Talk:Historical reliability of the Gospels/Archive 5

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summarize historicity of gospels

I added this to the lead:

Prominent, mainstream historians consider the synoptic gospels to have serious historical value. They affirm the existence of Jesus and the religious movement he founded, and they look to the gospels for historical information about both. They also identify sections and elements of the gospels as additions from early church oral tradition. Mark, the first of the four gospels, narrates the historically authentic baptism, preaching, and crucifixion of Jesus. Matthew and Mark follow Mark's narrative, with some changes, and add substantial amounts of Jesus' ethical teaching, such as the golden rule. They also add some details that historians largely discount, such as the Christmas story. The fourth gospel, John, includes a number of historically reliable details, but it differs greatly from the first three gospels, and historians largely discount it. The canonical gospels, overall, have more historically authentic content than the various noncanonical gospels.

Sander, Vermes, Ehrman, Harris, and Crossan are prominent, mainstream historical experts on this topic, and this seems to summarize their views. We could easily add a lot more detail. Leadwind (talk) 04:51, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

A good summary to the content of the article so far. I think I successfully incorporated your addition to the lead with the next paragraph as they said the same thing a few times (with the latter containing references.) I didn't carry in the "Christ of faith vs Jesus of history" and "Christians thing...while..." from the paragraph as I believe that is specifically historical Jesus (noting the leads are similar right now) and that is not the intention off this article. If you disagree that the sentences should have remained, feel free to work it into the paragraph again. --Ari (talk) 06:39, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I felt the new sentence was necessary to explain the "Jesus of history, Christ of faith" dichotomy. Now that the lede no longer refers to this dichotomy, the sentence isn't necessary. Your reworking of those two paragraphs works pretty well. Leadwind (talk) 14:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

As a bystander I just want to thank both of you for improving the article just in the past couple of days. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:43, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

this article is pretty terrible

This article covers a lot of territory without clearly describing the historicity of the canonical gospels. Scholars have a pretty good idea of what in the gospels is legit (e.g., Jesus' baptism, parables, crucifixion, etc.) and what does not satisfy current historical demands (e.g., Jesus' stilling the storm). Like many articles on sensitive topics, it depicts the whole issue as wide open, without clearly stating the mainstream scholarly view.

Leadwind (talk) 04:00, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This article covers the territory set out by treatments of the question of historicity of the gospels. Salient points of these are the five categories listed, as found in scholarly treatments of the question. The purpose is to do something new with the article, answering the questions as set out by verifiable sources as opposed to near identical article to Historical Jesus which is a different (although still related) topic. --Ari (talk) 09:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

That's no reason for the article to be so vague. It should be clear and informative. It should tell the reader what in the gospels is considered historically authentic and what is considered inauthentic. It should also summarize information from closely related articles (e.g., historical Jesus). Leadwind (talk) 14:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This article isn't vague, but it deals with how verifiable sources treat the question of historicity. In this regard, the emphasis is on the points raised such as genre. The scope of this article isn't to content fork historical Jesus.

Btw, good work on authorship today. --Ari (talk) 06:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. And you and I don't have to agree that the article is vague, so long as you support my efforts to make it less vague. Leadwind (talk) 14:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the suggestion that the article should tell the reader what in the gospels is considered (by reliable sources) to be historically authentic and what is considered by some to be inauthentic. Perhaps we could include a table of all the major events in the gospels, with an indication of which are considered authentic, and which are questioned, and by whom, and so forth? We could then wiki-link each event to its own dedicated main article, as just about every event in the gospels already has one, and then include the detail in the separate articles where necessary. Wdford (talk) 19:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The table could probably work rather well. I think I have come across a table of the events in the gospels (or at least in one gospel) somewhere before, so adapting that if I can find it will make it much easier. In this case, we would probably have to expand a few of the main articles but others such as nativity of Jesus seem to do a decent job. --Ari (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is the list. I don't know how to convert this into a table - perhaps somebody knows where to find the original template that this link refers to, and can copy out the content. However even if we have to do it manually, at least we have a start-point. Once we have the table, others can always add events in the gospels that might be missing. I would suggest maybe three columns to start with - a) the event in question (wiki-linked to a main article), b) whether or not its commonly accepted as authentic, and c) if its contested then who is contesting, and why etc, with references. Wdford (talk) 00:28, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

W, a table is an excellent idea. I'd split it into three subtables or sections: 1, that which is affirmed (e.g., his baptism); 2, that which is questioned (e.g., resurrection appearances); and 3. that which is largely denied (e.g., nativity stories). Leadwind (talk) 04:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

W, here's the start of table. Folks can start filling it in, or we should start a project page. Leadwind (talk) 05:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for the Table, Leadwind. I have moved it to a new section at the end, to make it more accessible for editing as the project rolls out. I would like to suggest that we keep it always at the end (i.e. enter all new comments above it for a week or so) until its uploaded into the article? Hopefully that won't take too long. Wdford (talk) 10:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

TABLE

Many thanks for the Table, Leadwind. I have moved it to a new section at the end, to make it more accessible for editing as the project rolls out. I would like to suggest that we keep it always at the end (i.e. enter all new comments above it for a week or so) until its uploaded into the article? Hopefully that won't take too long.

I am happy to split the events into three sections as suggested, in which case we can do away with the middle column. However maybe we better keep the middle column for now until we have consensus on which events belong in which section.

We also need to decide on a level of detail. For example the nativity stories are seriously questioned, yet some material therein is accepted as authentic, such as Jesus' mother really was named Mary. Many elements in the crucifixion story are accepted as authentic, but other elements are not (such as the graves opened and the dead saints went walking down into town). We could either a) have "crucifixion" as an "event" and then list the elements thereof in a separate column with their differing authenticity ratings, or b) we could break the crucifixion event down into its components and deal with each component as an "event" in itself. As most contesting editors seem to accept that the contested events are based on true stories but with inauthentic stuff added, I would suggest that the second option would be most viable, otherwise many events will probably be listed as "partially accepted but partially questioned", which is still somewhat vague.

Wdford (talk) 09:59, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe the table would be better as Event then Debate. Start off with what is the majority position, but in this regard every majority (if there is one in some cases) is highly debated among scholarship. Furthermore, there are the limits of historical tools - where most are generally employed positively as opposed to a negative onus. For these reason, it would be subjective and simplistic to have the middle column.

I think you are looking too deep to the crucifixion example. Although there are many details, the table need not reflect everything as there is the main page on it to go through the details. I think this table will act best as a snapshot on the debate on specifics. --Ari (talk) 02:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Event in Gospels	Historicity	Views
Nativity of John the Baptist
Nativity of Jesus (Matthew 1 & 2; Luke 1 & 2)
* Genealogy of Jesus
* Mary is Jesus mother
* Year of the birth
* Virgin birth of Jesus
* Angel speaks to Joseph
* Angel speaks to Mary
* Journey to Bethlehem
* Birth in Bethlehem
* The Visit of the Magi
* The Star of Bethlehem
* The shepherds and the angels
* Massacre of the Innocents
* The Flight into Egypt
* Settled in Nazareth
Childhood of Jesus
Baptism
Temptation
Ministry
Commissioning Apostles and Disciples
Sermon on the Mount
Miracles
Rejection
Transfiguration
Giving the Evangelical councils
Entering Jerusalem
Cursing the Fig Tree
The Temple Incident
Giving the Great Commandment
Second Coming Prophecy
Promising a Paraclete
Anointing
Last Supper
The Passion:
Arrest
Sanhedrin Trial
Before Pilate
Flagellation
Crown of Thorns
Via Dolorosa
Crucifixion
Entombment
Empty tomb
Resurrection appearances
Giving the Great Commission
Ascension

