Talk:Christ myth theory

Stop Removing WP:CON Material You Personally Dislike

SlimVirgin, you continue to remove the cat tags despite having been informed that the pseudoscholarship cat is the result of a concensus reached through mediation [2]. This is now the second time you are being informed. The mediator in that case has indicated [3] that to ignore that compromise would constitute a violation of WP:CON. Your changes on this matter have now been reverted three times by two different editors. Given the above, if you persist in removing the cat I will consider it edit warring and I will report the matter to the appropriate noticeboard. Stop. Eugene (talk) 01:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Could you please keep these issues on this talk page, please, rather than posting to my user talk too? I don't know anything about the mediation as I wasn't part of it, but I do know it's POV and inaccurate to call the work of people like George Wells (to name just one) "pseudo-scholarship" or Soviet propaganda. Also, please don't use headers to attract negative attention to editors. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Categorization: "Categorizations appear on pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate." SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene is just reverting my work here, including my addition of entirely uncontroversial material. [4] [5] SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, you ought to learn how to spell “consensus” before claiming one exists. As a side note, I think the current “Christ myth theory” is both loaded and imprecise. Taken at face value, it only suggests a theory that no “Christ” (i.e. anointed one, son of “God”, messiah, savior, etc.) existed, and that Jesus may have been a real man but was not the “Christ”. Something like “Jesus myth theory” more clearly would describe the belief Jesus did not exist in any capacity. Overall I think the most straightforward title would be “Existence of Jesus” but this already exists as a redirect to Historicity of Jesus. Whether we really need two articles I have no opinion. ―AoV² 01:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I also think this should be called Jesus myth, Jesus myth theory, or something similar—or else folded into Historicity of Jesus. This article isn't about the religious or "Christ" aspect. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Please see the quotation provided in FAQ #1 (see especially the quotation from Eddy & Boyd); the term "Christ myth" is basically the standard name for this topic in the secondary literature. If you think we should hyphenate the name though (i.e. "Christ-myth theory"), I think I'd support that proposal. Eugene (talk) 04:37, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"The Jesus Myth" was the historical name of this article and made much more sense as this really has nothing to do with the "christ" side of things. The name change has only confused things ever since. Both terms seem to be used but "Jesus Myth" actually gets more ghits. Sophia ♫ 08:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Robert Price

Eugene, could you explain why you removed that Price is a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, that he contributed to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009) with Luke Timothy Johnson, John Dominic Crossan, James Dunn, and Darrell Bock, and that he said in 2009 Jesus may have existed but "unless someone discovers his diary or his skeleton, we'll never know." And why you reverted my edit to the alt text (which doesn't adhere to what's currently regarded as appropriate)? [6] SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I removed the material on Price's affiliation with the Jesus Seminar as it's clear you're trying to make him look impressive, which is WP:DUNE here. No other person mentioned in the article has a mini-CV attached to their name, why should Price? As for The Historical Jesus: Five Views, I don't know what you're talking about; his section still refers to his involvement in the book. The skeleton quote isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned, but it seems redundant given that the section already speaks of "complete agnosticism regarding Jesus' historicity". As for the alt-text, WP:ALT calls for a graphical description of the image in question for blind people using text readers, not some unhelpful note calling redundant atttention to the caption which merely states "Robert M. Price". Eugene (talk) 03:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to make him look impressive. I'm just trying to describe who he is to counter your efforts to do him down. These have included some questionable edits by you to his article, and to the dab page, even removing that he's a theologian. We need to offer the facts here, not try to persuade. As for the alt, see WP:ALT please; the old guideline is no more, and what you wrote was POV. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:16, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

You're tilting at windmills here. I haven't removed "theologian" from before Price's name in the current version of the article. The alt text for Price's picture ("An older man with a full beard grimacing playfully at the viewer") doesn't stike me as POV; what precisely do you object to as biased? Based on WP:ALT's comment regarding the Queen of England's picture it seems that you're right about the current alt text being inappropriate, but that then seems to be true of almost all the pictures in the article, so why are you objecting to Price's specifically? To show that I'm not just being obstinate, I'll put an allusion to Price's work with the Jesus Seminar into his section that doesn't look like a mini-CV. Eugene (talk) 05:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Last month you removed that Price was a theologian from the dab page, [7] and replaced it with "skeptic," with no indication of what that meant. In November [8] you added this to his article: "It should be noted though that Price is often viewed as sub-academic, the Society of Biblical Literature's Review of Biblical Literature describing his work as 'not a serious discussion of the issues' so much as 'an extremely bitter rant.'"

"It should be noted though" is an example of language that is really never acceptable in articles, not to mention "sub-academic". It looks as though you're trying to undermine him on several pages. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 07:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Should this article be categorized as "pseudohistory"?

There is currently a dispute as to whether Christ myth theory—an article about the theory that Jesus may not have existed as a historical figure—ought to be included in the "pseudohistory" category. Input would be appreciated. 01:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• Oppose inclusion. Categories are incapable of nuance or referencing. This theory has been expounded by some well-known academics, including the historian Bruno Bauer, the philosopher Arthur Drews, and more recently the German professor G. A. Wells. If it's being taken seriously by university academics, even if they're in a minority, it shouldn't be categorized bluntly as pseudo-history or pseudo-scholarship, no matter how much some biblical scholars may dislike it.

  Wikipedia:Categorization says "Categorizations appear on pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles." SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support inclusion. It's certainly true that the Christ myth theory (the theory that Jesus never existed at all) has been expounded by some well-known academics. There was, as SlimVirgin notes, the notoriously anti-Semitic Bruno Bauer who found "the idea that the religion that had shaped western civilization could have been founded by a Jew... impossible... to accept" [9] There was also, as SlimVirgin also notes, Arthur Drews, a non-specialist and Nazi-sympathizer who "in his capacity as a religious anti-Semite, struggle[d] against this materialistic Semitic graft for the religious life of Aryanism".[10] And, lest we forget, there's also G. A. Wells, just as SlimVirgin notes: another non-specialist who pushed the theory "not for objective scholarly reasons, but for highly tendentious, antireligious purposes"[11]--who, by the way, has now abandoned the theory.[12] Please, before weighing-in, take a look at the article's FAQ on this issue; it appears as question #2. This is a slam dunk. Eugene (talk) 03:01, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
• Advocate Support (per Backtable). The Chrst myth theory is a theory that goes against popular belief, this popular belief being that Jesus is real. Pseudohistory is defined as a theory or set of theories that go against what is widely accepted as a factual aspect of history. Thus, I wouldn't mind this being categorized as such. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 03:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

  Hi. Are you implying that “popular belief” and “factual aspect of history” are the same thing? Using this category implies that the dead reckoning behind one popular belief is somehow more sound than that of the dissenting view. I will not tell you what to believe or disbelieve, only what to avoid presenting as fact. ―AoV² 04:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

  I guess they are meant to be the same thing. I wasn't thinking about the correlation of those phrases when I was writing that. By the way, note that I said "what is widely perceived as a factual aspect of history", instead of stating "factual aspect of history" by itself. Thus, that meant that it didn't necessarily reflect my thoughts. I believe Jesus is real, but that was not a factor in my argument. Backtable _{Speak to me}^{concerning my deeds.} 02:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support. If mainstream scholarship considers it false and the methods by which it is commonly investigated to be inherently unscientific/historical, it is pseudohistory. It is not just an expression of bias, it is the real scholarly opinion. NJMauthor (talk) 04:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. To call this pseudo-history is to take for granted that Jesus existed. If enough evidence existed to prove or disprove that assertion, we wouldn′t be having this conversation. The best answer I′ve found is “maybe”. ―AoV² 05:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

  Hi. Did you read FAQ #2? Eugene (talk) 05:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

  Hi AoV2, I believe to call it pseudo-history has a lot more to do with disregard for historical method by proponents. In the eyes of essentially all historians, there is clearly enough information about Jesus not just to tell us that he existed, but what he taught, the shape of his ministry and much more. --Ari (talk) 05:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Trusting sources penned a generation or two after his estimated death does play the dickens with historical method, I′ll grant you that. ―AoV² 05:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Not the place for debate, although Paul writing about meeting Jesus' brother James and apostles in Jerusalem is a lot different to the situation you would like to imply. On the point of source criticism, this links the traditions far closer than penning of the gospels, etc. Anyway, my point stands. They criticise disregard for historical method, not whatever your POV website seems to think. --Ari (talk) 06:16, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support inclusion. As our reliable sources have made clear, mainstream scholarship considers the theory pseudohistory. This is backed up by number reputable scholars from all fields of the ideological, many of whom have gone to the extent of comparing it to other frigne pseudo-historical theories. Factors that seem to generally be noted by the mainstream towards this theory is that it is pseudo-historical for disregarding historical method. --Ari (talk) 05:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I agreed to the compromised to get the far worse pseudohistory removed. Having reread WP:CAT I can see that my understanding of how cats are used is out of date and this should not be used here as it is controversial and too wide sweeping. Some authors would fall under that cat but there are many others who would not. Sophia ♫ 08:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose inclusion. The life and historicity of Jesus Christ are part of academical studies and debates. Michele Bini (talk) 13:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is on the Christ Myth theory, not academic debate on the life of Jesus - see historical Jesus. Your claim that the historicity of Jesus is debated in academic circles is not the case. --Ari (talk) 13:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose For something to be included in the pseudohistory category, there should be consensus among specialists of the field that it is a false theory, which I don't think exists. --JokerXtreme (talk) 13:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There is consensus, and there are no peer-reviewed academic works arguing the case that I am aware of. As Professor Robert E. Van Voorst notes, "The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question." (Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence.14.) I would ask the people voting here to please make themselves aware of the debate, especially before making statements on consensus. --Ari (talk) 13:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll further investigate this and come back to it. --JokerXtreme (talk) 18:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per this[13] and Sophia. --JokerXtreme (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support inclusion. Per reasons stated by Eugene and others. Personally, I don't believe that we are even taking this vote. As Eugene stated, it is a slam dunk. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, taking a vote seems to be a way to circumvent what scholars have to say in favour of editors personal opinions. --Ari (talk) 13:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Precisely... this is insanity! Did nobody read the FAQ? NJMauthor (talk) 15:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it IS insanity. Apparently, there are some that think a consensus can change facts. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Get enough editors in here unfamiliar with the topic and I suppose a "consensus" out of ignorance is a useful political tool. NJMauthor (talk) 15:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose ^^James^^ (talk) 17:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

James, your Oppose vote is meaningless without giving a reason. NJMauthor (talk) 00:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There are far too many people looking at this subject seriously without crying holocaust (while not necessarily agreeing). One example is Clinton Bennett in In Search of Jesus. Second, most of the people crying holocaust are dyed-in-the-wool Christians. That does not necessarily make them wrong, but I hesitate to add the tag based on their characterizations. ^^James^^ (talk) 01:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support unless someone can make a serious, successful challenge to the sources used to support the claim in the article and in FAQ 2 that this view is considered untenable by the vast majority of historians. The article on psuedo-history doesn't seem to actually define psuedo-history, but I'm going with the assumption that it's the equivalent of psuedo-science, which I understand, and that assumption doesn't seem to be debated by anyone here.Yoshi348 (talk) 20:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support I spent quite some time searching through peer reviewed journals and couldn't find anything supporting the position that Jesus was a myth but found articles refuting the idea. I trawled through several websites that supported the idea but they did not cite any peer reviewed work. I'm a bit surprised by this and hope that anybody casting a vote that opposes the inclusion will be able to demonstrate that there are historians out there that genuinely consider this a valid proposition. aineolach (u · d · c) 21:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Fringe indeed, but where are the quality sources classifying this as pseudo-history. (That has a connotation of ideologically driven fabrication and a Nazi sting to it.) Sources saying this is refuted are indeed CUP/OUP level, but the pseudo-history rhetoric and comparisons to holocaust denial are at best Westminster Fort Knox. Vesal (talk) 21:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support I don't have a lot to add, but I would point out that at this point serious scholars are starting to question the claims of the Historical Jesus school as extreme, and, as their name suggests, the Historical Jesus scholars never claimed they're wasn't a historical Jesus. Adam sk (talk) 04:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Assume this means this theory is pseudohistory. I seem to recall an unpleasant reference from Jewish writing that supports the fact of Jesus' existence (just not a lot of other things!). Student7 (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, a "support" means that the theory IS pseudohistory. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 18:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

  See also Truth in Numbers. ―AoV² 13:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - Yes, before anyone asks, I have read FAQ 2. No, I can't come up with a comparative list of quotes, although I think that is largely because when I searched JSTOR for Christ myth it came up with over 1,000 results and I honestly don't have the time to go through them all. Having said that, there seems to be a lot of academic discussion regarding this topic, and I was able to find works by Richard Carrier and Alan Dundes supporting this theory. This is admittedly just a start, but I would refer to this as well. I don't think the theory is very robust but labelling it pseudo-history doesn't appear to be warranted. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 00:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm almost 100% sure that this issue is going to mediation some time in the near future. If you can't provide a comparative list, then 1) You really shouldn't be voting; and 2) Those who oppose the categorization will be forced to provide a comparative list or lose the mediation. It's really that simple. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 06:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That's odd, I just searched "Christ myth" in JSTOR and it came up with "Results 1–25 of 156 for << ("Christ myth") >>". Most of the articles seem to be reviews of Arthur Drews or notes on having received the publication from journals written around 1910-15 and totally irrelevant works such as "The Russian scientist today", Russian Review or "The Primitivistic Aesthetic: D. H. Lawrence", The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. I did not come across any article arguing the hypothesis in any my scroll through the 156 results. --Ari (talk) 07:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, if you search for "Christ Myth" it comes up with 154 for me, whereas if you search for Christ myth it comes up with 24,152 results. I found that searching for Christ myth actually came up with a lot more results which covered the topic of the historicity of Jesus (although that was by no means the central focus of the articles, it was still a topic of debate).

Bill, surely if this is a minority viewpoint, we're not going to be able to come up with a list as extensive as that in FAQ 2? Otherwise it would be the majority viewpoint, and we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 12:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not see how the results for searching the database for all entries mentioning "Christ" and "myth" necessitates your statement that "there seems to be a lot of academic discussion regarding this topic". I personally couldn't find any contemporary debate in the academic peer-review on the theory, and I do regularly follow historical Jesus works and journals. Similarly, scholars and advocates themselves are telling us this isn't the case. I would suggest some more investigation into the actual results of your search and what picture of the debate it paints. --Ari (talk) 13:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - The fundamental question seems to me to be whether articles in the category 'pseudohistory' should themselves actually be pseudo in nature or if the category should also include articles that are claimed by other historians as being bogus. The latter currently doesn't seem to be the practice amongst pseudo categories. If a small minority of accredited historians are claiming it and debating it with colleagues I don't see how it could be rubber stamped as being pseudo by impartial wikipedians.Chhe (talk) 05:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not a "small minority of accredited historians" that are claiming/debating it. The amount of scholars in the relevant field who don't consider it fringe are virtually non-existent. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 06:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose "'Pseudohistory'" stinks of poor quality history. I see no sign of that. What I do see is ad hominem "arguments" and the assertion that, because most scholars think it likely that a Jesus of Nazareth existed, (as do I), it is therefore pseudohistory to argue the case against. This is deeply prejudiced POV pushing .Anthony (talk) 11:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

I don't care about what categories appear in this article. As far as I can tell the category system exists to cause disputes among Wikipedia editors rather than to help Wikipedia readers. However, the Christ myth theory is a fringe theory, and as such is pseudohistory/scholarship. G.A. Wells is a bona fide academic, sure, but the fact that he is a scholar of German rather than of early Christianity is relevant. Scholars in fields that deal with early Christianity (religious studies, ancient history, and so on) think this theory is a fringe theory; many of the theory's current advocates acknowledge that it's rejected by mainstream academia. Bruno Bauer and Arthur Drews were also bona fide academics (well, Bauer was until he lost his university post because of his views on Jesus)--but Bauer was 19th century and Drews early 20th century. The categorization is about how the theory is perceived now, not in 1852 or 1922. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There is also Robert M. Price, a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, with two doctorates in theology. He's doesn't work in a maintream university, but he's nevertheless regarded as a specialist in this area by those who do. That he's a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, and was invited to contribute to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009), along with Luke Timothy Johnson, John Dominic Crossan, James Dunn, and Darrell Bock, are both strong indications of that, in my view. I see that both of these points about Price have been removed from the article by Eugeneacurry. [14] SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I agree strongly with your point about categories and disputes. The main purpose of them often seems to be as a weapon against people and ideas that someone doesn't like. It's time we tried to sort it out as a project.SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's exactly accurate to say that Robert M. Price doesn't work at a mainstream university. The Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary is an unaccredited institution; it's apparently not even notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and it seems to pop up on Google exclusively for its association with Price. [15] This is in fact a great indication that we're dealing with a fringe theory: its advocates come from outside the relevant academic fields (Wells) or teach at unaccredited unknown institutions. Sure, Price is a notable figure and his views should be covered in this article, but he should not be taken as an indication that the theory has become mainstream within religious studies. It's nice that he was invited to contribute to The Historical Jesus: Five Views, but this is easily seen as a cynical attempt to boost sales by including a "controversial" view in the book; if you read the text, the other contributors are usually polite to Price, but it's clear that some of them are thinking, "Why do I have to respond to this guy?" Again, he is a notable figure, it's worth including him in the article, his membership in the Jesus seminar and his appearance in the book should be noted in the article. But none of this is an indication that Price's views are mainstream, or even representative of a significant minority opinion within religious studies. He's an oddball.

I would like to see the community tackle the issue of categories, but I'm not optimistic that it's possible. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm minded to try it, but it's not an area I've ever involved myself in, so I'd need to read up on previous attempts. We've had similar problems with editors adding the "pseudoscience" category to anything they don't understand or like. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, you said: "If it's being taken seriously by university academics, even if they're in a minority, it shouldn't be categorized bluntly as pseudo-history or pseudo-scholarship". Does that then mean that you oppose the pseudohistory cat on the holocaust denial page because holocaust denial is "taken seriously" (i.e. advocated) by a "minority" of "university academics" like Arthur Butz and Robert Faurisson? (I'm not surprised to see SlimVirgin hasn't responded to this.)Eugene (talk) 06:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The problems you discuss here are tied to the idiosyncratic definition of article scope. The owner of this article, Eugeneacurry, insists on treating a loosely connected series of opinions on the "nonhistoricity of Christ" as a single topic, but separate from the debate on the historicity of Christ in general. This is WP:SYNTH to begin with, and you end up with an article that is cobbled together from partly pseudo-scholarhsip, partly fringe scholarship and partly bona fide but outdated scholarship. This problem will not go away, nor will this article ever be stable, before the owner condescends to look into its relation to the articles with overlapping scope and try to sort the issues between these articles as a group instead of obsessing over getting an "FA" star for this particular page. --dab (𒁳) 10:01, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It will amaze you dab but I think you are totally correct! Sophia ♫ 10:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this seems to be a case of SYN. People are being lumped together in a way that's not obviously legitimate. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 10:20, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I disagree with this. These authors have been discussed together as a distinct line of thought about the historical Jesus. There are extensive discussions about this in the talk page archives. See this post, in particular, [16], which names Schweitzer, Goguel, Weaver, and van Voorst as scholars who have given substantial discussion to the CMT. There's no shortage of academic sources that discuss this idea and who treat authors like Bauer, Drews, and G.A. Wells together. The scope of other articles about Jesus might be a problem, but this article has an easily defined scope, and we can follow the lead of other sources (such as the ones I just named) in constructing the article. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Akhilleus. I'm starting to wonder if we are all reading the same article.  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 13:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

well, I agree with Akhilleus to a certain point. This article is certainly much better than it used to be, and it actually manages to paint a coherent picture of the history of the idea. But I maintain my point that the above discussion on whether this is "pseudohistory" is symptomatic: it is and it isn't. It is an account of a bit of perfectly respectable historical scholarship paired with a discussion of a number of "popular" authors of more recent years who can be considered fringe, or even "pseudo". This remains a problem. It doesn't mean that we need to tear down the entire article, but it does mean that much better integration in our disparate "Jesus and history" articles, each with their own separate history of controversy, is desperately needed.

in recognition of the progress that has been made, you will note that I am no longer calling to split this up among other articles (because it is now one of the better articles we have on this), but there are remaining WP:DUE issues. Especially, since this is about historical scholarship now discredited, the Quest for the historical Jesus article is very relevant, and content needs to be balanced between the two articles. --dab (𒁳) 14:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's nice to see you feel progress has been made. (I'm serious, no snark.) What are you proposing now, though? Would you just delete a bunch of the more modern authors? Eugene (talk) 15:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, as I see the scientific consensus is significantly in favor of the historic existence of Jesus. But it's not as if the sceptics' theory is fringe. It's still a scientific theory of a minority, pretty much in the same way theories about global warming not happening or not being man made, which are adopted by a 3% of scientists are not considered fringe. List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming: this article is not in any "pseudo" category. --JokerXtreme (talk) 21:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no scientific consensus on this as it does not conform to the scientific method. If it did the uncertainties of extrapolating back from anonymous data would be acknowledged. This is fringe but a read of WP:CAT makes it clear we should keep the cats on this page as simple as possible. Sophia ♫ 15:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill, it's best to leave threaded discussion out of the comments section, so that people responding to the RfC are free to comment without being confronted. Would you mind confining your comments to this section, please? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 06:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Marx's picture

On my computer the Marx picture seems to be disrupting the page somehow and I can't fix it. If this is just some quirk of my machine then so be it; if it's an actual issue with the article please fix it because I can't figure out what's actually wrong. Eugene (talk) 05:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I thought I had it, but nope--still an issue. Eugene (talk) 05:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

CMT and cats

(moved from SV talk) The cat tag agreed to in mediation was "pseudo-scholarship" in clear distinction to "pseudo-history". Therefore "pseudo-scholarship" is the current WP:CON category tag. Given this, even if you can could establish a consensus against "pseudo-history" (which already exists per the mediation, BTW) it would be irrelevant to the question of "pseduo-scholarship". Were you to attempt to remove specifically the "pseudo-scholarship" cat on the basis of a non-sequiter consensus it would be an instance of disruptive editing and a further example of your edit warring. Eugene (talk) 14:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what was agreed in mediation. The cat that you added to the article was pseudo-history, but the same arguments apply to pseudo-anything-else. You need to gain consensus here on talk if you want to add them. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 14:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It absolutely does matter what was agreed to in mediation. I never intended to add the pseudo-history cat to the page post-mediation, it was an over-sight wrought by the massive amount of editing and reverting that's taken place in the article recently which I've since corrected without prompting. This is now, I believe, the fourth time you are being warned about removing the WP:CON pseudo-scholarship cat tag without achieving a new consensus on the matter--either on a whim or through the use of, apparently, irrelevant polling. I've tried to correct the poll title so that it can be relevant but you've changed it back; I consider my attempt a good-faith effort to keep this moving forward, but if you are adamant about pursuing a non-sequitur, I can't stop you. Eugene (talk) 14:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Calling it pseudo-history or pseudo-scholarship amounts to the same thing. It violates WP:CAT, which says: "Categorizations appear on pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles." This is exactly the kind of situation that addresses. There is no consensus to add these, and it violates the guideline.

