Talk:Yehoshua ben Yosef

Yehoshua ben Yosef

This is a work in progress, so don't delete it on me halfway through making it. In defense, I believe there should be a page for "Historical Jesus" that does not use the term Jesus. Furthermore, I believe any attempt to put all topics concerning Yehoshua under the umbrella "Jesus" is blatantly POV. There is the Jesus that Christians believe is the Son of God, and then there is the Yehoshua referred to by the Tesofta Shebota, the Qu'ran, the Ebionites, the Arians-in short, everyone but the Catholic Church after the Nicean creed. I think a page is needed for the separation of the two topics, and that page shouldn't be listed under the title Jesus. Scientz 11:24, 1 November 2005 (EST)

Wikipedia has existing naming conventions which mandate the use of the name "Jesus", and it strongly disapproves of POV-forks (that is, a new version of an article written from a different point of view). It also has an article on the Historicity of Jesus. Please bring your concerns about the Jesus article to the Talk:Jesus page - the typical fate of POV forks is deletion or re-direction, and it would be so much easier if we could avoid the AfD process. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A user-created encyclopedia has dogmatic naming conventions regarding the use of the name "Jesus"? Where are these conventions written? I would like to read them. To be fair, I think information on a non-Christian perspective requires its own page that refers to him by his historical name, because as is the Jesus page is entirely Christian POV. Scientz 11:45, 1 November 2005 (EST)

Yes, Wikipedia has naming conventions: see Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Also, the idea that his name was "Yehoshua ben Yosef" is a conjecture and a POV, not an established fact. Finally, WP:NPOV says that multiple POVs must be presented in an article, not just one POV, and that POVs must be presented in proportion to their signifigance. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I looked up the naming conventions, and I think I understand your point. However, I must disagree on the idea of the name Yehoshua ben Yosef being conjecture. It is very simple. There is no contemporary "historical" record of Jesus, there is historical record of Yehoshua, son of Yosef (Joseph). Whether using Qumran scrolls, or the supposed "Q" document, or the Tesofta Shebota, the unaltered writings of Josephus, or even Quranic Sura 4:157, it can be clearly shown that there is a Yeshoshua, but this is not the "Jesus identity" grafted onto Yehoshua by Paul, and later, the Catholic church. I'm only interested in scholarship, not controversy. Christians can believe whatever they want about the mythical figure that became their Jesus Christ, but I believe anyone intersted in historical (non-religious) research should have access to a page that treats the historical Yehoshua separate from the biblical Jesus. Scientz 13:09, 1 November 2005 (EST)

The only documents we have with Jesus name are Greek ones, dating from decades after his death. We have no documents listing his original Hebrew or Aramaic name, so it's all conjecture. Yehoshua ben Yosef? Possibly. Yeshua bar Yosef? Maybe. Yeshu ben Pandera? Could be. We just don't know. In any event, I'm going to point your article back to the Jesus article now; please work these issues out on Talk:Jesus. Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:31, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I highly disagree with your conclusion, and as such, I no longer believe that you should be considered to have enough knowledge of the subject to edit my information. There is a wealth of information that predate the Greek, and they are known as the Qumranic documents, or the Dead Sea Scrolls. More a hundred authors have written about these 1947 finds, and they really shed on a light on the life of Yehoshua, his ministry, and the more importantly the ministry of his brother James (Yacov), and what the Qumran community thought of Paul and his interpretations. I believe the issue deserves another article with no Christian bias. This is a separate article, and I have no intention of pointing the (Christian) Jesus to my page, so please do not point my page to the Christian Jesus. Keep in mind that I have no interest in this becoming a territorial pissing issue. I'm also curious as to why it bothers you that a fellow Wikipedian would like a page for Yehoshua that treats the information surrounding his life as separate from later-Catholic add-ons. I really have no interest in the article I intend to finish today being constantly deleted by an over-zealous editor with a problem. If your problem is what I name the article, please, sugest another name. If your problem is that I am creating it in the first place, I think you are the one with the POV issue. At any rate, allow me to finish the article, and then open up the discussion to all community members. As it stands now, I feel you are making a decision which you have not been granted the power to make. Scientz 13:56, 1 November 2005 (EST)