Name change

So are we going to add content related to non-canonical gospels? Have a section on Thomas et al.? That's probably better and more holistic and less of a POV fork, right? I'm OK with the name change, as long as we add content about other gospels. And outside of Thomas and perhaps Peter, scholars find very little historical reliability in any of the non-canonical gospels, so we probably don't need to add that much at all.-Andrew c ^[talk] 15:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, I don't think G in gospels should be capitalized per our MoS... -Andrew c ^[talk] 16:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Changes

This article has been badly neglected (for quite a while it seems) and covers a topic that is extremely important. I am going to try to clean it up a bit. RomanHistorian (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I have made some major changes. I have tried to, as much as possible, stay away from "modern scholars say this or that". Where I have mentioned this, I mention consensus where there seems to be some (usually in areas that are less touchy, like the existence of Jesus, his crucifixion, or the Testimonium Flavianum) and where there is divergence of opinion (like on authorship) I try to mention this disagreement and leave it there without going into detail. For most of the claims that don't have widespread scholarly agreement you can find a million good sources supporting one side and a million good sources supporting the other. Most of what the article discusses (I think) is fairly non controversial. The more touchy topics, like authorship, I have tried to make a relatively small piece of the article while emphasizing its relative unimportance. I also changed the title, as I think terms like "historicity" (instead of "historical") and "canonical" are too wonkish and technical, and might actually scare away amateurs who want to read a bit on the topic.RomanHistorian (talk) 06:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

@RomanHistorian : You certainly have made "some major changes". Most of your additional material is valuable stuff, and is most welcome. This article existed as an uneasy compromise with a Christian POV-pusher, and certainly improvements are needed. However, the fact that many modern scholars are disagreeing with the reliability of important aspects of the gospel material is the reason why this article exists at all. Unfortunately, in your efforts to de-emphasise the “touchy” areas, you have left out a lot of the material which casts doubt on the reliability of the gospel information, and have thereby produced an unbalanced discussion of this very “touchy” topic. Rather than simply reverting you, I am trying to add back the key elements of the “disagreement”, although more discussion of these “disagreements” is still needed in order to produce a balanced account. Please could you be a bit less bold about unilaterally deleting “touchy” material, as other editors might get a bit “touchy” about that. Thanks and regards Wdford (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no reason to delete "touchy" material. Wikipedia is not censored. On the other hand, we have WP:NPOV which says that articles should have all points of view. There is no need to avoid the so-called "touchy" point of view. It would do no harm to Timmy the kid if he got an all round view of the Gospels. I too have no objection to addition of sourced content if it is relevant. I am trying to do an assesment of what has been reverted, but it looks too complicated to sort out. Still, I am trying.....-Civilizededucation^talk 08:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree, and I didn't delete the "touchy" material, I just avoided going into detail on it. It doesn't help the article to say that "many scholars say this" and use 10 sources to show this, and then balance it with "but many scholars say that" and use another 10 sources. In other areas, like the Testimonium Flavianum, scholarly opinion is so one-sided that there isn't much risk of that (unless one were to use fringe sources I suppose). My goal was to make the article as comprehensive as possible, not delve into the nuances of scholarly debate. There are other, more specific articles, from which these nuances can be better examined.RomanHistorian (talk) 14:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the changes should be reverted. Then you could add or discuss the new material which you want to add. It is too complicated to sort out what has been lost.-Civilizededucation^talk 17:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the normal Wikipedia prodecure is to not to remove sourced content. Secondly, if it is undesirable for some reason, it is common to place it on the talk page for others to recover it if they desire to do so.-Civilizededucation^talk 08:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I intend to revert the changes. They are unacceptable because they have removed too much sourced content.-Civilizededucation^talk 07:57, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

We can bring back the sourced content easily. Much of that sourced content wasn't even deleted but reorganized. Most of what was in the article before is now in the sections on historical reliability and authorship. Most of the rest is an addition of material. The article before was poorly organized, left out a vast amount of material on the topic, said nothing on external ancient sources, archeology, canonization, and little on textual criticism. It had been neglected for much of the year. Rather than starting a revert war by reverting the entire thing, lets come to a consensus on what to bring back. We can bring back all of the sources easily because none of the topic or points they addressed were removed. Much of it (the wording and sources) I retained but moved around in this version. Mostly this article is a reorganization of the prior article and an addition of new topics.RomanHistorian (talk) 08:18, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Only the views of experts in textual criticism are needed in this article. The rest of the views are unnecessary.-Civilizededucation^talk 08:51, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that much of what RomanHistorian has added is valuable, and should be kept. However, it is a bit unbalanced as it stands, so we need to add even more so as to develop a good article, and just delete the few elements that are off the point etc. Let's leave all the good stuff in, and just clean up what needs cleaning. What we MUST guard against at all costs, is allowing POV-pushers to turn this article into yet another waffle about "historical method", to the extent that the actual historical reliability of the gospels is no longer addressed at all. Wdford (talk) 09:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your support, I appreciate it. When I finished making the changes and read through it, I realized that it seemed to have a bit of a POV in some areas. That wasn't my intention, and I agree that it still needs to be tweaked on this.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:17, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I wasn't suggesting that we turn this into an article on methodologies. I think that the textual criticism experts are the most reliable sources on this topic.-Civilizededucation^talk 12:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

So issues like archeology, how the four gospels were selected when compared to all the others, and external sources agreeing or disagreeing with what the gospels say is irrelevant on the question of their historical reliability? I think these issues are definitely critical for the issue, and this is why most books that address the topic (both Christian and skeptic) address these issues. Even Ehrman, for example, addresses these issues to varying degrees in his books. You simply cannot describe the issue without these discussions. This is not an article on textual criticism, so information beyond textual criticism is directly relevant. Textual criticism can only address a limited range of issues, mostly those concerning whether the gospels we have today are the same as they were when they were first written. It can say nothing about whether the process those four gospels were chosen was legitimate or arbitrary/political (that is addressed by the issue of canonization) or whether they were reliable accounts when they were written (this concerns authorship and external sources like archeology and Pagan confirmation or contradiction of certain facts).RomanHistorian (talk) 19:11, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing

There is a lot of material which has been sourced from the NT. I am going to remove them all. It is all OR. There are numerous other problems in using the NT. There are numerous other primary sources here. They also need to be removed for the same reason. Then there is F.F. Bruce. His work is totally undesirable.-Civilizededucation^talk 17:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

F. F. Bruce is undesirable how? Judging by his bio, he seems to be a pretty good and well-regarded scholar.RomanHistorian (talk) 18:13, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Because he is an evangelical apologist. His writing will be mistaken as typical scholarly writing, which it is not.-Civilizededucation^talk 02:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

He is a scholar (just look at his Wikipedia page to see how well published and well regarded his scholarship is). Everyone has a personal persuasion on the matter. No one is neutral on the issue of religion. This is why more sources are better than fewer. I agree that usage of him, or anyone else for that matter, should be limited.RomanHistorian (talk) 03:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