As for the mediation, it obviously doesn't apply to editors who weren't part of it, and even those who were don't seem to have agreed. And anyway, consensus can change. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 14:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Calling it pseudo-history or pseudo-scholarship apparently does not amount to the same thing since Sophia objected to the one but agreed to the other. The agreement hammered out in mediation was 4 to 1 in favor of including the Pseudo-scholarship cat tag on this page so, sure, consensus can change, but the burden is on the person seeking to alter the page to demonstrate that a new consensus has emerged. So far you haven't even attempted to do that, apparently, since you are resolved to debate an irrelevant cat tag that was already removed from the article as a result of the consensus achieved in the mediation. Eugene (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

With respect, you seem to be engaged in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. There was no agreement. Sophia looked as though she agreed reluctantly, and has anyway said she did so without reading WP:CAT, and James objected. And in any event, there are editors here now who didn't take part in the mediation. I see you're also removing external links that could inform people about the background to this, and you misrepresented the response you got on the RS noticeboard about adding the publication date of the first Stanton edition. I don't see the point of that kind of editing.

Please gain consensus for the categories or remove them. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

With respect, your assesment of the situation differs markedly from that of the mediator assigned to the case.[17] I've no intention of going around and around with this. I've made my position clear. There currently is a consensus to include the pseudo-scholarship cat, if you want to remove it you must build a comparable consensus now to remove that particular cat. As for Stanton, the RS board said that was unnecessary to include the pub date of the first edition as we are citing the 2nd edition. It seems you were the only one trying to include it while a number of other editors were objecting; again, try actually building a consensus. As for the external links, the Time Magazine article was about a different topic and the book was antique and written by an unknown. Bill the Cat has raised the possibility of a new mediation; I'm not really eager for that, but if you think it is necessary it would give you a chance explain why you think the sources mentioned in the article and the FAQ aren't enough to establish the theory's status as pseudo-scholarship. Eugene (talk) 15:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, you simply can't ignore facts by building a consensus among editors on the Talk page. Did you even bother to read the FAQ? Did anyone on "your side" bother to read the FAQ? If this goes to mediation, you will lose in what perhaps would be the fastest mediation ever performed on Wikipedia. The large number of facts are against your position. Please drop your contentious insistence that the CMT is not pseudo-scholarship. It's a behavior unbecoming of an admin with your vast experience. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Chart

I don't know the history of this chart from September 2009 being removed, but I found it helpful. Would anyone object to its being restored in some form? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It is good but it could be a case of SYNTH. However it could replace the horrible for/against section at the end as it shows clearly the different takes on the Jesus story and allows the reader to follow the links themselves. Sophia ♫ 16:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems quite well-sourced, but I don't know who wrote it or why it was removed, so maybe there were issues with it. I'll look around a bit more. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 16:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I object very strongly to restoring the chart. Its removal was discussed here, and probably in other places; the talk archives are a huge mess. The chart is inappropriate for this article because it attempts to give a broad overview of the range of attitudes towards the historicity of Jesus. But this article is about a discrete sub-topic within the study of the historical Jesus, and one which gets very little attention in mainstream scholarship. The place to give a broad overview of approaches to reconstructing the historical Jesus is an article that deals with the topic as a whole—historical Jesus, maybe.

There are huge synthesis problems with the chart as well; views on this topic are too diverse to be summarized in three columns. It was also clear that not all of the sources used in the construction of the chart supported the text. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Is this not the problem with this article, though—that it offers no context, no continuity, no nuance? Any attempt to provide context, even by adding a Time mazagine article, is removed or objected to. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 16:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, the lack of context is a severe problem. I think the way to deal with it, though, is to provide context in the lead, rather than through a chart. (Also, it may be the case that the sections on individual authors don't do enough to contextualize the author's work amongst their contemporaries.) --Akhilleus (talk) 16:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Give it a rest SlimVirgin, the Time Magazine article wasn't about the Christ myth theory. Eugene (talk) 16:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

But nothing is, in your view. Wells doesn't subscribe to it. Price doesn't subscribe to it. No one does, because you've set up a straw man position. That allows you to say that it's ridiculous, and that this or that person has at last come to their senses and done a volte face, the minute they introduce any nuance. Any unnamed person who still clings to it is an anti-Semite, or a Nazi, or a Soviet propagandist, or an anti-Christian bigot, or a pseudo-something, or a disruptive lunatic. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 16:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Hm. I think we could do with some context or nuance here. Wells certainly subscribed to the theory in many of his books, but changed his position to allow that there was a historical Jesus. Price never directly affirms support for the theory, but argues for its plausibility, and says that it's more likely that Jesus didn't exist. That's basically an endorsement of the theory... --Akhilleus (talk) 16:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I should also add: I don't think the article in Time discusses the Christ myth theory, so it's unclear to me why it would appear in the external links section. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It was intended to provide background, which is what EL is often used for. Do we have any academic sources who explicitly define the "Christ myth theory"? I see allusions to it in the sources, but have any of the scholarly sources offered a clear description of it and its limits? I see a distinction between the minimalists and the mythologists, but do the people named in this page all clearly define themselves as the latter? I'm concerned that we're allowing their views to be defined by their opponents. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems like the Time article would be very helpful at historical Jesus, but I don't think it's what we need here. (The article is an admirably clear explanation of issues surrounding the Jesus Seminar. A somewhat trivial fact that I learned from the article is that Paul Verhoeven, the director of "Showgirls", is a member!) As for academic sources, I've mentioned several already--Schweitzer, Goguel, Weaver, and van Voorst (full citations in the article). Bennett, Case, and Hoffmann's introduction to Goguel's Jesus the Nazarene also provide overviews. One important point about terminology: not everyone uses the phrase "Christ myth theory"; van Voorst, for instance, calls it the "nonexistence hypothesis". Schweitzer doesn't have a set term for it at all, as far as I can tell. But "Christ myth theory" is found in scholarly literature more widely than any term for the theory that I've seen. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The lead should introduce the theory as defined by academics A and B to say X, Y, and Z. My concern, as I said, is that we've set up a straw man—or we're parroting someone else's straw man—which is why we're able to say this person has changed his mind, or that person didn't ever really subscribe. It would be easy to create articles on versions of philosophical theories so lacking in nuance that no one really agrees with them, and indeed such theories are often invented by opponents precisely so they can do that. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:20, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Michael Martin

I've added an opposing view to the lead from the philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University to offset Stanton. [18] When I'm able to I'll expand in the text on Martin's view of Wells's arguments, which he writes are sound. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 18:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Although I think the Martin quote is good, it does not belong in the lead. It should be worked into the main body of the article. If the consensus is that it remain in the lead, then I will add context (per Evaluating claims) - something like this (context part is underlined):

There are extreme academic views such as those of philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University who argues that, while it is true that the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted, and that anyone arguing against it may be seen as a crank, a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it.

It really ought to go in the main body, though, probably under Other writers, especially since Martin is basically regurgitating Wells. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 18:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It has to go in the lead per NPOV, because editors here want the lead to say that denying Jesus's existence has no academic support. It's therefore important to name one mainstream senior academic who argues that a case can in fact be made for it. If you want to say his views are extreme, Bill, you will need a source for that, and it will have to be a high-quality source because there are BLP issues.

I think we all need to stick closely to the content policies and guidelines. No OR, no SYN, no violations of WP:CAT. Let's just stick to the policies, because doing that tends to resolve most disputes. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 18:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I would be against leaving it in the lead, but if that is the consensus, I can live with it. However, it will have to include context (as I mentioned above, per Evaluating claims; as well as levels of acceptance). Furthermore, his view, like all Christ-mythers, IS extreme and there are plenty of quotes in FAQ #2 that prove it. This theory is, after all, a fringe theory. Thus, there are no BLP issues, so don't bother going there. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:12, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

He isn't a historian or biblical scholar so it doesn't have mainstream academic support. Like Wells, historical Jesus studies isn't their academic field, nor is he academically promoting it in the relevant literature. Similarly, the claim that historicity is taken for granted is one that goes against what the actual historians say. All we have is a non-expert trying to push an agenda that appears to do nothing but back up his publishing theme. --Ari (talk) 00:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill, I can only say again—we have to stick to the core content policies. They are WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP for living persons. If you want to call someone an extremist, or add any other context, you need a reliable source that says exactly what you want to say, and if that person is a living person, the source must be a high-quality reliable one. There is no way round that. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

And I can only say again that the WP:Fringe policy cannot be conveniently ignored. And I'm not the one calling his views (not the man) extreme. I mean, did you even bother to read WP:Fringe? Let me quote one of the relevant portions (underline added):

Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context — e.g. "There are extreme academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn, suggesting at great length and with great complexity that Nostradamus's Prophecies are antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind."

This is the last time I'm going to ask you to read FAQ #2 before I conclude a case of "I didn't hear that". Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

FRINGE is a guideline, and the policies take precedence. It's also not clear that FRINGE even applies. We now have a second modern mainstream academic saying that a case can be made, and although you were able to dismiss Wells as a professor of German, you'll find it harder to dismiss a philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of religion. But the key point is that the core content policies take precedence over any guideline (or any FAQ or consensus on any talk page). SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:44, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear that "fringe" applies? You're kidding, right? Now you seem to be simply pushing your POV. By the way, it was Eugene who (rightfully) dismissed Wells, not me. Be that as it may, it's not about who we (you, me, et al.) think is right or wrong. It's about what the vast majority of scholars think (which is something you should know). Since they are quoted abundantly in the FAQ, ignoring the FAQ (and FRINGE) is not helpful to this discussion. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand why the Martin quote is in the lead. This article is about the Christ myth theory. The lead should contextualize the theory's level of acceptance within academia (which is virtually nil). A simple statement to that effect should be sufficient. As it stands the lead reads like an argument--you have Stanton saying that most historians believe that Jesus existed, and then Martin is used to undercut this, both by saying that "the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted" (instead of being based on evidence and arguments) and by the implication that, since one philosopher says a case can be made against Jesus' existence, Stanton is wrong. I have no problem with using Martin as a source, but I don't think he should be given this prominence in the lead. The fact that one academic philosopher finds Wells' arguments compelling doesn't alter the fact that the Christ myth theory hasn't won acceptance in biblical studies or ancient history; giving Martin such prominence (especially since he has the last word in the paragraph) may easily give the reader the impression that the theory is more widely accepted in academia than it actually is. As Martin himself says at the end of the chapter which is cited in the lead: "...since Wells's thesis is controversial and not widely accepted, I will not rely on it in the rest of this book." (p. 67, [19]). Martin says a few other times that Wells' thesis isn't widely accepted. He also refers to Wells as "the most respected contemporary critic of the historicity of Jesus" on p. 38. If Martin says the most respected critic of Jesus' historicity hasn't met with much acceptance, this means that the theory in general hasn't won much acceptance; this source should not be used in such a way to imply something that he doesn't say.

I would prefer leaving Martin out of the lead. I also think the Stanton sentence should be replaced with something that directly addresses the theory--Stanton says that most historians believe Jesus existed, and only addresses the theory by implication. One way of doing this is to return to a quote that was used in earlier versions of the article, van Voorst's statement on p. 16 of Jesus outside the New Testament [20] that "The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds...Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." Quote it directly, or summarize it, either way will work. This statement isn't inflammatory, doesn't smear anyone as a crank, but simply says that the theory has not won acceptance and is now regarded as refuted within the relevant scholarly fields. Van Voorst wrote after Martin and mentions him in a footnote, so he was taking Martin's defense of Wells into account. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus, it would be highly POV to state or imply that this theory has no mainstream support, when we know of mainstream academics who do give it some credence. Let's just tell the story to the best of our ability—who says what—without imposing POVs and censorship. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, I don't understand your response. You've found one academic philosopher who thinks the case is strong. And he says, several times, that the theory is controversial and not widely accepted. So he should not be used to imply the theory is mainstream—he says the theory is *not* mainstream. If we're going to talk about imposing POVs, surely using a source to imply something he doesn't say qualifies. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

He's not being used to say that it's mainstream. He's being used to say what he says and no more, namely that a strong case can be made, although the historicity is otherwise taken for granted. Please stop looking at this through the frame others have set up (it's fringe! we're not allowed to say this or that!). Let's just find the most knowledgeable sources at the most mainstream universities and tell people what they say without prejudice. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, let's use mainstream sources from mainstream universities. Let's tell people what these sources say without prejudice. I'm happy to stay within the "frame" that mainstream scholarship has set up: it says that this is a fringe theory. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, the point of using the van Voorst quote is that he is an expert in the field who has looked specifically at the theory, and is thus in a good position to judge whether it is accepted in biblical studies and ancient history. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Martin is an expert in the field too. His area is philosophy of religion. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:28, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Philosophy of religion is quite distinct from New Testament studies. Martin is unfamiliar with scholarship on the NT and his arguments about the historicity of Jesus are based entirely upon Wells, who isn't an expert in NT studies either. There's a reason I keep saying "biblical studies and ancient history." It's an interesting fact that the modern-day academics who endorse the Christ myth theory come from outside biblical studies, but this isn't an indication of the theory's status within biblical studies. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:39, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Everyone who isn't opposed to it is belittled. Price has two doctorates in theology, but he's not in a university so he isn't really a theologian. Wells is a professor of German. Martin's a mainstream philosopher of religion who's written about this very issue, but he hasn't read the right books. :)

Guys, come on. The one thing that's clear is that these people have more relevant qualifications than anyone on this page, so far as I know, so we could perhaps extend a little respect to them, and just tell readers what they say. The reader is interested in their views, not in ours, and also not in our attempts to hide their views. It's worth bearing that in mind. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, look. Van Voorst has more relevant qualifications than anyone on this page, so far as I know, and he makes the point that Martin is unfamiliar with NT scholarship and relies entirely upon Wells. (see p. 14, note 32, of the book I've already linked to.) Van Voorst makes the rather important point that biblical scholars and classical historians regard the Christ myth theory as a dead letter, and this is after taking Wells and Martin into consideration. So let's tell readers what he says. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

He is also not a neutral observer [21], something any reasonable person can see. Sophia ♫ 23:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Neither is Martin, I suppose, since the quotes in question come from a philosophical case against Christianity. But as I've said many times, when selecting sources for this article we should care about their expertise, not their creed. Van Voorst has strong academic credentials, and a distinguished record of publishing; he's clearly an expert in this subject. Haven't we been having this argument since 2007 or so? --Akhilleus (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

SV, how exactly is a philosopher an expert in the field of historical biblical studies? And on the point of qualifications, my qualifications in the field of ancient history outweigh Martin's apparant nil by quite a bit. No one denies that Price has qualificatins as far as I know, but he is a lone voice whose position is at an unaccredited school and he seems to make no effort to scholarly defend or publish his theory in academic publications. When his works, published for popular audiences with a clear agenda such as his Jesus is Dead by Atheist Press, are reviwed by scholars we get this.

Van Voorst would probably be the best to go with in the lead. He is an academic who engages the hypothesis and makes statements on the acceptance of this theory. Van Voorst's judgements are backed up by countless scholars so there is no reason to question it on this point. --Ari (talk) 01:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Philosophy is the application of a set of analytic tools to a number of areas, such as philosophy of mind, religion, psychology, law, knowledge, ethics, science, and so on. It's a rigorous discipline, where arguments and evidence are studied and broken down. I can't think of a more appropriate academic to study an issue like this than a philosopher, and especially a senior philosopher of religion at a mainstream university like Boston University with a PhD from Harvard; see Michael Martin. In addition, he's a published source on this specific issue. And his claims are modest. He acknowledges that his position is a minority one, but says that a strong challenge can be made to Jesus's historicity and it's important to say that up front.

Van Voorst is a former priest and professor at a United Methodist liberal arts college, and at Westminster College, Oxford, a former teacher training college and not part of the university. I'm not saying we can't use him as a source at all, but Martin is a more mainstream source. We certainly should not remove Martin from the lead and replace him with Van Voorst.

You seem to want to confine things to biblical scholars (not known as a rigorous discipline), who are likely to reach the same conclusion. The article needs fresh blood. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

So you agree that Martin is not an expert in the field of historical biblical studies. Just as my supervisor with a PhD from Cambridge and many years teaching experience in New Testament and ancient historical studies is not an academic expert in philosophy. Van Voorst is a reputable scholas whose work is found on academic bibliographies around the world. His academic book is mainstream and accepted by relevent academic fields. To say that a philosopher is more mainstream than a biblical scholar in terms of historical biblical studies is completely ridiculous and shows that you have a clear agenda - one which at all costs wishes to avoid what mainstream scholars say.

Biblical scholarship is actually a very rigorous field, especially historical Jesus studies. I cannot think of any field of ancient history which holds such stringent historical methedology as is done towards historical Jesus studies. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about on so many points of discussion here. --Ari (talk) 02:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand how Martin can be a "more mainstream source" when he acknowledges that his position (borrowed from Wells) isn't mainstream. Nor do I understand why the position of one philosopher, who doesn't specialize in studying the history of Christianity, is a better source than a scholar from a field whose very essence is studying the history of Christianity. Martin comes to the topic of the historical Jesus as an outsider, in much the same way that a biblical scholar who starts writing about Kant would. There's no necessary reason why a biblical scholar couldn't produce good work on Kant, but if said scholar displayed ignorance of basic philosophical method and unfamiliarity with current scholarship on Kant, it's unlikely that his work would be taken seriously by academic philosophers. That's the basic problem with Martin's chapter on the historicity of Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask how you know that—that Martin's chapter displays ignorance of basic methods and scholarship? Do you have a source saying that? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Random break

From my understanding, Price's "doctorates" are from an unaccredited school. And why should someone specializing in German have a say so in this matter? Does that mean that a specialist in French Medieval poetry should also have a say? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a misunderstanding of WP:V to suppose that only climate change scientists can be used as sources on climate change. Where there's no dispute, we're happy to defer to them, but that mentality can lead to a tiny group of uber-specialists, who almost certainly agree with one another, getting to control content via their Wikipedian admirers. It means that scientists not specializing in that narrow area aren't taken seriously when they say, "We don't think this science is any good." It means that when newspapers obtain emails about allegedly doctored results, Wikipedians can try to keep that out on the grounds that the journalists aren't specialists. WP:V, the sourcing policy, has been written with precisely this situation in mind:

Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources where available, such as in history, medicine, and science, but material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications.

The essence of NPOV is that no single group has a monopoly on truth, or is given such a monopoly on Wikipedia. This article needs to be opened up to all reliable sources who've addressed this issue, particularly academic ones, not just a tiny coterie of biblical scholars. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, it would be highly POV to suppress facts, which is what you are trying to do. Nice try, though. Also, I like Akhilleus' suggestion regarding the lead. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Tom Harpur is mainstream as well. [22] Not sure why he's not in the article. ^^James^^ (talk) 19:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, James. I also wondered why Martin wasn't in the article. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Both Harpur and Martin might be worth covering in the article, but Harpur doesn't bear on the question of acceptance within academia, because Harpur left academia some time ago. --Akhilleus (talk) 20:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, they can be in the article but not the lead. Also, it might be time to work up some criteria for inclusion. Eugene (talk) 21:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Martin, Qualifications, and Sources.

I created a new section so we can continue the discussion. I'm not sure why it was originally under "Charts". At any rate....

(Cut/paste from "Random Break")

From my understanding, Price's "doctorates" are from an unaccredited school. And why should someone specializing in German have a say so in this matter? Does that mean that a specialist in French Medieval poetry should also have a say? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a misunderstanding of WP:V to suppose that only climate change scientists can be used as sources on climate change. Where there's no dispute, we're happy to defer to them, but that mentality can lead to a tiny group of uber-specialists, who almost certainly agree with one another, getting to control content via their Wikipedian admirers. It means that scientists not specializing in that narrow area aren't taken seriously when they say, "We don't think this science is any good." It means that when newspapers obtain emails about allegedly doctored results, Wikipedians can try to keep that out on the grounds that the journalists aren't specialists. WP:V, the sourcing policy, has been written with precisely this situation in mind:

Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources where available, such as in history, medicine, and science, but material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications.