The Qumran scrolls do not mention Jesus, the supposed "Q" document was supposedly written in Greek, by "Tesofta Shebota" I assume you mean "Tosefta Shabbat", which was written in the second century and not transcribed until the 6th century, the "unaltered writings of Josephus" were written in Greek, and Quranic Sura 4:157 was written in Arabic in the 6th century. None of these sources mention "Yehoshua ben Yosef". Jayjg ^(talk) 18:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The Qumran scrolls do not mention Jesus? Are you serious? Look, I see where you are going with this, and I disagree. Where do those Wikipedians interested in researching a non-Christian perspective go for that information? What should that article be called? Because bar Yosef, or ben Joseph, simply denotes who his father was according to Jewish custom. And anyone not inclined to believe he was a God/Man, must believe he had a father, and the most likely candidate for his lineage is very well known. Not to mention there is clear reference to him being called Yeshu, or Yeshua, or Yehoshua, but "Jesus" is an entirely Hellenized version that comes years after the fact as well. I agree that "Yehoshua ben Yosef" has the potential for conflict, but what should we call it? I do not want to have to sift through information on the Christian Jesus if I am looking into the topic of Yehoshua the Ebionite. Do you not understand what I am getting at? The topic deserves its own page. Scientz 14:05, 1 November 2005 (EST)

Actually, there isn't any explicit mention of Jesus as such in the Qumran scrolls, Eisenman's (and others') theories notwithstanding. There are many scholars (Geza Vermes and Herschel Shanks for example) who believe the Qumran scrolls are reporting about the Hasmonean period a century before Jesus. I don't have an opinion myself (not owning a time machine), but you should know that at best the jury is still out on the issue of who the scrolls are talking about, to put it mildly. Wikipedia is created by its contributors, but it is ruled by consensus. We want to be sure that a Wikipedia article isn't going to make assertions that cross over into the realm of original research, which the initial statement in italics seems to imply. --Fire Star 05:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Historical Jesus

I checked Historical Jesus, and it appears to be full of controversy as well. I suggest the following compromise: Two articles.

1) Jesus

This article would contain everything Jesus from the prevailing Christian (Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc.) viewpoint, and intended as an article for research into Jesus Christ the religious figure. This page would contain most of the content from Jesus, but would remove the controversial attempts to add a non-Christian POV. It would, however, include an overview of the separate view points of all denominations of Christianity.

2) Yehoshua ben Yosef (or some other acceptable title)

This article would contain everything "Jesus" from a historical, pre-Catholic viewpoint, and intended as an article for research into "Jesus" the historical figure. Examples for what this page could contain can be found at Yehoshua ben Yosef or User:Peter Kirby/Historical Jesus. This article would include an overview of all serious attempts at scholarship on the issue.

I believe that to merge everything non-Christian about "Jesus" under this new Yehoshua (or whatever it should be called, by consensus) article would be a way to appease both Christian and non-Christian, and allow both the Christian version (which is arguably POV) and the on-Christian version (arguably POV as well) to stand side by side in Wikipedia. If both POVs are represented, it could stop a lot of bickering as to what belongs where.

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This is a sample of related discussion from Talk:Jesus

Comments on Yehoshua ben Yosef

• Your suggestion goes against the very heart of the neutral point of view policy, which in turn is the very heart of Wikipedia. The point of Wikipedia is defeated if new articles are created in response to disagreement. Discussion, not schism, must determine the content of each article. That's why POV forks are not allowed. — goethean ॐ 23:25, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand that, which is why I tread this ground very carefully. Can there be anything more inherently POV than the topic of Jesus? Over a billion people believe in his divinity, whereas an equal number do not. I would think it difficult to think of a topic capable of generating more revisions under the well intended guise of NPOV. How does one cover the topic of Jesus in a NPOV manner when his mere-existence, let alone his divinity is highly POV?

George W. Bush is perhaps the most heavily-edited article on Wikipedia, and that is because he is surrounded by ideological POV. But at the end of the day, there is only one George W. Bush, and Wikipedia cannot have two articles on him, for example: George W. Bush (pro-Bush perspective) and George W. Bush (anti-Bush perspective).

It was exactly this line of thinking that led me to understand that, unlike George W. Bush, there are two Jesus'. One could be easily listed as Jesus (Christian saviour) and the other as Jesus (Historical figure). However, in light of what I felt to be a Christian claim to the word, and therefore the concept of "Jesus", I felt it would be appropriate to list the article under a title that wouldn't offend Christians, as well as stick to what most scholars on the topic view as his (Aramaic) name. Based on the controversy in other talk pages, I think everyone can see that Christians will never be satisfied with having a single word in a religious "Jesus" article that covers non-Christian scholarship, likewise, those interested in non-Christian scholarship have no article which doesn't reflect a heavily Christian POV.

Could a "schism" on this issue solve the problem? Scientz 19:01, 1 November 2005 (EST)

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This is a sample of related discussion from Talk:Historical Jesus

"New Testament Jesus" + Wishy-Washy Words = "Historical Jesus"?