We can't leave out Christian authors and sources - they make up the bulk of the sources on these subjects, and their contributions are largely valid and valuable. However, on a subject as sensitive (and unprovable) as religion, we need to ensure that the religious affiliations of all sources are noted, so that readers can judge their contribution in context. For example, on the equally-sensitive topic of Gaza, a statement from a Palestinian source would have a different context to a statement from an Israeli source, and so we should point out "Palestinian activist X says that ...", or "Israeli army spokesman Z says that ..." I see no reason why we should not add a few extra words to our quotes, along the lines of "Historian and Christian evangelist X says that ..." Wdford (talk) 09:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I have a quibble with the "Historian X...." in the sense that I would want to add "Historian and Professor of scripture/divinity/whatever" etc.-Civilizededucation^talk 13:05, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Bruce is a bit antiquated, but was a big name in scholarship, even if representing a conservative/minority POV. I guess, depending on what is being said, we do need to take some caution or add qualifying terms. I think we should focus on specific content, not discuss generally the background (or publishers) of sources. Is there any content that you dispute? That you feel is given undue weight? Any content that needs qualification or should be removed? If we can focus on specifics, we can work to directly improve the article in the immediate. -Andrew c ^[talk] 14:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Many of the claims that had been made by F. F. Bruce were just removed by Wdford, so this shouldn't be much of an issue anymore. I do, by the way, agree with those removals. I probably went a bit over the deep end on some of his claims.RomanHistorian (talk) 21:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Sir William Ramsay, who had once set out to disprove Luke's claims, later became an apologist for him and said "this author should be placed along the greatest of historians. Let's take them up one by one if you want. What does William Ramsay, I mean-his field of expertise, have to do with reliability of the Gospels? How is his opinion of importance in this article? All of Bruce's views seem to be based on specious reasoning.-Civilizededucation^talk 12:56, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Ramsay was a significant biblical scholar whose work centered around Luke/Acts, and he is commenting on a topic directly relevant to the topic of the title: the historical reliability of (a) gospel. As for Bruce, given that he was one of the most cited and important biblical scholars in the mid 20th century, he can hardly be said to have based his views on specious reasoning. Most of his claims were removed already by Wdford in any case. What of his remaining claims do you specifically object to?RomanHistorian (talk) 18:53, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

As you can see in my above post, I have extracted the last line of the article. It is sourced from F.F. Bruce. From what I can see of William Ramsay, he is a chemist. Do you have anything to show that he was a qualified biblical scholar? Saying something on the basis of what Ramsay says is specious reasoning because he is not an expert in this field. Even if he were an expert, saying something without showing good reasons is a false logic because it is an appeal to authority. For Bruce's reasoning to be good, he should have quoted a biblical expert instead of a chemist. As for being important in 20th century, it does not matter. His views are only important if they are currently mainstream. His views are in a minority today. He just writes as if the NT is the infallible word of god and shows no objectivity. Scholars are supposed to be objective and aid in the advancement of knowledge. That is the scholars' agenda. But Bruce seems to have a different agenda. His writing seems to just retail the NT in any possible way. That is the impression which I have of his writing and I would be taking up all the material sourced from him because of this reason. For now, please establish how Ramsay is a biblical scholar? I can't find any indication of this in the article on him.-Civilizededucation^talk 20:21, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

You are looking at the wrong William Ramsay. The biblical scholar is William Mitchell Ramsay while the chemist is William Ramsay.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

But this one is also an apologist. Which means one apologist quoting another. I don't see how this could be of value. Secondly, Luke is now known to have fudged up the dating of the Nativity by making a self contradictory claim. In light of this, it appears an inconsistency to proclaim that he was the greatest of historians.-Civilizededucation^talk 08:37, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

We can't simply ignore the views of scholars who agree with the verifiability of various claims in the gospels. Maybe you could add a quote to balance out this one? Something about the Nativity dating perhaps? I myself have doubts about the Nativity stories in both Luke and Matthew, although Luke does seem to be accurate in different areas as well. RomanHistorian (talk) 15:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I am trying. Given some time, I should be able to do it.-Civilizededucation^talk 16:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

If we look at this [1] version of the article on Luke, we find quite a lot of material on Luke's shortcomings as a historian (the section on "secular views of Luke as an historian"). We could copy some of it from there. Could you find a more recent comment on Luke being a great historian?-Civilizededucation^talk 14:12, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

We could also use page 6 of this [2] book.-Civilizededucation^talk 16:00, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

The quote from John McRay comes from 1998, which is fairly recent. Should we add another one?RomanHistorian (talk) 20:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Removed some material adduced from the NT and other primary sources.

I think the quote from McRay is good. But the one from FF Bruce should be either removed or replaced with some other quote.-Civilizededucation^talk 12:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

There is more material from FF Bruce related to apologizing for the legitimacy of miracles and inerrancy of the Bible, etc. All this also needs proper balancing.-Civilizededucation^talk 12:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

RomanHistorian says, re Bruce: "He is a scholar (just look at his Wikipedia page to see how well published and well regarded his scholarship is). Everyone has a personal persuasion on the matter." He's a sectarian scholar with minority views and we shouldn't cite him alongside scholars who represent the mainstream consensus. While it's curious to see a Christian advocating relativism by saying that all scholars are alike because all scholarship is "personal persuasion," but that's not WP policy at all. WP policy is to use mainstream, majority-view scholars as the basis of the article with sectarian views covered only to the extent that their notability warrants it. Minority-view editors like to equate minority-view scholars with the mainstream scholars, but that's not the WP way. Leadwind (talk) 03:40, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

As we are discussing elsewhere, we can't just disregard scholars who aren't skeptical enough. I am fine with making more modifications to his quotes, but we can't simply reject scholarship from scholars who happen to be Christian. If you want to discuss this further, it would be best to do it in the thread below.RomanHistorian (talk) 06:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

undue weight

The article seems to give undue weight to sectarian publishers (e.g., InterVarsity Press) and to conservative scholars (e.g., Guthrie). The plain findings of academic research are here muddled with Christian apologism. Leadwind (talk) 04:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that we absolutely must include Christian voices here. However, not all Christians are Bible worshipers; some are quite comfortable accepting neutral scholarship even when contradicts a literal interpretation of some parts of the Bible. By including these more progressive sectarian voices, we avoid the problem of having a purely secular article, while also avoiding the current problem of undue weight. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 06:28, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no objection to christian/non christian authors. The objection is only to apologistic sources.-Civilizededucation^talk 06:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

How do we determine when a Christian author is an apologist? Dylan Flaherty (talk) 06:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Apologetics would be WP:QS. If there is a disagreement on particular authors being apologists, we can turn to looking at what the RS have to say or go to the RS noticeboard.-Civilizededucation^talk 10:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

We can freely include Christians who practice higher criticism (e.g., Crossan). For Christians who represent a dissenting voice from higher criticism, we can include them if we differentiate them as a notable POV that differs from the academic mainstream. Leadwind (talk) 14:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Current?

New Testament scholar Graham Stanton summarises the current dominant view by stating that "the gospels are now widely considered to be a sub-set of the broad ancient literary genre of biographies. Even if the evangelists were largely ignorant of the tradition of Greek and Roman biographies, that is how the gospels were received and listened to in the first decades after their composition." This dosen't appear to be current to me. And does Stanton actually say that this is the current dominant view?-Civilizededucation^talk 22:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't add that. That was part of the article before I did anything. I don't know who added it or where it came from. What issue do you have with it? I believe it is a current view. The fact that the gospels have a major biographical element I think isn't something people disupte.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:24, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I have always been concerned in particular about the sentence that seems to be saying that people considered the gospels to be biographical, even if the evangelists themselves didn't intend them to be biographical. Surely the intention of the author is paramount in determining the genre of the work? Wdford (talk) 05:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and I do see a bit of a contradiction on that. It might be possible to salvage that quote, although I am not sure how. My best guess is that their intent was not completely biographical. I have heard more compelling definition of the "gospel" genre that include biography, history, theology, and a few other types of work. I think the focus here should not be the unanswerable question of the genre intentions of the evangelists (although I may be wrong on this one and there may be better sources on this question than I am aware), but rather on what the final product looks like. I agree that the final product has elements of biography but they are not strictly biographies and have other elements as well. In my opinion anyway, the ultimate paramount question is the genre of the final form, and how important the intention of the evangelists is depends on how much scholars know (or can infer) of their intentions. RomanHistorian (talk) 05:54, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It was never my intention to make out that you had anything to do with the inclusion of this quote. You can see that I have mentioned this in a separate thread. It is just an issue that I want to be discussed and surely there may be other issues like these.-Civilizededucation^talk 08:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe Elaine Pagels has said that the gospels are a peculiar type of literature and quite unlike any other type of literature. I am trying to find the quote.-Civilizededucation^talk 08:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Ehrman's textbook says "The Gospels are best seen as ancient biographies of Jesus." p.65 Brown has a more thorough discussion on the topic, saying the genre most closely associated with the gospels is ancient biography, and while the modern scholar can clearly pick out differences, it is most likely an ancient reader would not have been so precise. Brown also discusses a few counter views but does not find them convincing. Meier, in a footnote summarizes "All these works--though with different emphases--favor the view that the canonical Gospels are a special form of ancient biography." And goes on to present his personal view that they qualify as a distinct genre, while acknowledging similarities to Greco-Roman biographies and Jewish literature. I wonder what Harris has to say. I'd be interesting to see CE's sources. It may be best to describe the situation "Most scholars feel the canonical gospels most closely fit into the broad genre of "ancient biographies", while acknowledging considerable differences such as anonymity of the authors, their theological and missionary goals, and their use in community worship." -Andrew c ^[talk] 16:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Long story short, I feel Stanton is doing a good job summarizing and perhaps we don't need to change it at all. -Andrew c ^[talk] 17:00, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