The essence of NPOV is that no single group has a monopoly on truth, or is given such a monopoly on Wikipedia. This article needs to be opened up to all reliable sources who've addressed this issue, particularly academic ones, not just a tiny coterie of biblical scholars. SlimVirgin talk contribs 21:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

(Now continuing)

No one is suggesting that quotes from non-specialists can't be used. The problem is when such sources are used to give the false impression that a fringe theory is merely a respectable, minority opinion. The CMT does not fall into that category. Rather, it is utterly rejected by nearly all mainstream scholars, and no one in the scholarly community pretends otherwise. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Price's doctorates are from accredited universities. His teaching position is at an unaccredited theological seminary. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I guess I misunderstood. Do you know the name of the school(s) where he got his credentials? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Drew University. He got a Ph.D. in Systematic theology in 1981, and and Ph.D. in New Testament in 1993. Robert M. Price covers this briefly. Drew is a fine school; it's teaching at an unaccredited institution that sends up a red flag. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a place for Thompson and "The Messiah Myth"; Whether the gospels in fact are biographies - narratives about the life of a historical person - is doubtful. (p.3). He also refers to how "...figures such as Jesus are created." (p.16). The book sleeve itself says "Thompson argues that the quest for the historical Jesus is beside the point, since the Jesus of the gospels never existed." Sophia ♫ 23:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Saying that the Jesus of the gospels never existed is not the same thing as saying the historical Jesus never existed. Rudolf Bultmann thought the quest for the historical Jesus was beside the point, but he didn't doubt that there was a historical Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course a historical Jesus existed, according to Mason, Josephus mentions 21 of them! It was a very common name at the time. The whole point is that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels is not historical. Sophia ♫ 00:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

SOPHIA, it should be obvious that when I say historical Jesus I mean one particular guy by that name. As for the gospels not being historical, many scholars would agree that major parts of the gospels bear no relation to a historical event. Many would agree that they're not biographies, but rather theological narratives. That's not the same thing as saying there was no Jesus behind the stories, though. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

So, on the topic of qualifications - since when were the opinions of philosophers with no relevent qualifications to take precedence over academic historical works by biblical scholars as "more mainstream"? --Ari (talk) 02:33, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

POV

Okay, I've tried to sort this out, but I'm going to add the POV tag now, something I very rarely do, because Eugene has just removed Martin. [23] That combined with all the other omissions and commentary make me feel that this article is inherently POV and OR-ish. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I also want to draw attention to Eugene's edit summary: "Removed addition of Martin from lead as consensus against it (Akhilleus, Bill, Eugene vs. SlimVirgin; 3:1" We don't do NPOV by numbers. We do it by policy, and if you have a statement in the lead saying "no or very few academics take X seriously," you are obliged by NPOV to add a dissenting voice if there is a reliable one. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict). I agree with the need for the tagging, this article contravenes WP:NPOV. Graham Colm (talk) 22:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I support the inclusion of the Martin quote btw. Seems much more balanced. It would be nice to allow other editors some time to comment before claiming consensus has been reached. ^^James^^ (talk) 22:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I support the addition of the tag - let's hope it brings in fresh eyes and sources. Sophia ♫ 22:18, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No, we don't do NPOV by number. But neither do we suppress facts by numbers (as was attempted by the pseudo-whatever vote above). Furthermore, I'm not saying that there should not be a "dissenting voice" in the lead; I'm only saying that it should be in context. You are attempting to mislead the readers into believing the CMT is simply a minority position. It isn't; it's been rejected over and over again. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It's deeply disheartenly to find the Ivy-League educated chair of the SBL's Historical Jesus Section dismissed as "biased".[24] (The SBL, far from being some benighted fundamentalist group as some of the editors here have tried to characterize it, is a member of the American Council of Learned Societies, right alongside the the APA--American Psychological Association.) Even more depressing is that, apparently, even agnostics like Bart Ehrman are now also thus dismissed for pushing a pro-Christian "POV".[25] I remember when some of this page's critics objected to strong statements appearing without particular attribution; now it seems that even such attribution isn't enough--full deletion is necessary. I also see that the not-so-subtle insinuation that Christians are inherently untrustworthy has resurfaced.[26][27][28] It's fairly clear that some of the editors are trying very hard to de-FRINGE this article and misrepresent the CMT as a respectable minority position in contradiction of literally dozens of high-quality reliable sources published by a wide variety of specialists from all over the ideological map. This has been a problem for a long time and the more reasonable editors have tried to address it with everthing from simply RfCs to formal mediation. Apparently that isn't enough. I think it's time for arbitration. I've posted a request on the ArbCom notice board and hopefully they can sort this out. Eugene (talk) 15:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

There is an active attempt to get the article locked [29]. Apparently changes you don't agree with are "edit warring". Sophia ♫ 23:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No, changes that are not supported by the vast majority of RS's is considered "POV pushing". Sophia, you KNOW that the CMT is fringe; why do you seem to indicate otherwise? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

This interesting article suffers from a a biased tone. Before this article can ever be re-considered for FA status, this must be addressed. I get a strong impression that some editors are not prepared to work with others to establish neutrality. This neutral tone can be achieved without loss of meaningful content, but not by reverting edits without considering their merits. This is a well-written and researched contribution, the only obstacle to it's promotion is the soap boxing. For goodness sake, let the facts speak for themsevles—Wikipedia readers are discerning. With regard to reliable sources, these have to be chosen very carefully and not cherry-picked to support a biased view. If you guys want to progress the article, I strongly suggest that a less combative style is adopted. Believe it or not, I want to see Wikipedia have the best article on the internet on the Christ myth theory, but this can only be achieved through collaboration and not conflict. Graham Colm (talk) 23:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we are hitting a wall here. Some editors honestly think that to even consider the idea that Jesus did not exist makes you a holocaust denying ignorant crank. They also take it as anti christian bigotry if it is suggested that an evangelical christian may not be the best source of an unbiased quote. I honestly don't know how we will get round this. Sophia ♫ 23:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, an RfC might be a good step. Please note that I've already said the Powell quote doesn't need to be here; I think we can have an informative article without it. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

No Sophia, no one is saying that "considering" the possibility that Jesus did not exist makes a person equivalent to a Holocaust denier (HD) through and through. It's not the motivation of Holocaust deniers (which is antisemitism in most if not all cases) that is at issue; it's their unsupportable and "crazy" claims no matter what their motivations truly are. In other words, it's not antisemitism that motivates those who support the CMT (although that is indeed the case in some instances); it's the outrageous, and unsupportable, claims themselves.

Also, an RFC is pointless at this point. This needs to go to mediation, since no amount of "outside" opinions can change the facts. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, Graham, I don't believe that you DO want to see the "best article on the internet". You have said that:

Much of mainstream biblical scholarship is conjecture in my view.

Well, that's NOT what mainstream scholars believe, nor what scholars have consistently stated over and over again - if you want to claim that Much of mainstream biblical scholarship is conjecture, then please provide some reliable sources that say so. I don't think you can. It is simply your POV, and that should not be used in determining anything regarding this article. I realize that you, and those who side with you, will attempt to prevent this article from achieving FA status, but the fact of the matter is that you can only delay it, not prevent, it. When more and more editors read what the vast majority of scholars have to say, this article will eventually reach FA status. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Everyone has an opinion. The mark of a good editor is whether you can work with others to balance an article - see writing for the opponent. Sophia ♫ 00:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

And, were all my other comments at the FAC unhelpful? Why be so aggressive? This is not true, "I realize that you, and those who side with you, will attempt to prevent this article from achieving FA status, but the fact of the matter is that you can only delay it, not prevent, it," and it contravenes WP:Civilty. Graham Colm (talk) 00:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Your comments were unhelpful ONLY in the sense that they don't represent mainstream scholarship. I am NOT attacking you personally, and I sincerely regret it if that is how it came across. Over the last few months, I have seen various comments that would seem to indicate that the CMT is a legitimate minority position. It isn't - it is an untenable position because it has no basis in the best available evidence. Perhaps the evidence will change in the future, but as of right now, it's all we got to go with. Therefore, trying to make the CMT appear as being anything other than a fringe theory, and trying to make the article appear as if it has significant minority support is POV and misleading. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Soft Mythicists

There is sometimes only a very thin line between "soft mythicists" and "hard mythicists". From what I gather, the soft mythicist might say something like- "Jesus existed, but we don't know much or anything about him because so much of it is myth and there is so little if any reliable evidence." I can see little difference between the two positions and would like to broaden the scope of the article a little to add some context. ^^James^^ (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide some detail about which authors you think are "soft mythicists"? Are there secondary sources that discuss this? --Akhilleus (talk) 01:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is not about "soft" or "hard" mythicists, per se. It is about that ''Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure, and that the Jesus of early Christianity was the personification of an ideal savior to whom a number of stories were later attached." That Jesus existed but [add whatever qualifications here] is NOT the subject of this article. At any rate, Akhilleus' question is valid and demands a response. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 01:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's your own opinion. The problem with the article is that it doesn't define its limits. It should start with a definition of the Christ myth theory from a reliable source, and more than one definition if they differ. It should make clear whether it's a term used mainly by proponents or opponents. It should explain the history of the theory and the naming of the theory. It should outline the different ways in which a person might be such a theorist (soft, hard), sourced to secondary sources to avoid OR. In other words we need to apply some minimal scholarly standards to our own work. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

That's NOT my "opinion", and the article CLEARLY defines its limits (see my previous quote) - although I'm fairly sure that you don't really care, since your opposition seems to be based on your philosophy rather than on the best evidence (as described by mainstream scholarship). Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

We can't alter the mainstream terminology to fit our bias of what is "clearer to the reader." Like Bill the Cat said, the limits of CMT are clearly defined in the article. NJMauthor (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion

I'd like to ask that we stick especially closely to the content and behavioral policies on this page, because doing that tends to resolve most disputes. In particular we shouldn't be expressing our own opinions, but should stick closely to the sources. There's no point in our discussing on this page who is or isn't properly qualified; we should be looking to see which reliable sources (within the meaning of the sourcing policy) are publishing in this area—particularly which academics are publishing—then simply telling the reader what they say. In our behavior toward one another, no personal attacks or incivility, and no 3RR violations. To get outside views, we should be using RfCs and third opinions, and asking for help at the relevant wikiprojects.

For my own part, I'm willing to commit to sticking very closely to the policies, and I hope others will make that commitment too. It will make everything a lot easier. Life's too short for us to be miserable over this. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If that really was what you wanted, it would be a clear case of "this is a fringe theory not argued by relevent scholarship in any relevent academic context." Muliple academics from all ideological fields have made this clear as has been demonstrated. The end. Instead, you argue that we should reject what the historians say as they are not mainstream, and see what a proponent of the marginal hypothesis who has no relevent expertise or qualifications has to say as representative of mainstream. Why? Because in your personal opinion philosophy is a rigorous field but historical studies isn't? I cannot help at be sceptical at your new claim to follow the sources when you have tried at all corners to do everything but that. --Ari (talk) 15:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The content policies are WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. We should focus on the policies. If there are academics saying a case can be made, we just tell the reader that. If there are other academics saying, "this is nonsense," we tell the reader that too. We use in-text attribution for contested views, without censorship, without puffery. If editors here would carefully read the content policies, and if we would all stick to them closely, a huge percentage of the disputes on this page would melt away.

And I didn't say history is not a rigorous field, but we have a paucity of academic historians as sources. History is a rigorous field, as is philosophy. But again, that's the kind of discussion that's pointless. Please let's stick to the published sources, preferably those working within academia, and just write up what they say. Let's look in particular for good secondary sources who give us an overview of the primary sources. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:34, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You said biblical studies isn't a rigorous field, and you've indicated that you think philosophers are better sources than scholars in biblical studies. I'm not sure how this is sticking to WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. If we want to "stick to the published sources, preferably those working within academia, and just write up what they say," we can include Martin's statements that Wells' views are controversial and not widely accepted, and we can include Van Voorst's judgment that Martin's case is flawed because he relies entirely upon Wells for his knowledge of New Testament scholarship.

Or we could try to exercise our critical jugdment, and have a discussion about which sources we should include in the article, and how they should be included. Because Wikipedia's content policies are not intended to make us into stenographers; if that's how we're supposed to apply the policies, then we should just turn the article into a list of quotes.

If you want good secondary sources who give an overview of the primary sources, I've already listed some: Schweitzer, Goguel (with Hoffman's introduction), Bennett, Van Voorst. Many of these are available on Google books. There are relevant sections in the introduction to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (not fully available on Google books, I think, but there are other ways to obtain books). --Akhilleus (talk) 15:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Martin is also a good secondary source giving an overview. I agree that we should include all reliable sources writing in this field, and that we should prioritize the ones working in academia. Does that get us closer to an agreement?

WP's content policies are, in fact, intended to turn is into stenographers, length permitting. It's particularly important to adopt the stenographer position during a dispute. Let's absent ourselves from this as far as possible, and let the sources speak. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

A particularly good source is Van Voorst's academic work Jesus Outside the New Testament which deals with the theory. After discussing the history of the theory and its flaws, it makes clear that it is not discussed in any relevent academic works. The theory is "essentially dead as a scholarly question". But nope - you rejected that source because you preferred Michael Martin, who has no relevent expertise in the field, who supports the theory as "more mainstream". See what I am getting at about scepticism towards you following the sources.

This brings us to the alleged "paucity of academic historians". If you mean proponents - YES. However, I do not believe that is what you are arguing. Maybe it is your prejudice against Christian historians that you exhibited above? In that case, we have Michael Grant:

"To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' -- or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

Misrepresenting the debate because your favourite philosopher with no relevent expertise says something out of ignorance in clear contrast to scholarly discussions and method is in no way presenting a factually accurate or balanced article. --Ari (talk) 15:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ari, you're trying to keep the dispute going. Please try to resolve it. I did not reject Van Voorst. I said he should not replace Martin. We should use both. My argument is to use all reliable sources publishing in this field. No censorship, no belittling of people, no poisoning of the well. Let's just tell readers that A says X and B says Y.

As for historians—can you list here the modern academic historians we're using as sources? By that I mean people with PhDs in history or ancient history working in university or college history or ancient history departments? It might be helpful to prepare a page listing the sources, their qualifications, where they work and what they've published that's relevant. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 16:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Once again, who are you trying to fool? You said that Martin, although having ZERO relevent expertise, was more mainstream than a published scholar in the field. No one would say that on an objective evaluation on merits. And this is the fundamental ignorance of the Martin's quote as pointed out by Prof James F. McGrath of Butler University.

There are quotes in the article by reputable scholars in the relevent field. Take the initiative and follow them up, especially as many have been provided. They include Michael Grant listed just above, Van Voorst, James Dunn of Durham, Graeme Clarke of ANU, the late Graham Stanton of Cambrige, Mark Allan Powell Chairman of the SBL historical Jesus studies, Bart Ehrman of UNC, Chris Forbes and John Dickson of Macquarie, Paul Barnett, etc. I think a better task would be to find how many scholars are arguing the hypothesis in relevent academic peer reviewed journals or books and in addition argue that it is anything but fringe. At my count it is 0.--Ari (talk) 16:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if we could abandon the language of "who are you trying to fool?" It's been going on for a long time on this page, people belittling each other, belittling the sources, calling each other and the sources ignorant. Could we from now on please just stick to the content issues, minus the opinions about which sources are ignorant—unless there is really very strong evidence to suppose that they are not reliable sources within the meaning of the policy (in which case that's all we need to say)? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The language was very appropriate. Who were you trying to fool? Which sources we are to use is important - do we use mainstream scholarly opinion by those in the relevent field, or do we go with SlimVirgin's preferable non-expert? --Ari (talk) 03:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think discussing the sources might be helpful. But there are far too many sources cited in the article and the FAQ to meaningfully discuss them all. Given that the scholarly consensus is clearly against the CMT (as even its advocates conceed), I think it would be much better to merely discuss the sources who claim that, despite the consensus, the CMT is a serious possibility. That will allow us to narrow our focus from about 50 different authors to maybe 3 or 4. Eugene (talk) 18:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

At long last, an evaluation of sources

A few editors here have long wanted a close examination of sources. Well it looks that that has arrived: Talk:Christ_myth_theory/Sources Feel free to add to the list. I don't personally think it's necessary to address the contra material, but if you want to add the 50 odd sources, go ahead. Eugene (talk) 19:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I started this list earlier, but Eugene started trying to belittle some of the sources again (e.g. adding that one source called another "sad"), so I'm going to continue working on it at User:SlimVirgin/Christ myth theory sources.

I find this insistence on attacking sources and editors unhelpful and very troubling. It's also self-defeating in terms of the article, because readers can see through it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Per Akhilleus' advice and your little explanation connected to it, I'm trying very hard to AGF with your editing on this page. But with objections like this, that is becoming increasingly difficult. You included a sub-section entitled "Views of others" under each author's section; I assume that the section is for indicating how a particular author is viewed by other scholars. How is mentioning that Dunn said Price's arguments were "sad" a contravention of this? Doesn't that information seem extremely pertinent? Eugene (talk) 19:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Because "sad" doesn't mean anything. Look, we need to adopt a quasi-scholarly approach for our own editing. We need to rise above calling the sources sad skinheads and Holocaust deniers (even if that's how some of them approach each other), and stop calling other editors liars and cretins. We should adopt a disinterested position toward the sources and what they say, and a respectful position toward each other. No more appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Personally I don't care whether Jesus existed or not. If scientists were to discover for sure that he did or didn't, I think it would make less difference in the world than we might think, because the issues that surround him are ideological not historical. So please let's find a professional approach to this and keep the emotions out of it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:01, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Slimvirgin, I can't help but feel that you are manufacturing a controversy here. Who did an editor call a holocaust denier? Are you sure it wasn't an editor quoting a source? Are you sure that you've read the FAQ? NJMauthor (talk) 20:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Sad" does mean something, though: it means that Dunn finds Price's arguments so implausible that they're not worthy of serious consideration. Dunn is a reliable source; if our job is to be stenographers and merely to repeat what reliable sources say, what reason would we have for keeping Dunn's reaction out? --Akhilleus (talk) 20:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) It was a source comparing other sources to Holocaust deniers, which we had in the lead until recently. Again, I have to ask: is it necessary for you to preface your post with "I can't help but feel that you are manufacturing a controversy here"? Is it necessary for Eugene to say: "I'm trying very hard to AGF with your editing on this page"? Is it necessary for Ari to say: "Once again, who are you trying to fool?"

The editors you oppose don't go around making these remarks. From time to time, yes, but with some of you it's practically every post. Please stop, and focus on content. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

NJMauthor, the comparison to Holocaust denial was made as an analogy to the crazy claims of those who think the Jesus never existed. You can hear (audio only) the context of it here (part 1) and here (part 2). This video is an interview with Bart Ehrman, who is an atheist/agnostic as well as a respected scholar. The first part is about 10.5 minutes long and the second part is about 6 minutes long. The relevant portion (i.e., the comparison to Holocaust denial) is around 2:45 in the first part. I strongly urge everyone who hasn't yet listened to this interview take a few minutes (with some buttered popcorn and a soda nearby, preferably) and listen to it because it is very revealing about what mainstream scholarship thinks about the CMT. It's very much worth everyone's time...and it's also kind of amusing in some instances. Enjoy. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Archive settings need to be changed

I think that this talk page is too crowded. We should perhaps reduce the interval of inactivity that triggers auto-archiving? --JokerXtreme (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I changed it to ten days, if that's okay. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:30, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that most conversations with a pause longer that ten days, have little chance of being continued, so I think it's fine. This is a pretty intensive talk page anyway. --JokerXtreme (talk) 20:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Pro CMT Sources

Okay, here they are--the modern published mythicists, both all those that appear in the article and a couple that currently don't.

---

G.A. Wells (born 1926)

• Education: Degrees in German, philosophy, and natural science. Phd, specialization unknown.

• Position: Professor emeritus of German, Birkbeck College, London

• Relevant specialization: none

• Relevant publications:

• The Jesus of the Early Christians (Pemberton 1971)
• Did Jesus exist? (Prometheus Books 1987)
• The Jesus Myth (Open Court 1998)
• Religious Postures: Essays on Modern Christian Apologists and Religious Problems (Open Court 1988)
• The Historical Evidence for Jesus (Prometheus 1988)
• Who Was Jesus?: A Critique of the New Testament Record (Open Court 1989)
• The Jesus Legend (Open Court 1996)
• Can We Trust the New Testament? (Open Court 2003)
• Belief and Make-Believe (Open Court 2003)
• Cutting Jesus Down to Size (Open Court 2009)

• Basic position: At one time Wells doubted the existence of the historcal Jesus, though he acknowledged that such as a view is "is today almost totally rejected". He has since come to believe that Q is early evidence and now accepts a minimalistic historical Jesus.

• Views of others: Graham Stanton regarded Well's arguments as the most sophisticated of the Christ myth theorists, though he rejected them. Michael Martin argues that Wells's argument is "sound", though it "may seem ad hoc and arbitrary" and "is controversial and not widely accepted". Robert E. Van Voorst, while noting that Wells was "probably the most able advocate of the nonhistoricity theory", has said that he advocated the theory "not for objective scholarly reasons, but for highly tendentious, antireligious purposes."

---

Tom Harpur (born 1929)

• Education: BA from University of Toronto, BA & MA (Oxon) in classics from Oxford University

• Position: columnist for The Toronto Star; formerly (late 1960s) professor of New Testament at Wycliffe College, Toronto, a theological college of the Anglican Church of Canada affiliated with the University of Toronto through the Toronto School of Theology

• Relevant specialization: New Testament

• Relevant publications:

  The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light (Thomas Allen 2004)

• Basic position: Harpur argues that there is no evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever lived and that the details of Jesus' life and message were derived from Egyptian religions.

• Views of others: W. Ward Gasque has said that "[v]irtually none of the alleged evidence for the views put forward in The Pagan Christ is documented by reference to original sources" and "[m]any quotations are taken out of context and interpreted in a very different sense from what their author originally meant". He further states that Harpur "has based The Pagan Christ on the work of self-appointed 'scholars' who seek to excavate the literary and archaeological resources of the ancient world the same way an avid crossword puzzle enthusiast mines dictionaries and lists of words. In short, Harpur's book tells us more about himself than it does about the origins of Christianity". Terry Donaldson, Harpur's successor at Wycliffe College, has written that The Pagan Christ "is an easy target in many ways" and "a textbook example" of "parallelomania".

---

Michael Martin (born 1932)

• Education: Phd in philosophy from Harvard University

• Position: Professor emeritus of philosophy, Boston University

• Relevant specialization: philosophy of religion none

• Relevant publications:

• The Case Against Christianity (Temple University Press 1991)

• Basic position: Martin argues that a strong prima facie challenge can be made to the argument for Jesus's existence, though he acknowledges that such a denial is "not widely accepted".

• Views of others: Gary Habermas describes Martin as "[o]ne of the only scholars to follow G. A. Wells" and says that "Martin's theses fail to account for the available data at a very basic level." Habermas also draws attention to Martin's failure to accurately respresent the views of the scholars that Martin himself quotes in ostensible support of his views.[30]

---

Earl Doherty (born 1941)

• Education: BA in ancient history

• Position: none

• Relevant specialization: history

• Relevant publications:

• "The Jesus Puzzle: Pieces in a Puzzle of Christian Origins", Journal of Higher Criticism (1997);
• The Jesus Puzzle (Canadian Humanist Publications 1999);

• Basic position: Doherty argues that Jesus never existed as a historical person; non-historical mystical speculations were progressively historicized and personified over time. He admits, though, that mainstream scholarship dismisses the thesis and that "[m]ost of their comment[s]... are limited to expressions of contempt."

• Views of others: Ben Witherington has said that Doherty's efforts are "unhistorical and even anti-historical" and that "Mr. Doherty unfortunately is a mere polemicist. He has not done his historical homework, he clearly has not bothered to read the broad range of NT scholarship, and of course he comes at his study with a strong ax to gring." John Dominic Crossan has compared Doherty to a moon-landing skeptic.[31] Paula Fredriksen has said that Doherty "seems to be working very hard to create a straw man that he can then begin to knock down." Hector Avalos has stated that Doherty's case seems "plausible", but R. Joseph Hoffmann has said that Doherty's primary work, The Jesus Puzzle, is "qualitatively and academically far inferior to anything so far written on the subject."

