible to accept both as reliable. In addition the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please. (taken from this article, subsection Historical reliability). Now, please, read these paragraphs from the eyes of a neutral observer. Let's start with an easy one. I will now bring a quote from our article on Jesus, subsection "Cannonical Gospels" Not everything contained in the New Testament gospels is considered to be historically reliable. Views range from their being inerrant descriptions of the life of Jesus[91] to their providing little historical information about his life beyond the basics. Look at the phrasing. Are they saying the same thing? They are NOT! But let me get more technical, and take it point by point. Let us start with our most obvious example. Our article says this: The gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please." Please read this from an outside perspective. Now, let's compare what you just read, with this paragraph, taken from the article "Historical Reliability of the Gospels": Per Aland and Aland, the total consistency achieved in the Gospel of Matthew was 60% (642 verses out of 1071), the total consistency achieved in the Gospel of Mark was 45% (306 verses out of 678), the total consistency achieved in the Gospel of Luke was 57% (658 verses out of 1151), and the total consistency achieved in the Gospel of John was 52% (450 verses out of 869). Almost all of these variants are minor, and most of them are spelling or grammatical errors. Almost all can be explained by some type of unintentional scribal mistake, such as poor eyesight. Very few variants are contested among scholars, and few or none of the contested variants carry any theological significance. Modern biblical translations reflect this scholarly consensus where the variants exist, while the disputed variants are typically noted as such in the translations. Not only are these 2 not saying the same thing, they contradict each other. They are saying the exact opposite of each other. In addition, we have at least 5 articles (List of textual variants in the NT, List of Textual variants in Mat/Mark/Luke/John), that also agree with the above and contradict the statements in this article. Notice also, how even when making the same point, the wording is crucial. For example, our article says the following about Synoptics vs Gospel of John:discrepancies between John and the synoptics make it impossible to accept both as reliable. This same point, citing 3 different authors, is phrased this way, in our article on "Jesus": According to a broad scholarly consensus, the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and not John, are the most reliable sources of information about Jesus. This distinction in phrasing is CRUCIAL. Because the second one leaves open the door for what scholars actually think... that John presents some views in a theological way, rather than presenting the same views and making a mistake. For example, as Bart Ehrman outlines, John may have changed the day of Jesus' death, to coincide with the day of slaughtered lambs, to make a theological point about how Jesus is a lamb. Our phrasing leaves no room for these kind of changes. I could sit here all day and outline all our articles that contradict or phrase things differently from our article in those specific points, I could get into how our article simply assumes Markan priority whereas most of our articles present Markan priority as just the consensus among scholars, and not without its critics, and how our other articles boldly say that the synoptic problem so far has had NO SOLUTION, while this article presents Luke and Matthew copying Mark (instead of Ur-Mark for example) as an established fact... in short I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. We have phrasings and statements here, which disagree with majority of our articles on the same subject. And I am NOT ok with that. Think about it. If we had one article about the Holocaust that discusses it as an established fact of history, and then we have another article that discusses it as something that is debated, would you say that those 2 articles are saying the same thing? Would you be ok with that? So, I will divide the parts in this article that I have a problem with in 4 parts

Part 1: As Luke's attempt to link the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the gospels are historically accurate.

Part 2: Matthew and Luke have frequently edited Mark to suit their own ends

Part 3: contradictions and discrepancies between John and the synoptics make it impossible to accept both as reliable

Part 4: In addition the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please."

I have a problem with the phrasing of the first 3 and their dogmatism... The 4th one outright contradicts almost every article we have on Wikipedia dealing with the same topic. I propose 2 solutions. Solution 1 is rewrite this whole thing, maybe provide different references, phrase it differently or whatever. Solution 2 is leaving these as they are, but adding the different viewpoints to balance them out, so that we do not have a case of one article that contradicts 5 others on the same subject.

I ask you to work with me to resolve this problem. I do not like to pretend the problem is not there, when I can show that it is there. In case you are unconvinced, I can keep bringing many more examples of such outright contradictions between the statements and sentiments here, and virtually on ANY other article dealing with the subject. Thank you all --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 06:56, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I will reply with some quotes:

Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that:

• The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive;

• The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God;

— Beardsley Ruml, Shaye J.D. Cohen's Lecture Notes: INTRO TO THE HEBREW BIBLE @ Harvard (BAS website) (78 pages)

First of all, I believe that when Dan kept saying “radical skeptic” I think he was referring to me. [audience laughter] I’m not completely sure about it but I think that’s what he had in mind. The term radical refers to… a radical view is a view that is so extreme that very few people hold it.

The views I laid out for you are not radical in that sense at all. In fact, the are widely held among scholars in this field. Arguably the most erudite scholar in North American in recent decades is the lately deceased William Peterson whose book Collected Essays came out two weeks ago, who argues in essay after essay that it does not make sense for us any longer to talk about the original text.