It's Friedricksen who said this.[3] Please also see what the other scholars say.-Civilizededucation^talk 17:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

That link doesn't appear to be discussing literary genre. And the genre described as "ancient biography" is clearly different from biographies written today. I don't see a conflict. Maybe we should describe what an "ancient biography" entails, and note the differences from Brown, so we don't mislead the reader into thinking they are akin to contemporary biography. -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Fredriksen discusses her view in more detail on p. 178 of From Jesus to Christ. She describes Mark as a "historical biography" with significant qualifications, to the point she thinks the gospels should be their own category of literary genre. Koester also argues on defining gospel in a board, yet unique manner. I can probably list dozens of scholars who may not agree 100% with the "ancient biography" categorization, but we have multiple sources saying it is the most common view among scholars, or the "best fit", with no sources suggestion that the majority view is otherwise. Hopefully we can all agree that Stanton, Brown, Meier, Ehrman are all qualified to discuss what most scholars feel, and then we can move on to discussing how and if we should present the minority views. I think detailed discussion of literary genre of the gospels should go in another article, say gospel. -Andrew c ^[talk] 19:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that detailed discussion of genre etc. is unnecessary. It leads to unnecessary complications. For our purposes it should be enough to say that the gospels are religious texts and problematic as historical sources?-Civilizededucation^talk 08:03, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

That they are religious texts is obvious, and no ancient historical document is un-problematic in some way. I agree that this issue shouldn't be discussed in depth, but the issue of genre is an important one, and as such I think it is important to come to an agreement on what the genre "gospel" is. I could cite sources on this, but I will just say that the best definition of the "gospel" genre I have seen is that it is a broad and difficult to define genre that includes elements of biography, historiography, and theology. I think we can all agree that it includes elements of these, so I think we should just go with this and not focus too much on this issue.RomanHistorian (talk) 14:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

This is important to me, because it has been happening on multiple articles from different editors on both sides of the spectrum. Attempts to temper or outright remove the mainstream view to cater to minority views. It is verifiable that most scholars feel the genre is most closely related to "ancient biography" with various caveats. We should not remove that information because CE thinks the texts are too religious and cites a single scholar to back them up. I think a good compromise is what I prosed earlier, mention that "ancient biography" is the best fit for most scholars, then point out some of the differences found in Brown (or Fredriksen or whoever). I'd like to see what RH's sources have to say if it will help focus our content, but I feel what we have now is sufficient. -Andrew c ^[talk] 15:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I am still not convinced that it is necessary to say that the gospels belong to a genre of literature. I don't quite see the point in going through the whole exercise of first saying that they belong to the genre of ancient biographies and then going on to say that they are not biographies and then going on to note the differences etc. Anyway, let's see how you would do it.-Civilizededucation^talk 13:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Well and good, provided that we somehow clarify that "ancient biographies" are not the same as "modern biographies", in that "ancient biographies" knowingly and deliberately also incorporated myth, propaganda, outright lies and other stuff of a non-historic nature. Wdford (talk) 20:03, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Not true. Herodotus (writing in the 5th century BC) for example tells us of the pains he took in order to separate heresy and myth from fact in the sources he consulted when writing his history of the Persian Wars. Same with Plutarch, when writing his biographies in the 2nd century AD. The ancients were just as capable as us in separating the two. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say that, maybe non-historical epics like the Iliad. But good ancient historians gave us legitimate history. Its a good thing to, otherwise we would know little about ancient history.RomanHistorian (talk) 02:59, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I see the point now. I am trying to find some more sourced stuff.-Civilizededucation^talk 02:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

One book I once read made the point that the gospels are biographies but Hellenistic biographies. You see a good deal in common between the two. For example, neither usually say much about a person's early life or defining experiences like modern biographies do, but rather focus mostly on the key event or events that made them an historically important person. One trait that derives from this is that the authors typically have no interest in chronology. They arrange their book in order to place events in order of importance, leading to the climax, rather than chronologically. Hellenistic biographies and the gospels both seem to be first and foremost about illustrating a point, rather than simply describing the life of a person. In Plutarch’s biography of Cincinnatus, for example, Plutarch's main trust is not to tell about Cincinnatus but rather to illustrate the virtues of patriotism, humility, and republican government. John gives his reason explicitly: so that you may believe. In the case of the gospels overall, the focal point is on the Gospel ("good news") of Jesus Christ (not Jesus himself), and Jesus' ministry is used to illustrate and define this point.

Also, both Hellenistic biographies and the gospels paraphrase the person rather than quote them directly (Ipsissima verba vs. Ipsissima vox). This is why, for example, the fact that there are apparent disagreements between the gospels on Jesus' last words isn't a contradiction because the authors were paraphrasing. Or in another example, Appian doesn't tell us specifically what Mark Antony said at Caesar's funeral (ipsissima verba) but paraphrases and gives us a report on what he said (ipsissima vox). Because they are arranged differently and the authors operated in a different cultural environment, they seem to us to be strange or even fictional. Hellenistic biographies are written to illustrate a point and use a person's life to do this. Modern biographies focus on the person and often have moral points along with the biography but these are secondary. This isn't to say that the Hellenistic method is a mixture of history and fake history (it isn't, although there were bad ancient authors much like there are bad modern authors who might mix in fake history) but rather that the style was different so it seems strange, even propagandistic to us.

It might be a good idea to elaborate on the genre question here by drawing on scholarly material from other Hellenistic biographies. Plutarch would certainly be the best place to focus, although Suetonius and maybe Livy would be good also.RomanHistorian (talk) 21:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, some more people seem to think it is propoganda.[4]. In the earlier source which I produced, White and Fredriksen seem to have similar ideas.-Civilizededucation^talk 02:38, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Did I miss something? Is the idea that the contrary accounts of what Jesus said on the cross aren't really contradictions because he didn't say any of that anyway and the evangelists were just elaborating their stories? I thought that there was at least some support for the idea that he called out in despair, though Luke carefully cuts that out of his gospel (along with other stuff of Mark's he didn't agree with). Leadwind (talk) 03:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Little of Mark's material was ignored by Luke. As for your question on the contrary accounts, you are correct that they aren't contradictions. Part of the genre of ancient Hellenistic Biographies (see Plutarch for example) was to paraphrase people rather than quote them verbatim. The paraphrase had to relay the right idea, context, ideology and mood of what the original quote was, although didn't have to use the exact same words. The author couldn't claim the person said something when he didn't or paraphrase out of context. Doing so would be the same to an ancient audience as misquoting out of context would be to a modern audience. This is standard and common knowledge amongst historians of ancient Greece and Rome and is hardly controversial. It is also hardly regarded by these ancient historians as reasons to doubt the biographical works. The question is if the author and sources were reliable, not whether their literary style seemed strange to us.RomanHistorian (talk) 06:44, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