---

Robert M. Price (born 1954)

• Education: BA from Montclair State University, MTS in New Testament from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Phd in Systematic Theology from Drew University, and another PhD in New Testament, also from Drew

• Position: Professor of theology and scriptural studies at the unaccredited Johnnie Coleman Theological Seminary & professor of biblical criticism at the unaccredited Center for Inquiry Institute; fellow of the Jesus Seminar

• Relevant specialization: New Testament

• Relevant publications:

• The Widow Traditions in Luke-Acts (Society of Biblical Literature 1997)
• Deconstructing Jesus (Prometheus Books 2000)
• The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (Prometheus Books 2003)
• The Pre-Nicene New Testament (Signature Books 2006)
• Jesus Is Dead (American Atheist Press 2007)
• The Historical Jesus: Five Views (with other authors) (InterVarsity Press 2009)

• Basic position: Price feels that the evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus is deeply ambiguous, at best, and that to postulate the existence of such a person is thus "arbitrary". Nevertheless, Price admits that New Testament scholars regard the Christ myth theory with "universal disdain".

• Views of others: James D. G. Dunn has characterized Price's arguments as "sad"; Tony Costa has said that Price's work "is not a serious discussion of the issues among one’s scholarly peers but rather comes across as an extremely bitter rant"; Craig A. Evans has said that "[v]irtually no scholar trained in history will agree with Price's negative conclusions", and that his "work in the gospels is overpowered by a philosophical mindset that is at odds with historical research—of any kind."

---

Timothy Freke (born 1959) & Peter Gandy (writting together)

• Education: Timothy Freke- BA in philosophy; Peter Gandy- MA in classical civilization

• Position: none

• Relevant specialization: Timothy Freke- none; Peter Gandy- history

• Relevant publications:

• The Jesus Mysteries (Three Rivers Press 2001)
• Jesus and the Lost Goddess (Three Rivers Press 2002)
• The Laughing Jesus (Three Rivers Press 2006)

• Basic position: Freke and Gandy argue that Jesus never existed; Gnostic belief in a purely mythical Jesus was the original form of Christianity which was supplanted, suppressed, and then covered-up by the Catholic Church.

• Views of others: When asked about Christ myth theory authors, including Freke and Gandy, Bart Ehrman replied: "This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this." Likewise, when N. T. Wright was asked to debate either Freke or Gandy concerning their thesis on television, he replied that this "was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese."

---

D. M. Murdock

• Education: BLA in classics from Franklin and Marshall College

• Position: none

• Relevant specialization: classical literature

• Relevant publications:

• The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold (Adventures Unlimited Press 1999)
• multiple self-published books

• Basic position: Murdock believes that there never was a historical Jesus; "Jesus" began as an amalgam of astrological symbolism and pagan myths which were later historicized.

• Views of others: Even fellow Christ myth theory advocate, Robert M. Price has said Murdock "is quick to state as bald fact what turn out to be, once one chases down her sources, either wild speculation or complex inference from a chain of complicated data open to many interpretations... The Christ Conspiracy is a random bag of (mainly recycled) eccentricities, some few of them worth considering, most dangerously shaky, many outright looney."

---

Threaded Discussion

Given that this is pretty much a comprehensive list, and given their qualifications, and given how they've been recieved, and given the countervailing quotations found in FAQ #2, I'd like to know who really thinks that the former support of 1 retired professor of German, the tepid support of 1 essentially independant New Testament scholar, and the enthusiastic support of 1 retired professor of philosophy, 1 retired professor of New Testament, and a handful of amateurs should keep this from being treated as WP:FRINGE and not categorized as pseudoscholarship? Before answering, try to think of this situation in a different context; say, applied to intelligent design or creation science (I'll not refer to the more inflamatory possibility at this point). Would you really argue against the FRINGE-iness of ID or straight-up creationism on the basis of such a small and motley band of supportes? Eugene (talk) 23:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Really? After all that complaining about POV and unfair marginalization, no one wants to actual defend their view in the light of the above? Eugene (talk) 13:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It sure is quiet in here. I feel alone...so very alone.  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 15:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Some of us have jobs! Stop likening this to ID and creationism. There is a clear scientific method that both of these ideologies flout which is why they are pseudo-science. The historical method is not as clear. Also because this article deals in the main with the history of the jesus myth, this was a marginal (fringe) area of scholarship back then, but was not called pseudo-scholarship. The quotes that you have are being used to define the whole topic are very recent. However it is interesting to note that the quotes are much more measured and less inflammatory than the ones you usually seem to prefer. Read WP:CAT - if the cat is controversial it shouldn't be there. Sophia ♫ 16:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I tried to be a bit more accomodating (thanks for recognising it Sophia), comparing the CMT to a fringe-but-not-shameful topic like ID, but if you simply refuse to compare a historical subject to a scientific one, then I'm afraid I'll have to repose my question in a more provacative way. Yes, the matter of Jesus' historical reality is a historical question. Likewise, the matter of the Holocaust's historical reality is a historical question.

The list above indicates that there are THREE living professors (active & former) who currently support (or recently supported) the Christ myth theory, ONE independant serious-ish scholar who does does so, and a handful of amatuers. (See G. A. Wells, Michael Martin, Tom Harpur; then Robert M. Price; then amateurs.)

I am personally aware of FIVE living professors (active & former) who currently support holocaust denial, FIVE independant serious-ish scholars who do so, and a handful of amatuers. (See Arthur Butz, Robert Faurisson, Konstantinos Plevris, Dariusz Ratajczak, Gerald Fredrick Töben; then David Irving, David Duke, Nicholas Kollerstrom, Germar Rudolf, Serge Thion; then amateurs.)

Now I'll ask again, and I really hope that I'm not just met with more avoidance and gamesmanship: Would you (Sophia, SlimVirgin, and ^^James^^) really argue against the full FRINGE-iness of holocaust denial and it's categorization as pseudo-scholarship/pseudohistory on the basis of such a small and motley band of supporters? Eugene (talk) 18:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It becomes very obvious why we make no progress. The historicity of the holocaust can be proved via the scientific method, with primary data (living witnesses, documents, graves, patents, archives and so on). Josephus (possibly) and anonymous later writings are not the same. Even the link to the McGrath blog posted earlier showed that when pushed, all he would say is that most scholars have found something they think is "very likely" to be from a historical jesus [32]. Sophia ♫ 19:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that your comment above does indeed indicate why we make so little progress here. You objected to my comparison of the CMT to ID on the grounds that while the existence of Jesus was a historical question, ID is a scientific question. Fair enough. But when I ask you to then compare the question of Jesus' historical reality to the question of the holocaust's historical reality, you still object, this time on the grounds that the Holocaust also isn't really a matter of history but of science! But clearly that's not the case, the discrete historical events surrounding the attempted extermination of the Jews in the 30's and 40's cannot be "reproduced" in a lab the way photosynthesis or fission can, they can only be deduced from historical records and artefacts and memories and so on. This is history!

I understand your hesitation to address my argument as it's devastating to your view regarding to the cat tags, but this sort of bizzare special pleading is pointless. Both James Dunn and Robert Miller address this sort of tendentious objection to history and both their revelant books can be read online. See Dunn's discussion of historical methodology (complete with an allusion to Holocaust denial) on pages 102-105 of Jesus Remembered. See Miller's similar discussion (complete with reference to the logical possibility, strictly speaking, of denying the Kennedy assassination) on pages 37-38 of The Jesus Seminar and Its Critics.

Please Sophia, set you sympathy for the CMT aside for a moment and consider this dispassionately; you are not a professional historian, I am not a professional historian, but the people cited in this article and it's FAQ generally are. Now given that the overwhelming consensus of professional historians is against this thesis, with only a handful of academics dissenting (three professors) shouldn't that count for something? And if you are willing (I assume) to allow the professional consensus against holocaust denial to warrant a pseduo-something cat tag on that topic's page (dispite the support of 5 academics), shouldn't the professional consensus against the CMT warrant a pseudo-something cat tag on this page--despite the support of an even less numerous group of 3 academics?

Please Sophia--please, please, please--seriously consider this. Eugene (talk) 20:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Most of the people you want to cite are biblical scholars, Eugene. It would be great if your comparisons to the Holocaust could stop. It makes no sense to compare something that happened 70 years ago that millions witnessed and were directly affected by to something that happened 2000 years ago for which no contemporaneous record exists.

What we need to do on this page is discuss the content of the article, not the issue itself. We could start by finding a definition of "Christ myth theory" and presenting that on the page using the most disinterested sources that exist for it. Does anyone have such a definition to hand? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene is not making up the comparisons to Holocaust denial. It's the opinion of experts in the field. Suppressing these scholarly analogies because they make you feel uncomfortable is POV, and is therefore, unacceptable. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Please name one academic scholar at a mainstream university who isn't a biblical scholar and who has compared this to Holocaust denial. That's an emotional response, not a disinterested academic one, and it's precisely the emotion that we need to remove from this talk page and from the article. Using sources who insult each other, and who call each other "sad," isn't going to move us toward a decent article.

Let's look for the most disinterested sources we can find and focus on them. Others can be included, of course, but the flavour of the article (and this talk page) should be dictated by the most disinterested and most mainstream. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

SV is correct. We can show this topic is marginal without ever having to use insults or emotive language, and would be all the more convincing for it. ID and holocaust denial are irrelevant sidetracks by people who really should acknowledge the limits of their understanding (even if it is a bit of a giggle!). Check out the search for the Higgs particle to see how this really works. Sophia ♫ 10:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

SV is not correct, she wants to exclude the comparisons to holocaust denial because they are so embarrassing and she doesn't want the theory embarrassed. And SV, non-Christian scholars have made such comparisons. Bart Ehrman, an agnostic who teaches at the secular University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill had this to say: "Finley: There are some people in the chat room disagreeing, of course, but they’re saying that there really isn’t any hardcore evidence, though, that… I mean… but there isn’t any… any evidence, really, that Jesus did exist except what people were saying about him. But… Ehrman: I think… I disagree with that. Finley: Really? Ehrman: I mean, what hardcore evidence is there that Julius Caesar existed? Finley: Well, this is… this is the same kind of argument that apologists use, by the way, for the existence of Jesus, by the way. They like to say the same thing you said just then about, well, what kind of evidence do you have for Jul… Ehrman: Well, I mean, it’s… but it’s just a typical… it’s just… It’s a historical point; I mean, how do you establish the historical existence of an individual from the past? Finley: I guess… I guess it depends on the claims… Right, it depends on the claims that people have made during that particular time about a particular person and their influence on society... Ehrman: It’s not just the claims. There are… One has to look at historical evidence. And if you… If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust? (Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008 )

Thomas L. Thompson

I searched the talk page archives and could not see why Thomas L. Thompson is not included here. From the publisher's description of his book: "With The Messiah Myth, noted Biblical scholar Thomas L. Thompson argues that the quest for the historical Jesus is beside the point, since the Jesus of the Gospels never existed. Like King David before him, says Thompson, the Jesus of the Bible is an amalgamation of themes from Near Eastern mythology and traditions of kingship and divinity." Now, even if he may not use the exact phrase "Jesus did not exist" in the book, he must have consented to his publisher describing his thesis as such. Perhaps, someone can give a succinct explanation here? 217.189.227.4 (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Because we have no sign that he says there was no historical Jesus. We shouldn't decide whether to include someone in a Wikipedia article based on dustjacket copy, anyway; it needs to be based on what the book actually says, and what secondary sources say about the book. Thompson, at least in this book, doesn't seem interested in the historical Jesus; he says the book isn't about historical reconstruction and isn't "centered in the problems of the historical Jesus" (p. 16). Thompson argues that the figures of David and Jesus that we see in the biblical narratives are based on a longstanding Near Eastern tradition of royal ideology, and it's clear that he thinks the NT is of little use in reconstructing history because the literary figure of Jesus is a kind of stock character built out of themes and tropes repeated through millenia of Near Eastern literature. But saying that the New Testament is of no value in reconstructing a historical Jesus isn't the same thing as saying there was no historical Jesus. As far as I can tell, Thompson doesn't draw that conclusion, and when he deals with the Gospels his focus is on discussing what the biblical narratives would have meant to their early Christian audiences--i.e. he's interested in a literary or exegetical analysis, rather than a historical one. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a good answer, but could you please clarify a bit. First, are you implying that the publisher's official summary is something of a sensationalist attempt to boost sales and doesn't really reflect the book? Frankly, it seems somewhat irresponsible of Thompson to consent to such a characterization which is used by all online booksellers to describe it, but perhaps that is the reality of publishing. Second, and more importantly, what does the rejection of a historical Jesus actually amount to? In this article Price is quoted as saying "Is it ... possible that beneath and behind the stained-glass curtain of Christian legend stands the dim figure of a historical founder of Christianity? Yes, it is possible, perhaps just a tad more likely than that there was a historical Moses, about as likely as there having been a historical Apollonius of Tyana. But it becomes almost arbitrary to think so." So, how is this sentiment different from what you described above? Finally, even if he isn't a true representative for the non-existence hypothesis, there is sufficient family resemblance that he should be discussed; otherwise, where in the Jesus and History articles would you say that his position should be discussed? 217.189.227.4 (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thompson's views could be mentioned in the historical Jesus article as representing the Minimalist fringe of mainstream scholarship. Thompson differs significantly from Price, though, because while Price thinks it's quite possible Jesus never existed, Thompson admits that a historical Jesus is "essental" to explain the origins of Christianity--he just denies that the gospels are overtly concerned with that person's actual life. (The Messiah Myth, p. 8) Eugene (talk) 21:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying this article is the exclusive domain of the non-mainstream? Is that how the line are drawn on Wikipedia. It seems perfectly obvious that Thompson rejects the quest. He belongs more here than there, surely. 217.189.227.4 (talk) 21:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

217.189.227.4, I wouldn't get too attached to the book blurb. I don't know much about publishing, but unless you do, I would be cautious about assuming that Thompson approved the copy. Nor would I describe it as "sensationalist", but I would say that the job of a book blurb is to pique a potential reader's interest, and this blurb does a good job of it. As for where Thompson belongs, I would have guessed biblical minimalism, but that redirects to The Copenhagen School (theology), which I find confusing. As dab has already pointed out, though, the organization of the Jesus articles is a serious problem. In an ideal world, this article would be a sub-article of historical Jesus, or possibly of Quest for the historical Jesus, and there would be many such articles--obviously, there's a huge number of different positions on Jesus. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Scholarly views on CMT

Michael Grant (author)

• Education: Classics at Trinity College, Cambridge

• Position: Professor of Humanity at University of Edinburgh; Vice-chancellor at the Queen's University of Belfast and University of Khartoum

• Relevant specialization: Ancient historian; has written on historical Jesus and the gospels.

• Relevant publications:

Main article: Michael_Grant_(author) § Bibliography

1. Ancient History (1952)
2. Paul (1976)
3. Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (1977)

• Views on scholarly acceptance of CMT:

"To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first-rank scholars'. In recent years 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus' -- or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

Graeme Clarke

• Education: A lot; Litt. D from the University of Melbourne.

• Position: Lecturer in the Department of Classics at the Australian National University; Senior Lecturer at the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia; Associate Professor at the Department of Classical Studies at Monash University; Professor at the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Melbourne; Professor of Classical Studies and Director of the Humanities research Centre at the Australian National University; Visiting Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, and is currently Adjunct Professor at the School. In addition: Numerous executive positions in the Australian Academy of the Humanities; President for Australian Society for Classical Studies; Council Member of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens; Fellow of the Society of Antiquities in London; He has also held a great many other Fellowships, Chairs and other academic positions, including stints as Associate Dean, Deputy Dean and Acting Dean of Arts at the University of Melbourne.

• Relevant specialization: Ancient historian and classicist

• Relevant publications:

Relevant enteries in the Cambridge Ancient History

• Views on scholarly acceptance of CMT:

"Frankly, I know of no ancient historian/biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ - the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming."

John Dickson (author)

• Education: B Theology (Hons); PhD Ancient History (Macquarie University) - thesis published as Mission-Commitment in Ancient Judaism and in the Pauline Communities.

• Position: Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University

• Relevant specialization: Ancient history; historical Jesus; theology; New Testament.

• Relevant publications:

1. Christ Files: How Historians Know what they Know about Jesus
2. Jesus: A short life

• Views on scholarly acceptance of CMT:

In a paper presented to the Society for the Study of Early Christianity:

In fact, I doubt that any of us could name a professional biblical or ancient historian who thinks Jesus’ existence is still debatable. Much more representative of the state of the question is the comment of Professor Ed Sanders of Duke University, one of the leading historical Jesus scholars of the last twenty years and no friend of Christian apologetics: ‘There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life: when and where he lived, approximately when and where he died, and the sort of thing that he did during his public activity.’ I think this sentiment would be endorsed by virtually everyone writing in the field today.

Paul W. Barnett

• Education: MA Hons, University of Sydney, ThL, Australian College of Theology; BD Hons, and a PhD, London University.

• Position: Has held various teaching positions and is currently Visiting fellow in ancient history at Macquarie University and Research Professor at Regent College

• Relevant specialization: Ancient historian and theologian; has written on historical Jesus and the gospels.

• Relevant publications:

1. Jesus and the Logic of History
2. Finding the historical Christ
3. Messiah: Jesus - the evidence of history
4. More

• Views on scholarly acceptance of CMT:

"Reputable ancient historians irrespective of religious persuasion know that Jesus was a genuine figure of history."

Historians

I think there is a serious misunderstanding of "history" as an academic field, here. Bill the Cat is dubious that one can find a historian saying that much of the work on the historical Jesus is conjecture. Well, actually, Sanders, who is the most or one of the top two or three most respected historians of Jesus (and who very much believes in the historical Jesus) is blunt that much is conjecture. Fredricksen says the same. The simply point out that much of the hsitorical ccount of Alexander the great is also conjecture. I think lay people and dilettantes think that hsitory is simply providing a narrative of what happened based on historical socuments and in some cases archeological evidence. But that is not how academic historians see it. They understand that what documents they use, and how they use it, often involve interpretive choices. They also are less concerned in a simple reconstruction of what happened, to understanding why it happened, and what it means. And this necessarily requires imagination and conjecture. All good historians admit this. They just do not thinnk that this fact invalidates their research.

It sounds to me like some people here are trying to represent historians the same way religious fundamentalists represent the Bible - as literally true. And if you are a fundamentalist, if someone says "it is not literaly true," it is tantamount to saying the whole thing is a pointless waste of time or a fraud. This is how fundamentalists think:it is all truth, or it is all lies.

But this is not how academic historians think. They understand that documentary and other evidence of the past has to be interpreted; that there are certain guidelines and standards all historians share for determining plausible or even convincing reconstructions. Sanders' reconstruction, for example, is highly regarded. But even Sanders will admit that he did not use a time machine to observe everything first-hand, or that he was able to read Jesus' mind and thus know for sure Jesus' motives and objectives. Sanders makes clear what the evidence is - material all historians have to work with - and then his conjectures about how it fits together and what it means. that he is very convincing makes him a skilled historian, but it does not change the fact that skilled historians rely to some degree on conjecture. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand what this article is about. It is not about if Jesus is God or man, if he performed miracles, or if he was a good teacher. It is about the existence or nonexistence of an historical figure from around 2k years ago. And virtually no historian doubts that he existed in an historical sense. So forget about theological considerations; it's not what this article is about. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 14:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Historians will sometimes express this in a more nuanced form: it's more likely that Jesus existed than he didn't. (See this blog post by James McGrath, for instance.) That doesn't imply a lack of confidence that there was a historical Jesus, or that the Christ myth theory is thought of as a plausible idea by New Testament scholars. --Akhilleus (talk) 14:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill the Cat, I do not understand any of your comment. Where did i say that this article is about whether Jesus is God or man? Where did I bring up theological considerations? What on earth are you talking about? Did you even read my comment? I know that this article is about whether a particular historical figure existed about 2,000 years ago. My point is about how professional historians (by which I mean, received a PhD in history or a specialized subset e.g. Classics or Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and who is a member of a history department in a university) think, and the fact that some people here have made claims about historians that reveal that they are ignorant about history as an academic field. And i am saying more specifically that you are simply mistaken about historians making conjectures about the historical jesus, and I mentioned two professional historians writing about the historical Jesus to prove you are wrong. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, I think Bill is pointing out that most of the "conjecture" you refer to in your original post applies to reconstructions of the historical Jesus; this article is not about what the historical Jesus might have been like, but theories that there never was one at all. Historians may agree that Jesus' mere existence is in some sense a conjecture (i.e. a matter of probability rather than certainty), but it's a conjecture in a difference sense than the idea that he was an eschatological prophet, a Cynic-like sage, or a revolutionary for social justice. Scholars are, for the most part, very confident that Jesus existed, so much so that they don't usually express it as a conjecture at all. (Bill, please correct me if I misunderstood you.) --Akhilleus (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus, you are a mind reader. That was exactly my point. Let me just add that "conjecture" is not the proper word to use in regards to the existence of Jesus. Rather, it's better to use "probability" (or some variation of that word), since "conjecture" basically means, (according to Webster):

2 a : inference from defective or presumptive evidence b : a conclusion deduced by surmise or guesswork c : a proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved

And yes, Slrubenstein, I did read your comment. No need to get grumpy.  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ever the voice of reason Slrubenstein! If we had more like you here we could write an article about a fringe topic with interesting history that can never be proven either way, but is less likely than the mainstream view. Sophia ♫ 19:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Sophia, I think. Akhilleus, what I wrote still stands. Sanders admits that there is no conclusive proof that Jesus existed. Since it seems you really did not read what I wrote, I guess I have to repeat myself. Sanders also says there is no conclusive proof Alexander the Great existed. Sanders' point is that historians often work from incomplete and unclear evidence. Sanders' certain believes Jesus existed, as I said he is one of the top scholars on the historical Jesus. His point is that a great deal of history relies on conjecture, and my point is that e need to understand this and it does not invalidate the work of historians any less than the fact that physical scientists and life scintists can never prove anything. But thank you for giving me a little smile, Bill the Cat, with your charmingly dopey "basic definition" which happens to be definition 2a ... the fact that there are at least two definitions obviously means that there is no basic definition, although if one had some compulsion to insist that there is a basic definition I'd think the obvious candidate would be th first definition, not the second. Here is What American heritage says "Inference or judgement based on inconclusive or incomplete evidence" which, let's be honest, is all we have for Jesus. This doesn't mean that the Jesus myth crowd somehow win - isn't it patently obvious that their interpretation, like Sanders and others who believe that a historical Jesus lived, is also conjecture? They just make a different inference. The question is, which inference makes the most sence given the evidence we have and what we know of that time period? As Slim Virgin has demonstrated, "Jesus myth" un-helpfully lumps together a wide range of scholars who not only have different degrees of expertise, but who make different arguments. Be that as it may, I think that mainstream historians find Sanders' conjectures much more plausible than the conjectures of those who claim Jesus never existed. But if any of you still maintain that Jesus' existence is not conjecture, I repeat my main point: you are ignorant of how professional historians work, and think about the nature of their work.

