Talk:Codex Escalada

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The alleged tests and reliable sources

Bellarmino (talk) 17:37, 13 February 2010 (UTC) It's hard to satisfy you when you appear to be happy with open sarcasm from Brading, and refuse any factual characterisation of his comment. It is a claimed, published, fact that the Codex is authentic, and the sole "evidence" against it is that people who are already committed to a theory incompatible with it make fun of it. I am finding it difficult to see how anybody would think that Brading's comment is anything but an embarrassment to himself and his school of thought.[reply]

I've raised the issue of the reliablility of the Texas Catholic Herald, which is the official publication of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, at WP:RSN [1]. At the moment, all we have is what is basically a 'house organ' and we need to be able to verify this. In particular, we need to know who did the tests, what the tests are, and what the exact results were. Also, this is a WP:REDFLAG issue. Our policy (note, not just a guideline) says:

Exceptional claims require exceptional sources

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WP:REDFLAG

Certain red flags should prompt editors to examine the sources for a given claim:

surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources;
reports of a statement by someone that seems out of character, embarrassing, controversial, or against an interest they had previously defended;
claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living persons. This is especially true when proponents consider that there is a conspiracy to silence them.

Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality sources.^[1]If such sources are not available, the material should not be included. Also be sure to adhere to other policies, such as the policy for biographies of living persons and the undue weight provision of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

Dougweller (talk) 08:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I recently made some suggestions relative to the Codex in Talk under the article Juan Diego; see especially my para [4]. Since I have now undertaken to re-write that article, it looks as if it might be sensible for me to re-write this article too? Ridiculus mus (talk) 18:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Dibble

Let's try to make a few things clearer about the role of Charles Dibble in the investigation of this document.

Contrary to the statement appearing in a prior, just-reverted version of this article, Dibble did not in any way "coordinate" the investigations. He was not part of the "team" assembled by Escalada SJ. Instead, he was only brought into the picture after one of those, Mario Rojas Sanchez, interpreted one of the signatures as possibly Sahagun's. Given Dibble's expertise on Sahagun, it was arranged to request his opinion and a photostat copy of the signature was sent to him for examination. After reviewing (the copy, note, not the original), Dibble wrote back in June 1996 with his assessment:

'I have received a copy of codice 1548. I have studied the signature, and I believe it to be the signature of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún. I base my conclusions on the indications of three crosses; the form of the "Fray", the "d"and the "b". In my opinion the signature is not the same as, that is not contemporaneous with the 1548 date of the codice. I would assign the signature to the 50's or the 60's. [full text of letter as reproduced in appendix to Enciclopedia Guadalupe]

Thus, based (only) on the copy he studied, he believed the signature matched Sahagun's, but at the same time noted it did not match with the purported 1548 date written on the codex, attributing it instead to a decade or two afterwards. So not at all a ringing endorsement of the codex's authenticity, despite the inference made in that Vatican article.

That's the full extent of his involvement, and to the best of my knowledge Dibble has never issued any statement or opinion about the authenticity of the codex itself, which as noted he never examined directly and was not called upon to do. Any statement to the effect that Dibble "authenticated" the codex would be quite incorrect. It would also be misleading and unsubstantiated to imply he supported any finding of authenticity for the codex such as the one Escalada wrote up, in the absence of any available, documented opinion expressed by him on that score. --cjllw ʘ TALK 08:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

^ This idea—that exceptional claims require exceptional sources—has an intellectual history which traces back through the Enlightenment. In 1758, David Hume wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."[2]

[1] This idea—that exceptional claims require exceptional sources—has an intellectual history which traces back through the Enlightenment. In 1758, David Hume wrote in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."[2]

[1]