Clearly this article needs to be either massively cleaned up or merged into Historicity of Jesus and New Testament view on Jesus' life. What kind of article on the "historical Jesus" is divided into sections called "Works and miracles" and "The resurrection"?! This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. -Silence 04:13, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Why, because you don't believe they happened? Ancient history is full of stuff like this, so you can either choose to believe them or not, but they certainly can be discussed as part of the historical record.

Let's leave the straw men out of this and discuss it between ourselves. Whether they happened or not has nothing to do with whether we should be defining them as "historical" or not, because as long as we don't know that they happened to any reasonable degree, we cannot safely deem them "historical". What I was trying to say was that the sections were misnamed, not that they were bad sections altogether and should be scrapped; "the resurrection" makes it sound like you're describing a definite, solid historical event that we all know surely occurred, much as "works and miracles" sounds like you're rattling off a historical list of miraculous things Jesus actually did occur, sine dubio. This problem is partly caused by the fact that this article is named "Historical Jesus", not "Historical view of Jesus"! That implies that the article's about Jesus' historical, real, factual life, rather than stating that it's about what historians think of the New Testament, which is this article's true topic.

Ancient texts are full of countless records, yes, but to call every ancient account "historical" just because it seems to be describing something that happened is POV. This page is just as POV as if we had named the New Testament view of Jesus page "Mythological Jesus" (we do have a Jesus-Myth page, but it's about theories that Jesus was mythological, not about a supposedly "mythological" analysis of the New Testament! likewise this article wouldn't be problematic if it was about theories that Jesus was historical (which it probably should be, it fits better with the dichotomy set up at Historicity of Jesus), rather than being a so-called-"historical" analysis of Jesus' life); weighing in on Jesus being either historical or mythological, and especially weighing in on specific events (like the reincarnation, miracles, resurrection) as being either historical or mythological, is both POV and unnecessary, when what we should be doing is just presenting each side of the issue fairly, without labeling any one side as "historical" or one side as "right". Furthermore, I see absolutely no benefit to segregating the "historical view" from the religious ones. It makes perfect sense to have one article for Jewish views on a matter, one article for Islamic ones, one article for Hindu ones, etc., and then to have the responses to those views in the same articles as the views themselves, especially the historical responses (because the other religions' ones can to some extent be mentioned in their individual pages as well).

However, this "historical" view is nothing but a critical analysis of the "religious" view; it's not in any way a distinct perspective on Jesus' life, it's just the responses to the Christian perspective. Furthermore, it's POV to define one response to the Christian perspective as "historical" and another as non-historical, and to exclude ideas about what did or didn't happen from this page based on some abstract notion of what is or isn't "history", which we can't confirm anyway, and which to even attempt to do is, again, "both POV and unnecessary". Why go to all the term of segregating critical analysis from the information being critically analyzed? Why not integrate all major, important interpretations of the New Testament view of Jesus' life into the New Testament view on Jesus' life page, not just the Christian interpretation? That would not only be much more encyclopedic, but it would also be a lot easier on the readers of both pages, who would much rather see the point-counterpoint take place on a single page, rather than having one point give the point and the other page the counterpoint. Too disjointed.

This article should be integrated into all the Jesus articles. There is no reason to lock all historically critical thought away into a little box; unlike a religion's perspectives, there is no one, distinct group that is absolutely "historical" while every other group is totally unhistorical; there are historians, but plenty of non-historians have said things that are enormously important to historical analysis of Jesus, and likewise plenty of so-called historians have said some profoundly nonsensical things about Jesus' life. I see no more reason to have a page like the one this one currently is than we would to have a "Historical Santa Claus" that critically analyzes the Santa-myth, or a "Historical George W. Bush" that examines his life from a historical perspective; whether the New Testament is a reliable historical account (George) or not (Santa), pushing aside all the historical viewpoints into a separate article just does harm to every other article for lack of those views, and does a disservice to the readers of the Jesus series of articles. -Silence 09:34, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

From a NPOV, the "historical Jesus" as a concept is one that takes up a lot of time for seminary students (such as myself). There is a lot of emotion in it, and seeing as WikiPedia is attempting to catalogue information, there's a use in putting things like "The Resurrection" in the article. The "event" itself the subject of much study (See things like THe Shroud of Turn or books like The Case for the Crucifixion, etc..) Additionally, the whole point of (trying not to use the word 'silly') projects like The Jesus Seminar, Bultmann's demythologizing, or The Quest for the Historical Jesus was to deny the Resurrection in the first place. By including it as a subject of discussion, I think you go a long way towards a happy compromise where people who dislike the Nestorian type views at least see themselves represented. --User:Michael Hollinger (no page yet!) 29 October 2005