Look at Bart Ehrman's recent work on the Gospels. Read critically, these texts remain the most important sources for scholars who try to reconstruct the historical Jesus. Read critically, historians have to explain every point of difference among the four books, and hether you prefer Meier or Crossan or Fredricksen depends a lot on how convinced you are by how they manage this challenge. Ehrman (who by the way does believe there was a historical jesus, as far as I can tell) makes the simple point that each book says different, sometimes contradictory, things because the respective authors had different points to make. Ehrman argues that anyone who has tried to reconcile the differences has in fact been doing metaphorical damage to the books, has been willfully ignoring those precious points each author was trying to make, which rendered each book unique. Ehrman argues that, once one has compared all exiting manuscripts and has spotted errors in transmission, all one really learns when one reads a Gospel is the view of the author. As i said, I think Ehrman believes in a historical Jesus - but in his approach, the fact is it doesn't matter whether Jesus lived or not. There is this character who was so fascinating that people could spin many different stories about him, each of which neverthless said something of value. Think of Captain Kirk - now we know that he didn't exist, but there is something so vivid about this character that people all over the world knows his name, and people just cannot stop making Star Trek movies. The original TV show was on for just three years. Three years!! That is nothing, compared to M*A*S*H, or Law and Order, or any soap opera ...and yet, people want to keep telling stories about him. Two thousand years from now, it will not matter that Captain Kirk never existed. Historians will watch diferent versions of Star Trek, different representations of kirk, and gain some kind of insight into us, our world, our values.

My point is that real historians care about many more things than "did he really exist." You can spend th next five years on this talk page arguing over whether people who claim Jesus never existed have a reasonable, if arguable point, or not. You can just keep arguing over whether Jesus really lived or not. I am just telling you, that as long as this is what you are arguing over, you are missing something very important about what historians try to do. (I think I am coming close to what Akhileus is saying about Thomas Thompson, below ... There is work that is not about proving whether Jesus existed or not .... but at the same time is not really "The jesus Myth." I understand the reason for this article and perhaps Akhileus and others woudld argue that Thompson and others like him belong in a different article. I just with that the main articles - the jesus article itself, and the articles on the historical Jesus - helped readers know that there are these other avenues of research that scholars find at least as interesting to pursue...) Slrubenstein | Talk 20:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That was quite a lecture. Just as a side note, when say that Ehrman "does believe there was a historical jesus, as far as I can tell" you are quite correct: "I think the evidence is just so overwhelming that Jesus existed, that it's silly to talk about him not existing. I don't know anyone who is a responsible historian, who is actually trained in the historical method, or anybody who is a biblical scholar who does this for a living, who gives any credence at all to any of this." [Bart Ehrman, interview with David V. Barrett, "The Gospel According to Bart", Fortean Times (221), 2007]

You're also quite correct that historians can never settle anything with absolute 100% certainly, not the existence of Jesus, not the Holocaust. But that's not really at issue here. The problem is that certain editors here latch onto that implicit limitation and have tried to use it to claim that the Christ myth theory is a valid and respectable position in academic discussions and that the article would therefore be remiss to label it pseudoscholarship--despite the fact that fewer academics deny Jesus' historical reality than deny the Holocaust. Eugene (talk) 20:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm. What is your source for numbers on Holocaust versus Jesus? You must have precise numbers, what are they? How many academcs deny the Holocaust? How many deny Jesus? Sources? Given that we have film records and first hand accounts of the Holocaust, which we do not have for Jesus, I find this curious.

Be that as it may, arguments over whether the jesus myth theory is fringe or just a small minority should not lead people to mischaracterize the way historians work. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, I have no secondary sources at hand that tally up the numbers of holocaust denying academics compared against the number of Jesus denying academics. All I have to go on is the discussions here. This article has existed for more than 4 years and in that time a number of editors sympathetic to the CMT have tried their very best to make the theory seem as mainstream as possible. To that end the names of many different academics have been floated as supportive of the theory. These names have been investigated by editors less sympathetic to the CMT and sometimes they've been discarded since their support was for something else or the editors who mentioned them in the first place were just wrong--honestly so or sometimes not. After several years of this, these are the names of living academics that remain, having actually supported the CMT: G. A. Well, a retired professor of German who used to support the CMT; Michael Martin, a retired professor of philosophy; Tom Harpur, a very retired professor of New Testament. Now, compare that list, assembled over the course of years, against this list I was able to amass in about an hour just using Wikipedia. Of living academic who deny the Holocaust we have... Arthur Butz, a tenured and active professor of electrical engineering; Robert Faurisson, a "retired" (he was fired for his views on the Holocaust; such a stance is a crime in much of Europe) professor of literature; Konstantinos Plevris, a retired professor of political sociology; Dariusz Ratajczak, a "retired" (same story as with Faurisson) professor of history; and Gerald Fredrick Töben another "retired" professor. That's three to five by my count. Eugene (talk) 03:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for confessing to your ignorance. But unless you have a reliable secondary source, I have no idea why you would bring up Holocaust denial unless you specifically wich to cause pain to Jews. The professors you mention hardly. I provided the names of two acknowledged experts on the historical Jesus who acknowledge that the question of whether Jesus existed involves some unavoidable conjecture. If you wanted to make some comparison, you would find as examples two acknowledged historians of the Holocaust who make the same claim. Otherwise you are just getting a cheap thrill by using this page to vent a little of your anti-Semitism. Maybe this impresses some of your buddies. I doubt it impresses anyone who takes writing an encyclopedia seriously. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

A section is needed about the definition and scope of the article

I asked above whether Thompson should be included. Actually, it would be far more important to explain why such people are not included. This article gives a definition in the lead, and then there is a historical list of advocates. An important section is missing where the Christ myth theory is broadly defined and it is explained how this differs from minimalists and mainstream accounts. 217.189.227.4 (talk) 21:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I've been requesting this since I became involved a few days ago, because what jumped out at me is that the editors of this article seem to be defining it themselves, or are using only the theory's opponents for the definition. That allows them to say "this source doesn't belong here," or "this source has retracted" the minute the source introduces any nuance. My worry is that the article as written is a content fork and a bit of a straw man.

I've asked many times for a definition of the theory from a disinterested source, and a source for the history of the theory, and who first named it. I'd ask those who've done the reading please to help track that down. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "disinterested source." The sources I have already named several times--Albert Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Maurice Goguel's Jesus the Nazarene: Myth or History (and Hoffman's introduction to the 2006 edition of Goguel), Clinton Bennett's In Search of Jesus: Insider and Outsider Images, Robert E. Van Voorst's Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, Walter P. Weaver's The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century, 1900–1950--each devote substantial space to discussing the theory of Jesus' non-historicity, each covers authors such as Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, John Robertson, and William Benjamin Smith as important figures who advocated the idea. If their chronological scope extends late enough, they cover G.A. Wells. Each of the authors named holds or held an academic position, (even Schweitzer, who is probably more famous for his humanitarian work--but The Quest of the Historical Jesus is recognized as fundamental to the study of the historical Jesus). These are scholars who specialize in the history of early Christianity and the New Testament--exactly the kind of experts you want to turn to find out whether this theory is accepted, or even regarded as an interesting minority position.

Since Michael Martin's book has become popular here recently, for reasons I don't understand, let's note that on p. 37 of The Case Against Christianity Martin lists Bruno Bauer, John M. Robertson, William Benjamin Smith, G. A. Wells, and some others as people who have "denied the historicity of Jesus", so he doesn't seem to think the definition is a "straw man"; nor does he seem to think it's difficult to identify who holds this idea. The introduction to The Historical Jesus: Five Views, to which Robert M. Price contributed, has a similar definition and list of proponents. For the most part, the specific authors who are dealt with in this article are identified by multiple secondary sources as important advocates of the idea that there was no historical Jesus. So I'm afraid I don't understand the worry about the definition being a strawman, or about selection of particular people who are/were advocates of a non-historical Jesus. This has been discussed before, extensively.

So the basic reason why Thompson doesn't belong here is that we don't have a secondary source that connects him with this theory. He doesn't describe himself as an adherent of the theory. As far as I can see, he never mentions or draws upon the work of Bauer, Drews, Wells, or any other advocate of a non-historical Jesus. His work comes from a different trajectory of thought. Of course, if someone can refer me to secondary sources that say differently, I'm always willing to change my mind... --Akhilleus (talk) 01:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Good, but can some of this knowledge be incorporated into the article? The article quotes Stanton in saying that the mainstream position is that (1) Jesus existed and (2) the Gospels have something to say about him. I assumed these two go hand-in-hand, but it is indeed at least plausible that in order to make sense of the formation of the Church one may need a historical Jesus, even if one rejects the idea that the Bible has any bearing on his life. Still, the point was that contrasting the non-existence thesis with the minimalist position is useful for the reader to understand what exactly is being discussed here and what is discussed elsewhere. I'm not insisting on any changes, but you said this has been discussed before, and I don't think I will be the last to have these questions... 217.189.241.132 (talk) 02:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you, if the article stays as-is these questions will come up again (and again). In one sense, the article has been discussed to death, but in another, the discussion has been entirely offpoint, because the article does a terrible job of explaining what the subject is and how it fits into the larger universe of ideas about Jesus. I would like to fix this, but that means rewriting the lead, and when the article is going through periods of edit warring, the lead is the most difficult section to rewrite. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I also agree that an initial section defining the CMT and distinguishing it from Minimalism would be helpful at this point. SlimVirgin, you keep asking for a source that provides a definition of the Christ myth theory, but several sources are listed in FAQ #1. I'll list them here for convenience:

• "The radical solution was to deny the possibility of reliable knowledge of Jesus, and out of this developed the Christ myth theory, according to which Jesus never existed as a historical figure and the Christ of the Gospels was a social creation of a messianic community."

William R. Farmer, "A Fresh Approach to Q", in Jacob Neusner, Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults, 4, Leiden: Brill, 1975, p. 43

• "The Christ-Myth theory (that Jesus never lived) had a certain vogue at the beginning of this century but is not supported by contemporary scholarship."

Alan Richardson, The Political Christ, London: SCM, 1973, p. 113

• "If this account of the matter is correct, one can also see why it is that the 'Christ-myth' theory, to the effect that there was no historical Jesus at all, has seemed so plausible to many..."

Hugo A. Meynell, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Bernard Lonergan (2nd ed.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991, p. 166

• "Defense of Biblical criticism was not helped by the revival at this time of the 'Christ-Myth' theory, suggesting that Jesus had never existed, a suggestion rebutted in England by the radical but independent F. C. Conybeare."

William Horbury, "The New Testament", in Ernest Nicholson, A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 55

• "[W]e have to explain the origin of Christianity, and in so doing we have to choose between two alternatives. One alternative is to say that it originated in a myth which was later dressed up as history. The other is to say that it originated with one historical individual who was later mythologized into a supernatural being. The theory that Jesus was originally a myth is called the Christ-myth theory, and the theory that he was an historical individual is called the historical Jesus theory."

George Walsh, The Role of Religion in History, New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998, p. 58

• "Zindler depends on secondary works and writes with the aim of proving the Christ-Myth theory, namely, the theory that the Jesus of history never existed."

John T. Townsend, "Christianity in Rabbinic Literature", in Isaac Kalimi & Peter J. Haas, Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity, New York: T. & T. Clark, 2006, p. 150

• "Though [Charles Guignebert] could not accept either the Christ myth theory, which held that no historical Jesus existed, or the Dutch Radical denial that Paul authored any of the epistles, Guignebert took both quite seriously."

Robert M. Price, in Tom Flynn, The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007, p. 372

• "As we have noted, some legendary-Jesus theorists argue that, while it is at least possible, if not likely, an actual historical person named Jesus existed, he is so shrouded in legendary material that we can know very little about him. Others (i.e, Christ myth theorists) argue that we have no good reason to believe there ever was an actual historical person behind the legend."

Paul R Eddy & Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: a Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007, p. 165

Several of these definition appear in book from top-tier publishers (Oxford University Press, University of Toronto Press, T. & T. Clark, Brill), and as for anti-mythicist bias, I hardly think that Walsh can be accused of this, and Price, himself an advocate of the theory, certainly can't. Eugene (talk) 03:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

POV tag on the FAQ

I feel it's important to signal at the top of the FAQ page that it's disputed, in case new editors reading it feel it reflects consensus. I've added the POV tag, but Eugene has removed it, saying it was preventing the page from displaying on the article. If that's the case, I don't want to restore it, but I feel we need something. I'm going to write out that the FAQ is disputed instead; hopefully without a template it won't cause formatting issues. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I can respect that the neutrality of the article itself is being meaningfully challenged by a substantive number of editors (SlimVirgin, Sophia, ^^James^^, Graham Colm) and that the NPOV tag is therefore justified at this point. However, there seems to be a clear consensus that the topic is nevertheless WP:FRINGE. Not only do I (Eugene), Ari, Bill the Cat 7 & Akhilleus feel this way, Sophia [33] and even ^^James^^ [34] agree as well. Against all this, SlimVirgin seems to be the only one arguing that "It's... not clear that FRINGE even applies". Given this unambiguous consensus, I'm going to remove the NPOV warning from the FAQ. I will, however, leave the Martin quote in deference to SlimVirgin's arguments on this matter. Eugene (talk) 17:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, could you please stop removing the POV notice from the FAQ? The practice on WP is to leave these tags in place until the dispute is resolved, so long as it's not just one person questioning the neutrality, and also so long as it's not drive-by tagging. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you please be a little more specific about the reason for the tag? The FAQ, particularly FAQ #2, contains a great many quotations. I mean, just because you don't agree with those quotations does not mean they don't represent the mainstream. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The FAQ was written mainly by Eugene, and it's largely a reflection of the article. It's not neutral and it uses lots of weasel words and expressions e.g. "Numerous premiere scholars at top-tier universities have done exactly this ..." It's basically telling people "don't bother to argue against this, because we're not going to listen." SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who it was written by - it represents mainstream scholarly conclusions. Once again, it's too bad that you don't like it but those are the facts. You said:

It's basically telling people "don't bother to argue against this, because we're not going to listen."

Neither Eugene, me, or anyone else on our side is saying this. It is the conclusion of experts in the field. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bill the Cat 7 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Tagging the FAQ as having disputed neutrality

Does anyone else agree that the FAQ has neutrality issues and should be tagged as such until we get this resolved? Eugene has now removed the tag three times e.g. [35] I feel it needs to be there to signal to people that not everyone agrees with the way this has been written up, particularly as Eugene and Bill are insisting that new editors commenting here read it.

The page about these tags (which is not a guideline) advises that they not be removed until the dispute is resolved, so long as the people adding the tags stick around to help resolve it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

As I indicated above, you are only one who is disputing that this topic is WP:FRINGE. Since that was your concern with the article, and as you yourself have said that tags can be removed if only one person is complaining, I removed the tag. Don't worry, Martin's quote is still in there though, warning people to not take the united consensus of professional historians and New Testament scholars too seriously. Eugene (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not only disputing that the article should fall into the WP fringe category, I'm disputing the entire tone of the FAQ. I am disputing its neutrality. I therefore have a right to add a neutrality tag to that page, and you shouldn't remove it until the issue is resolved. As I've asked before, if editors would make themselves familiar with our policies and best practices, it would save a huge amount of time, rather than having to argue each and every point of process afresh. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 01:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the FAQ has neutrality issues. ^^James^^ (talk) 01:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Like what exactly? Eugene (talk) 03:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin's addtion to the FAQ states that "several editors oppose presenting the subject in accordance with WP:FRINGE". Now, like I've shown, the only single person who disputes that this topic is fringe is SlimVirgin herself. Even other editors who are more sympathetic to the CMT (like Sophia [36] and ^^James^^ [37]) concede it's fringe; Sophia even got a little upset for my misunderstanding her views here a little while back,[38] going so far as to say "no one is disputing fringe". Given that SlimVirgin has said caveats related to POV disputes can be removed "so long as it's... just one person" complaining, and given that the above links indicate that SlimVirgin is indeed the only person "disputing fringe", to use Sophia's words, I'm going to remove the relevant line from the FAQ. Eugene (talk) 15:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't dispute that this is a small-minority theory. I dispute that it's necessarily a theory that's covered by WP:FRINGE, which is quite a different proposition. I also don't dispute the FAQ page only because of that issue, as I've told you at least twice already. I dispute its neutrality in its entirety, and its tone, which includes language such as "Numerous premiere scholars at top-tier universities ..."

Eugene, you're engaging in one of the worst cases of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT that I've encountered. To keep on repeating the same points is a horrible waste of your time too, not just ours. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It's hardly fair to say that I'm engaging in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT; each time I've editted the FAQ I've interacted with your concerns, sometimes defering to them. For example, with this last edit to the FAQ I not only addressed your tag but left the NPOV tag-esqe since James agreed with you in your NPOV concerns. Also, in support of removing the material related to disputing WP:FRINGE, I added a modest section to the talk page with diffs and quotes from your own comments. This isn't WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, it's responsible editing. Eugene (talk) 16:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Is the FAQ sufficiently NPOV now to remove the tag? Eugene (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if you wouldn't remove the tags until we have the neutrality issues sorted out. The first response for example: it's oddly written ("numerous premiere scholars at top-tier universities"), you're telling readers how you are defining the term, the Bart Simpson business, the tone is argumentative, and it's basically your own opinion. I think as we get the article issues straightened out, we can go back and sort out the relevant question and answers, but it can't be rushed. I'm even wondering whether we should have an FAQ if it's going to be inherently problematic. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

What would each editor here like to see?

Shell Kinney, one of the Arbs, suggested this: "Try focusing on only what each editor would need to be satisfied with the article; not 'happy', just 'satisfied' and see if you can reach that point."

Perhaps we could each try to list what would make us satisfied. What would each editor like to see for this article at a minimum? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin

I'd like to see the following: (a) each point in the article fully referenced, with lots of in-text attribution, so that very little is written in Wikipedia's voice; (b) a definition of the Christ myth theory referenced in-text, preferably to disinterested scholars, and if it's a term mostly used by its opponents, we should say that; (c) a section explaining how the theory and the naming of the theory emerged; how it fits in with other minimalist interpretations; and what the difference is between mythicists and minimalists; (d) a dissenting voice in the lead, such as Michael Martin, to make clear that scholarly dissenting voices do exist; (e) an end to poisoning the well or belittling academic sources such G.A. Wells or Martin; (f) an end to focusing on biblical scholars, but an opening of the article to all high-quality reliable sources, particularly academics who have specialized in this area, whether as biblical scholars or within some other faculty; (g) a focus on the core content policies (NPOV, V, and NOR, and BLP when dealing with living sources), and less focus on FRINGE, which is a guideline, not a policy, and which only arguably applies here anyway. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus, I have no problem with most of the sources being biblical scholars. I do have a problem with other academic sources being excluded, even though they've written about this, or included in a mealy-mouthed way as "popular" writers, or not being mentioned in the lead as dissenting voices. I also have a problem with any biblical scholar no matter how minor being seen as reliable, but senior scholars in other faculties from major or mainstream universities being downgraded. It's the biblical scholarly ownership issue, if I can put it that way, that I'd like to see an end to. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

^^James^^

In addition to the above, I'd like to see more emphasis the popular culture aspect to the Christ myth. There is significant general interest in the subject that I think deserves attention. ^^James^^ (talk) 23:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus

I'd like to see most of the article (and the discussion on the talk page) devoted to explaining the ideas of Bauer, Drews, Wells, Price, and other authors who have said Jesus isn't historical. A lot less about scholarly reception. Readers who want to find out about mainstream views should be directed to historical Jesus, and so on.

BTW, I think it's going to very difficult to write anything about the term "Christ myth theory", because I've never seen a secondary source that discusses the term. They focus on the ideas, not the labels.

I would also like to see some recognition that the best sources for this article come from scholars who specialize in New Testament/historical Jesus studies, but I'm afraid I'm not optimistic about this. --Akhilleus (talk) 01:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I can agree with the wording "all high-quality reliable sources, particularly academics who have specialized in this area, whether as biblical scholars or within some other faculty"; but the majority of academics who study the historical Jesus are biblical scholars. Not too surprsing, really. Since the Christ myth theory is a theory about the historical Jesus (though a negative one), most of the secondary sources that look at the theory come from biblical scholars. So the majority of high-quality academic reliable sources for this article are going to come from biblical scholars. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

As a corollary to this, I would love to see the article rely a lot less on blog posts, self-published websites, youtube interviews, and popular-level books. For instance, there's a book edited by James Holden, Shattering the Christ Myth, that (as far as I'm aware) has never been used as a source for this article, and shouldn't be, because it's a self-published book and the editor doesn't appear to be an academic. But some of the sources that the article uses now are on that level. I should be clear that we can use self-published sources by proponents, like Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty, where necessary to explain their views. But for commentary upon those views we should be relying on high-quality academic sources. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene

I would like to see every (contentious) statement sourced, a clear statement in the lead that no academic historians or New Testament scholars support the theory (in keeping with the sources), and scholarly responses to all the major arguments--they don't have to have a separate section but I want them in there somewhere. Like Akhilleus, I want historians and NT scholars to define the state of modern scholarship on this matter, not philosophers or oceanographers or hip-hop poets or whatever. Eugene (talk) 01:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Ari

The article should reflect relevant scholarly acceptance of the view. The scholarly view by historical Jesus experts and historians takes precedence over the individual views of editors. This should be made clear in the lead. Non-experts such as Michael Martin and G.A. Wells who dissent should be noted as dissenters from the mainstream and non-experts. To grant the opinions of non-experts precedence over mainstream scholarly opinion as some editors would like should not even be entertained here, as it would not be entertained on any other article. To assist in keeping the article balanced on the acceptance of this theory, numerous independent scholars (in relevant fields) have been provided above by myself and others. --Ari (talk) 05:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Should also add that if we are to use the paraphrase/quote of the non-expert Martin, we should recognise that it is actually a strawman of historical scholarship. He claims that historians "assume the historicity of Jesus" and take it for granted. That is not the case as pointed out by James McGrath (Associate Professor of Religion and Clarence L. Goodwin Chair of New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University) who notes that "Such objections reflect a serious misunderstanding of the historical enterprise" and is unclear to those "who are not entirely familiar with how historical investigation works. "[39] --Ari (talk) 11:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

SOPHIA

The article should be written in a neutral style giving as general a definition as possible (given the different usages of the term), a history of the development of the subject with scholastic criticisms (and I mean that in the true sense) explaining why most biblical historians find the theory unconvincing. I would completely avoid the "main claims" section as it just invites an apologist style debunking, but would embed criticism into the article with specific points being addressed for particular theorists. A section on "popular interest" would be ok if it doesn't go down hill fast, and possibly a section on how it makes evangelical christians blood boil - that could be a nice dumping ground for all the emotive stuff if editors insist on the material being in the article ;o) Sophia ♫ 14:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Just a quick attempt at a compromise: keep Michael Martin out of the lead, but also remove all excessive rhetoric, such as comparisons with holocaust denial, from the article. For pronouncements against the theory, rely instead on historians writing in university presses, rather than Biblical scholars writing for non-academic or Church presses. There are enough such sources to make clear the theory is completely rejected. For specific to-the-point criticism naturally Biblical scholars should be used, but just not for the high-level pronouncements about the status of this as a historical theory. 217.189.241.132 (talk) 03:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I will not agree to keeping dissenting voices out of the lead who are saying the theory cannot be easily dismissed, because that goes to the heart of NPOV. WP:LEAD also makes clear that controversy must be included. So if the theory says X, we must include not-X in the lead if a reliable source is saying not-X. The emphasis given in the lead should reflect the reliable sources, which is why I like the quote from Martin, because it does not seek to claim that this is anything but a minority theory, while at the same time making clear that a case can be made for it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

"The emphasis given in the lead should reflect the reliable sources." Well, I agree with this. If we have Martin in the lead, we should follow that up with Van Voorst saying that "Martin's argument is flawed by a reliance on Wells for his knowledge of New Testament scholarship," (Van Voorst 2000, p. 14 n. 32 [40]) since this is a reliable source saying that another reliable source does not, in fact, make a strong case. Or we could avoid the back-and-forth by following 217.189.141.132's suggestion for keeping Martin out of the lead (but using him elsewhere) and removing excessive rhetoric.