The senior person in the field of New Testament textual criticism in North America is named Eldon Epp. He teaches the text criticism seminar at Harvard University. He also has written essays arguing that it no longer makes sense to talk about the original text. The chair of the New Testament Textual Criticism section of the national Society of Biblical literature meeting is AnneMarie Luijendijk who is a professor of religion at Princeton University. She also does not think that it makes sense to talk about the original text. Her predecessor was Kim Haines-Eitzen who’s chair of the Department of Religion at Cornell University. She also does not think that we can talk about getting back to the original text. The leading scholar in the field in the English speaking world is David Parker who teaches at the University of Birmingham in England. He’s written an entire book arguing that you cannot get back to the original text and it doesn’t make sense to talk about the original text. These are not extreme views. These are the views of the leading scholars in the English speaking world.

— Bart Ehrman, [2]

Ehrman was speaking about William L. Petersen, Eldon J. Epp, AnneMarie Luijendijk, Kim Haines-Eitzen and David C. Parker.

The differences are all over the map: who goes to Jesus’ tomb? How many women were there and what were their names? Was the stone rolled away before they got there or after they arrived? What did they see there? What were they told there? Did they do what they were told or not? Which of the disciples saw Jesus, if any? And when? And where? And on and on.

— Bart Ehman, How Changing My Views Affected My Relationships

Conclusion: historians always analyze the gospels critically, they do not simply assume that the gospels would be reliable merely because the Christian Church says so. The gospels do contain some nuggets of historical facts, but a historian cannot simply trust them on their word. Also, all miracles are unhistorical per the historical method (methodological naturalism is part of it). So, yeah, the view that the NT gospels are historically accurate is not tenable according to WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP. I know that inerrantists disagree, but they are WP:FRINGE, therefore unwelcome here. They do not hold that the Koran, Vedas and The Urantia Book are the inerrant Word of God, therefore they are guilty of special pleading. Wikipedia has no reason to take their charade seriously (i.e. as objective truth). Tgeorgescu (talk) 08:57, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu:, @Epinoia: @Achar Sva: Basically, I am interested in finding the solution. I will quickly outline what I propose, and I REALLY hope that I will not be dismissed.

I will divide the part that I have a problem with into 4 sections. I will propose what changes I want to see in all 4 sections. I ask that these be considered. Ok so this is what I have a problem with

• 1) As Luke's attempt to link the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the gospels are historically accurate

• 2) Matthew and Luke have frequently edited Mark to suit their own ends

• 3)the contradictions and discrepancies between John and the synoptics make it impossible to accept both as reliable

• 4) In addition the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please."

Ok, so I want to propose changes to all these 4 individually.

• In the 1st sentence, I want to first begin with how there are a range of views, ranging from it being very historically accurate, to not accurate at all. I want it to cite the following references, this: the highlighted one, and this highlighted one and also this highlighted one. I would also appreciate if it mentioned that many scholars accept the basic outline of Jesus' life, citing this highlighted source and this highlighted source, and this highlighted source

• In the 2nd sentence, I do not see much of a problem, BUT, I want it to state clearly that the synoptic problem is NOT solved, and this merely reflects the majority view, and that the synoptic problem is still open. Preferably citing a reference like this highlighted one.

• In the 3rd sentence, I do not have a problem with the sentiment, but I want the phrasing changed to reflect what scholars actually think. So I want it to make it clear that the differences are thematic, sometimes John concentrates on theology and thus sometimes has a more narrative and thematic style of writing, citing this highlighted reference

• In the 4th sentence, I want us to add that most of the textual differences are seen as minor and almost none of them impacts the theological meaning. I would want it to cite this highlighted reference and this highlighted reference. I would also like to include the following quote from Bart Ehrman : "Most of these differences are immaterial, insignificant, and important for nothing more than to show us that ancient scribes could spell no better than most people can today."... this is from Misquoting Jesus and is often repeated by Dr Ehrman on his blog and elsewhere.

I spent time researching this and writing this. I know that we will not come to an agreement on EVERYTHING, but I ask that we come to a consensus to change some of these things, because if all of what I wrote is ignored, not only will it be a slap in the face, but it might also amount to censorship. I thank you all GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 19:50, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

The quote from Ehrman is only part of the story. Ehrman recognizes big time that the epistles of "Paul" from the New Testament severely contradict the theology of the epistles of Paul from the New Testament. Of course, this is not germane to the gospels, however, there are theological conflicts among the gospels, e.g. when did Jesus became God? At baptism, at birth/conception or he was always God (since eternity past)? You see, some views are more WP:MAINSTREAM than others, especially if we speak of history instead of theology. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:53, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

That the gospels oppose each other in theological matters is known to the average Christian who ever bothered to read through a Bible. But neither Mark, nor John include a birth account or put emphasis on Jesus origins. And the one who insists on the Pre-existence of Christ is John, who depicts Jesus as Logos personified. Dimadick (talk) 12:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

GoogleMeNowPlease, I appreciate your sincerity and your real desire to help WIkipedia with good articles. I'll answer your four points one by one, but first a general and very basic point of my own: all our articles rely on reliable sourcing. That means, in the case of articles like this, on books by academics involved in biblical studies - which means it's pointless to say that this article differs from other articles, because our standard is the sources, not other articles.