We really need to explain this "paraphrasing" business much better in the article. Either Jesus actually said it (in which case it is historical) or Jesus didn't say it, but a biased reporter working from third-hand accounts 70 years later thought Jesus OUGHT to have said it, and thus put words in his mouth (which is not historical at all). Jesus last words were probably "ouch ouch, it hurts, I give up, I promise not to cause any more riots if you let me go" but you can't base a profitable religion on such last words, so the reporters made up something more APPROPRIATE (i.e. paraphrased). Does this seems like an important distinction to anybody else besides me? Wdford (talk) 09:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The Jesus Seminar seems to be agreeable with you. They said less than 20% of the sayings attributed to Jesus are really his own.-Civilizededucation^talk 09:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Jesus spoke aramaic, and the gospels are in greek. How can they not be paraphrising. Moreover, they are all based of heresy/heresy about heresy, heresy about heresy about heresy.... How can they be accurate. My impression is that all of Jesus followers fled during the crucification. Now, who would record his last words?-Civilizededucation^talk 11:07, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like we should say that most of what's recorded as Jesus' verbatim words is actually the paraphrase of the evangelists. We can even add that scholars sometimes identify short phrases that appear to be close to Jesus' original words and are therefore the seed of the paraphrase. Leadwind (talk) 14:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No this isn't what I said. I said paraphrasing was a common technique in the ancient world. What quotes were verbatium and what were paraphrasing? Who knows. Maybe Mark's account of Jesus' last words is correct verbatim, maybe it was a paraphrase that got the spirit of what he said. No one knows. Claims that we can "know" what he said versus what is paraphrased versus what is made up is illusory. We simply cannot know. Some scholars can guess but no one would agree on anything, so we would have a million sources saying a million things. As for this supposedly being heresy, remember Luke 1:1-4 says that he is referencing the written testimony of eyewitnesses, some of whom are still alive. Its not heresy but the accounts of eyewitnesses.

I also think your leap from paraphrasing to 'biased reporting' is too big of a jump. Paraphrasing isn't about making things up, or claiming someone said something you think they should have. If I, for example, tell a coworker that "I might be late tomorrow because of a doctors appointment", and that person tells someone else "because of a medical appointment, he might be late coming into work tomorrow", the person is paraphrasing and relaying the spirit of what I said (ispissima vox) though not precisely what I said (ispsissima verba). This isn't making anything up. This is part of the problem in understanding an ancient writing genre: it seems so strange to us as to be worth little. You just have to understand the genre and why the differences are what they are. If we dismissed this stuff outright because of paraphrasing, we would know almost nothing about a great deal of ancient topics. This isn't exactly a controversial fact in ancient history studies nor in biblical studies. There are plenty of sources that vouch for the reliability of paraphrased quotes in ancient documents as well as the bible.RomanHistorian (talk) 02:47, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

All very intersting in its own right, but in the article we already have a number of experts who clearly state that these ancient biographies knowingly incorporated myth, and made no attempt to be "purely" historical. Further, regarding Herodotus, while his work may be largely historical, he also made many mistakes - for example, he wrote that the Great Pyramid was built by a workforce of slaves and that King Khufu was actually buried elsewhere, both of which are hysterically denied by modern Egyptologists. Even modern biographies show clear bias, even though they are required to adhere to "the facts" - so how accurate would be a biography written by a worshipper? If you look at the actual Sayings of Jesus on the cross, they are very different - this is not paraphrasing, this is clear contradiction. And as for Luke claiming that he is reporting eyewitness testimony - a) Did Luke even write that gospel to begin with? b) If he did, was Luke telling the truth? c) If he was, did the "eyewitnesses" tell Luke the truth to begin with, and d) To what extent has this gospel been "varnished" by biased churchmen in the 2000 years since then? Every fraudster writes at the bottom of his advertisement: "This is a genuine product that really works, honest it does! Trust me!" Wdford (talk) 08:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

According to Luke 1:1-4 "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." Whether Luke wrote this or not is not relevant. Whoever the author was says outright he wasn't an eyewitness and that he has carefully investigated everything, including eyewitness accounts that had been part of a corpus of eyewitness writings which "many have undertaken to draw up". This is a standard "mission statement" amongst ancient writers like Tacitus and Plutarch. Luke is certainly the most Hellenistic of the gospels. Only he mentions Roman emperors by name (Augustus, Tiberius and Claudius, including "Caesar" which refers to Nero). Only he uses synchronisms, which was the standard dating method in antiquity (i.e. "In the time of Herod king of Judea"). Only he takes the pains to refer to officials and military leaders by their appropriate title. He, for example, gets the title of Pontius Pilate right even though Plutarch gets it wrong. There are many other examples of course. My point is that Luke was at least as reliable as the best ancient historians. He makes a large number of claims that can be verified independently today, and as such shows himself to be very interested in the facts. You also have Paul, writing decades before Luke, vouching for the main thrust off all the gospels. Paul does this in letters to churches while claiming that hundreds of eyewitnesses (many of whom would read Paul's letters as he sent the letters to them) to these events are still alive.

As for later church leaders polishing it to fit in with their theological views, this certainly didn't happen. This is actually a pretty non-controversial case as well. If they had done that, they couldn't have destroyed all earlier copies as they were copied over and over and spread throughout the known world quickly (though John was written between 90-100, a fragment of his was discovered in Egypt that dates from only twenty years later). Thus today, we would have "progeny" of these different versions, and could see where the differences were made. There are no meaningful differences in what we have. This is, of course, only relevant for the first couple of centuries, since by around 300 AD we have complete copies of the entire New Testament that survive today to compare modern versions to directly. This would make sense, as the Christians and Jews, then as now, viewed their scriptures with upmost seriousness and sacredness. They would have viewed the option of altering these documents as sacrilegious at best. Just look at the fact that almost nothing in the Old Testament has been altered since at least before 200 BC or so, as complete copies of the entire OT (minus Ester) were discovered at Qumran and with the Dead Sea Scrolls. One good example of the seriousness of the gospel writers in adhering to the facts can be found at the end of John. The author says Jesus was given sour wine, and refers to a Psalm where something similar happened to David. The Psalm doesn't claim to be a prophecy, and has David given sour vinegar and bitter food. Why invent something to fill a non-prophecy? Even if he was going to, why not just say outright sour vinegar and bitter food. Or, if the event really did happen, why not fudge things a bit and say sour vinegar instead of sour wine? The reason is because the author viewed this with such seriousness that skewing the facts would have been unacceptable. If they were going to fudge the facts, then I can think of a good number of things they should have fudged if they wanted to "market" themselves. Why, for example, portray Peter (the "rock of the church") in such a negative light? Why imply that Jesus couldn't always work his miracles and may have even lost his temper? Why mention that Jesus was called "king of the Jews" thus linking him with the extremely traumatic Macabee revolt and the rebels who defended the temple in 68-69 to they end? Why show the apostles to be so flawed, especially since the church based its legitimacy off of apostolic succession? Everything I have said can be found in numerous scholarly sources and most of it is non-controversial.RomanHistorian (talk) 15:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

As for incorporating "myth", I don't know what sources you are referring to but other sources (here and elsewhere) make the distinction that ancient authors were just as accurate in reporting actual history as modern authors (though the different genre looks strange to us) but that they could be fallible and make mistakes much like modern authors. It is commonly accepted, for example, that Livy incorporates "myth" (though natural not supernatural so quasi-fake history might be a better term) into his history of early Rome. The reasons are well known: the city was sacked around 380BC and all prior records were lost. You are right that Herodotus probably makes some mistakes, although he is still thought of as being fairly accurate, and Thucydides (writing a century later) is regarded by most as one of the greatest historians in history and as being extremely accurate. This is a key point that I think people today sometimes lose track of: the ancients were just as serious about actual history as we are today. Although, just like today, there were bad historians and biographers who shouldn't be trusted. The historical-critical goal in much ancient historical studies is figuring out what can be trusted and what can't be. Most areas are much more difficult to sort through than the gospels. For example, we have three primary sources on the life of the emperor Tiberius. They almost never agree, are certainly biased and parts of the works are missing. They construct three accounts of him that are totally irreconcilable. And by this I don't just mean because they paraphrased him differently. They claim different events, different character defects, different motivations, ect. They basically construct images of three entirely different people who lived entirely different lives. Contrast this with the gospels, whose accounts pretty much agree on the major points (and even most minor ones) and the kind of issues we have to think about are issues that honestly are pretty non-controversial amongst most major scholars, like the paraphrasing of Jesus.RomanHistorian (talk) 16:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

But the Gospels that were widely accepted as authoritative in Ire- naeus’s circles were originally anonymous. The solution to the problem of validating these texts was obvious: they needed to be attributed to real, established authorities. Traditions had been floating around for decades that Matthew had written a Gospel, and so what is now our first Gospel came to be accepted as that book. Mark was thought to be a companion of Peter: our second Gospel came to be associated with him, giving Peter’s view of Jesus’ life....