I would, however, appreciate an explanation of why biblical scholars should be avoided for pronouncements against the theory. Perhaps some nuance will help: I don't think we should look for "pronouncements against the theory", we should look for statements of whether the theory is widely accepted or rejected in various academic fields. We have plenty of evidence that the theory is not widely accepted among biblical scholars or classical historians. In other words, the lead shouldn't be saying "this theory is stupid and we should reject it," it should say whether the theory is widely accepted, or not. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:36, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Martin in the lead, why can't we simply have the mainstream view, followed by the minority view, which is the normal way to write leads on WP? Why would you have to additionally bash the minority view, especially when the quote is somewhat self-bashing?

I don't think I said that biblical scholars should be avoided for pronouncements against the theory. My argument is simply that we should use the best scholars from the most mainstream universities who have written about this in a serious way, no matter which field. Anyone regarding a philosopher of religion as not relevant is showing they don't know what that involves. If you want a scholarly source to give you a decent overview of a contentious issue, an academic philosopher is ideal. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This entire article is about a minority view. Indicating that it's not a mainstream view is providing context about its relationship to other views about the historical Jesus. We don't need to complicate that in the lead by providing a "dissenting view". The lead is not for arguments and counter-arguments, it's a place for an overview.

The specific problem with Martin is that he's not familiar with New Testament studies, and he relies entirely upon Wells, whose arguments are poor. That's not me saying that, that's Van Voorst, who is familiar with New Testament studies. So if you want to include Martin as a dissenting view, we have another scholar saying that the dissenting view isn't strong. Or we can just avoid the whole problem by not putting Martin in the lead.

Also, I am not willing to accept that philosophy is somehow superior to other academic disciplines. Martin is in fact a great example of a philosopher not giving a decent overview of a contentious issue, because he fails to survey the vast number of scholars who think the New Testament provides evidence with which to reconstruct the historical Jesus.

As for "biblical scholars should be avoided for pronouncements against the theory", that wasn't something you said, it was 217.189.141.132. Sorry for being unclear; Wikipedia talk pages are a difficult medium for carrying on discussion with multiple participants. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Akhilleus, with respect, what I've repeatedly asked for is that we edit strictly by the book. No more personal opinions if there's a policy that gives a direction. When you write: "We don't need to complicate that in the lead by providing a 'dissenting view'," that is your opinon. It is a direct violation of NPOV and LEAD. If a respectable dissenting voice exists, we must include it. Must.

It is also your opinion that Well's arguments are poor. Please no more. It gets us nowhere. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 05:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It is relevant scholarly opinion that Wells' arguments are poor. --Ari (talk) 05:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

But not entirely. And that's the point. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 05:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I forgot that a philosopher trumps mainstream scholarship in the relevant discipline. --Ari (talk) 06:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

No one said he trumps it, but he's a reliable, dissenting scholarly voice, and as such is protected by our NPOV policy. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 10:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Then my mistake, what I meant is philosopher and non-historian with no relevant qualifications is "more mainstream" than a professional scholar discussing the scholarly consensus on the issue in a well received academic work. For your point (d), if we are to use a non-expert with no relevant academic credentials (e.g. Martin) in qualifying scholarly opinion, such should be noted. Martin - not a historian - believes that CMT is the bees knees, etc. If you want a "scholarly dissenting voice" Price would be your only man, but then he is a one man show within the fringe of academic biblical scholarship. --Ari (talk) 11:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

My reading of the Martin book is that he finds it a plausible alternative but because of its minority position does not rely on it for the rest of the book. Hardly the "bees knees". Sophia ♫ 13:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand that SlimVirgin and Sophia aren't fond of considering this article in relation to the larger project, but let's try for a moment. The CMT article shouldn't be crafted in isolation, as if it inhabited it's own freakish microcosm of editting. So, if SV and Sophia think that Martin, emeritus professor of philosophy at Boston University, should be quoted in the lead qualifying the scholarly consensus because "he's a mainstream academic", then shouldn't the Intelligent Design article quote Phillip E. Johnson, emeritus professor of law at UC Berkeley, in the lead qualifying the scholarly consensus regarding that topic? And shouldn't the holocaust denial article's lead quote Arthur Butz, professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University, qualifying the scholarly consensus regarding that topic? Eugene (talk) 14:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, please go to those talk pages if you want to discuss those articles. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

These on-going comparisons to other articles is not helpful. When this article returns to FAC, it will be judged entirely on its own merits. Graham Colm (talk) 15:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm making these comparisons to illustrate an inconsistency on SlimVirgin's part; she's pushing for things here that she'd never seek on any other article. I think this is entirely relevant. Eugene (talk) 15:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Could you stop the ad hominems? You have no idea what I'd seek elsewhere. You insult every editor and every source you disagree with, and it's really unhelpful. Please focus only on the content of this article. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) Despite the misgivings of some, it seems to me that comparing this WP:FRINGE article against other WP:FRINGE articles is entirely appropriate. I've mentioned both holocaust denial and intelligent design, not because I personally think they're great comparisons, but because scholars studying this topic have made these comparisons!

• Nicholas Perrin: "The very logic that tells us there was no Jesus is the same logic that pleads that there was no Holocaust. (Lost in Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007, p. 32)
• Michael McClymond: "Most scholars regard the arguments for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response—on a par with claims that the Jewish Holocaust never occurred or that the Apollo moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio." (Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004, p. 24)
• Bart Ehrman: "If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust?" (interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008)
• Mark Allan Powell: "A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today—in the academic world at least—gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat." (Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee, Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998, p. 168)
• James F. McGrath: "One category of mythicists, like young-earth creationists, have no hesitation about offering their own explanation of who made up Christianity... Other mythicists, perhaps because they are aware that such a scenario makes little historical sense and yet have nothing better to offer in its place, resemble proponents of Intelligent Design... Thus far, I've only encountered two sorts of mythicism." ("Intelligently-Designed Narratives: Mythicism as History-Stopper", Exploring Our Matrix, 2010).

Now before a non-ad hominem "someone" jumps all over this and claims that the sources mentioned here "aren't really scholarly" or some such nonsense, keep in mind that both Powell's book and McClymond's book are used as text books in university classrooms. McClymond's book appears on syllabi at such schools as Boston College, Queen's University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Aberdeen. Likewise, Powell's book has been recommended as "key" by an Oxford Professor and it appears on syllabi at a huge number of schools including the University of Denver and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

With all this said then, it seems to me that comparing the way this article should be written against the way the Intelligent Design article has been written is particularly apropos for a number of reasons: (1) a scholar in the relevant field has compared the two ideas, (2) ID is, of course, less provacative that Holocaust denial, (3) the ID article has achieved FA status thus indicating (as a sort of case law) what a good WP:FRINGE article looks like, and (4) Raul654 (the Featured Article Director) has said that he's personally "very proud" that the ID article made FA status, further reenforcing the notion that the ID article serves as a good examples to aspiring WP:FRINGE FA articles.

Given all this, I honestly can't imagine why an unbiased reader would object to crafting the lead of this article in conformity with the general layout of the lead at intelligent design. And as the lead of ID doesn't include a quote from Phillip E. Johnson, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, or Rodney Stark, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, qualifying the scholarly consensus on that issue, clearly we shouldn't include Michael Martin, professor emeritus at Boston University, in the lead here qualifying the scholarly consensus regarding the Christ myth theory. Sure, put him in the article, maybe integrated into the G. A. Wells section, maybe with a section of his own, but not in the lead--that would be WP:UNDUE. Eugene (talk) 17:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

NPOV

NPOV is the core, "non-negotiable" policy of Wikipedia. The test of one's commitment to NPOV is simple: are you willing to include in an article a view you are certain is wrong? I think that is the issue here. Martin was a well-regarded philosopher of religion. I agree that he was not an NT scholar, or historian of 1st century Roman occupied Palestine. I agree this distinction is important. But I do not believe the distinction is sufficent to justify excluding martin's view that the CNT theory is legitimate. I think the reasonable solution to this debate is to include martin in the lead, but make it clear that he was not an expert in NT studies but rather a philosopher of religion. I do not think one needs to quote or mention NT experts who think he is wrong; i the lead states that there is a consensus among (or overwhelming majority of) NT scholars who rejct the CMT, it is obvous that they also reject Maretin's claims. But his claims still belong in the lead. I am frankly surprised at the level of opposition to mntioning him in the lead. If so many great scholars reject the theory, then a well-written article will make it persuasively clear to any reade why this is so. In fact, I think one could even suggest that Martin did not change their minds only strengthens the force of their arguments.

Debate is good for science, it is good for the humanitis and academia in general. Some people end uup losing the argument - it is that very act, of losing the argument, that makes the argument in this case for th historical Jesus) so strong. But leaving out an account of the losing side misrepresents ho academia works, and (in my view) actually weakens the arguments of the winning side. Yes, I get it that martin does not think he has lost, but so what? That is what maks it an argument.

And perhaps there is another story here, one not yet told in the article, but which would mak this a far better article. For one thing thefre is a story about the diferences between philosophers and historans; they ask diferetne questions, or they use different methods. Include Martin in the intro and have a section on how different disciplins came to ask diferent questions (or have diferent criteria for judging any conjecture), you will be making the article MUCH more informative. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• Reply to Slrubenstein: The quote I suggested from Martin does make clear that he's a philosopher, and also makes clear that this is a small-minority theory, so it really doesn't distort consensus. The only reason I'm reluctant to use the word "fringe" is within the meaning we use on Wikipedia, because things falling under WP:FRINGE are often treated differently (sometimes wrongly, but that's another story). We can stick to the content policies without invoking FRINGE, because NPOV deals with undue issues, and I'm happy to abide by that. This was my suggestion:

The theory has little support within academia. Biblical scholar Graham Stanton of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus existed, and that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contain valuable evidence about him. Against this, the philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University argues that, while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted and anyone arguing against it may be seen as a crank, a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it.

SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I dislike putting the Martin bit in the lead for reasons I've already explained; one is that it gives the lead a point-counterpoint structure (Martin is brought up as a rejoinder to Stanton), and I think this kind of argumentative writing is inappropriate for the lead and gives the reader the impression that the article has an axe (or possibly axes) to grind. Here's a different way of writing it that occurred to me:

The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century historian and theologian Bruno Bauer and the 20th-century German philosopher Arthur Drews. Writers such as George Albert Wells, Robert M. Price, and Earl Doherty have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University has written that, while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted and anyone arguing against it may be seen as a crank, a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it.

While the hypothesis has at times attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, it remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians. The biblical scholar Graham Stanton of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the gospels—of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—contain valuable evidence about him.

This avoids the back-and-forth structure and keeps Martin. Comments? --Akhilleus (talk) 17:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I can accept that lead. Eugene (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I can accept it regarding the placement of Martin, and the "while the hypothesis" sentence. I'm not so sure about the way we describe Wells and Price, as though they're not academics, so I would like to be able to tweak that at some later stage once I have my bearings, but for now I'm willing to accept it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

As SV says there may need to be a little tweaking per the modern people due to possible BLP issues but I think it is a fair and balance statement of the history and modern standing of the CMT. Nice work Akhilleus! Sophia ♫ 18:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it sounds pretty good. However, where will it go? Will it replace the current lead's 2nd paragraph? Also, the protection on the article expires in a few hours. I'm not sure I'll be awake when it expires, so if we have a consensus at that point, can someone please implement it so we can put this issue behind us? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The lead as a whole would read:

The Christ myth theory (also known as the Jesus myth theory and nonexistence hypothesis) is the argument that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist as a historical figure, and that the Jesus of early Christianity was the personification of an ideal savior to whom a number of stories were later attached.

The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century historian and theologian Bruno Bauer and the 20th-century German philosopher Arthur Drews. Writers such as George Albert Wells, Robert M. Price, and Earl Doherty have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University writes that, while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted and anyone arguing against it may be seen as a crank, a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it. While the hypothesis has at times attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, it remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians. The biblical scholar Graham Stanton of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the gospels—of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—contain valuable evidence about him.

The Christ myth theory draws attention to the lack of contemporaneous references to Jesus in first-century non-Christian literature, and gives priority to the epistles over the gospels in determining the views of the earliest Christians. Proponents draw on perceived parallels between the biography of Jesus and those of Greek, Egyptian, and Roman gods such as Dionysis, Osiris, and Mithras, and argue that, while some gospel material may have been drawn from one or more preachers who actually existed, these individuals were not in any sense the founder of Christianity. Rather, they contend that Christianity emerged organically from Hellenistic Judaism.

SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. ^^James^^ (talk) 19:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Without wishing to close the door on suggestions from others ... this reads really well, to me. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is the tone we should be adopting—it is detached, balanced and informative. Graham Colm (talk) 06:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

My issue on the latest attempt above is the Martin quote. It contains "while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted..." The while makes it an assertion, with his divergence coming with the "a strong prima facie..." That the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted is a part of Martin's argument, and not an assertion or part of mainstream scholarship. This argument, mind you, is described as one that "reflect a serious misunderstanding of the historical enterprise" and is unclear to those "who are not entirely familiar with how historical investigation works." (McGrath cite above). Moving the while to "while anyone arguing..." would probably fix this. --Ari (talk) 07:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm assuming it's okay to insert this lead now, with the proviso that it may need to be tweaked further. Sorry Ari, I'm not sure I understand your point. We can't do repeated rebuttal in the lead, which was why Martin was moved away from Stanton, because it looked like rebuttal (even though it wasn't). Also, I don't know whether McGrath is an academic historian, and the source we're using for him seems to be his blog. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 12:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I objected to something so it didn't have consensus (edit: not that I am going to revert it ) Firstly, I am not asking for a rebuttal in the lead. WHat I am asking for is we make Martin's argument his argument. That the historicity of JEsus is taken for granted is part of his argument. To say "while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted..." is an assertion that it is the case; it isn't but it is Martins argument. --Ari (talk) 13:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

McGraths credentials were provided above so I see no reason to repeat. The reference by a scholar on a blog which I believe would be an RS make the point clear that what is presented as an accepted assumption by Martin is part of his argument, albeit one demonstrating a misunderstanding of historical method. --Ari (talk) 13:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added it. The only thing I changed was the first sentence of the last paragraph to: "The Christ myth theory draws attention to the absence of contemporaneous references to Jesus in first-century literature." The other version said "lack," as though there might be some, and "non-Christian" first-century literature, which implied there might be contemporaneous records from Christian literature. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 12:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand why you made that change, but some further modification is probably necessary, since the Pauline epistles and some Gospel material are usually dated to the first century. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should simply say contemporaneous references, because that's the key point. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 14:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, saying that there is an "abscence" of "contemporary" records about Jesus begs the question a bit. Given that we're dealing with a figure who lived 2000 years ago, what qualifies as contemporary? I think the explicit reference to record produced during his lifetime is clearer. Eugene (talk) 18:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

By contemporaneous, I mean during his lifetime—primary source-material about him. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 18:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE

This is getting ridiculous, SlimVirgin. You say that you're "reluctant" to use the word fringe for fear of the guideline? Come on, WP:FRINGE says "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study." The Christ myth theory is a text-book example of a theory that "departs significantly" from the "prevailing view" in "its particular field of study". If the Christ myth theory isn't fringe, nothing is. Eugene (talk) 17:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The CMT is fringe but it's not that useful to keep on talking about it. WP:FRINGE, if applied properly, is just an extension of WP:NPOV. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(2 x ec) Then let us stick to the NPOV policy on fringe:

When discussing fringe views, any mention of them should be proportionate, making clear which is the dominant majority view among reliable sources, and which are minority views. Notable views that are held by a tiny minority may be discussed in articles devoted to them. Examples of these are forms of historical revisionism that reliable sources widely regard as lacking evidence—or actively ignoring it—such as Holocaust denial or claims that the Apollo moon landings were faked.

I am quite willing to make clear which is the dominant view. I am not willing to have the dominant view obscure the other views to the point of leaving them out of the lead, or disparaging their proponents. We're not dealing with senior academic historians on the one hand, and astrologers or similar on the other. We are dealing with two sets of academics, none of them kooks, despite your efforts to paint them as such. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

We're not dealing with astrologers? You might want to look into D. M. Murdock a bit more. Eugene (talk) 17:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that you made me laugh out loud the other day with your "whoops, forgot the knitting expert" edit summary. :) [41] SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was pretty funny. I also got a laugh at what Sophia said previously: "Some of us have jobs!" That cracked me up, because all I could think was, "Aren't we all living in our parent's basement, sitting in our underwear in front of our computers editing and arguing about Wikipedia articles?" LOL.  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 19:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

New Periodization

The old periodization distinguished between early 20th century authors and relatively modern one. In this framework the "other writers" section made perfect sense, rounding out the individual authors of the "Early 20th century" and leading into the section on the Soviets. Now, with the new schema, it seems awkward. I personally prefer the old setup for this reason. Does anyone object to changing it back when the lock expires? Eugene (talk) 21:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Source request

Can we know what the source for this sentence says, please? "Academics in the Soviet Union continued to promote the Christ myth theory throughout the nation's early history, only slowly revising their views in the later portion of the 20th century." Source is Thrower 1983, pp. 425 ff. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 12:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thrower's book, Marxist-Leninist "Scientific Atheism" and the Study of Religion and Atheism, describes the history of the CMT in Soviet scholarship and propaganda. In the section cited he embarks on a fairly lengthy discussion which follows the sentence above. Again, I don't see why this is controversial. Is the article to suffer a death by inches? Eugene (talk) 14:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Not death by inches but referencing by inches. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 14:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Category

I would like to remove the article from Category:Propaganda of the Soviet Union as a violation of WP:CAT: "Categorizations appear on pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles."

This is a POV "sound bite" categorization. We could doubtless find reliable sources who describe the use by certain governments of the concept of "freedom" as propagandistic, but that doesn't mean Wikpedia ought to add Freedom to a propaganda category. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 13:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

That's silly. We have a substantial, well referenced section that indicates the CMT theory was a "cornerstone" of the Soviet anti-religious propaganda campaign. I really don't see the issue here. (FYI, I wasn't the one who originally added that cat tag.) Eugene (talk) 14:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This is getting silly

Eugene has restored some of the disputed changes, and one of the pseudo categories, [42] even though the RfC has gone against it, and it's a violation of WP:CAT. I don't see how improving this article is going to work if Eugene simply undoes everything. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 14:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

As I've said over and over, it is specifically the "pseudo-scholarship" cat tag that was included per WP:CON a couple weeks back. If you want to remove that particular tag you must now build a new consensus to remove it. So far you haven't even attempted to do this, occupying yourself with irrelevant discussions of another cat tag. Now, before some one claims that I am now being nit-picky, keep in mind that when I realized SV was polling re the wrong tag, I tried to change the poll to be relevant,[43] but SV rebuffed me.[44] So it's clear SV wanted a poll specifically on the "pseudohistory" tag and is now trying to use that non-sequitur against the "pseudo-scholarship" cat. Eugene (talk) 14:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This is WP:POINT and wikilawyering. Forget the mediation, forget previous consensus. The problem is that you're distorting consensus by wearing people down. Reasonable people wander off or can't be bothered to fight you any more. You then declare consensus for whatever version we were on when that happened. But it's an illusion, as can be seen by the number of times the same issues keep on being raised in the archives. The same concerns, over and over, expressed by different editors—not trolls, troublemakers, or inexperienced editors, but by experienced editors in good standing with genuine concerns. And the archives contain lots of posts where you and Bill refer these people to the very biased FAQ that you wrote, and which I think ought to be deleted, because you're using it as a weapon. This article has no hope of being featured until this stops. In fact, it shouldn't be a GA either.