Yes, sorry for using the word "silly" and other unnecessarily strong language. But anyway, straight to the meat: I never once argued against the inclusion of any of those views, I argued against the inclusion of them in this article. Since they're valid interpretations of the Gospels/New Testament, they belong in New Testament views of Jesus' life along with the religious views. To do otherwise is POV not only because it tries to segregate all views that aren't mainstream Christian into a separate article (even though both articles are quite short and could thus easily be merged), but also because it suggests that a religious view is inherently unhistorical (even if it is, we shouldn't state so in our article titles). And if religious views aren't unhistorical, we just get into even more redundancy. I'm fine with most of the Jesus articles being distinct from one another in the way that they are, but this one alone (along with the stubtastic Jesus in the Christian Bible) I object to, not only for the many reasons listed above, but also because the more articles we have on a single subject, the harder it is for readers to find and understand and navigate information on that subject, and the harder it is to keep all that information at a high level of quality because of the ridiculous (sorry, I have to say it again at this point, because that's what it is) perspective some people have that only a single certain article they're working on is important, and even extremely closely-related articles or articles elaborating sections of the article in question don't matter because they're not on the same page; this is how inconsistencies breed and grow and take over whole articles on Wikipedia. We shouldn't have distinct articles just for the hell of it; historicity of Jesus should be where we discuss the historicalness of Jesus' existence, and New Testament view of Jesus' life should be where we discuss the Gospel accounts of actual events in Jesus' life (exactly like this one does) and the interpretations and analysis of those events. -Silence 02:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

• Take a look at User:Peter Kirby/Historical Jesus; I think it is ready to supplement/replace this article. What do you think? User:Ben Standeven; 70.242.134.198 21:15, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, most of that looks pretty fantastic. Something like that would start us on the road to solving most of the problems I mentioned above. I say be bold, I can't wait to start editing it, and it'll certainly get people's attention faster than a Talk comment. -Silence 02:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

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And another relevant sampling from the discussion in Talk:Historicity of Jesus

How Do We Get This Page Out Of "Dispute"?

At time of writing, I see no reason to describe this article as either non-neutral or factually inaccurate. As far as I can see, the article is written in a meticulously neutral way - and in every case in which some information is used, the sources are given. It may not be perfect - but its as good as most other articles in these respects.

What is the procedure for removing the notice to say that the neutrality and factual accuracy of the page is in dispute? I suppose I could just edit the page and remove it - but I think it would be better if whoever believes that this notice should be there would come forward and say why - otherwise they will just restore a previous version of the page or start an edit war. Gordon Lallis.

I dispute the assertion that most Jews consider "Jesus" real - perhaps only in this century we won't be killed for expressing that there is no human framework to the myth of "Jesus" - which should quiet the otherworldy claims. - Sparky 14:13, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Even Albert Schweitzer couldn't conclude that Jesus was "real", and he wrote a book on The Historical Jesus that is still highly regarded. As a Christian, he was highly motivated to take the question seriously and try to get a defensible positive answer. So how much difference does it make that some number of Jews affirm his reality? If we are comparing numbers of scholars to numbers of scholars it might well be relevant. But in this case, forgive me if I'm wrong, we do not even have real statistics, just somebody's "feeling" that most Jews believe that a historically important man named Jesus existed. So what? (By the way, Schweitzer didn't get killed but he did get restricted from preaching by the Lutheran Church for a while, and that was during the first half of the 20th century). P0M 15:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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This is clearly a case of cluttered information. Why not opt for simplicity? All Christian interpretations under Jesus, and everything else under Yehoshua (or some acceptable alternative). Scientz 17:31, 1 November 2005 (EST)

In no way do I support what you are suggesting. This looks like a POV fork to me! - Ta bu shi da yu 03:12, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Completely unacceptable; we already have an article for Christian views of Jesus, to try to remove all historical information from Jesus would be to cripple the article horribly. The point of the Jesus article is to present every major perspective in brief, and link to articles like historical Jesus for the more in-depth analysis of each one. -Silence 03:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'm starting to get the picture. I'll archive this under a user page until I finish what I wanted to do with it, then we'll see. Till then, I have no interest in sparking an edit war. Scientz 00:04, 2 November 2005 (EST)

Sounds good. So we agree, at least for now, to make this a redirect page, and to discuss incorporating the valuable information into articles like historical Jesus and names and titles of Jesus? -Silence 05:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll support that. --Fire Star 05:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll support that as well. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Supported. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:13, 3 November 2005 (UTC)