Talk:Simon the Tanner

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Presenting myth as reality[edit]

The article makes extraordinary claims without providing adequate evidence. The claims include that religious rites performed by medieval Coptic clerks and congregation have caused an earthquake or a seismic event leading to the movement of a mountain. No evidence has been provided to the accuracy of such extraordinary claim. Moreover, it is based on anti-Semitic myths regarding the alleged role of Jews in shaping Egyptian history.

It seems to me that all that is being claimed here is that there is a (cited) story which says ABC. I have therefore added words to the effect that "there is a story which runs" to the story in question, and removed the tag. It is not being asserted that Wikipedia believes the story is true: we don't do that anyway, and it wouldn't be helpful here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion on the location of the relics[edit]

The article suggested there was a confusion for the location of the relics between 2 churchs. Has there were discovered during archaeologists searche it was a bit strenge. I look carfully the web site http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/tanner.htm and they say : St Simon was never found afterwards. His skeleton was discovered in 1991 in Babylon in St Mary's church (the Hanging Church). and as it is noticed in the web page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Virgin_%28Babylon_El-Darag%29 So I correct the article. I thing it is clearer like that. Is it OK ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by FERNANDES Gilbert (talkcontribs) 07:59, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Untitled[edit]

I removed the link:

because it is broken. MishaPan 16:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Mistake in the "The Monastery of Saint Simon" section[edit]

The section refers to two diffent monasteries of the same name. Their distance is about 1.000 kilometers.

(1) Monastery of Simon the Tanner in the el-Muqattam area in the east of Cairo at the foot of the el-Muqattam hills. The monastery can easily be reached by car or by feet on streets.

(2) Monastery of Simon at Aswan. This monastery is situated at the west bank not far from Qubbat Abu el-Hawa in the sandy desert. --RolandUnger (talk) 06:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Yes. I can confirm this. Why nobody did fix it yet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.30.121.165 (talk) 08:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two Simons[edit]

What about Simon the Cobbler from Athens (5th century BCE)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.218.229.100 (talk) 18:11, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Skeleton discovered": by miracle or archaeological dig & study of findings?[edit]

"His skeleton was discovered": means what? How were the remains first found, and then identified? By miracle (dream or alike), or by some kind of material proof, such as a dated inscription plus carbon dating of artifacts and human remains? It makes a whole lot of a difference for non-believers. Arminden (talk) 10:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One book that talks of this is here but how to get the page with that info? Some Coptic churches have libraries. On an entirely different topic, I did ask a librarian to email me a copy of book pages and they did. Sometimes librarians are quite helpful and do email you the info requested.--The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 13:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@The Eloquent Peasant:, hi and thanks. Google Books only has snippets of this title, there is close to nothing one can glean from it, even if we had the page number. Sorry, this is not a main focus of interest for me, so I won't go into the trouble of starting a correspondence with librarians, but maybe you'd be interested? My impression is that articles on Coptic topics are written from a pious point of view, with very little in terms of academic proof, as it's required by Wiki. If somebody would put some effort into fixing that, many would be grateful. Arminden (talk) 20:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article title: controversial[edit]

@Ghaly, Brainist, Egy writer, Marcocapelle, and Eric Kvaalen: There's a Simon the Tanner in the New Testament, known across the entire Christianity, that is: 2.4 billion people. This one here is a Coptic saint, which makes him known among c. 10 million people. 1 to 240. Now tell me, why does the Coptic saint get the article straightforwardly titled "Simon the Tanner", while the pan-Christian biblical character gets the longer, more complicated, qualified title "Simon the Tanner (New Testament)"?

True, the Coptic saint has a naming problem. He's known both as [Saint] Simon the Tanner, or [Saint] Simon the Shoemaker, and for both names there are other carriers, see Simon the Shoemaker (5th century BC), an associate of Socrates. (Simon the Cobbler seems to be a lesser used alternative.)

I strongly suggest that the Coptic saint's article be renamed, so that the better known biblical character's article gets the straightforward title. Possible names:

  • Saint Simon the Tanner. The biblical Simon doesn't seem to have been canonised by any denomination (correct me if I'm wrong), so "saint" sorts them out.
  • Saint Simon the Shoemaker. Same argument. But "the Tanner" seems to be the more frequent English translation.
  • Simon the Tanner (saint)
  • Simon the Tanner (10th century)
  • Simon the Tanner (Egypt)
  • Simon the Tanner (Coptic saint)

One could also play with the fact that as a consecrated saint, the Egyptian Simon has his cognomen necessarily capitalised, "the Tanner", while the biblical Simon appears in Acts as "Simon the tanner" and, although capitalisation is common, I see no problem in writing 'tanner' in his case with lower-case t. But that's minor and probably disputable (naming conventions for famous people, not strictly bound to literal quotes).

The counter-argument could be that the biblical Simon is a secondary character in the story of St Peter and of St Tabitha (Dorcas), while Saint Simon the Tanner seems to be a central figure of the Coptic Church and faith. Here you go, I'm offering both sides to the argument. However, biblical Simon's house is considered to be the place where Peter had the God-sent revelation which made him carry the "good news" (evangelion; gospel, faith) to the Gentiles, see centurion Cornelius, the first baptised Gentile. This makes Simon, or his house, extremely important, be it indirectly. Arminden (talk) 11:53, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support renaming article. I think the article should be renamed to Saint Simon the Tanner. It is how they name the Coptic churches when they're named after him. See here. --The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 13:19, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]