We can't have a situation where you force us to go through a wiki-wide RfC on each and every tiny point. If people don't want pseudohistory, they're not going to want pseudoscholarship or pseudo anything else. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The fact that a consensus emerged in mediation in favor of the "pseudo-scholarship" cat as opposed to the "pseudohistory" cat cuts against your assertions. This is the last time I'll say it: if you want to remove the particular cat which has achieved WP:CON for inclusion, you must now build a new consensus for the removal for that particular cat. Good luck. Eugene (talk) 15:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I will ask an uninvolved admin to close that RfC when it's over, and that admin can decide whether it also applies to the other pseudo-cat. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough... if I get a chance to make my case to the uninvolved admin complete with reference to the distinction between the two cats made in mediation and diffs and so on. Until then, though, I'll keep adding the cat to the page as the current WP:CON position. Eugene (talk) 16:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Whenever it's added, it is removed by different editors, so do not keep reverting. Please take this seriously. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 17:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I only agreed to it to get rid of pseudo-history which was worse. A reading of the current CAT page make it clear that as pseudo-scholarship is controversial it should not be there. SlimVirgin has it spot on; I think that we are being worn down in the hope that we will go away. The Mediator in the last case deliberately did not read the archives which I think was a mistake as he would have seen the number of different people who have had a problem with these cats. Sophia ♫ 20:51, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

An agreement made in mediation hardly counts as "duress". But whenever you or SlimVirgin would like to go back to mediation (for the cats, the Soviet section, or whatever), I'm willing. Also, saying the pseudoscholarship cat doesn't belong here because its "controversial" is a little lame. Every article tagged "pseudo-"something has at least some supporters--even time cube--so if that cat can't be here for the "controversy", it shouldn't be anywhere. But then, why does it even exist? Eugene (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm willing to go to mediation too. This silliness has got to stop. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Price

Saying Price thinks we shouldn't be swayed by an academic majority is self-evident; if he didn't feel this way he wouldn't support the CMT. As such material is self-evident it doesn't really add to the article. I do recall, however, that Price once said something like (paraphrasing) "We shouldn't be swayed by the academic majority on the New Testament because they're all biased Christians." That would be an interesting addition to the article but someone would have to track down the source. I think he said it in the context of a debate with William Lane Craig, but I'm not entirely sure. Eugene (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I am going to restore the changes I made to the Price section. Please do not remove them again. If you want to expand that section, fine, but do not keep undoing other people's work. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with your changes to Price's entry. Therefore there isn't consensus. Stop editting against WP:CON. Eugene (talk) 15:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

And I disagree with yours, Eugene, so there isn't consensus for your version either. Therefore we should both be able to write that section, each expanding on the work of the other, not undoing it. That's how WP writing usually works. And it needs to be expanded more, because Price is a key player. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 15:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Christmas Puppet Show

A cluster of priests conduct religious services before a puppet theater showcasing a puppet Jesus and Mary recieving the Wise Men. Hiding behind the puppet theater, ghoulish depictions of Western military forces can be seen.

Poster from the Soviet Union. The caption says: "Christmas puppet show; the fight against religion is the fight for socialism". The Library of Congress describes it as "Anti-religious poster using images from folk theater and songs to lampoon the clergy and their alleged secret alliance with reactionary military leaders." [1]

|alt=A cluster of priests conduct religious services before a puppet theater showcasing a puppet Jesus and Mary recieving the Wise Men. Hiding behind the puppet theater, ghoulish depictions of Western military forces can be seen.]]

The agitprop is totally relevant. It depicts Jesus as an unreal puppet and is directly relevant to the statement that the CMT was a cornerstone of the Soviet anti-religious campaign. I really don't see why you keep objecting to this. Please put it back, it's a nice change from guys faces and it makes the article more aesthetically pleasing.

Let's have some others editors weight in on this. Don't you think including this picture in the section on the Soviets is not only relevant but also beneficial for the article's overall appearance and quality? Eugene (talk) 19:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I don't see that it's connected to the Christ myth theory. The problem is that you're overly keen to label this as Soviet propaganda. From the image policy point of view I don't think it can be claimed as PD; not that that's a major issue from my perspective, but in terms of GA and FA it is. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 19:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This was used as Soviet propaganda! I don't understand why this is controversial. Whereas mainstream scholarship in the West never took the CMT seriously, the Soviet establishment "elevated it to the level of objective scientific truth" and used it as a "cornerstone" in their wider anti-religious campaign. Lenin himself spoke of an "alliance" with Arthur Drews and his ilk. I really don't get why the poster and the cat tag (at least this one) is controversial. Considering that you are not only throwing it off the page but you've blanked important information on even the file page I've got to wonder what's going on here. As for your PD concerns, there baseless. Since Russia entered the [Uruguay Round Agreements Act|URAA] after the publication of this poster (and well after the death of its creator even), it's only protected for 50 years after the author's death. Since Radakov died in 1942, that means the copyright expired in 1992, 18 years ago! Let this go SlimVirgin, you're giving the impression of harassment--apparently I can't even be allowed to describe the picture the way I want on the talk page dispite the fact that I posted it here! Eugene (talk) 20:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It's obviously relevant, since it shows the social/political (or "popular culture", so to speak) effect of the CMT. By the way, what does (ec) mean? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Bill. I think I'd say "the social/political uses to which the CMT has been put", but I think we agree. Please put it back in the article for me. Eugene (talk) 20:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Please wait for other opinions. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll wait until Saturday afternoon (my time), since there seems to be more Wikipedia activity on the weekends (I hear some editors actually have jobs :) ).

What does (ec) mean? Also, I noticed that it's been pretty quiet today. I mean, what could anyone possibly have to do on a Friday?  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit conflict. Eugene (talk) 20:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, you're adding your own opinion to everything: to the text, to captions, to the FAQ, and re categories. If it doesn't stop, I'm going to ask that the article's GA status be reviewed. I would prefer not to do that (even though I don't think it should be GA), but I will if the OR commentary doesn't end, and if you won't let others edit it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Just one tiny example from the talk page. You describe the image above as: "Soviet agitprop poster, "Christmas Puppet Show", depicting the unreality of Jesus." Yes, but that's partial, because it's not the unreality of Jesus the poster is focusing on. The Library of Congress describes it as: ""Anti-religious poster using images from folk theater and songs to lampoon the clergy and their alleged secret alliance with reactionary military leaders." [45] You remove that because secret alliances with military leaders are unconnected to the Christ myth theory.

This kind of thing is happening throughout the article. Nothing is wrong exactly, but it looks as though material is tweaked a little to remove things that don't fit your opinion or to stress things that do. That's why I asked that we "work to rule," as it were: stick very closely to the three content policies, and to the sources, and use in-text attribution a lot, so that personal opinion (which we might not realize we're adding, because it can happen quite unintentionally) is removed as far as possible. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect SV, you are the one pushing a POV and attempting to suppress reliable sources. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

So we can't have Thompson because he doesn't actually say he supports the CMT even though he thinks the Jesus of the Gospels is not a historical figure, but you want a poster taking a pop at the clergy in Russia because it's a consequence of the CMT but nothing to do with it? What kind of doublethink is that? CMT = Nazis and Commies - this just gets sillier. Sophia ♫ 21:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

So we can't have a "popular culture" (so to speak) section for the CMT? I completely disagree. In fact, there should even be a section for how this theory is pandered about by militant atheists (which somebody from your side of the issue has admitted to in the past), but I guess your side would be against that too, huh? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Please try to think neutrally about this—as though we've just arrived from Mars and are intensely interested but have no dog in the fight. As for the image, we could just as easily add a caption to any of the images in Nativity of Jesus calling it pro-Christian propaganda; it would be easy to find a high-quality reliable source who says that. And doing a search for the word "propaganda," I see it's not in the article, though it would be impossible to deny the propagandistic use to which those images have been put. Yet you would probably be horrified if someone tried to label them that way, so please be horrified here too. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The only text that is legible to me reads (my translation) "The birthday of Christ", in the center, and "Christmas Punch and Judy Show at the bottom. I doubt that this poster is in the public domain, Russian copyright laws have changed. Let's not open another can of worms, we have more than enough problems to resolve. Graham Colm (talk) 21:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill, could you watch the writing, please? This edit made the sentence meaningless, and it's best to avoid "claims". SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 21:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You'll find plenty of 'puppet' imagery referring to real live people, never mind beliefs based around dead ones. I don't see why this picture would look any different if the author thought that Christianity was based off of the life of a real long dead person. The historical basis of the religion just doesn't seem relevant to the content of the image. Is there a source that suggests that Jesus never having existed was an important part of the message? 217.28.5.247 (talk) 21:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I see nothing in this poster that suggests that Jesus Christ did not exist. IMHO it is mocking the Christian faith.Graham Colm (talk) 22:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The picture is almost completely unconnected to the article. Hans Adler 22:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Sigh* Well, if I'm beat, I'm beat. It did look nice though. Eugene (talk) 22:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it looked nice, and I have no problem at all helping you to look for non-talking-head images; the best thing is where the relevance is sourced in some way. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Absence/scarcity of references in the lead.

The way the line read was (bold added for comparison):

The Christ myth theory draws attention to the absence of extant contemporaneous reference to Jesus and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the first century.

Now it reads:

The Christ myth theory claims that the absence of extant contemporaneous reference to Jesus and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the first century.

What CMT proponents are claiming is that this absence/scarcity of references is meaningful to mainstream scholarship in determining the historicity of a person. It's not, since the vast majority of references for famous historical figures (such as Alexander the Great) were written many years after the death of the historical figure. Only CMT proponents (as far as I know) make such claims.

In other words, the absence/scarcity of references is not being denied. Using the words "draws attention" misleads the reader into thinking that mainstream scholars consider the absence/scarcity of references as being significant, which is simply not true among mainstream scholarship (see the Bart Ehrman interview [YouTube audio] I referenced above). Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops! I need to modify the "claims that" to include what is being claimed - that is, that the absence/scarcity of references is meaningful to historians. I'll do it tomorrow to avoid 3RR, unless someone else wants to do it. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) How about, The proponents of the theory base their argument on the absence of... Graham Colm (talk) 22:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Bill, could you stop these games, please? Sophia removed what you wrote. I wrote about that your edit made no sense. Now you've restored it. It says: "The Christ myth theory claims that the absence of extant contemporaneous reference to Jesus and the scarcity of non-Christian reference to him in the first century." "Claims" is not a word we should be using, and grammatically that is not a sentence. Please revert yourself now, not tomorrow. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You have a lot of nerve to accuse me of "playing games". What happened to AGF? Please don't do it again. I specifically explained my reasoning (although I admitted an error in my "oops" statement above), and that you misunderstood my reasoning is bizarre. Graham Cole, on the other hand, seems to have understood my point, but I'll restate it here for clarification. Mainstream historians DO NOT think that the absence/scarcity of contemporaneous references is significant in determining the probable truth of the issue at hand. It's the CMT proponents who make such claims. The way it reads now, it makes it sound like CMT proponents have a point, which they don't. The casual reader (which most likely includes the vast majority of people who read the article) would consider that decisive when evaluating CMT claims and, once again, it's not. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a crack at it. Also, "contemporaneous" is still problematic: Charlesworth, J.H., "The Historical Jesus in Light of Writings Contemporaneous with Him", Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.25.1 (1982) 451-476 Eugene (talk) 22:41, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Please don't take a crack at it, Eugene. It has been fixed. Bill, please consider how many hours today have been wasted by all the editors involved here: fixing writing, reverting, arguing, sorting out images. And for what? Nothing was achieved. At some point, collaborative, constructive editing is going to have to begin, where we all stick closely to the policies and try to build on each other's work. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Too late. Didn't see your post until after I made the change. I cut the White reference since it didn't seem immediately relevant or particularly contentious. It might be helpful somewhere in the "arguments" section, but as his not a mythicist, I don't know if it's appropriate there or not. Eugene (talk) 22:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) What's the point of trying to converse with you (SV) when you misunderstand or dismiss or ignore my points. I'll continue to try, nevertheless, since I'm a forgiving (and humble :) ) person. Now, I see that the sentence in question has been modified, but it's still not good enough. As Eugene noted, "contemporaneous" is still problematic because what CMT proponents and what mainstream scholars consider "contemporaneous" is probably not the same thing. Also, the sentence doesn't address the fact that the amount of contemporaneous references is significant in determining the historical existence of Jesus only to proponents of the CMT, not mainstream historians. Therefore, the way it reads right now is not NPOV. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Reverting

What can be done about the reverting? Eugene is removing or in some other way undoing most of my work. He has even just removed a footnote I added that I felt was very helpful, from a biblical scholar explaining the basics of what is known about Jesus. [46] I feel that this situation can't continue. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

How about we go to mediation, assuming you are really concerned with working things out rather than pushing your POV? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I explained why I removed the ref; it wasn't needed since no one disputes the information contained therein and it wasn't actually supporting the sentence it was connected to. I suppose you could put it back, but then I'd just slap a on to it. Eugene (talk) 23:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But I have asked you to stop undoing other people's work, unless it's to fix something that really needs it (bad writing, badly formed ref, something clearly false). But otherwise please leave it alone, and try to build on it, move forward with it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 23:32, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) And I've asked you the same thing, but you too plow right ahead. SV, I think that there are a number of issues where we meaningfully disagree and I can respect that. But on a number of other points I just get the feeling that you have an axe to grind. I mean, why else revert what appears to be enterly non-controversial material? Why get upset when I remove refs that are manifestly irrelevant to the material at hand? Why not only remove the agitprop but then chase it to the file page and mess with it there? I'm starting to get the impression that you're pursuing a vendetta of sorts. Now I realize that's paranoid, but still, it's the impression you're giving.

Of course I have no problem with you editting the page; dispite your accusations to the contray, I in no way feel that this is my page. But as you've confessed that you "don't know anything" about this topic,[47] I'd really appreciate it if you could go a little more slowly, edit a little more cautiously, and try to build meaningful consensus with the long-time editors here instead of writing us off as POV pushers. If your edits here are encountering stiff resistence from someone with an advanced degree that focuses on New Testament lit (me), someone with advanced education in ancient history (Ari), and another editor with obviously some sort of background in history (Akhilleus), consider that there might be a reason for that; it is after all possible that Akhilleus, Ari, Bill the Cat, and I aren't just WP:DICKs. Eugene (talk) 23:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Eugene, if you sincerely want the article to achieve FA status your are going about this the wrong way. OK, this might read like a personal attack, but your interaction with other well-intentioned editors goes entirely against the principles of the project. You give me the impression that you are arrogant, opinionated and not a team player. IMHO, Slim is bending over backwards to build consensus, and I think Bill is too to some extent. Whereas I get the impression that you have a hidden agenda. Graham Colm (talk) 23:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll admit that dealing with this page and the assinine objections it sometimes attracts has given me something of an itchy trigger finger. But I have no hidden agenda. I've tried to be as up front and honest as possible, making no secret of my vocation or identity and so on. I'm perfectly willing to build consensus, but consensus isn't a "shoot first and ask questions later" type of thing. Every time SV has tried to "build consensus", it's been after she's made some controversial change. I know it's easier to get forgiveness than permission, but there's a line. So bring on the consensus building, I'm game. I'm okay with Martin in the lead where he now is and with my super-cool agitprop out of the page (now that a clear majority don't like it). What next? Eugene (talk) 00:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

How about thinking about the changes for a few hours or even days before reverting, assuming merit rather than fault, and not regarding critics as opponents? I have maintained from the outset that this one of our better articles, haven't I? And, given your honesty with regard to your honourable vocation, here's where I come from; I believe in the historical Jesus. But my view is not at all relevant. I have strong opinions about viruses, but you will not find them in the article. Graham Colm (talk) 00:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Graham makes a great point here about being patient. A lot of the editing lately has been driven by the desire to get to GA status RIGHT NOW and then to get to FA status RIGHT NOW. This has had a lot of positive effects on the substance of the article, but it also generated an atmosphere in which there's very little patience. There really is no deadline, and it's ok if some of the article text is sub-optimal while we hash out things on the talk page. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Counter Arguments

That concern has been raised that the article gives a pro & con impression and that this should be avoided. At the same time, other have argued that the proponents aren't being allowed to have their say. So, which is more important, dropping the or and against formatting or letting the CMT advocates have their time at the mic? In the first case instance would could break up much of the reception section and scab the pieces on to the various subsections of "arguments". In the latter case we just leave things the way there are. I think that, even if we choose to break it up, the historical responses and the methodological concerns should stay separate. Eugene (talk) 00:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yet another revert

Bill has reverted me again. [48] Could you say what was wrong with the edit, please? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm concerned that Bill has swung in, reverted quite a bit of work, then disappeared again, leaving no explanation. Reverting is bad enough, especially after all the requests not to, but reverting then going offline immediately is completely unacceptable. As I asked earlier, what can be done about this? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 02:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm not Bill, but I'll venture a few guesses. First, your edit to Wells' section obscured the fact that his post-1999 position was a drastic revision of his earlier views: "In The Jesus Myth (1999), Wells altered his position, making the case that there were two distinct figures of Jesus" --> "In The Jesus Myth (1999), Wells argues that there were two distinct figures of Jesus". Second, saying "Wells bases his arguments on the views of Christian biblical scholars, who acknowledge that the gospels were written between 40 and 80 years after Jesus's death by authors who had no personal knowledge of him" is misleading. Most scholars don't think that the gospels are completely cut off from eye-witness testimony; granted, the mainstream view is a bit convoluted at times and can't be accurately defined as gospels=eye-witness accounts, but it's more sophisticated than your text implied. Third, when you write concerning the epistles that "There is no information in them about Jesus's parents, place of birth, teachings, trial, or crucifixion", you don't make it clear that this is Wells' ideosyncratic view as opposed to the views of the aforementioned "Christian scholars".

As for your changes to Price, I think they're mostly fine. My only concern is about defining the Jesus Seminar in this article and using the Time article to source it. Since the Jesus Seminar is already wikilinked I don't think it really needs a further explanation. And even if it did need further explantion, there's no need for a ref; the nature of the Jesus Seminar is non-controversial. Please remove those two points. (unless you feel like saying the SBL is a group of 8000+ "writers and scholars")Eugene (talk) 02:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to speak for Bill, but I noticed two issues with your edit. First, the phrasing "Wells bases his arguments on the views of Christian biblical scholars..." is ambiguous; either it implies that the bliblical scholars in question are Christians, in which case the phrase is incorrect, or it is meant to point out that Wells relies on scholars who study the Christian bible (rather than the Hebrew) in which case it's better to phrase it as "New Testament scholars." Second, I share Eugene's concern that your edit minimizes Wells' shift in views.

I agree, though, that reverting without explanation on the talk page is not best practice. Discussion before reverting is better, and we've had some success already in presenting alternative text on the talk page and discussing it; it might be good to pursue this approach in the future. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, look, if this continues I'm going to request a review of the GA status. The article is incomplete, not well written, slanted, the FAQ is absurd, the talk page archives are full of editors expressing the same concerns, yet the article seems to be under the control of Bill, who has made only 107 edits to articles (653 overall) [49] and Eugene who has made only 673 edits to articles (1,576 overall), [50] neither of whom are familiar with the policies. Yet somehow they've managed to assume almost complete ownership of the page. I don't mind people taking control of pages to improve them if they know what they're doing; a degree of OWNership's inevitable if you want to get to FAC. But controlling to suppress isn't on.

Akhilleus, I'll change the Christian biblical scholar issue. What would you suggest about expressing Wells's shift in views? I'm wondering how we could make it any clearer. He refers to it. A biblical scholar refers to it. And Price refers to it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, now you imply that I'm just an inexperienced editor with no right to be taken seriously. What part of WP:Civility and WP:AGF is that under? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Eugene is correct. SV, if you expect a consensus (on this issue or anything else), then you must make it clear in your edits that it's the proponents of the CMT who are making the claim, not mainstream scholarship, rather than seeking to insinuate "what everyone knows". It's the only way to avoid contentiousness. You're obviously are not an expert on these matters, as I'm not an expert, but I know a misrepresentation of mainstream scholarship when I see it. And when you misrepresent mainstream scholarship, you have to expect a reversion pending discussion. If you are truly concerned with reaching a consensus, please do not make edits that are obviously POV until you explain, with supporting citations, why they are not. There are enough disagreements regarding this article as it is.

Akhilleus, I don't normally revert edits without a full explanation, but SV's edit was patently problematic, because it misrepresents current mainstream scholarship, and for reasons that both you and Eugene mentioned. Also, as I mentioned above, neither SV nor I are experts, and given the contentiousness of edits recently, I think that if we are to reach a consensus on all of the issues, then no one should make edits that are not plainly obvious (such as we are currently living in the year 2010). Do you think that's fair? Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 03:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill, I'd appreciate a detailed explanation of what was so wrong with my edit that you needed to revert it entirely, and not make adjustments. I noticed you weren't online at the time, but suddenly came online only to make that one revert, then went offline ahead. Presumably no one asked you to make that revert for them, so you must have had your own reasons. Could you outline them for me please? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Lead again

This was the consensus version of the disputed paragraph in the lead. I'd appreciate it if people would not change it without gaining fresh consensus first:

The history of the idea can be traced to the French Enlightenment thinkers Constantin-François Volney and Charles François Dupuis in the 1790s. More recent academic advocates include the 19th-century historian and theologian Bruno Bauer and the 20th-century German philosopher Arthur Drews. Writers such as George Albert Wells, Robert M. Price, and Earl Doherty have re-popularized the idea in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. he philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University writes that, while the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted and anyone arguing against it may be seen as a crank, a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it. While the hypothesis has at times attracted a great deal of scholarly attention, it remains essentially without support among biblical scholars and classical historians. The biblical scholar Graham Stanton of the University of Cambridge writes that nearly all historians today accept that Jesus of Nazareth existed, and that the gospels—of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—contain valuable evidence about him.

SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, this is pointless. After the long discussion about the Martin sentence, Akilleus making a good suggestion, and people agreeing to it, Ari is now changing it to the nicely worded: "The philosopher Michael Martin of Boston University believes believes [sic] that while anyone arguing against the historicity of Jesus it [sic] may be seen as a crank, it is taken for granted and a strong prima facie case can be constructed that challenges it." [51] SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The writing apart, the point is, Ari, that this is not exactly what Martin said. The "taking for granted" part of the sentence is an important part of what he said, even if you personally disagree with him. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 03:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I know Martin's mistakenly believes that the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted. My issue is with the fact that his argument is being presented in the lead as an assumption on related scholarship. That is the problem with using non-experts to undercut the scholarly debate. As I suggested earlier, if you want the "scholarly dissenting voice" use a scholarly dissenting voice such as Price. I believe this is a legitimate objection, and I have been making it for quite a while.

Another way to say it - Graham Stanton as an expert is making a consensus statement on what mainstream scholars believe. Martin's is presented in the same fashion, yet that isn't what he is doing. --Ari (talk) 03:52, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec)And on the lovely swipe that it is because I personally disagree with him - although I do disagree with him that is totally irrelevant. A number of RS by relevant scholars disagree with him to the extent of seeing it as indicative of ignorance of historical method. For that reason, we qualify Martin's arguments as his arguments and not representative of a view other than his own. --Ari (talk) 03:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If we're going to stick to exactly what Martin said, it's [52] "Although the historicity of Jesus is so much taken for granted today that one who dares to question this assumption is often thought to be a crank or worse, a strong prima facie case challenging the historicity of Jesus can be constructed." The wording that was in the article before Ari's edits follows Martin's text better, although I note that "crank or worse" has been softened to "may be seen as a crank". Also, if one is concerned about sources being dismissive, Martin's sentence is a problem, because in saying that the historicity of Jesus is taken for granted, Martin is rather casually dismissing nearly two centuries of research into the historical Jesus. I suspect that this is part of the problem that Ari sees with the wording--that it may look like Martin's opinion that historicity is taken for granted is being reported as fact. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:54, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That is it, Akhilleus. --Ari (talk) 04:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Crossan's comment

I have looked here after a while. Though I have no further ambitions to actively edit the article (one reason being that I am not a native English speaker, and all this is much time consuming for me), I wanted to make some comments when seeing the current discussion. I close with one concrete particular suggestion.