....None of these attributions goes back to the authors themselves. And none of the Gospels was written by a follower of Jesus, all of whom were lower-class Aramaic speakers from Galilee, not highly educated Greek-speaking Christians of a later generation. Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted,p111.All the Gospels are anonymous and there is no way of knowing who wrote them, let alone an eyewitness-Civilizededucation^talk 14:18, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

This is the view of some scholars, although many others disagree. Most of it is conjectural, and based in a distrust of the church and the writings themselves. He says outright we can't know who wrote them, although unlike most he dismisses all of the evidence we have. If, for example, the whole thing is a lie (as Ehrman believes) then of course the gospels are fake history and the church that propagated this cannot be trusted. If you don't hold this view, however, your conclusions naturally follow a different path. Several questions are commonly raised regarding these claims in any case. The Synoptics are purely anonymous (they cite no author) but John is semi-anonymous. The author identifies himself as a disciple though not which one. The fact that they are anonymous certainly means nothing with regards to their apostolic origin, as most apocrypha, which certainly do contain fake history, claim to be written by apostles, and usually important ones (like the "Gospel of Peter" or "Acts of John"). So the question moves beyond this point.

If the early church was going to make up authors, why choose Matthew for his gospel? Being a tax collector, he would have been the most notorious and hated apostle after Judas Iscariot. Why choose Mark for his gospel? Mark was not an eyewitness and was not thought of highly. He, for example, is recorded in Acts as having abandoned Paul at a bad moment, and was probably the man who ran naked for no reason. Why not link Mark to someone more highly regarded? Why not claim it was written by an apostle? If the early church thought Mark transcribed Peter's testimony, why not link it outright to Peter (the "rock of the church") instead, as so much apocrypha had done? Presumably they could have invented apostolic origin for Luke as well, and even if they didn't, why not link him to an eyewitness of Jesus rather than Paul? Actually the whole issue of authorship of Luke is of limited value anyway, because whether it was Luke or someone else, the author outright says he was not an eyewitness and wrote his work from earlier sources. The two-source hypothesis more-or-less validates Luke's claim to have used earlier sources. The criteria used by the early church for the reliability of these documents was that it was apostolic in origin and was in wide-spread circulation by around 100 AD. There were other sources circulating that could have been taken up by the church and ascribed a fake author, and many of these painted a more favorable view of the apostles. The church didn't do this because they were known to not be apostolic, even if they claimed to be apostolic. By about 115 AD the sources agree on authorship and no one really questions this. This, of course, suggests that the issue had been discussed and settled earlier rather than having an immediate agreement just appear out of nothing. The external evidence is pretty solid, and in the case of Luke is irrelevant. Scholars who dismiss the external evidence like Ehrman conclude the claimed authors didn't write it. Scholars who don't dismiss the evidence more-or-less accept the traditional accounts. Few scholars, however, think the issue is important and most think it mostly affects the cultural context that each work was written in. As I said above, the scholarly sources go into great detail on these points.RomanHistorian (talk) 16:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent points! Firstly, the author of Luke CLAIMS he did a good job, but so does every journalist - they couldn’t sell their work otherwise. This doesn't mean he WAS correct. While Luke certainly does mention many examples of facts that have since been verified, he also mentioned that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because his family were there for the Census, which is heavily disputed and contradicts both Acts and Matthew re the dating. Luke also dates the preaching of John the Baptist to the “fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar … during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas”. This means about 29AD, although Annas ended his term in about 15AD, and there were several other high priests after Annas but before Caiaphas. When Luke in Acts 5 refers to the support of Gamaliel the Pharisee, he reports that Gamaliel spoke of the revolt of Theudas, even though Theudas only revolted about 12 years later. Gamaliel also refers to the revolts of Theudas and of Judas the Galilean in the wrong order. These were critical events in the history of the local people, and it’s incredible that Luke could live through them and yet get them wrong. Ergo, Luke wasn’t so accurate after all. I’m also exceedingly impressed by your confident statement that the church leaders never modified the gospels, because they would have been contradicted by the originals. Well, they WERE contradicted by the originals, and so the embarrassing originals were declared to be heresies and they and their owners were burned. A few copies did somehow survive – such as the gospel of Judas and the gospel of Mary Magdelaine etc – and we all know how the church looks upon these even today. Please refer to the article, under the section on textual criticism, for more examples. Your examples of the Criterion of Embarrassment are all excellent, although none of them touch on the really important stuff, and one could also argue that the churchmen left these (inconsequential) embarrassments in there so that they could claim precedent when they themselves transgressed – as they did regularly. Incidentally, “sour wine” and “sour vinegar” are exactly the same thing. Wdford (talk) 16:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Luke doesn't claim he did a good job, he claimed to reference sources and to have "investigated thoroughly". The sheer number of claims that can be verified or disproven with external evidence in Luke and Acts is massive. There are a few examples of claims that are heavily disputed, and they mostly concern the infancy narratives. The key point here is not that we can prove him wrong, but that we can't verify that he is right. There is of course a major difference between the two. There have been many other claims made by Luke that were once doubted because we couldn't verify them and had good reason to doubt them but later evidence validated Luke. Of the claims made by Luke that are disputed, there easy ways to see how he could be right. These are sometimes conjectural, but again the issue is that these claims cannot be verified, not that they can be disproven. I think it is interesting that, in doubting the four gospels, one can argue that the apocrypha, which certainly are forgeries and were written much later, are the true accounts. The two apocrypha you cited are Gnostic works, and the Gnostic ideology predates Jesus by quite a long time. The gospels you cite are simply re-workings of much older (pre-Jesus) Gnostic theologies in the guise of Jesus and possible events in his life. There are many other apocrypha to choose from if you want to argue against the four traditional works. Many of these were not Gnostic, claimed outright to have been written by important apostles, and contained a similar theology while portraying the apostles somewhat more favorably. The fact that the church rejected these outright is testimony to how interested they were in only using legitimate and apostolic writings. One such forged work (I think a claimed epistle of Paul) circulated in the 2nd century, and the church responsible was excommunicated immediately for what they did. The crime wasn't heresy but tampering with the apostolic record, even if their intentions were positive. As for why the church allowed the embarrassing details to stand, it is fruitless to try to get into the specific motives of people who have been dead for nearly 2,000 years. I can think of a million possible thoughts they had, not that it would accomplish anything. You are also ignoring the fact that A) some of the details (like the "king of the Jews" title) would have been politically dangerous and had nothing to do with precedent for transgressions and B) the apocrypha you cite are totally irreconcilable with the four gospels, thus the four are not glossings of those apocrypha but of a totally different tradition with a totally different theology (proto-orthodox Christianity verses Gnosticism).RomanHistorian (talk) 17:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to join the fray here, but I will briefly comment that RomanHistorian's arguments are becoming increasingly strained and unconvincing. They reflect a need to interpret the Bible as literally true, a need that genuine scholars do no share. RomanHistorian, you may or may not be Roman, but you're no historian. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 23:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Given the biased literature he seems to be interested in, it should be no surprise.-Civilizededucation^talk 07:04, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't view the bible as "literally true".RomanHistorian (talk) 14:27, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia at its worst