*1) As Luke's attempt to link the birth of Jesus to the census of Quirinius demonstrates, there is no guarantee that the gospels are historically accurate. The source is Reddish, page 22, which says: "there is no guarantee that the events or details described by the evangelists are in actuality historically correct", followed by the the example of the census of Quirinius. The sourcing seems solid to me.

You go on: "I want to first begin with how there are a range of views, ranging from it being very historically accurate, to not accurate at all. I want it to cite the following references, Gudrem, "Systematic Theology", pp.90-91, [[Kostenberger et al, "The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown", pp.117-125], and Ehrman, "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium", pp.22-23." I think you're implying that Reddish's comment doesn't represent the range of scholarly opinion, but when I look at these three I find that the first is by an extreme inerrantist and therefore represents a fringe opinion, while the second and third aren't about the reliability of the gospels at all (both are talking about various scholarly interpretations of the Jesus of history, not the reliability of the gospels) and don't contradict Reddish (one could hardly have such divergent conclusions about Jesus if the accuracy of the gospels were guaranteed).

You go on: "I would also appreciate if it mentioned that many scholars accept the basic outline of Jesus' life, citing this highlighted source and this highlighted source, and this highlighted source". I won't go into this, as our article already does say that scholars accept the gospels as a guide to the career and teachings (you seem obsessed with the former while ignoring the latter): "modern scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, but nevertheless they do provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus, and critical study can attempt to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of the later authors" (that's the final sentence in the same paragraph you criticise for being inadequate).

*2) Matthew and Luke have frequently edited Mark to suit their own ends. Your concern here is that the synoptic problem is not yet resolved and that Markan priority is questioned. Yes, and we say that explicitly in a note, with an inline link to the article on the synoptic problem. The synoptic problem is too complex to treat here, we certainly don't want to repeat the main article, and although Markan priority is questioned it remains the overwhelmingly most popular hypothesis.

*3)the contradictions and discrepancies between John and the synoptics make it impossible to accept both as reliable. In your note to this you say this wording is misleading, that John "concentrates on theology" and t"has a more narrative and thematic style of writing", asking us to look at page 3 of Molony and Harrington's The Gospel of John. That page is actually about the literary dependence of John (i.e., the sources used by the author, and in particular the question of whether he knew of the synoptics), not the differences between John and the three. In any case you badly underestimate the differences in both theology and narrative between John and the three: for John, Jesus is co-eternal with God (the Word), while for Mark he's a man (Mark even refrains from calling him God) who becomes the "son of God" at some point in his career - and they don't agree on what point that is. Nor do the incidents of the narratives align. All this is covered in our article, and sourced.

*4) In addition the gospels we read today have been edited and corrupted over time, leading Origen to complain in the 3rd century that "the differences among manuscripts have become great, ... [because copyists] either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please." You want us to add want us to add that "most of the textual differences are seen as minor and almost none of them impacts the theological meaning," based on chapter 3 of Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus and pages 134–138 and 157–158 of Assessing the Stability of the "Transmitted Texts of the New Testament and the Shepherd of Hermas" (I'm rather at a loss as as to why you think the second is useful - it's extremely technical and the page ranges are very large). What you say is true as regards the trivial nature of most differences, but not true as regards the importance of some of them - the long ending of Mark and the Comma Johanneum to mention only two. Still, it's a good point, and I invite you to draft a sentence or two.

So apart from that, I don't feel your complaints have a real basis. Achar Sva (talk) 02:36, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu:, @Epinoia: @Achar Sva: Ok, so here are the changes I am proposing. This is how it looks compared to what we have now. I tried to compromise as much as I could. Please, meet me half way, or at least, offer constructive criticism so we can reach some consensus. Thanks --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 19:11, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

GoogleMeNowPlease: The Talk page seems abruptly to have gone off on entirely new tangents, and I'm afraid your concern is getting lost. I do accept that we need to mention that most textual changes (from copy to copy) are minor, and I'll try to edit the article to reflect that. See what you think. I should say, however, that not ALL such changes are minot - the famous comma on the Trinity is pretty major, as is the longer ending of Mark.Achar Sva (talk) 08:45, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I wrote something, then lost it through hitting wrong keys (I guess); I'm too tired to do it all over, but you might like to do it yourself. Feel free to edit the articvle directly. Achar Sva (talk) 09:41, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Comma Johanneum has no relevance to the gospels. Additionally, I STRONGLY disagree that it is significant. Biblical doctrine of the Trinity is taught in many passages, and the early Church fathers reached this conclusion without ever appealing to the Comma. Mark 16:9-16 is absent in most early manuscripts... so it is rarely seen as an even debate. I also want to ask you once again, to stop censoring verifiable data. --GoogleMeNowPlease (talk) 05:53, 5 December 2019 (UTC)