It seems to me that the position of some editors (including me in the past, you can probably easily find my previous contributions if you wish) is often misinterpreted. I think that no reasonable wiki-editor would try to make the article seem that Jesus of Nazareth nonexistence hypothesis is somehow mainstream or so. The mainstream scholars in their works usually at most mention such a hypothesis in passing, obviously giving it almost no credence, and go on with their work by assuming the (at least basic) historicity of Jesus. This should be surely well reflected in the wiki-article.

If this article should say more, which I think it should, in my opinion the best way would be to summarize the evidence on which the historicity position is based (early Christian literature including the NT epistles and Gospels, Josephus, Tacitus) and then report (in a neutral tone) the arguments used by various `Christ myth proponents' when dealing with this evidence ... Of course, it is not our business to evaluate whether the arguments are `valid' or so, we should just seriously report them. In some sense there is a tendency for doing so; I think that e.g. Akhilleus (with whom I would probably much differ in personal evaluation of the historical probability of the nonexistence hypothesis) has also suggested several times that the `CMT should speak for itself'.

One technical problem is that there are many sorts of `JoN nonhistoricity proponents' (not accurately called CMT proponents), similarly as there are many sorts of `JoN historicity proponents'. And, of course, there are works promoting nonhistoricity, which can be obviously labeled as pseudoscholarship (I myself read such a text written in Soviet times), similarly as there are works promoting historicity which can be labeled so. In my opinion, the wiki-content should concentrate on the arguments, not replacing them with expressions of contempt or so. (I hope that everybody agrees that the quotes like "I know no serious historian who ..." are not scholarly arguments by themselves. Such quotes have any scholarly relevancy only if they are backed with scholarly arguments, so one should primarily concentrate on the arguments as such. Btw, I heared R. Price to say something like "I am already tired to be hearing and reading that I must be wrong because everyone says so".)

So I am surely supporting all the editors who try to concentrate on a neutral reporting of the arguments, trying to reflect the reality as objectively as possible. I am sorry that I cannot engage in real editing but at least I can give one particular suggestion at this moment.

In the text we find: ... and Earl Doherty have each been the subject of such critical comments.[115]

Including this Crossan's comment 115 here gives an impression to the reader that Crossan (a credential biblical scholar) has read Doherty's work and, based on that, he has found good arguments to compare Doherty with moonlanding denialists; otherwise the comment has no relevancy here. But if one looks at the context, we find that Crossan was reacting in a time-limited internet discussion in 2000.

(Description The XTalk Seminar on Materials and Methodology in Historical Jesus Research is a moderated, online, three week long forum whose aim is to provides a platform for exchanges between approved Seminar members and John Dominic Crossan, ....)

He was reacting to the question of a participant about a review of Crossan's book written by Doherty. Crossan in his answer to the participant does not address any arguments from the review, he just deduces from the question that Doherty himself probably suscribes to the idea of nonhistoricity, and based on that, Crossan provides his moonlanding story. Crossan's comment can be, in fact, parahrased more generally: if a person X maintains opinion Y, and X is ready to explain everything we present to X in such a way that it agrees with opinion Y, then it has no sense to try to persuade X that Y might not be correct. This is a generally valid observation (for any X and Y) but it is of no value here. One thing is clear: Crossan's comment and its context give no indication that this was based on contemplating the arguments in Doherty's works. Thus the comment should be removed so that the article does not give the false impression mentioned above.

(In fact, I personally think that it would be illustrative to keep this comment, as demonstrating what sort of `arguments' you can also hear from mainstream scholars when they should react to concrete works doubting the historicity of JoN. But this would be a bit unfair to Crossan, who certainly did not speak of moon landing when reacting to Price in the book "Five views ..."; and certainly the original wiki-editor who introduced Crossan's comment here, in good faith of its relevancy I suppose, would not be happy with this usage of the comment.)Jelamkorj (talk) 08:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I have looked and found that Crossan's comment was brought into the text by 01:01, 20 January 2010 Eugeneacurry (talk | contribs)

So I ask directly you, Eugene. You are blaming others about bizarre double-standard etc., so I am especially interested to hear what do you say to the comments I made for Crossan's comment which you introduced. Even when looking at the context, you still find Crossan's comment as a relevant scholarly response do Doherty's work? If this is the case, then we have completely differing view on what the article should be about.

I expect Eugene's response to the above question. The following text is just another comment about a central problem which I perceive in the discussion here. This problem can be demonstrated, e.g., on the interview with Bart Ehrman which is recommended by Bill the Cat 7 above. ((talk) 20:56, 13 April 2010). Bill concentrates on Ehrman's Holocaust denial comments, this is the relevant portion of the interview for Bill. I myself am not impressed by expressions of contempt etc., I look for arguments. Here, in fact, I found the arguments which Ehrman gives in the interview embarrassing. Ehrman says that Paul tells us in his epistles that he met Jesus' disciples and Jesus' relatives; the nonhistoricity hypothesis thus forces the proponents to deny the genuiness of these epistles, etc. In fact, if you look at the Paul's epistles, you would never guess from their text that Paul tells us this. To make a parallel: If Mr. X writes that he met Barack Obama in Washington in April 2010, we surely deduce, on other grounds, that he met the American president. If much later a question arises whether the office of the American president was occupied in April 2010, the writings of Mr. X as such are, of course, of no help to solve this question. But precisely such logical mistake is Ehrman doing. He (implicitly) accepts the traditional equating of Peter, John, James, about whom Paul writes, with the disciples from Gospels, not realizing that Paul's writing do not contain such equating (in fact, even the word `disciples' appears nowhere in the epistles), and thus the epistles can not be used in the way Ehrman does. The Jesus' relatives in reality boil down to `James, the brother of the Lord'; this expression is traditionally equated with `the blood brother of Jesus of Nazareth' (not by the Catholics, of course) but Paul does not tell us this, we have to deduce on other grounds (if they are compelling). Sorry for these details, but I hope it is clear what I wanted to illustrate. We should report primarily about arguments, not expressions of contempt. In this concrete case, we should surely report that Doherty uses Paul's epistles as genuine (similarly as Wells etc.), but he disagrees with the logic which Ehrman demonstrates. (To make it clear: I do not think that Ehrman is irrational, he has just got no impulse so far to look at these concrete things in more detail.)

I repeat: my comment about Ehrman should be taken just as an illustration of my point about the priority of the concentration on arguments. The only concrete suggestion to modify the article is now to remove Crossan's comment. What do you say, Eugene?Jelamkorj (talk) 18:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this is not a forum for discussing our personal views of the Christ myth of the validity of the arguments scholars make against it--Ehrman included. However, with reference to Crossan, I don't really understand you concern. The article states, "Beyond these general treatments of the Christ myth theory as a whole, responses connected to specific exponents of the theory have also been offered. Of the theory's more recent advocates, John Allegro,[110] G. A. Wells,[111] Robert Price,[112] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy and D. M. Murdock,[113] and Earl Doherty have each been the subject of such critical comments.[114]" The Crossan reference is "connected to a specific exponent of the theory" and, I think you would agree, constitutes a "critical comment". Given that, I don't see why including his quote in footnote 114 is contentious. If you are concerned that Crossan may not have read Doherty's work, well, do you have a source that says he didn't? A large chunk of Doherty's arguement was pasted into the question Neil Godfrey sent Crossan after all. Eugene (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Source for Pseudo-history / pseudo-scholarship

I was asked to reconsider my opinion about RFC. I explicitly asked, though, for top-quality sources that use these terms. And I'd appreciate top quality, not merely good source, top academic publishers. The sources I have seen are the following. I'll sign all my comments individually, so other editors can add comments right under each source if they want. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

• "The pseudoscholarship of the early twentieth century calling in question the historical reality of Jesus was an ingenuous attempt to argue a preconceived position." (Gerard Stephen Sloyan,The Crucifixion of Jesus: History, Myth, Faith. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995, p. 9)
  • This is published by Fortress Press, the official publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Fortress Press is the academic imprint of the publishing house. Eugene (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
• "An extreme instance of pseudo-history of this kind is the “explanation” of the whole story of Jesus as a myth." (Emil Brunner, The Mediator: A Study of the Central Doctrine of the Christian Faith, Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2002, p. 164)
  • Lutterworth Press, a Christian media company. Again, a good and respectable publisher, but not exactly a top academic publisher. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Emil Brunner, world-renowned professor at the University of Zurich Eugene (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
• "While we do not have the fullness of biographical detail and the wealth of firsthand accounts that are available for recent public figures, such as Winston Churchill or Mother Teresa, we nonetheless have much more data on Jesus than we do for such ancient figures as Alexander the Great... Along with the scholarly and popular works, there is a good deal of pseudoscholarship on Jesus that finds its way into print. During the last two centuries more than a hundred books and articles have denied the historical existence of Jesus. Today innumerable websites carry the same message... Most scholars regard the arguments for Jesus' non-existence as unworthy of any response—on a par with claims that the Jewish Holocaust never occurred or that the Apollo moon landing took place in a Hollywood studio." (Michael James McClymond, Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004, pp. 8 & 23–24)
  • Eerdmans, another respectable but clearly religious publishing house. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • The book appears on syllabi at major universities including Boston College, Queen's University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the University of Aberdeen.

• "A phone call from the BBC’s flagship Today programme: would I go on air on Good Friday morning to debate with the aurthors of a new book, The Jesus Mysteries? The book claims (or so they told me) that everything in the Gospels reflects, because it was in fact borrowed from, much older pagan myths; that Jesus never existed; that the early church knew it was propagating a new version of an old myth, and that the developed church covered this up in the interests of its own power and control. The producer was friendly, and took my point when I said that this was like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese." (N. T. Wright, "Jesus' Self Understanding", in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, Gerald O’Collins, The Incarnation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 48)
  • Finally, a top academic publisher. Note though that pseudo-history or pseudo-scholarship is not explicitly mentioned, and the discussion seems very informal. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

• "The very logic that tells us there was no Jesus is the same logic that pleads that there was no Holocaust. (Nicholas Perrin, Lost in Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007, p. 32)
  • Thomas Nelson, world's largest Christian publisher. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Nicholas Perrin - a scholar with relevant credentials; published academic monographs; scholarly journal articles on the state of historical Jesus studies, etc. Ari (talk) 11:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
• "If you say that historical evidence doesn’t count, then I think you get into huge trouble. Because then, how do… I mean… then why not just deny the Holocaust?" (Bart Ehrman, interview with Reginald V. Finley Sr., "Who Changed The New Testament and Why", The Infidel Guy Show, 2008)
  • This is not even in print, but clearly a non-Christian here. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

• "A hundred and fifty years ago a fairly well respected scholar named Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical person Jesus never existed. Anyone who says that today—in the academic world at least—gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat." (Mark Allan Powell, Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee, Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998, p. 168)
  • Westminster John Knox, publishing arm of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); but this source highlight the problem with outdated versus pseudo-scholarship, calling Bauer well-respected. Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Mark Allan Powell - Well respected academic, chair of SBL Historical Jesus studies. --Ari (talk) 11:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Recommended as "key" by an Oxford Professor and appears on syllabi at universities including the University of Denver and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
• "One category of mythicists, like young-earth creationists, have no hesitation about offering their own explanation of who made up Christianity... Other mythicists, perhaps because they are aware that such a scenario makes little historical sense and yet have nothing better to offer in its place, resemble proponents of Intelligent Design... Thus far, I've only encountered two sorts of mythicism." (James F. McGrath, "Intelligently-Designed Narratives: Mythicism as History-Stopper", Exploring Our Matrix, 2010).
  • Is this a blog? Vesal (talk) 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Blog of James F. McGrath, Associate Professor of Religion and Clarence L. Goodwin Chair of New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University. --Ari (talk) 11:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I think this discussion perfectly illustrates the sort of bizarre double-standard some are trying to apply to this article. Vesal concedes that the categorization as pseduo-X is supported by books printed by "good and respectable" publishers (some of which books are used as actual text books in major universities) and even by non-Christian scholars, but still, that's not good enough. (Nevermind that WP:FRINGE allows for scholarly criticism of fringe theories to be drawn even from "alternative venues".) The sources, apparently, must be published by university presses... and even that doesn't really count if the tone is "informal". Come on; is there another article, in all of Wikipedia, where the bar is set this high, let alone another article on a WP:FRINGE theory? Eugene (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I was strictly talking about sources for putting articles into the pseudo-X categories. I absolutely hope that no article on Wikipedia is placed in a pseudo-X category without having a book from a high-quality university press or article in a top journal where that exact term is used. And this is not unfair: these very same scholars have published all over the place; and yet, comparisons to holocaust denial is confined to Christian publishers. Vesal (talk) 20:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you explain why it matters that a publisher, or any quoted scholar for that matter, is a Christian? It seems you are implying a bias, that Christian sources are somehow less trustworthy. Is that what you are saying? Thanks. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 20:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

When we're writing about an ideology that involves very strong feelings, it's not good when the article is controlled by people who are strict adherents to it, for obvious reasons. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a really ridiculous thing to say to be honest. Academic sources are no longer RS because you suspect they, but not someone writing mock history in The Case Against Christianity is only making a bias claim? --Ari (talk) 00:07, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course there is bias. Not even saying that is bad, from their perspective. But the very idea that Christ may not have existed would not be something that Christian publishing houses or Scholars would accept or take even remotely seriously. Looking over that list, I do have to ask why it is so heavily leaning towards Christian publishing houses. Are there not more "neutral" sources that can be used instead? Otherwise, these sources are heavily titled to one POV, understandably so, mind you, as they are Christian. How can they not see the very idea that Christ was not an historical person as anything, from their POV, that is, but "pseudo". Now, if more neutral sources could be found in the same abundance saying that the very idea is fringe or pseudo, then the article would not feel so POV. Gingervlad (talk) 21:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Thank you (and SV) for being frank about it. I've asked that question before, but because this page has become so large and cluttered, I never got a response (from what I can remember). At any rate, that is a problematic position. I mean, an analogy to what you are saying is that Jews have a bias towards Holocaust history, so peer-reviewed Jewish scholars can not be trusted to write an unbiased history of the Holocaust unless they are also supported by non-Jewish scholars. The same can be said about peer reviewed scholars writing about the Arab-Israeli Wars, or current relations between Israel and the Palestinians, or current relations between China and Tibet, or the history of Britain and Ireland, or a whole bunch of other topics.

Be that as it may, such a position will have to be backed up by reliable sources, but don't bother doing it now. Since it is a concern for you and SV (and I think others), I just added the sentence Are "Christian" scholars, and publishers of their books, reliable? to the "Issue to be addressed" subsection above. If you can think of any other issue that should be addressed, please feel free to add to it. You don't have to state your reasons or your position. I just want to get a list of everyone's concerns so that we can all address them in an orderly manner. If you can't think of any right now, no problem. Just add to the list when something comes up. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't accept your analogy that Jewish historians can't be trusted with the Holocaust. Being a committed Christian is based on faith, not reason. Christians are the first to admit that; indeed, they make a virtue out of it.

Studying the Holocaust or any other period of history for which a lot of material is available is mostly a matter of reason and evidence. Ideology does enter into it, and all history is biased to some degree, of course. But the further back you go, and the more essential that history is to someone's faith (an issue not based on reason at all), the more problematic the issue becomes.

We should therefore focus on the highest-quality mainstream sources we can find for this article. I am less concerned about whether they are Christian or not. My main concern is that we should focus (wherever possible) on academic historians, who have been trained to some degree to put their prejudices to one side, or at least recognize them. By that I mean people with PhDs in history or ancient history working as historians in universities. Other voices can be included, of course, if they're part of the debate, particularly if they're disinterested: personally I place a high value on philosophers because I'm familiar with their approach. But I have a concern about the number of biblical scholars being used here who trained in minor seminaries, and who are emotionally invested. That's why the article has a POV air to it. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 22:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

SV, it really doesn't matter at this point whether you accept the analogy or not. I am fully aware of your concerns (and those of others), and they have been noted, which is why I added the question to the "Issues to be addressed" section. We can discuss them further, in an orderly fashion, at a later time. In the mean time, if you have any other concerns, please list them in the "Issues to be addressed" section. And, once again, I request that ALL editors refrain (which I will also abide by) from making any even remotely potentially contentious edits to the article or to the FAQs. We all agree, I think, that the article has a long way to go before it can even be considered for FA status, so let's proceed in an orderly and civil manner. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 22:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill, I apologize for the emphasis on their religious conviction. The problem is certainly not that Christian sources are less trustworthy. The problem is when you extrapolate from the consensus within New Testament studies to claim this is the consensus view in academia. Right now, I have only seen Biblical scholars go so far as to call this pseudo-history, while secular historians are satisfied to call this refuted and unconvincing. You may do a search on "Historical Jesus pseudo-scholarship" and you will find Biblical scholars, such as L. Gregory Bloomquist, calling "the study of the historical Jesus confined to the ideological and theological pseudo-history of positivism." Shall we put historical Jesus into pseudo-history as well? I actually think the term is used without much thought. While Denying History dedicates an entire chapter to explaining why holocaust-denial is pseudo-history, these scholars are just using it as a derogatory term without ever defining what it means and why it applies. Vesal (talk) 23:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill, please don't dismiss my post. I'm concerned that you and Eugene keep referring to the Holocaust. Jewish historians who write about the Holocaust may or may not be observant Jews. Or they may be atheists. Or somewhere in between. And the Holocaust is not a religious issue—Hitler did not target religious Jews. So the analogy breaks down at several points, and I'm disturbed to see that it keeps being raised by two editors. I'd appreciate if it you could find a closer analogy if you want to use one. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs}

SV, I assure you that I'm not dismissing any of your posts. I value your input, and all of your comments rightfully need to be addressed. The only reason I will not discuss your concerns right now is that I want to compile a list of issues that need to be addressed so that they can be dealt with in an orderly fashion by all of us. Please, list any other concerns you have in the "Issues to be addressed" section. I'm going to ask an administrator in the next few days to lock the article to prevent further contentious edits and I would appreciate your support on this. Edits will still be possible, via the admin, but I wish to prevent disagreements from spiraling out of control. And, personally, I don't care how the article reads until the issues are resolved. That is, if anyone wants to add a POV edit, do it now. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Vesal, there is no need to apologize (although in doing so, you show a sincere desire to discuss the issue further in a civil manner). At this point, I'm only concerned with compiling a list of issues/concerns that all of us need to resolve. Compiling a list shouldn't take more than one or two weeks - depending on how many of us actually have normal jobs. :) Their their resolutions will probably take quite a bit longer, but that is just part of the fun of editing Wikipedia.  :) Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Definition section and FAQ #1

A caveat in FAQ #1 currently reads, "Several editors have expressed concern that this article does a poor job of defining its scope, specifically distinguishing between the Christ myth theory and biblical minimalism. Discussions are currently underway as to how to address this issue." With the new definition section is place (it's still there after a day two now) does anyone object to removing the caveat from FAQ #1? (the NPOV tag will remain) Eugene (talk) 18:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't object. The scope of the article couldn't be any clearer than it is. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 18:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I object. We've just started a section that discusses a definition, but throughout the text there are still problems. This article needs a huge amount of work before we can call it neutral, comprehensive and accurate, and the FAQ will eventually reflect that work, though it will need to change substantially. There's therefore no point in asking every few days if you can remove a tag or a qualification from the FAQ, because you're the one slowing the work down. We are taking half a step forward, and two steps back.

My preference is to remove the link to the FAQ and move it to Eugene's userspace, because he wrote it and it reflects his point of view. It doesn't reflect the discussions in the talk page archives, which is what FAQs are meant to do. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 20:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't object to removing the tag either. The FAQ represents the consensus at the time it was written and represents consensus again. NJMauthor (talk) 23:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Even a cursory reading of the archives shows that the FAQ has never represented the consensus, and the same questions continue to be raised, but by different editors with different points of view, which is instructive. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Current Issues

I don't know about the rest of you but I think this page has become way too cluttered and large to have a meaningful discussion about a consensus. So, what I propose is that we list all the current issues in one section and then tackle them one by one. I have no particular preference in what order we tackle them, as long as each is handled one at a time.

I have no idea if this has ever been done before on Wikipedia, but I honestly don't see a better way to proceed (but I'm open to suggestions), and clearly it's not working well right now (e.g., I've had more than one point I've made go unanswered, and I think everyone else can say the same). Furthermore, I think the article should be locked for a certain amount of time in order to prevent additional issues from popping up and further increasing the difficulty in maintaining a coherent discussion.

I'll start the list (below) and I encourage everyone to add to it. As time goes by and consensus is reached, we can check off the issues that have been successfully addressed (by using a strike-through) and then add to the FAQ. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 00:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Do we provide answers? --Ari (talk) 03:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I would like simply just to list the current issues here so we have a central checklist. After we get everyone to add what they think is important to the list, then we can create separate sections to discuss them in order, and then come back to this section so we check resolved issues off the list. While we are discussing one issue, people would still be welcome to add additional issues at the end of this checklist. Bill the Cat 7 (talk) 06:42, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

---

Issues to be addressed

1. Is the CMT fringe?
2. Is the CMT pseudo-x?
3. Is the FAQ #2 NPOV?
4. Should the scholarly response be one major section (as it currently is) or should it be distrbuted throughout the article?
5. What is the notability/publication criteria for including a CMT author among the advocates?
6. What is the criteria for determining if an advocate warrents a separate section or should be lumped into the "other authors" sections?
7. Are "Christian" scholars, and publishers of their books, reliable?
8. 'continue list here (for example, Is the FAQ #x NPOV?)"

Enemy Attestation

Where does Josephus say he was an enemy of Jesus? If Josephus was not an enemy of jesus, I hardly see how he can be used as an example of "enemy attestation.." Slrubenstein | Talk 22:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Source request

Do we have a recent high-quality mainstream source who makes a distinction between the Christ-myth theory and biblical minimalism? SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see the point of this question. Do we have any recent mainstream sources that draw any links between the two? --Akhilleus (talk) 00:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I would like to write a sentence about the distinction, and because everything in this article from now on must be sourced to a high-quality source, I'm asking whether someone has one. Eugene did write up a distinction, but he based it on a source from 1926. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the explanation. Offhand I don't know of anything more recent, but I will look and see. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 00:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)