Just from the little I know about the topic (and confirmed in some of the comments below), this article is biased enough that I no longer trust what I have read here. Jeez, Louise, doesn't anybody even check the sources? I was very interested in following up on the claims that the Talmud talks about Jesus, so I followed the citations, and NONE OF THEM POINT TO THE TALMUD. One of them, in fact, points to a book of the Gospel of John, which has nothing to do with the Talmud, which was being cited. Scholarship 101, first day of class, teaches that if you're going to say that Book X says Y, then you cite the chapter and verse in Book X where it says Y! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.203.194 (talk) 10:40, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi IP, just moved your thread here because it is normal procedure to start a new thread at the bottom. Nothing serious, just to keep things orderly and systemic. Now, making a false citation is a serious issue. Most of us detest it and it is a great help if you can identify one. There are even ways to find out who made which edit. So, it might be helpful if you could point out the specific portion in the article by copying some of it here or in some other way. Then, it could be fixed. Secondly, if you find other problems with the article, we can certainly try to improve the article. Lastly, Wikipedia is a freely editable Wiki, but we trust eds and even if someone takes undue advantage, we do not extend the distrust to others. Most people are basically honest and sincere, good sense ultimately prevails.-Civilizededucation^talk 17:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

process v results

As with so many other Bible scholarship pages, this one focuses on process instead of results. Look at the last paragraph in the lead. It's incredibly boring because it only outlines the scope of the questions without offering any answers. Today scholars have a good idea of who wrote the gospels, and when, and how they were edited, etc. Defenders of the traditional POV like to bury good, clear information under a pile of abstract definitions and process because the good, clear information doesn't agree with them. But our readers deserve some good, clear information. Leadwind (talk) 15:43, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the info in the intro is relevant to the topic. Process is relevant to this topic especially.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:53, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Canonization of the gospels

I am inclined to thinking that this section is so poorly written, and in so POV a manner, that it should either be rewritten completely, or be deleted.-Civilizededucation^talk 17:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not very good, but let's try to rewrite it before giving up. The origins of the Bible are very relevant to its historical reliability. There are people I see every week in church who still believe the books of the New Testament somehow canonized themselves. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 19:25, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a lot of stuff on this page like that. There are some important basic facts about how reliable each gospel is and for what, and that message is buried under piles of non- or semi-information. Please delete with vigor. Leadwind (talk) 19:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Dylan. I can understand the importance of canonization. But the point is,--is it relevant to the historical reliability of the Gospels, which is the topic of this article? I think the answer is a "no". What do you think?-Civilizededucation^talk 01:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Indirectly. Put bluntly: if we made mistakes when it came to canonization then we may well have excluded historically reliable texts while including religiously compatible ones instead. Dylan Flaherty (talk) 04:45, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The idea that canonicity pertains to historical reliability is Christian POV. It's a basis of modern scholarship to essentially disregard canonicity (per Theissen & Merz, etc.).

Deleted it [5]. Link intended to help anyone who may want to recover something from it.-Civilizededucation^talk 16:09, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I restored it. It is well cited and is relevant to the issue (as Dylan suggested above). If you don't like something, modify it.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Canonical categories are irrelevant, per Theissen & Merz, p 11. Except for those scholars who prefer noncanonical to canonical, eg. Crossan (also per T&M). This discussion is germane to Christian tradition but not to historical reliability. Redeleted. If someone can find a mainstream RS that says that canonicity pertains to historicity, let's see it. Leadwind (talk) 00:34, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

You know, you really need to learn to respect other editors. Your entire modus operandi so far has been to delete well-cited claims you don't like. You never add counter-arguments, you just delete. If Theissen doesn't think it is relevant, add something about his view. The simple fact is that the issue is very relevant. One of the ways people like Ehrman and Pagels have sought to discredit the NT has been to attack the method of canonization. They argue that the process was arbitrary, political, or whatever. Whether the gospels were accepted as canon de facto within a few decades of Jesus' life, or whether Constantine just picked 4 random gospels is directly relevant for the question. The fact that Ehrman attacks it in his attempt to discredit the NT is proof that it is relevant in some way, even if your one author doesn't agree.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to put any value to any of your arguments. It is up to you to establish the validity of what you want to insert or reinstate. Please show an RS or just leave it. Why do we need to include irrelevencies in the article, and then also give an RS that it is irrelevant? Please talk sense.-Civilizededucation^talk 04:41, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Deleted.-Civilizededucation^talk 04:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Page numbers?

RH. Where are the page numbers of your references? eg.[6]. Why avoid giving page numbers in references? It is useful to be having a page number for anyone who wants to check it or do some further reading.-Civilizededucation^talk 01:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

My book is a kindle book so I don't have page numbers. It is in there though, in one of the first couple of chapters.RomanHistorian (talk) 04:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

In that case, please provide chapter numbers (in your references) at least. It saves on unnecessary harassment.-Civilizededucation^talk 04:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It is helpful to have page no.,name of book, year of publication, etc. Otherwise a reference appears to be cryptic and irritating. And there is a red message in reference no. 92. It may have something to do with your formatting etc.-Civilizededucation^talk 10:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Place of composition

To my way of thinking, the place of composition should be mentioned in this article. So, I want to edit them into this article. Suggestions? Comments?-Civilizededucation^talk 14:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Added the places of composition. Will provide refs soon.-Civilizededucation^talk 12:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

You move fast, but let me offer a belated "yes". Dylan Flaherty (talk) 13:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

My earlier impression about the place of composition of Luke seems to be somewhat off base. The current mainstream opinion seems to be that the place of composition is unknown. Any suggestions?-Civilizededucation^talk 08:31, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

"Luke will have been composed in a large city west of Palestine." Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz. The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press. 1998. translated from German (1996 edition). p. 32.

It is a good ref. It is preferable and proper that you may make the edit.Civilizededucation^talk 15:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Paul and oral tradition?

In 1 Corinthians 15 (written in the early 50s), for example, the Apostle Paul records the pre-formulated oral tradition which he received and is now passing on to the Church at Corinth. This line in the article says that Paul says he received an oral tradition about Jesus. My impression is that he talk elsewhere about some supernatural transmission of info about Jesus to him and also says that whatever he knows of Jesus is through this supernatural transmission. Any ideas? Is our stuff in the article correct? Can it be used to support the existence of oral tradition?-Civilizededucation^talk 15:57, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It was sourced from IVP. Removed it and some other stuff sourced from the same book.-Civilizededucation^talk 16:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

There is something close to "consensus" on this point, even from skeptical scholars, that this is an oral creed that dates much earlier than the early-to-mid 50s when Paul wrote the work. There are certain characteristics of it that make scholars think this. The language is unusual for Paul (only here does he refer to "the twelve") for example. Yes other points Paul makes he gets from his encounter with the risen Jesus, but this is not one of them, and few scholars question this point.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

My point is that Paul is not suitable as a support for the oral tradition. If there is consensus that Paul, somehow is a proof of the oral tradition, then we should be able to source this from some mainstream academic source, liberal/moderate/conservative doesn't matter. If we can't find a mainstream source from any of these categories....It means there is no such consensus. Even a singular source should do, I am not insisting on a consensus view for this point.-Civilizededucation^talk 15:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting how conservatives scholars must think that Paul was lying when he said his Gospel came entirely from his mystical encounter with Jesus Christ from heaven "the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ" Gal 1:11-12. "those who seemed to be something [i.e. James, Cephas and John] added nothing to me" Gal 2:6. When it suits conservatives they say Paul received "the gospel which [he] preached" 1Cor 15:1 from men, so Paul is nothing but a big fat liar. Why does it never occur to these scholars that all the language uncharacteristic of Paul, 1Cor 15:5ff, could have been added later by an editor, so that Paul is not a liar: the message he received was simple "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that on the third day he rose again according to the scriptures". All the rest must have been added later if we believe Paul is NOT a liar. 58.111.72.48 (talk) 08:01, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

new section: gospels

I added a section that describes how historically reliable each gospel is. It's brief, but it's a start. All of this material is common knowledge in the academic community, so finding references will be a breeze. I'm sure it will inflame the sensibilities of editors who don't want readers to learn about the historical reliability of the gospels, but that's what the article is about, so we should include this information. FTR, here's what I just wrote.

I am happy to add the material you describe below, but you will need to include some very specific references for this, otherwise its OR. Some of it is also ambiguously worded. However, its a good start. Wdford (talk) 16:02, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

References should be a breeze. This is all common knowledge. If there are ambiguities, point them out. Leadwind (talk) 16:15, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes I agree. If editors are inflamed enough about how historically reliable they are, they might not know how to refute the claims, so instead they might just delete the reference they don't like as if the reality being argued doesn't exist.RomanHistorian (talk) 19:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Mark

Mark is the primary source for information about Jesus. Historians generally credit its account of Jesus as a Galilean holy man, including his baptism by John the Baptist, his reputation as an exorcist and healer, his preaching about the coming Kingdom of God, his band of close disciples, the disruption he caused at the Temple, his betrayal, and his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. In 1901, William Wrede challenged the historical reliability of the gospel, concluding especially that Mark portrays Jesus as secretive about his messianic identity because the historical Jesus had never claimed to be the Messiah. Later analysis revealed that the narrative comprises fragments put in order by Mark. While individual scenes and parables may be authentic, the chronology is the evangelist's.

Matthew

To the material in Mark, Matthew added valuable teaching from the Q document. While Matthew arranged this material into compilations, such as the Sermon on the Mount, much of the material goes back to the historical Jesus. The infancy narrative and genealogy, however, are clear cases of invention.

Luke

Like Matthew, Luke added valuable teaching material from Q. Luke also reports several popular parables that appear only hear, such as the parable of the good Samaritan, and many of these parables seem to be authentic as well. Luke emphasizes the universal nature of Jesus' mission and message, and scholars are divided over whether this universality is authentic to Jesus or an elaboration from the tradition of early gentile Christians. was the lord — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.138.179.39 (talk) 16:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

John

John is substantially independent from Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Though this gospel was once dismissed as offering no historical information other than basic facts found in Mark, includes some unique, historically plausible details. For example, former followers of John the Baptist probably did join Jesus' movement. Jesus' teaching in this gospel, however, is unlike anything found in the synoptics, and historians prefer the synoptics for a view of Jesus' teaching.

Readers coming to this page presumably want to know how historically reliable the gospels are, so we should tell them. Leadwind (talk) 15:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Why are most ancient books considered reliable

Except the Bible? Portillo (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ancient books are not automatically considered reliable, e.g. the writings of Plato and Aristotle are not seen as true, unless you happen to be a Platonist or Aristotelian. Besides, there are various commentaries upon the authenticity of various Platonic and Aristotelian works. Historical sources are analyzed critically, contemporary historians do not take facts for granted just because an ancient source says so. Ancient historians could lie or embellish their stories as much as spin-doctors do today with the biographies of politicians. E.g. "Danish scholar Arne Søby Christensen on the other hand claims that the Getica was an entirely fabricated account". Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:30, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

None of the Gospels is reliable.

You can list numbers of opinions and some weight attributed to each opinion but none of that is academic rigor. It really is as simple as this. There is no source from the claimed time of Jesus that mentions Jesus. The only perhaps independent sources that mention Jesus were written so long after the claimed time that they can not be considered to corroborate the Gospels other than to affirm that certain beliefs were present two or three generations after the time of the alleged events in the Gospels.

In short, the Gospels relate events containing many physically impossible things and there is no independent verification of their claims. The only historical aspects of the accounts in the Gospels that merit consideration are those found in the context of the story in the Gospels. The existence of John the Baptist is a good example.

Factual content of Gospels? Citation needed.

Have faith.184.45.71.50 (talk) 07:19, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Although 184.45.71.50's views might be at odds with the editors of this article, I think he is probably right. The connection between the Gospels and any real history is very tenuous. The Gospels are separated in time, language and location from the things that they ostensibly describe. The article can reference lots of authors with a view different than this. But in the end, nobody knows what sources the Gospel writers based their stories on and it just can't be proved that they didn't just make them up entirely and referencing lots of authors that have an interest in not acknowledging this reality won't change the facts. The Gospel writers certainly made up a good portion of the Gospels, most notably the slaughter of the children which almost certainly didn't happen and the the virgin birth which is one of the world's most unlikely stories. The simple fact that the Gospel writers wrote and spoke Greek and weren't living in Jerusalem when Jesus is believed to have lived would be enough to discount everything they say if what they wrote about was anything else other than about somebody that became the central figure of a major religion.--Davefoc (talk) 05:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it's more complicated: most historians consider that the Gospels do contain some reliable facts, which have been embellished and also they contain some other stories which are completely fabricated. E.g. the Jesus myth thesis is a minority view among those who study the historical Jesus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:09, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Neutral language? Perhaps changing the word ignorant to something more neutral would be more appropriate. The use of this word makes the counter argument sound self-defensive.

"The theory that the Gospel of Mark was written first and is the earliest of the Gospels is not without its problems. For example, its author seemed to be ignorant of Palestinian geography." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 10:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a forum. WP:NOTAFORUM--Harizotoh9 (talk) 10:29, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Episode by episode analysis of the gospels

Following a talk page discussion on the Historical Jesus talk page here I will make a sub-directory here to move material that would be more appropriate for this article.

As stated there, although the material would fit here once it has been cleaned up, it is in no shape to be placed in the article "as is" for it has many errors, lacks sources, etc. Hence as it gets cleaned up it can gradually move into this article. History2007 (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors, a new book by Bart would be good to include into this article. Inayity (talk) 12:22, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Unjustified neutrality tag

User Movaaf13 created an account especially to make a single edit, namely to put a neutrality tag on this active but stable article. There has been no attempt on the talk page by Movaaf13 to explain what exactly s/he is concerned about, or to initiate a discussion to improve the article. This article has enough active editors to ensure any bias would be noted and removed. I propose the tag be removed. Wdford (talk) 15:50, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I decided to "Be Bold" and remove the tag. I've watched this page for years and seen/participated in many discussions (academic and otherwise) and can say w/o hesitation that the page's content has been vetted by scores of editors - no POV-pushing by a single editor or small group here. I suggest the editor in question come to Talk and explain his reasons for claiming the page has a POV issue first, rather than just throw up the tag and disappear as you have outlined... Ckruschke (talk) 18:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

authorship and date

This material badly needed majority viewpoints, so I've provided them, based on ODCC and EBO. As we know from WP:WEIGHT, we use commonly accepted reference texts to establish the majority viewpoint. Leadwind (talk) 17:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

-- Last sentence of 2nd paragraph "During the 2nd century, each canonical gospel was attributed to an apostle or to the close associate of an apostle." Statement seems inaccurate and is not attributed. The term canonical originates as Roman legalese, "cannon" was established in ca 325 CE by the 1st Council of Nicaea under Emperor Constantine. The selected gospels became the 'legally' accepted list and versions of the gospels to the exclusion of all others. To suggest cannon in the 2nd century is either anachronistic or historicist. Additionally, its well accepted by historians that there where many distinctive traditions of Christianity in the 2nd century collectively using a selection of numerous translations/versions of perhaps as many as 40 different gospels. If all these different churches had a list of widely accepted as authentic writings, i'd like to see a citation (there isn't one). Deleting entire sentence as the author has no idea what he/she is talking about and it adds no information to the topic of authorship/date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.186.247 (talk) 17:41, 8 November 2014 (UTC)